Cary Real Estate Blogger - A Blog by Linda Lohman

Cary NC I Sold My Own Home in ONE Day at FULL Price! PART 2

Cary NC     I Sold My Own Home in ONE Day at FULL Price

PART   TWO
Preparing the Home for Sale

Cary NC    I Sold My Own Home in ONE Day at FULL Price    PART TWO   Preparing the Home for Sale is part of a series that I'm writing of the process I went through to sell my own home.  The first thing I needed to do was get my family on board.  Want came naturally to me as a Realtor was foreign to my family.  Several times my I teased my husband, " Who is the agent and who is the engineer?"  Reminding him we all have our strengths.

First I must confess we have location in one of Cary's top neighborhoods.  We live in Wellsely a highly sought after community becasue of its large wooded lots, traditional homes, and schools.


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We went room to room made a list of the following:  (Engineer strategy)Cary NC How I sold My Home In One Day at Full Price - Linda Lohman

1.  De-Clutter the home. This was very important because we had lots of furniture in our home.  We needed to remove about a third of it so the buyer could see the house.  We put the extra furniture in the garage.  We made four groups of everything.
  1. Trash
  2. Goodwill
  3. Moving  Sale
  4. Save
Let me give an excellent example.  Our bedroom had is 18 X 12 and housed a king size bed, high boy dressed, six drawer chest with mirror, amour, and two night stands.  Comfortable for us, clutter to a buyers eye.  I suggested getting rid of the nightstands, the amour and flipping the arrangement.  

My husbands response was, " Where will I put my alarm clock?"

Our walk-in closet is small compared the ones in the new homes today so I suggested taking half the clothes out.  I brought in a box and asked my husband for half his clothes.  He looked at me bewildered and asked, " How do I know which half I'm going to wear?"  Did I mention 95% of them are golf shirts!

It's a challenge, but getting the family on board and keeping everyones eye on the prize....the new home helps.

2.  Repairs/Touch-up/Cleaning.  The home needs to look crisp and clean.  Remove family pictures, items from above the cabinets, magnets from refrigerator, bulletin boards, about half the art hanging on walls.
  1. Repair nail holes where items were removed
  2. Paint touch up.
  3. Deep Cleaning 
    1. Window sills/trim
    2. Ceiling fans
    3. Light fixtures
    4. Closets/Cabinets
      1. We cleaned out every closet and cabinet in the house, inside and out.  Buyers want to see organization not clutter.  We boxed and put in the attic what we would not need for the next 2 months.  This even included extra beach and bath towels, extra sheets, small appliances, winter coats, etc
  4. Replace items needed-We needed to replace bathroom fixtures that delaminated.
3.  Neutralize - We needed to neutralize the kids bedroom custom paint.  
My kids are teenagers so we encouraged them to invite their boyfriends over and make an event out of painting their bedrooms.  Of course we threw in dinner out for all four afterwards.

4.  Exterior - Look with a "buyers eye" is a good rule of thumb.  We got rid of our vegetable garden, an old trellis, trimmed trees, power washed, painted the mailbox.  
  1. Fresh mulch
  2. Fresh flowers
  3. Power wash deck/walkways/gutters...if needed
5. Pre-Inspected - We had a pre-inspection done on our home. The reasoning behind the pre-inspection is to tackle any major items ahead of time.  The last thing you want is to find out that your home has a major repair item during the sales process and scare off the buyer.

Will buyers notice all that you've done?  Probably not.  However they will notice what you have NOT done.


Cary NC   How I Sold My Home in ONE Day at FUL Price   Part Two Preparing the Home, was first published in CaryRealEstatePublisher.com - A Blog by Linda Lohman

Copyright © By Linda Lohman, All Rights Reserved, Cary NC   How I Sold My Home  in ONE Day at FULL Price    Part Two   Preparing the Home.



 

 

 

 


1 comment • Linda Lohman- Former Teacher/Broker • April 11 2010 04:42PM