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!

First Time Sellers Tips Part 2

Your mindset is good, you know you want to sell your home and have taken as much precaution as possible to 'detach' yourself from its sentimental value to you. Now you need to find the right person to help you along your journey.

The REALTOR- homesellus maximus.

Now, you don't HAVE to hire a REALTOR. You can choose to do his/her/their job on your own. If that's the option you'd like to take, come back tomorrow to continue the selling tutorial.

If you would like to chose a REALTOR, there's many routes you can go and many questions you should have in your arsenal. I recommend that you INTERVIEW at least two, probably multiple.

• "Say whuuu? A REALTOR suggesting that we interview competition for him?" No doubt about it! I'm confident that if you interview other agents, you will see more vividly the value of hiring me. If you do not agree, I promise that you'll be happy that you interviewed (and chose) another.

Who should you interview?

1. Ask your friends and loved ones who have sold a house how their agent was. If he/ she was excellent, that's someone to strongly consider.
2. Call Jim Ludes- he's great. That's a joke....but seriously, if I'm good enough to provide info on a blog, I might just meet the rest of your real estate needs.
3. An offshoot of #2 is, search the web. You cannot guarantee you'll find a 'winner' there...but you;ll probably find some names of folks that are up to date on technology, like yourself.
4. You can always blindly call a real estate office (or multiple). This will be your highest percentage of finding the 'bad ones' because it leaves a whole lot up to chance....but you WILL find some winners this way too.

Once you have selected a REALTOR (or several) to interview, you need to know what to ask them. This is a job interview for us and you should treat it that way. Ask questions and look not only for professionalism, but a good match for your personality. Trust your gut on the agent's preparation and knowledge of subject matter. Be advised, those agents that are worth their salt are interviewing you too.....it can, will and does happen that you select a REALTOR but that individual does not think he/she will mesh with you as a seller. Obviously, as with all things, openness and honesty will provide for the best working environment and ease of transaction.

What questions to ask a potential agent? Or, more specifically, topics that you probably want to touch on...

• Everybody wants to know production. That's good....you may want someone with many transactions behind him/her. Keep in mind, Before I got to 50 transactions, I needed to do one and two. Before the highest/mightiest of all REALTORS got to 5,000 transactions, she had to do number 1-5....newness isn't necessarily a deth knell- though I believe it's tough to compare on a lot of levels.
• Certainly a top-notch agent will have a pricing plan and data to back up his/her numbers.
• The biggest thing to touch on is marketing plan. Anyone can pick a price and stick a sign in the yard....that's not selling real estate. You should know what your chosen agent is going to be doing on a daily basis, behind the scenes, to sell your home for you. WHERE WILL IT BE ADVERTISED? WHY is this effective? Do you do anything cutting edge? What do you do better than the competition I'll be interviewing?
• Commission. You're going to ask it so I don't even know why I bother putting it in. But you should be most interested NOT in the number....but in what that individual or team will be doing to earn it!

Then there are other questions that too few sellers realize they should ask...

• How about references? Does anyone vouch that you do the job well? (This is probably inapplicable if the agent IS a referral from someone)
• What if you stink? What do we do if we're not happy with each other? What have you done in these instances in the past? Why does this happen? Have you ever had a complaint filed against you?
• What sets you apart? Certainly you do something better than the others I'll interview, what would that be?
• Who else works with you? Do you have service partners? Will folks from your office call here? Do you do your own open houses or will someone be sitting them for you?
• Is this your full-time job? Will I be able to reach you when I need you or do I need to wait till 5:00 everyday?
• How do you communicate? Do you have one line that you never answer? Voicemail? Do you text? Email? Instant message?

There's a few questions that you probably want to be on top of. And more than anything at this point....trust your gut. And ALWAYS go for service of price.....You can't get Steak and McDonald's for the same price....and I can just about promise you're always happier with a steak.

Tomorrow- prepping the home.

First Time SELLER Tips

"There should be a class for first time sellers! Everyone always offers it for
first-time buyers, but what about the sellers?"

My friend posed that to me in chatting the other day. She's definitely correct. I have even covered first-time buyer's steps (in an 8 part blog series here) but neglected the sellers. Well no more. I hearby give you the first time seller's guide to selling a home.

Realistically, the first step you should take isn't necessarily interviewing REALTORS. The very first thing you need to do is get yourself in the right mind set to sell. The fact is the thing you call home is now just another property. The place where your children grew up and most of life's major moments happened is just another piece of inventory to buyers (and part of a TON of it right now). The sooner you can detach yourself from the sentiment of the home, the sooner you'll be able to sell it.

The next step is: forget what you paid for the house and forget how many dollars you put into it. It doesn't matter! The most illogical means of setting a price or negotiation tactic is the price you paid for something. A house is worth what a buyer is willing to pay for it.

The logic that you bought a home for $200,000 and put $20,000 into it does not mean that you will sell it for $220,000 or more. Your REALTOR will help you along with the pricing...but you have to pick the right one first. More on that tomorrow!