I’m probably going to be selling my house in the near future. The house is structurally sound but needs some cosmetic work. The two big things are painting and new carpet downstairs. Lesser things are the yard (it hasn’t been tended for about a year other than to keep the grass short) and the decoration (Early Modern Elderly Southern Woman).
I know that in painting it is best to go with a neutral color when selling. Does this mean white or are pales considered neutral as well?
There’s an unremovable stain on the carpet from some long ago water damage [cause repaired] and it’s not coverable by a rug.If I were going to be keeping the house I would replace the carpet with wood floors (probably laminate). Would it probably help the resale to go ahead and do this now (I can get a good laminate floor for around $1000 for the area I’m interested in) or just cheap carpet?
Also, how complicated is selling a house without a realtor, or perhaps more precisely, is it worth the 5% to use a realtor or can I save that money fairly safely?
A good realtor should be able to answer all of those questions with specific advice for the area where the home is. This could very well increase the amount that you will net by more than the 5%.
The nature and extent of repairs you should make are dictated by the market you are selling into. I second hajario 's advice about a realtor. Your real decision is not if you hire a realtor, but which realtor you are going to hire. Go for experience.
Generally, wood floor has a higher percieved value than carpet. Regardless, a big ol’ stain will say “This house has leaks and/or incontinent pets!” very loudly, so the existing carpet has to go. If the prices are similar, I’d go for the wood, or wood-like floor.
Pale/neutral colors seem to work out best as they let prospective buyers envision their own decorating schemes. They also can make rooms feel larger. Darker colors might be “cozy” to you, bu to the house shopper, the feeling can wind up being “small.” Wierd or jarring colors scare people away as they’re overwhelmed by that Barbie pink bedroom or electric blue kitchen, and they can’t envision their stuff there. Never mind that it’s only paint, and whatever the color is, it’s easily covered up with paint of their own choice. Stark white’s also bad as it comes across as sterile and utterly devoid of style or character.
The yard - they don’t call it curb appeal for nothing. At the very least, mow the grass, trim the hedge and pull the weeds. It doesn’t need to look like a master landscaper lives there, but a weedy, overgrown yard will be a huge turnoff, and you’ll wind up with a lot of drive-by drive-offs where people come by for a look, and keep on going.
Did the FSBO for a year. Yeah, a whole year. Hired a competent go-getter and had a buyer in a week. Of course I’d already closed on a new house, so I dropped the price to “break even,” but even so, a week. One week.
Of course Realtors are dread to talk to people about selling in our area these days. I’d hate to have to sell now.
Unless all evidence (even hidden) of the water damage can be removed, consider that laws require disclosure of known defects. If you cover up serious damage with a rug and it is discovered later, you could be liable. Replacing it to effect a 100% repair will not only improve the appearance of the house, but it gets you off the hook.
My bias: I am a Realtor. That said, if you feel that you can gauge the current market, have the tools and funds to advertise, know how to tell if the price is right, can compete with the MLS used by most agents, know how to write a contract (or want to pay someone to do it), know what contract provisions are important, know how to avoid contract pitfalls, know how to best present your property, have a list of possible buyers, are able to hold open houses and showings, know who to call to get tests done and which ones are legally required, then go for it.
I’m sure you work hard for your commission. But now that we’re in IMHO, honestly, how effective is non-MLS advertising (everything in the MLS is already on Realtor.com). Are there really people in this day and age that read the Houses For Sale section in the newspaper as their means of shopping? Two column inches of black text? I’m honestly curious. I’ve purchased two houses – one out of the MLS, and the current house via drive-by in neighborhoods in which I was interested.
Yeah, there are those house magazines you pick up free at the grocery store, but how many leads do those really generate? Aren’t serious shoppers more organized in their approach, or am I some sort of statistical anomaly? (Plus they seem mainly dominated by new housing developments, or in resort areas by premium housing.)
Good advice. I wouldn’t go for stark white (as you suggest, it looks too sterile) - when we painted before selling our old place, we put an off-white (sort of a cream) on the walls and paler trim.
Flooring: Find out what the standards are around your area. Carpet is cheaper than true hardwood of course. A laminate (assuming you mean something like Pergo) isn’t much less expensive than hardwood - when we redid our kitchen, the two were within a hundred dollars of each other. We actually recarpeted the entire rest of our house - just before putting it on the market - for less than the laminate / hardwood in two rooms. Admittedly we chose very low-end carpet. But if carpet (even fresh new stuff) would raise eyebrows in your area, it may be worth springing for wood or laminate. A realtor who knows the area should be able to give advice on that. If you go for non-carpet, would laminate feel “cheap”? someting else to consider.
If you have a friend who does home inspections, ask them to give the place a cursory look over.
