[NJblue]

With the number of people trying to sell their houses, about to put their homes on the market, or thinking about it, I thought that it would be worth it to start a thread where people can share ideas/success stories about marketing their houses.

While we haven't cleared all of the hurdles yet, we do have our house through attorney review and awaiting the buyer's inspector to come on Friday. It was on the market for almost exactly 2 months until we received our first and only offer. During that time, we had quite a few people come to see the house which indicates that there are buyers still out there (at least in NJ). However, our timing couldn't have been worse - the week that we listed it was the same week that the stock market started its dramatic dive. I think the economic conditions have turned most buyers into sharks - they smell blood and are looking for a kill. However, unlike sharks, many are being very patient waiting for prices to come down.

When we finally were able to coax our offer it came in as a low-ball offer $65K less than our current asking price and $80K less than our original price (which, even their Realtor indicated at the time was a "reasonable" price.) After over a week of negotiations, we were able to get them to come up into a more reasonable range, but still considerably lower than I thought that we would have to go back in September when we were first talking with agents and looking at comps. I chalk this up to the realities of the market collapse that occurred in that period. The few competitor houses that sold in this time period took a considerably larger hit off their original asking price.

With that as a background, here is what I think we did right:

1. We had a number of issues where our house appeared "tired", including the kitchen, deck/patio and driveway. We opened the check book and corrected these areas. The results were quite dramatic and I'm convinced that had they not been done, we would not have received any offers and, if we did, not at nearly the final price.
2. In the deck/patio area we took the low-cost approach and just replaced the old with a concrete patio. While not as elegant as pavers or some other options, it turned the area from a large negative (due to deteriorated condition of the old pavers and deck) to at least a neutral. I doubt that we would have recouped any additional expense of a higher-priced solution.
3. We bought new (but reasonably inexpensive) bed covers and pillows, etc. to stage the master BR. We also painted the walls a neutral color.
4. We de-cluttered the house and moved some of the furniture to the garage. Our agent even recruited and paid out of his own pocket some burly men that were hanging around the train station to move some of the very large furniture pieces.
5. When people came to see the house, we would turn on every light to brighten it up. We also turned on the gas fireplace; turned on the surround sound system in the basement; and put some light music through the ceiling speakers in the eating area of the kitchen.
6. While the grass was still growing, it was always kept neatly cut and trimmed and free of leaves - several times per week.
7. We listed with an agent. Yes, the 5% commission that we will be paying is going to hurt, but I don't think we would have seen nearly the traffic that we did without being on MLS. There is a school of thought that if you just reduce your price by 5% that it will bring in additional buyers based on the lower price. I doubt this very much, but, even if true, what have you gained? You're still out the 5% and you don't have the benefit of an agent doing all the legwork for you.

One thing I wish we had done before listing it was painted the doors to the bedrooms/bathrooms/closets. After our second open house, we started to get feedback that the existing hollow-core, naturally stained doors looked "tired". I couldn't agree more, but none of the agents that we talked to, including the one that we went with, had ever mentioned it - even though I specifically asked them before listing it what they thought should be done to the house before putting it on the market. After getting that feedback, I looked into replacing the doors but concluded that it was too expensive and opted to paint them instead. While obviously not as good as new doors, the transformation was remarkable. Unfortunately, most of the traffic through your house occurs in the first 2 weeks and we missed that opportunity for a good first impression.

One other thing that I wish that we had a do-over on was the timing of putting the house on the market. If we had been on the market just a few weeks earlier I believe we could have beaten the "panic" of the credit and stock market collapse and sold faster and at a higher price. Of course, the trade off was to put the house on the market before all of the cosmetic improvements were done, which would not have been a good thing. If I were about to put the house on the market now, I would give serious consideration to waiting until March or April. Not only is the spring a better time to sell, but also I think the economic outlook may be a bit more stable at that point.

On pricing, I think the days of getting prices anywhere near what they were in 2006 are long gone and not likely to be back for many years. I see houses languish on the market for years because people cling to the belief that they should be able to get what their neighbor got several years ago ... or they think that by reducing their prices by a few percent that they are doing enough. That's not the case (at least not here in NJ).

