Successful HOME selling is a Partnership!
Maybe you follow my Instagram account and occasionally read it. My last post was about how I was leaving for the weekend and my parents were going to host an open house at their listing. Their House! Not my best marketing move, but I was feeling a little desperate to get my parents home of almost 50 years sold. They like to spend the winters in Arizona and its starting to get cold here.
The open house weekend was my Dads idea. He custom built the house. I remember as a kid spending hours driving around looking at front doors. That was in 1978. I was 12. My dad can tell you details about who built the cabinets, the quality of the gas fireplace, the cost of the paver patio, and brag that he never blows out his sprinkler system because its buried 30 inches deep. There is no one more qualified to show it then him.
I advertised the open house on Zillow and Redfin, boosted my Instagram Post, dropped the price from $929,000 to $899,000 and left town. My parents were busy giving home tours on Saturday and Sunday from 11-3:00!
The point of this blog is not a story about my parents open house.
Successful HOME selling is a partnership between the sellers and their agent. The partnership should begin 6 months before the property hits the market. The agent comes and does a walk through, shares what the current market is doing and leaves with a list of items that ideally would be complete when the sign goes in the yard and the listing goes live.
The TO DO list can be long and will cost money and time. Your agent should be experienced enough to know the simple upgrades and improvements that photograph well and make a buyer walk through and think… this is beautiful; this is a value; we need to jump on this.
These first buyers that go through, either with an agent or without are educated, prequalified, and motivated. These buyers are checking the hot sheet everyday and often so is their agent. They are sometimes more educated at that time than the seller or their sellers agent.
I’m reading the The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning. it’s a short sweet book and a good read for yourself or anyone you know transitioning to a new home. especially downsizing to a smaller home. Going through your personal belongings prior to listing your house, or buying a new house, or even calling an agent is a really important first step. This book suggests going through your closet. That’s fine, but after this summer, I think the first step is going through your pantry! Clean out the old spices, the expired vitamins, the ancient dry good and wipe down the shelves and the drawers. Do a bit at a time, and be brutal. then move on through the rest of the house and the closets. Having your home lean and mean will determine how fast it sells and what you net out of it.
As an agent, every home is different and every situation is different. Changing out the light bulbs so that they all match may not be a priority for every propertry, but getting everything clean, organized and showing in the best light makes a world of difference. I’m also a big believer in fresh white paint and staging. Get these things done early, and enjoy a smooth transition to your next house. It can be fun and freeing!
Unfortunately, this is not the approach my parents took when they decided to sell their home. They walked into an open house in Prineville. Wrote an office at a Brokers open house with the listing agent, and called and said we need to sell the Woodside Ranch house fast…
We let a solid offer in the first 2 weeks go and ended up with my Dad hosting an open house. The good news is, an agent who had shown the house on FaceTime to clients in Boise, saw the price reduction, saw the open house, and called her clients and said come this weekend.
They returned home, after seeing the house with their agent and my and wrote an offer.
