Suggestions in selling a home fast needed

[dules]

Check out the Flylady site - there's a section on getting your home ready to sell that should be helpful. I'm sure others will have more suggestions. For us, I know we'd try to move out about half of our stuff to declutter. ;)

Good luck!

Mary

[hcsl]

Definitely don't overprice it. An analysis of data shows that homes priced slightly under their market value actually sell for more than those priced slightly over the market value. In real estate one of the worst things you can do is overprice your property. It's often very difficult to recover from.

[SnuggleBuggles]

Sit down and watch a marathon of HGTV's Designed to Sell and A&Es Sell this House. The latter is more useful, imo, b/c the budget is like $400 and they are more looking to stage than remodel/ update. Those shows seem to be on a lot and they have tips on their websites. I have gotten lots of good ideas there!

Beth

[ShanaMama]

That's exactly what I was going to say. We are looking to buy, & I think there is a pattern. The seller marks up the home on the chance he could get it, but needs to keep lowering it, as prices drop (they are now). The seller basically ends up following the market down & getting a much lower price than if he had priced it right & sold quickly.
I hope I explained that clearly. I read something about it in Business Week & I am hoping our seller doesn't do that. Right now he's not being a negotiable as we'd like... so we may not even end up buying his house.
Good luck!

[SammyeGail]

I do want to add info about the house, its 9 years old, ranch style with a huge 'rocking chair' front porch. Full daylight basement, the people before us were doing some sort of finishing it off, so we do have walls here and there sectioning off potential rooms. We can't take on the task of demoing it. 2 car garage in basement. Big closets.

Negatives: Doesn't have an open living area thats popular in the new homes here, but someone may actually want that. The master bedroom is not big, bigger than the other 2, but not huge. We have a queen bed, but the bed itself is massive, lol! We think buying a queen frame will help the room look bigger.

We are wanting to move to the town DH works in to all be closer. We found a home we really like. It has some interesting contemperary features inside, but we like them. Because of them there is absolutely no other interest in the house besides us, lol! We are hoping to get a good deal because its owned by a relocation company and has been on the market over a year.

There are about 4-5 new subdivisions popping up in our town. Our house is more on a 'road' but in the city limits, hopefully a plus. I can't believe in this town if your out of the city limits you can't even get trash pick-up, you have to take it in yourself. Yuck!

Excuse my spelling, I'm in a hurry, thanks!

Sam

[o_mom]

Declutter, neutralize and price it right. That's pretty much it. :-)

I look around our house and think of all the things we will have to do to market it. It's depressing.

First off is getting any furniture out that you can. Bedroom should be the bed, nightstands and a dresser at most, unless it is huge. Take half your clothes out of the closets - put them in storage if you can't get rid of them. Same thing in the Kitchen. Pare down to the absolute minimum you need in the cabinets and drawers. Repeat in every room - How many towels do you need to store/use in the first 30 days the house is on the market?

Try to limit the toys to one large laundry basket worth per room. It really helps to have a basket to just toss all the toys in and put in a closet when you need to show.

Wash all the windows and take the screens out - store them in an attic or basement. It will let in more light and give a better view out the windows.

Put the maximum wattage bulbs in every light fixture.

Make sure the outside looks neat and tidy. Not alot of landscaping to do this time of year, but as soon as the frost is past you can plant a bunch of flowers to make it look better.

Try to have the basement and garage free of stored items so that people can see the size.

Good Luck!

[Puddy73]

I've heard that the best way to sell quickly at a decent price is to ask 1-2% less than the appraised value.

Jennifer
Mommy to Annabelle 9/08/03 & Finn 10/31/05

"If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane." - Jimmy Buffett

[Momof3Labs]

If they are available in your area, rent a POD from www.pods.com (I think). Around us, Home Depot also offers them. They are portable storage units that are dropped in your driveway. You fill them and lock them up, and they come back and haul them away to their storage facility. When you move, call and have it delivered to your new address, unload and done!

So much easier and less work than a storage unit, saves work when you actually move, and gives you a chance to really make the house look great!!

[SammyeGail]

We have a home in a small town that is having some decent growth. We have some little projects we need to finish (it was a HUD Repo) and am hoping to have it listed within 30 days.

So what will help us? We have painted most the rooms a neutral color, need to get to the hall bath and extra bedroom. I don't know if I will be able to paint the twins room : ).

We don't plan to overprice, everyone thinks we should just in case we could get more. I don't care, we just want to move. We have a price we would be happy with and thats what we want to list it for. Is that crazy? Will potential buyers think we will take less because of our 'starting price'? Then again, its a small town in Tennessee.

Any tips will be deeply appreciated. We have so much to do and its hard with almost 14 month old twins. We are putting our 'junk' thats in the basement in a storage unit, we need to get rid of alot of it, we just don't have the time.

Thanks,

Samantha

[MamaMolly]

Try going to the Salvation Army or to Goodwill for the bed frame. You don't want to spend much on it, and they have them for a song.
I think paring down the furniture is a great idea. It will really make the room seem bigger, and buyers will see the room, not just your furniture.
In one house we bought they'd painted the garage floor grey. It looked so tidy. And the linen closet was scary it was so perfect. These were little touches that really made us feel like they had maintained the home well. Very attractive to buyers.
Good luck!