I hope at least some of this is useful to others who are about to go through this process. Perhaps others will add their own tips or experiences.

[graciegirl]

I can't thank you enough for sharing this excellent and well thought out post. It is laden with good advice. I will take it all to heart and begin to do just the things that you have done. I am going to look into changing interior doors as well.

It is wonderful to have someone take the time to share their success and to help all of us who will be following soon.

Thank you SO MUCH!

[PGB]

Just a note to add. Please remember that HGTV has brought out the "I want everything right" attitude in home buyers now. As Hemmingway stated, don't put more in the home than you can get back. Neat, clean and repairs made where needed in today's market is all you should do. Low cost update's when possible is great. If your agent advises you the offer is reasonable then consider it, not so much the buyer's agent. Although the agents are supposed to be working for YOU since you are paying there fee still be careful.
All these tips are great and so very useful.
I would like to sell my villa but because of the amount of upgrades I have put in it I would not get back any money at this time. This is why I say moderate upgrades only.
PGB

[mac9]

You don't have to be listed with a realtor to be on the MLS. You can simply submit your own ad with pictures.

[In awe of TV]

Originally Posted by mac9

You don't have to be listed with a realtor to be on the MLS. You can simply submit your own ad with pictures.

Exactly what I did 3 years ago selling in CT. I believe it cost me $120 to list on the MLS and I paid the buyers agent a 2.5% commission. The agent took care of all the paperwork.

[Boomer]

NJBlue, even though we plan to keep our Ohio home, I am very interested in this thread. It is so kind of you to take the time to help others by sharing your insight. I have bought and sold several houses and I find myself drawn to such discussions as this, whether I have a house on the market or not.

The thing you say about turning on every light in the place is so easy to do and so important. Even in daytime with the window coverings wide open, lights should still be turned on. It might even be worth buying an extra floor lamp or two to stick in rooms that are a little darker than others. Not only does good lighting make the house look proud of itself, there is also that psychology of light thing that happens.

I also think, like PGB said here, that HGTV has created a mentality of buyers thinking they can fling themselves around and expect perfection. That attitude coupled with the market does make things more difficult in many cases.

But I made use of that buyer expectation mentality when I sold a house in 2007. Only I used it in a kind of backwards manner.

It was not my own house. It was for family. The market had not yet totally tanked in our area, but it had begun to slow down. My plan was to try a FSBO first with the help of an attorney for the contract.

We had some work to do before the house could be put up for sale officially, even as a FSBO.

So while we were working on getting the house ready for the market, I put a sign in the yard. The sign said, "For Sale Soon." Just that and my phone number.

We just kept on working on the project at hand. Getting the house ready to put up for sale.

Something about that "For Sale --- Soon" worked wonders. The buyers came after us. Curiosity? The possibility of a deal? Whatever it was, the house sold almost immediately.

We did not have to do a bunch of major cosmetics. That would have been the next step. We adjusted the price accordingly. Inspections were done. The attorney wrote the contract and all went well. Could it have brought top dollar with more elbow grease and investment of money? Maybe. Maybe not. We saved time and we saved money and the seller was happy with the outcome.

If you are in the process of getting things ready, but you're not quite there yet, maybe Boomer's "For Sale Soon" sign could work for you, too.

Boomer

[MelZ]

If you list with a MLS broker (for no more than 120 days) and you house doesn't sell. You may want to employ a strategy I used to sell our previous home.

When the MLS brokers listing expires you will get a call from every broker within 50 miles to you them for a new listing. Since the commission was 5% when on MLS I offered the brokers 3% sellers commission if they brought me a buyer.

The house sold in 45 days and I was happy to write the check to the selling broker.

[rshoffer]

Originally Posted by Boomer

NJBlue, even though we plan to keep our Ohio home, I am very interested in this thread. It is so kind of you to take the time to help others by sharing your insight. I have bought and sold several houses and I find myself drawn to such discussions as this, whether I have a house on the market or not.