There is a list of things that I find in 8 out of 10 houses, and correcting those items ahead of time lends credence to the notion that the dwelling was well maintained by a conscientious owner.
Re: the carpet. What room are we talking about? The type of room and what is adjacent to it will help determine whether to do carpet or wood laminate.
Go with neutral paint colors, but not stark white. You can use lighter greens or beiges, or go with a warm off-white. It also depends on how much and what kind of light the rooms get on what color you want to go with.
I agree that you should watch Designed to Sell as mentioned in the thread linked by dahfisheroo. We actually used their advice to stage our house during our bankruptcy to showcase all the problems a new buyer would have to fix so that our home wasn’t overvalued. Now that we’ve used these powers sucessfully for evil bwahahahahaha, we will use them for good when we try to sell our house in the future.
Classified column inches of black text are all most FSBOs typically use. Agents know that display ads draw more interest, but they cost more.
Agents can combine display ads in many publications to get a much greater audience than most FSBOs. Our company’s print ad budget is thousands of dollars per month, and we are not a big company. FSBOs rarely want to spend what they probably should to get the word out; may not know how to best place, word or illustrate ads unless they are graphic designers or hire one.
I’m not sure what you are getting at RE MLS/realtor.com. Realtor.com’s data is derived entirely from MLS data (I think – correct me if I am wrong, but I don’t think a non-Realtor can list there). What do you mean my “non-MLS advertising”? Ads by non-Realtors? Our MLS board does not advertise at all to the public except for realtor.com; all print ads are taken out and paid for by individual Realtor companies or agents.
YMMV; I can only speak for my local area, which is heavily dominated by resort and 2nd home sales. I would say that 99% of all buyers pick up those free magazines and use them for their main source of info before calling an agent (the Internet is fast taking over the role of both books and agents). So I would say the books generate 99% of all cold leads, that is, buyers that contact us rather than the other way around.
The latest edition of our local book is 292 pages, printed monthly, in full color, in a large format (10x10 inches). I daresay every MLS listing is in there, 95% with pictures, some with more than one pic, and some listed more than once. We agents pay $130 per full page per month. While there’s nothing preventing a FSBO from buying a page, I can’t remember anyone ever doing it.
Certainly there are some markets where a yard sign is all you need to get an offer. But after 6 months of just a yard sign and no action, most people are glad to let me help them. If they follow my advice for presenting and pricing the property, they are likely to get considerable interest right away. For high-end properties, I can help separate the looky-loos from the serious and qualified buyers. If offers are in short supply, I know how to adjust the situation to increase the traffic and generate more. That’s what I do, and that’s what most sellers need. If you feel you can match my experience and resources, give it a whirl!
And to echo Danceswithcats, a home inspection is a good idea. I recommend, especially for high-end properties, that the seller pay for a complete home inspection up front. Then try to get most things fixed, and get a re-inspection. That final inspection report can be presented to buyers as evidence that the property is flawless, or as a list of what needs to be done. This kind of approach shows the honesty of the seller and in my opinion, leads to higher-price offers and less dickering.
LR/DR. It’s separated from the kitchen by a short hallway. The water damage was caused about a year ago due to a problem with the air conditioner that adjoins that wall. The AC unit (which was under a homeowner’s warranty) was completely replaced and the problem completely resolved- the AC is literally good as new (the one that leaked was original to the house and so was about 25 years old). The carpet wasn’t covered by warranty and my mother was going to replace it but became sick/moved out/died so it just hasn’t been done. (The carpet’s been steam cleaned and all, but there are some uncoverable faded stains there.)
There are also pet stains that could probably be removed but I haven’t bothered since whether I sell the house or not I plan to take up the carpet. (A friend suggested a carpet dying process, but I’m more bothered by the fact that the carpet is emerald green in a room where that just doesn’t really work ;). ) The house is on a concrete slab foundation, if that helps.
I was talking to my sister last night and she told me that between restoring a Victorian house she owns and doing some repairs on a hurricane damaged house she owns she has tons of leftover ceramic tile (good quality stuff, probably more expensive than laminate) that I can have. She described it as “sort of creamy gray but not at all depressing”. I’ve considered that as well as the laminate flooring (I like Ikea’s Maple Tundra incidentally). The disadvantage of tile would probably be that it’s cold to the feet, but otoh this is Alabama so it never gets that cold.
Thanks for all advice, btw. I probably am going to go with a realtor just strictly because I’ve never owned/sold a house before and frankly have no idea what I’m doing when it comes to closing and all.
