First Time Seller Tips #6

We've already covered basics on getting your house ready to be listed. Supposedly you're good to go and ready to show show show and sell sell sell. I'll gloss over signing listing paperwork, because everyone's got a different idea on how that should be handled and whatnot- and it's not really important....just make certain you are, indeed, selecting the proper agent and that you're pricing the home correctly.

I appreciate when sellers are not home standing over my shoulder when I'm showing their home. I advise all my sellers to no be home. Take a walk, a bike ride, do whatever- just don't bug the potential buyer. WHY? Your presence makes buyers uneasy in most cases. They feel like they're intruding on you in your home and don't take the proper amount of time to look at your house.

Other things to do for a showing:

• Make it bright. Let all the natural light in that you can, substitute with electric light where need be. The best and most productive agent I've ever met told me once, as a rookie when I hosted an open house for him, "Light this mother****** up!" While the obscenity was unnecessary, it has since become my mantra on all showings and open houses.
• Make sure it's comfortable...too hot and too cold is no good.
• Make sure the home smells good. You already know to have it clean (spotless would be nice) but make it smell good. Cliche's are candles or baked goods....I stay away from candles because of allergies and I don't know how many people want to buy a house because of chocolate chip cookie smell....just make sure the air is clean more than scented- no pet or smoke odors!
• Provide an info packet. A lot of times you cannot fit all you want to say about your home on an MLS listing, here's a shot to put out additional info- ideally at a place where the prospective buyer can find it early in the showing and take notice of what you're pointing out.

Radon

As of January first of LAST year, it became Illinois law to include a Radon Disclosure in all non-exempt Illinois property listings.

Radon is a radioactive element that is part of the radioactive decay chain of naturally occurring uranium in soil. You can’t see radon. You can’t smell radon and you can’t taste radon. Unlike carbon monoxide and many other home pollutants, radon's adverse health effect, lung cancer, is usually not produced immediately. Thus you may be exposed to radon for many years without ever suspecting its presence in your home. The USEPA action level for radon is 4.0 picocuries per liter of air (pCi/L). The risk of developing lung cancer at 4.0 pCi/L is estimated at about 7 lung cancer deaths per 1000 persons. That is why USEPA and IEMA recommends reducing your radon level if the concentration is 4.0 pCi/L or more.

Illinois residents may receive a FREE radon test kit by filling out a form HERE. It will take up to 30 days to for the kit to arrive, but I'll take 30 days over possible lung cancer, how about you?

First Time Seller Tips #5

You've followed all the proper steps and have a great curb appeal now you're ready to get the inside of your home looking "showing ready." The first thing you may want to know is that there are people out there (non-REALTORS) that do this for a living. They are called home stagers. Like all professions, I imagine some are significantly better than others (and you probably pay a premium for that) but they are definitely worth a call and consultation.

Going with a home stager or not, the first thing you need to do is get rid of the clutter!! I understand as well as anyone that most people are still LIVING in their home while attempting sell and they need to LIVE. That's good and great- but you still need to get rid of the junk. This is priority numero uno! Right behind that is good, old-fashioned cleaning. If it sounds logical, you'd be SHOCKED at the number of homeowners that don't take time to clean their home before showings (or, in some cases- in general). Please, keep it clean! Vacuum, do the windows, dust, the whole nine yards (which is a stupid phrase- you need ten yards).....the whole ten yards please!

Next step is to step back and survey the house as if you were a buyer....I'm assuming it's very clean and "flows" very well within rooms and from one to the next thanks to the de-cluttering. But are the carpets filthy or torn up? Do hardwood floors have scuffs? Are the walls dinged, dented and marked? These are things than not only a) make buyer think, "I'll have to fix or replace this" but also b) make them wonder, "what else has the seller not cared for in this home?" These are questions you'd rather not have them ask. Those questions impact your offer price as well as if someone will even give said offer.

At this point....this is all that might be required of your home. It MUST be clean. It MUST NOT have serious cosmetic defects such as filth or wear. It may be difficult to maintain this appearance 24-7....but make sure it's close enough to show the home on short notice.