The thing you say about turning on every light in the place is so easy to do and so important. Even in daytime with the window coverings wide open, lights should still be turned on. It might even be worth buying an extra floor lamp or two to stick in rooms that are a little darker than others. Not only does good lighting make the house look proud of itself, there is also that psychology of light thing that happens.

I also think, like PGB said here, that HGTV has created a mentality of buyers thinking they can fling themselves around and expect perfection. That attitude coupled with the market does make things more difficult in many cases.

But I made use of that buyer expectation mentality when I sold a house in 2007. Only I used it in a kind of backwards manner.

It was not my own house. It was for family. The market had not yet totally tanked in our area, but it had begun to slow down. My plan was to try a FSBO first with the help of an attorney for the contract.

We had some work to do before the house could be put up for sale officially, even as a FSBO.

So while we were working on getting the house ready for the market, I put a sign in the yard. The sign said, "For Sale Soon." Just that and my phone number.

We just kept on working on the project at hand. Getting the house ready to put up for sale.

Something about that "For Sale --- Soon" worked wonders. The buyers came after us. Curiosity? The possibility of a deal? Whatever it was, the house sold almost immediately.

We did not have to do a bunch of major cosmetics. That would have been the next step. We adjusted the price accordingly. Inspections were done. The attorney wrote the contract and all went well. Could it have brought top dollar with more elbow grease and investment of money? Maybe. Maybe not. We saved time and we saved money and the seller was happy with the outcome.

If you are in the process of getting things ready, but you're not quite there yet, maybe Boomer's "For Sale Soon" sign could work for you, too.

Boomer

I have a similar story and I wonder if something Donald Trump said in his most recent book on "getting rich" might be true. Last year, AFTER we purchased our home in TV (with a game plan of taking our time to relocate, maybe renting it out some for the next year or two)we decided to get a market analysis done on our home in the rural mountains of central Pa. Well, less than a week after the market analysis was done the realtor (and longtime friend) calls and says, "Someone wants to see your house". Now at this point (Dec 07) the house isn't even on the market or listed with our friend, the realtor. We say, sure, they can take a look, which they do, and a week later our friend calls and says they want to see it again.... of course ask for the listing, we do the paperwork and disclosure stuff. On Sat, Dec 23rd we sign a sales agreement... 3 weeks after the market analysis... Over the next 24 hrs I panic and realize that this is all too much too soon and too fast and my wife and I are on the phone w/ our friend , the realtor, asking if we can get out of the agreement (in Pa there is NOT a 72 hr period to wiggle out of a contract). The buyers have 10 days to have the home inspected and THEY can ask for things to be fixed or THEY can walk away from the contract. We figured our 32 year old house would have a lot of problems and this would be our way out of this contract (BTW... we got the asking price and by now you're thinking I musta been nuts but there were reasons I didn't think I could move that fast). Sure enough, the buyers spent 700 dollars for the most in depth home inspection I have ever seen, there was a 40 page report and no shortage of things they wanted fixed. The realtor called us and said, "this will make you happy, they want all these things fixed", so I instructed the realtor to call the buyer, tell them the house is, "as is" but they can certainly take there down pay't back and look for another house. Then the buyer kept trying to negotiate and I kept saying, "as is"... thinking they'd think I had an attitude and they'd walk. THE MORE I STOOD FIRM THE MORE THEY WANTED THE HOUSE! It blew my mind....they finally caved in and said, "we'll take it as is"!!!. Trump wrote about this phenomenon.... he had hunk of property in Manhatten that wasn't moving and his advisors told him to dump it... he took it off the market for a few months, then put it back on the market at a HIGHER price and sold it immediately.

In retrospect, had we succeeded in getting out of that sale we very well may have been stuck longer than we wanted because we never thought the real estate market would crash like it did and the value of the home likely would have dropped. We obviously pulled of moving much quicker than we had planned and are very grateful how things turned out. But the point of this long post is there seems to be a paradoxical component to selling things... in our case, the harder we tried to NOT sell our home to that couple, the more they wanted it.

[Boomer]

rshoffer,

Your tale of your sale -- yet another illustration of the mysterious workings of the human mind.