Hijacking my own thread, but if/when I move I’ve also considered renting the house. Since I’ll be leaving for grad school and I don’t intend to buy another house until I graduate (at least 2 years, possibly more) and because of the house’s location (it borders the Museum of Fine Arts and Shakespeare Festival complex, the neighborhood’s surrounded by parks on all sides, convenient to shopping, etc.) and because Montgomery has one of the lowest priced housing markets you can find, I have a suspicion that it’s value is going to go up way more over the next few years than most things I could invest the money in. OTOH, renting a house in another state would seem to be a pain-in-the-ass, and while there’s enough equity that I could afford to pay about 20-25% of the rental price to a management company (I think that’s their standard percentage), if you got bad renters (not necessarily bad people- but say, people who are currently doing fine moneywise but after renting lose a job and get behind in the rent) then I’d be in a pickle. Does anybody have any experience with long distance renting of a home?
And I forgot to post the usual disclaimers of "talking amongs ‘friends’ here, don’t intend to actually act until I do facetime with local experts, etc..
Do you feel that you are a typical seller in your area, or atypical?
I would say if you are an attorney, have prior experience in real estate, lots of time to waste, experience with advertising, live in a high-traffic area, or have an unusually desireable dwelling (for any reason), you would not be typical.
When we bought our house, the carpet had water damage. The seller told us up front the carpet was being replaced and let us pick our colors. They also had already planned to paint the interior and let us help them paint it–which meant a better job was done because we were here overseeing it. Both of these were huge selling points for us.
However, we were buying a house that they had been renting for two years and they weren’t able to afford to boot the renters to do the work before putting it up for sale. If they had been able to market it after the work was done, it would have put the house out of our price range.
Carpet is currently unpopular and wood floor (even laminate) seems to be a more popular choice. IMO, tile in the living room sucks–even in warm climates. I would not chose that material if I were trying to sell the place.
Re: renting it–you can use a property management company to rent it for you. That might actually be a better way to go if you are pretty sure the property will go up in value. We’ve always preferred to rent from property management companies because it means repairs are done in a timely manner rather than waiting for the out-of-state owner to come look at the property, determine that the work needs to be done, and then arguing about whether the owner or we would do the work.
IMHO, I would no more try to sell w/out a realtor than jump off a bridge…(wait, I did that as a kid…not a real high one, but…never mind)
I’ve been in mortgage banking for 18 yrs, so have dealt w/ all aspects of this, and there is nothing worse than people trying to sloooooooog through everything totally clueless, just to save what turns out to be a minimal amount of money in the whole grand scheme of things! I have NEVER seen a deal like this go through w/out bumps.
Listen to Musicat, pul-leaze!!!
First of all, depending on your market, you will be lucky if you get a decent offer (who’s giving you an estimate for price, btw?)…then, who will write up the contract? Who will review it? Is your R/E atty looking at it? (Please tell me you’ve got a R/E atty lined up???) Do the potential buyers have one? If not, is anyone suggesting they get one? What about inspections? Are your potential buyers young and first timers? If so, is anyone pushing them in the direction of financing? Wait, actually, if you had a good realtor, you may not even want to accept offers w/out qualified buyers.
Repeating IMHO, this is one of those situations where I bow to the expertise and know now of people who do this for a living!!! It’s what they’re paid to do, and the good ones really like helping people, which is why you chose a realtor like you chose a dr or hairdresser…word of mouth!
Don’t get carpet. People have very specific tastes and will probably hate it. Get something wood-ish that’s not obviously cheap.
I sold my own place. Piece of cake. I had it prepped (painted, yard tidied with new planting around the walkway) and had a friend show it. I posted photos and a description on my website (if you have an email account with an ISP, you have a website). Then I took out a very small ad in the local papers, placed from Friday through Monday in which I listed the area and gave the link to my website. The house sold for my price in less than a week. Just be sure you have a lawyer, that your survey is up-to-date, and that you’ve spent time on the Sell This House and other similar sites (better yet, watch the shows) to know what you’re doing.
If it’s that great a house, by all means rent it. But pick your property management company carefully and insist they do credit checks and that you get final approval on the tenants. I used a property management company who leased to a bunch of yuppie puppies fresh from home. They behaved like animals and trashed the place. Lesson learned: the property management company just wants to take the commission and doesn’t care about your place. Or at least mine didn’t.
Make as many stipulations as you can. I’d go for non-smokers if at all possible. When I did my own (successful) renting, I was able to get rid of many prospective renters that gave me a bad vibe by citing their credit checks. Basically, if they turned up in a car that was obviously uncared-for and parked on the wrong side of the road, I assumed they didn’t care much for their possessions or rules. Since almost everybody has some late payments on their credit checks, I’d just say that their check wasn’t satisfactory. Be sure you get references.
Here’s
a site with guidelines on how to go about being a landlord.
Be prepared to have to repaint and to do minor repairs when the tenants are gone but if you have an excellent home that you think will be a good investment, you’ll kick yourself to the end of your days for not keeping it.
If you have equity in the house, can you get a credit line against it? That way you have some cash that you can use to back up the missing rent if you have to; make it up in later rents.
