Marketing

Random Houses Don’t Sell as Well

by John Rice

I woke up at 3:44 this morning thinking about the differences between how a buyer and a seller view a house, what a buyer needs to know when looking at a seller’s house, and the other way around.

A buyer is going to come in a house, stay for 20-30 minutes if they like it, and wander around all the rooms.  They view the house as a whole at this point.  They are trying to decide if they like the whole thing since they can’t cut and paste features.  This is the main difference.  When a buyer goes from room to room and all colors are different, that just seems random to them.  A seller sits in each room for longer periods of time and tends to view the house as different spaces.  Same thing for finishes.  When a buyer sees brass door knobs, a nickel light fixture, and maybe bronze cabinet hardware, it throws them off.  It has a confusing vibe for them, just as it would for you if I spent the next few paragraphs talking about the Olympics and how much more I like coffee from South America than I do from Kenya.

If you are a seller, the best thing you can do is to give your house that cohesive vibe.  Paint all the walls the same color.  Makes things match.  It sounds silly, but those things have a calming effect on people.  People want to feel calm/relaxed in their home and this is one way to make  a buyer feel that way.  If two houses are side by side and identical, the one with the cohesive vibe is going to sell before the one with every room a different color.

Now I don’t want to make this about updates.  I think with HGTV we all believe  Stainless appliances and granite will make ANY house sell.  I’ve been in  houses that are totally random, but have these upgrades.  You know what happens if the house has the random vibe?  All a buy does is want to cut and paste those features to another house.  They say they really like that feature, but don’t buy it.  Often, real estate is more about minimizing negatives than accentuating positives.

If you’re a buyer, what you need to realize is that you can create that calming, cohesive vibe pretty easy.  You were probably going to paint anyway, right?  Another thing to remember is that you don’t want to over pay for a house just because all the rooms match.

4 Things that will get your house sold…Fast!

by John Rice

Here we are at that time of year when people are about to put their house on the market.  Selling is all about online presentation and making your house look good.  No magic.  No light show.  No fireworks.  Since anybody who has ever watched HGTV knows to declutter and do some fresh neutral paint, I’ll just skip all that.

1.  Pricing your house correctly is the best thing you can do.  You house is worth what it is worth.  There is no need to leave “wiggle room.”  I often just round up to the nearest $5000 mark since most people search in those increments.  The strategy is that your house will appear to be a better value than the house that is worth the same amount but priced higher for that wiggle room.  When sellers let me do this it has always worked and they have always got about 99% of their asking price.

2.  The internet.  Something like 80% of buyers and 100% of realtors use the internet these days for their search. A lot of people (and realtors) think getting the most exposure is the goal, but the quality of the exposure is what counts.  Way back in the day, you had to make exposure happen.   Now, just about every place online that let’s you search for houses is fed from the MLS.  Zillow, yahoo, even brokerage sites like Re/Max.com, are all fed from the MLS.  About the only places it won’t be is on for sale by owner sites.  Just for fun, try googling an address of a house that recently sold.  Quality is what matters.  If it doesn’t look good online, people assume it doesn’t look good in person either.  Gone are the days when people would take the time to see a house just in case.

3.  The pictures have to be right.  First, make your house look as good as possible.  Then get somebody that knows how to take good pictures, rather than somebody who just owns a camera.  If a picture looks shady and dark, buyer’s will think the house is shady and dark.  The pictures are to make somebody want to see the house.  The pictures really sell the showing.

4.  Buyers need to know what makes your house special.  Every house is special.  There is more to your house than just the square footage and bedroom count.  Got a great shady spot in the backyard?  Is it on a peaceful street?  Does it have any storage space?  Buyers need to  know about things like that.  Here is a hint, it is almost always the same reason that you picked it when you were faced with a decision.

There you have it 🙂

How preceptions effect market value

by John Rice

A pal of mine that is an agent wanted me to help him do a CMA (Comparative Market Analysis) today.  It is one of those houses that an older person has had forever.  It needs the usual paint, carpet, de-landscaping and all.  Other than some settlement on the back of the house, there really isn’t much that is wrong with it.  Yeah, there are a few age related items that will need attention, but it has been maintained well.

 The problem is that when people come in and see 50 years worth of stuff, out of style furniture, and over grown bushes, they don’t emotionally get a vibe for the house.  They can’t imagine themselves living there the way it is now.  Soooooo, you have to attract them with a good deal.  This house will probably sell for something like $35-40,000 less than what similar houses have in the same neighborhood because it needs $10,000 worth of cosmetic updates!

That is how “Market Value” works.

How I roll…….

by John Rice

You know, being a buyer’s market has really changed the way I do my listings.  It use to be, in a seller’s market, that the goal was to get the listing on the MLS as fast as you could.  It didn’t matter if there was wall paper that needed taken down because SOMEBODY may just buy it before you strip it.  Listings were so hot that you could make adjustments as you went along.

 

Today, I spend ALOT of time trying to make everything just right before the sign goes in the yard and the pictures are uploaded on the MLS.  You have to roll like that now.  Here is a small list of my typical recommendations:  Neutralize paint, strip wall paper, clean, thin out furniture, clean some more, spread some fresh mulch, put the highest wattage bulbs you can do without causing a fire,  get rid of or repair the worst features of your house…………You get the picture.  Now, granted, seller’s don’t always do all this stuff.  But, the ones that are can and are willing to make adjustments are the ones that seem to get an offer and get one that is closer to the asking price.

I had a client whose place needed some painting done.  The place had been on the market for a loooooong time (It was in an older condo complex at a time when there was alot of interest in new condos.)  I had lots of negative comments on the color of the paint.  People left the house remembering nothing more than that paint.  The seller was pretty smart at understanding the market.  I told them what we had to do get an offer.  They got a great deal on painting the whole place.  It dramatically changed the whole place.  They also made some minor changes to the bathroom vanities.  We had our offer before the work was even completed!

Another client had a nice house in a good neighborhood.  I knew this one had a lot going for it.  The seller’s did a good cleaning, moved out all but the bare minimum of furniture, and did a little yard work.  It sold in 9 days.  Their effort got them a good offer and fast!  It was totally worth their effort.  These same clients have another house that currently has a contract.  They already knew what to do, so I didn’t have to tell them much.  The house went on the market one morning and 9 hours later I am getting their signatures on the counter-offer!

My Uncle had a house in an area that really isn’t that desirable.  It had a great lot and a covered patio.  Even though I knew that buyer’s would be drawn to those features, we still pulled out all the stops in an attempt to overcome its location.  The place looked like a model home!!  We had 3 offers with contingentcies.  I suggested we wait for a “Clean” contract.  By the 18th day on the market we had it sold.

I am not trying to float my own boat here, because I do occasionally have a house that stays on the market longer.  I just want to make the point that ALL of my listings that have sold fast have been ones where the seller made their house stand above the crowd.  It is never to late to make adjustments, remember the condo?  It had been on the market for a long time before we painted.