You mentioned something that I should have, too, and that is the "as is" clause. The sales contract that was written by my attorney, for the FSBO I was talking about, had 25 little clauses in it. The "as is" clause was there. Even though as sellers we certainly should and must be upfront with our buyers, we also need to protect ourselves as much as we possibly can by clarification in the contract. Telling someone something is one thing. Having it in writing -- priceless. I cringe at the number of people who think it is perfectly OK to do a FSBO without an attorney in it with them. Of course, I am the one on here always doing that "cost of sleep" thing from my soapbox. Others may be more adventurous.

Had that house I was selling for family not sold so quickly, I had my favorite real estate agent waiting in the wings. I have FSBO'd five times and used an agent twice. The most recent personal residence sale and purchase were through an agent, five years ago. A really good, highly professional agent.

Boomer

[784caroline]

The value of a "good" real estate agent cannot be emphasized more especially in todays market. Selling techniques used 3 years ago and the days of simply listing on MLS for $120 and waiting for the buyers to show up are gone. Agents will show their own properties or other agent properties first even if you have a 3% sellers commission listed.
WE tired to sell our house in N Va (about 30 mies south of DC) starting in Februray 2007 using Help-U-Sell for for a flat fee the agent would list the house on MLS, for sale by military, Zillow and other web sites but I would hold my own open houses. For 8 months we had plently of traffic comming thorugh...alot of neighbors and others that either were not qualified or primarily had another house to sell. Few offered ridiculously low prices while agents brought a few people through the house. WE then changed to a full service broker but now the market was in deeper trouble with foreclosures poppig up all over the place . NOw your competition was now only other houses on the market but short sales and bank forclosures and prices again dropped considerably.
Only through the efforts of our agent did he find a qualified buyer who came through an open house he held...but he alos had a house to sell. WEll any contratc on our house was delayed clsoe to 4 months for our buyer house had 2 contracts on his property that fell through at the closing table becasuse the bank wanted more money up front from his buyers an thye did not have it. The surprise acme as a result of HIM having a poor Real estate agent who did not follow through. SO finall our eventual buyer hired my agent to represent him to sell his house and it when it was sold we got a contract on our place....a full 18 months from when we first listed the property.
It took a long while and it was a total hassle having your house staged for 18 months to sell with open houses on weekends etc and our cuorse we took a beating on teh rpice.....BUT we sold, left immediately for our home in THE VILLAGES (which we bought in late 2006 with no discounts no furniture package, no bond reduction, NOTHING) and never looked back. Certainly glad we sold when we did for I agree with a previous poster, I dont think we will see real estate at the levels of 2005-2006 any time soon.!

[Casino]

what a great topic.

I must say that since this is our 4th house that we are selling, we are always looking for ideas to make a quick and easy sale.

Boomer, your "For Sale Soon " is a fantastic idea. I mentioned that to my husband, not thinking that he was actually listening. Well, can you imagine the look on my face when I arrived home from work yesterday and saw a
"For Sale - Soon" in our front yard.

I will let you know the outcome.

Please continue with this thread.....thanks for all of your thoughts and ideas.

[Boomer]

ok somehow what I wrote got sent before it was finished. My power was flashing. Well, not my power - I wish -- it was the electirc company that caused the problem.

So, Admins, if you see this, please delete this one.

Boomer

[Boomer]

Originally Posted by JoannP

what a great topic.

I must say that since this is our 4th house that we are selling, we are always looking for ideas to make a quick and easy sale.

Boomer, your "For Sale Soon " is a fantastic idea. I mentioned that to my husband, not thinking that he was actually listening. Well, can you imagine the look on my face when I arrived home from work yesterday and saw a
"For Sale - Soon" in our front yard.

I will let you know the outcome.

Please continue with this thread.....thanks for all of your thoughts and ideas.

Joann,

I love it that you like my idea.

I hope that sign brings you the success it brought to me. My phone started to ring right away. And a couple of people even knocked on the door. It was in 2007 and the market was just starting to sputter here.

I will be watching for great news from you. Don't forget, if this ends up working out for you as a FSBO, have a lawyer to write the contract.

