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Prepare your Home for Prospective Buyers

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Identify and Correct Problems

Once you decide to sell your house, you should give careful attention to preparing it for the scrutiny of prospective buyers.  You would be wise to have a professional home inspection performed by a Licensed Home Inspector.  The Home Inspector will identify any problems and allow you to correct them prior to placing your house on the market.  The report that you receive will be useful when showing your property and when negotiating the sale.  It can also keep you out of legal trouble in the event that there are flaws with your property that you don’t know about or fail to disclose.  Claiming ignorance will not help you in court.

For any problems that cannot be corrected, you will need to disclose the information to the prospective buyer.  The buyer will likely request a Home Inspection Report prior to completing the transaction.  Your being a step ahead will give you great peace of mind.

Prior to subjecting your home to an inspection, you would be wise to correct the common problems that the Inspector will be sure to find.  The most common problems are:

• Leaking faucets or toilets.  If water drips or continues to run, a repair is needed.

• Storage around electrical panels, furnaces or water heaters.  Provide at least three feet clearance around these items.

• Lack of smoke alarms.  A smoke alarm should be located in each bedroom and in each hallway that leads to one or more bedrooms.  They should be located on the ceiling and have fresh batteries installed.

• Broken tile, bricks, concrete, or asphalt along walkways.  If you can trip on it, fix it.

• Faulty electrical fixtures.  Any flickering lights could be indicative of a short circuit.  These items should be fixed not only for the Inspection, but for your safety.

• Damaged caulking or grout around sinks, showers, toilets, or bathtubs.

These repairs will not only result in a better Home Inspection Report, they will also help your home “show” nicer.  If repairs are needed that you cannot afford, you will need to disclose them to the prospective buyer.  A word of caution - Wait until you have the offer before bearing your home’s guts.

Get prepared for prospective buyers

Determine when to show your property.  So as not to exhaust yourself, you might settle on three evenings a week and all day every other Saturday.  More or less might work for you.  But it would be wise for you to stick with this schedule.  This way you’ll know when to have the house ready, and you’ll avoid inconveniencing yourself and other family members.  Also, you won’t get “burn out”.  Many would be home sellers get burned out and resort to a Real Estate Agent.  After you’ve done all of this groundwork, you don’t want to throw away thousands of dollars unnecessarily.  Pace yourself, and stick to your schedule.

Determine when to have an Open House.  This is different than the showing.  You might show your home on three evenings a week, but by appointment only.  On the other hand, you might have an Open House on every other Saturday, every weekend, or whatever works best for you.

Many owners do not have Open House due to the potential safety risks.  Prior to having an Open House, be sure to carefully read the safety tips provided in the Watch Out article.

Set up an answering machine.  Your message should make known that the property is shown by appointment only, but that you have Open House on specific days.  If you advertise on BlueMortgage.com, be sure to say so on your message so we can help you screen potential buyers by pre-qualifying them.  Be sure to include your listing number so that callers can go online and view your home.

Prepare you Property Feature’s Sheet (Flyers). Be sure to be honest.  Your Property Features list should include:

1. Address

2. Number of Bedrooms and Bathrooms

3. Square footage property

4. Square footage of lot

5. Asking price

6. Descriptive information – Attractive features (new roof, sparkling pool, etc.)

7. Contact information – Your Telephone number.  Do not place your name here.

8. Never place any information on this sheet that could be useful to a thief (i.e. best time to call, etc.).

In the description area, highlight but don’t over embellish.  Buyers like to hear things like “large family room”, “roomy master bedroom”, “lots of closet space”, “new carpeting”, “new roof”, “remodeled bathroom”, “sparkling pool”, “breathtaking views” etc.

So as not to indicate when you’re away from home, you should consider setting up voice mail service with your telephone company.  A wise consideration would be to set up a voice mail service with a local pager company.  You could then provide brief but detailed information to callers while not allowing anyone to detect when you are away.

Prepare of list of your neighborhood’s features.  When showing your house, this list will give you something positive to talk about after you’ve covered all of the property’s main points.  Neighborhood features can include “freeway close”, “nearby health club”, “nearby restaurants or shopping”, “school district”, “peaceful, quiet area”, “nice neighbors”, etc.  Be cautious about rattling off a laundry list of neighborhood features.  You would be wise to get a feel for the prospective buyer, or even ask what they are looking for.  You can then discuss specific features that would appeal to them.

Don’t give the impression that you’re highly motivated to sale.  Your home should look lived in, even if you don’t actually live in it anymore.  It should also be cared for (lawn cut, yard clean, etc.).  As soon as you give the impression that your house is vacant, or is not being cared for, you can expect to receive offers significantly lower than your listing price.  This is because you have given the impression that you are a highly motivated seller.