Going beyond this requires just a little bit more- but it's almost always worth it. Have walls that are pink and orange? Might want to tone them down. Neutral is most-often advised and probably the best bet in terms of appealing to the MOST potential buyers....a little color isn't going to hurt, especially if it pulls the house together. Often times it doesn't. An example....check out MY BATHROOM (side pics). We bought our house a couple months before our kids were 1 and 2 years old....we went cutesy with a Nemo theme.....Would I EVER consider selling my house with this? Not a chance. In fact, I'll sometimes pee outside so as to not have to look at it (KIDDING).

In all seriousness, your personal tastes in decorating are no longer of matter....it's more of what would appeal to people who are going to potentially purchase your home. A few years ago, people would buy a house and throw new paint on walls and flooring down; now buyer's have the option to be picky. There's a plethora of homes available and they don't feel that they should have to put out the extra money to do it. As one buyer told me about a month ago, "For this money, this house should be a finished product; not something that I need to come into and repaint and whatnot." He's right- and now you know how they feel!

First Time Sellers Tips #4

You've decided to sell, possibly selected that right gent or gal to help you market the home, hopefully taken care of a pre-inspection and fixed the issues (or priced accordingly)....what next?

Get the house ready!!!

I'll break this into 2 parts exterior and interior. Today we do the outside, which you will have and will continue to recognize by the term "curb appeal." Here's the thing...if your house looks

• like crap on the outside no one is going to
• look beyond the first picture they see on the 'net
• get out of the car and grab a flyer
• call their (or your) agent to get more info
• WANT TO SEE THE HOUSE!

I hate to be the guy that breaks that to some of you....but it's true. If you're not appealing enough to do any of the above- who is going to go INSIDE the house? If potential buyers aren't going in the house...I'm pretty certain they're not buying it. (Now- all of this advice goes out the window if the house is a rehab, tear-down, fixer upper, etc. There- price matters more than anything else.)

So what can you do to make the house look nice and appealing?

I'd say trust your eye, but that might be part of the problem....so make sure you get a second opinion (like the expert one that your REALTOR can offer). There's dozens and dozens of things you COULD do to make the home more appealing but let's cover some of the basics....

• Clean it! There's no harm in making sure you've power washed the home, right? I don't think there's any sort of mandate that says you cannot clean your windows. This should go without saying, but keep it clean. This extends to having picked up the newspapers and kids toys....if people think you can't even keep your font yard clean, imagine what they think of the interior of the home (where you spend most of your time).
• Keep your lawn mowed and looking decent. Keep your landscaping looking good too....overgrown and dead bushes will hurt significantly more than poor/ different tastes.
• Is your driveway full of cracks? Has the blacktop not been sealed in about a decade? People WILL notice this...it's probably best that you remedy it.

Photo taken by Phoenix area Realtor Leif Swanson. I used house pretty far away to protect the local guilty!

First Time Sellers Tips #3

You've opted to sell your home and may or may not have selected a REALTOR. The next step I'm going to give you is optional....but HIGHLY suggested.

Get a home inspection!

What? Get real. Home inspections are what buyers get when they like my house enough to put in and/or negotiate a contract for sale.

That's CORRECT. But you can also get a pre-inspection. Why wait for your house to be sold (under contract) to find out about problems within it? Isn't it a better idea to have the home inspected and remedy the problems beforehand?

I think it's definitely worth checking into, take this scenario I had with a client a year or so back: Nice, little house. Needed some updating/ personal decorating touches but many houses do. It was priced accordingly and put out with my typical marketing blitz. It showed. There were interested buyers....and ta-dah! Foundation issues below, mold issues in the attic. Blew a potential sale to bits and pieces. Eventually the home sold as the mold was remedied and foundation repair was taken from the sale price, but for tens of thousands below it's original value and after months and months of headache.

Now, if it were inspected beforehand, both issues would have been out in the open and could have been addressed before setting the listing price and putting out marketing efforts, just to be found later on. The mold would have been a non-issue (disclosed, yes....but with proof of remedy and warranty) and the home could have been priced with the foundation issue in mind- and would have sold months earlier (thus saving my seller time and money to pay for and 'run the house' for those months).

Don't tell me your house is perfect. It's not. I can find 10 things in MINE right now, that I want to/ need to/ at least should consider remedying before I sell. Even if your house is a year old, I promise it's imperfect.

The REAL trick of the trade is picking the home inspector that's going to do the job well enough to find the issues for you! I'd be glad to refer you to him!