The people who were buying had a blank contract provided by their lender for use with FSBO's. It was a joke. It covered the basic legalities but you need to go beyond those I think, when selling by owner. This thing that their lender offered to FSBO's was a lot more sparse than any contract I had ever seen.

Contracts used by Realtors here have far more crossed 't's ' and dotted 'i's' than the one their lender said we could use. Looking at local Realtors' contracts is a good start, but there may be things you will even need to add to those.

I was particularly hinky because I knew about these rotten mortgages all along and how they would get us all eventually. I saw it coming. That was another ingredient in why I was hinkier than usual.

Here's one of my little stories about something that was happening at the time to sellers and caused me to be even more of a Contract Queen than usual:

At that time, a friend and her siblings had just sold her parents' house. When they got to the closing they found out that it was a "dry" closing. No check for them until a later date, and the mortgage company suddenly heaped on more fees for them to pay as sellers. It was nuts. Some of those lenders knew well that they could heap last minute fees upon anxious sellers and have it work a lot of the time. So sellers, not just buyers, got caught up in those messes sometimes.

Anyway, in spite of the too lean contract suggested, my buyers' mortgage lender was actually one of the honest ones, a truly good one in fact. They did not get involved in dry closings. And the buyers were qualified. And they provided closing papers ahead of the closing so we could look them over. Everything went fine, but I am still glad that I was so hinky about contract details. It's my old "cost of sleep" philosophy.

I have done several FSBO's over the years and have always used an attorney, but this time I had the clearest contract I had ever seen. We emailed it back and forth and I knew it inside out before it was presented for signing.

The contract specifically had language to make sure there would be no "dry" closing. I had never heard of a dry closing before my friend's story. It must have to with leverage and money moving around at certain times. I really don't know. I am an "old school" homebuyer and seller and I just knew I did not want one of these things. I wanted a check at the end. Not days later. Nor did I want to be a victim of a shakedown for extra fees at the closing table. (But like I said, their lender was one of the good guys in the mortgage business.)

So here I am, babbling on and on, about real estate like I am wont to do. And I really need to get out of her for now.

I wish the best of luck with my Boomer sign. And golly, gee, who knew it would come with all that advice attached, just in case a FSBO lands in your lap.

And, btw, that part about how your husband was listening. That is impressive. Congratulations.

Boomer

[Peggy D]

The home inspection thing and a list of repairs is interesting. The house we sold last year was 27 years old and in very good condition. The home inspector found a few things that were off the wall. I assume they feel that for the amount that they are paid, it is their duty to find some things. The buyer insisted that the repairs be done by licensed contractors ( what was found could easily be done by Hubby) and that was their right. Even the contractors were stunned and many did the repairs for next to
nothing.

The house we are selling now is 4 years old. It will be sold "as is" with no exceptions.

I agree with the comments about HGTV. Our realitor felt the same way. The programs are entertaining and informative, but they give a false impression to home buyers.
You CAN live without granite countertops and stainless appliances!!

[Peachie]

Originally Posted by Peggy D

The home inspection thing and a list of repairs is interesting. The house we sold last year was 27 years old and in very good condition. The home inspector found a few things that were off the wall. I assume they feel that for the amount that they are paid, it is their duty to find some things. The buyer insisted that the repairs be done by licensed contractors ( what was found could easily be done by Hubby) and that was their right. Even the contractors were stunned and many did the repairs for next to
nothing.

The house we are selling now is 4 years old. It will be sold "as is" with no exceptions.

I agree with the comments about HGTV. Our realitor felt the same way. The programs are entertaining and informative, but they give a false impression to home buyers.
You CAN live without granite countertops and stainless appliances!!

I agree with you, Peggy, I run away from homes with stainless steel appliances, (other than a Wolf, gas cooktop , a high quality stainless sink and put a panel on the front of the Subzero frig if one has that luxury), because I think stainless steel appliances are high maintenance kitchen articles that women think they "have to have"! IMHO, they are food/fingerprint reminders that look cold in a kitchen. I've also had granite countertops and Corian countertops. I personally prefer the Corian or quartz materials. I wouldn't put too much money in updating to the "latest" because not everyone is buying those specs.