Getting Your House Sold
If you are selling a house you are probably in for a long ride. It’s not news to anyone that you’re going to have to work harder to get your house sold than a year or two ago, and you’re going to get less money for your work. C’est la vie.
There are, however, some obvious ways to improve your odds of selling. David Crook of the Wall Street Journal lists some tips. He gives good advice. To paraphrase:
- Don’t wait around
- Fix it up and clean it up
- Price it cheaply
- Hire a top real-estate agent
- Promote, promote, promote
- Play the banker
- Take the offer
Items #1 and #3 are obvious–a house that isn’t on the market won’t sell, and an overpriced house won’t even get a second glance (“Why didn’t anyone come to my open house?”). The second item seems like it would also be a no brainer, but I am repeatedly surprised at how many people didn’t get this memo. Toys are usually the biggest eyesore, scattered around the yard or strewn across the bedroom floor like a plane crash. Clothing, blankets, and other textile offenses come in a close second, draped over the couch, piled on the bed, or mashed into a corner. Really? You couldn’t make a ten minute run through the house and shove it all in a Hefty bag?
Items #4 and #5 go hand in hand. A seller’s real estate agent has a lot of work to do in this climate, and it’s going to take more than cold lemonade to get an offer. Crook recommends securing the, “best, most aggressive selling (listing) agent you can find”. Yes, this would be nice, but realtors in the 90th percentile are a small minority and not so easy to find (realtors: don’t flame me, this is true of every profession–engineers, dentists, vets, etc.). Not to mention that a rock star realtor may simply not be interested in selling your house.
Whether you can find an all star realtor or not, you could do worse than follow item #5′s advice and promote the hell out of your house yourself. He gives good examples, but didn’t mention one thing that has worked for me in the past, namely buying a domain such as 123MainStreet.com and creating a simple web site with larger, high-resolution images (preferably professionally done), better descriptions of the property, and links to nearby places of interest or sources of information.
Since credit is hard to come by these days, Crook suggests financing the buyer’s purchase. This may be a good idea for a seller who has the capital to handle the financing, but every time I’ve sold a house I just wanted to close the deal, get my money, and move on. The last thing I need is the headache and stress of being someone’s bank.
Finally, he suggests taking the offer. This is related to item #4 about hiring a top agent. A good agent will let you know when an offer is worth taking or leaving. Unfortunately for most sellers, almost any offer is worth taking right now.
