Basic Rules of Thumb When Selling a Home

I thought it might be useful to go over a checklist of what I call "the minimums" when getting a house ready to show and sell.  We could always go far and above these minimums, but these are things I consider vital, whether the owner, the agent, or the staging consultant does it, they need to be done.

Curb Appeal

Curb appeal is the whole premise of my job as a staging consultant. But what does it mean?  Curb appeal refers to the attractiveness of a property before you even get out of the car. There are very simple ways to improve your curb appeal and then there are elaborate ways to do it. I will discuss both.

 

Air Conditioning Units

You could buy a nice car for what you would pay for two air conditioning units, which most houses over 1,500 sq. ft. have.  But just because they cost a small fortune doesn't mean people want to see them by the side of the house. Even if they are located behind your fence in the backyard and not visible from the street, they will be visible when the house gets shown. They should be accessible but not easily visible.

This can be done with simple shrubbery, or with a vine covered trellis like this one:

There are simple solutions:

To more elaborate ones:

A quick fix that a Staging Consultant can do is to buy (or build if you're a stud like me) a short piece of fence and paint it to match whatever is around it: either match it to the house color or to the stain on the main fence around the house. This can be done very inexpensively. You can even add mulch and a couple of plants in front of the fence barrier to further disguise it. You want it to disappear and not be noticed at all from the street.

Trash Cans

Many Home Owners Associations have rules about trash cans, but even if you don't have the HOA breathing down your neck you should never, I repeat NEVER leave your trash cans out where they can be seen from the street. Unless it is trash day, those nasty hunks of industrial plastic on wheels need to be parked behind SOMETHING. Same rule as with the A/C units. If you can't wheel them into the backyard, construct a barrier and add some simple landscaping to store your trashcans behind.

From simple:

To more elaborate:

Either will do. But you must.

I can't tell you how many listings I've seen where the primary photo of the house shows the trash cans in the picture. Tacky, tacky and detracting from the more attractive selling points of the house. Our trashcan has its place just inside our back gate and has its own little parking lot of pave stones we laid 1) to have a surface so that on rainy days the wheels wouldn't get stuck and 2) to make it look more like the space had a genuine purpose, which it does.  Same with our A/C units. We have paving stones as a border to match the rest of the flower beds, landscaping and mulch around the units. Luckily ours are not in view of the back door or patio.  They are in the same corner of the yard as the trashcans. HIDDEN!

Cleaning

I know we've discussed cleaning more than once. The home, especially when it's occupied, must stay in showing condition at all times. Most Agents can give you about an hour notice before bringing buyers by, so have a quick stash plan in case you are caught off guard with a mess. This can be done with baskets for kids' toys, cubby style storage for shoes or sports gear for older kids, hooks for backpacks during the school year, anything that will help you "stash and dash" so your house looks great when the potential buyers show up. When you sign with an Agent, specify that you do need a minimum of one hour before showing. This will buy you some time to wipe off the counter tops as well.

Photos

You know the saying, "A picture is worth a thousand words." Well, when listing a house, especially with today's Internet technology, great photographs can really increase the traffic of potential buyers. Listings with sub par photos get passed right over. It's a marketing thing, a psychological thing, a visual thing, but it's A THING. Stage your house to perfection and take great photos, a minimum of two per room. I know I've fallen in love with houses just based on the online photo tours; it's a fact that many potential buyers will have the same reaction. As a Staging Consultant, part of what I do after perfecting everything is take the photographs for the Agents to use in the listings. I take and edit the photos in high resolution, straightening, cropping, editing them to show off the most attractive selling points of the home. Good photographs also answer a lot of Buyer questions before they ever see the house, which also helps the Agent do his or her job more efficiently when showing it.

One Last Thing

For those of you with pets, it is very (very) VERY important to keep their... err.. waste, cleaned up.
1. If you have cats, you'll have at least one litter box. Clean it out daily, or twice daily and use some baking soda based deodorizer. People do NOT want a house that smells like a litter box. 2. Dogs. Dogs normally do their business in the back yard. Well, potential buyers are going to be walking the whole property, and poop on a Buyer's shoe is very bad luck. Poop on an Agent's shoe is even worse. Make the rounds with a pooper scooper at least once a day.

So these are some basic Rules of Thumb. Thumbs. Why can't I get that to sound right?

If you have tips you want to share, please leave them in the comments and I will include them in a future post!

Next: My First House Flip (a true story!)

Backyard Staging

Backyard Staging

First things, first: the cleaning. Chances are if a house has been vacant for a while, things in the backyard landscaping probably need some TLC.  Trim the hedges, make sure it's getting mowed regularly, and of course clean out any grass or weeds in the flower beds.  Some properties may have been REALLY neglected, but in my experience, CLEANING was all it needed.

Example: the backyard where my daughter was renting was horrendous. But it was so big, it was too overwhelming for her to do anything about it. That's where I stepped in. Out of all the work we did to that back yard, 80% of it was cleaning.

Here's a before pic of the concrete patio in the very back of the yard. Totally unusable:

Not sure if you can tell from this photo but there were two giant rolls of metal fencing material on the concrete, along with several inches of dirt and weeds covering most of the patio.  I had the fencing hauled off (Freecycle! So it was put to good use) and took a weed eater to the concrete to get all the dirt and weeds off the surface. After it was edged, I cleaned it off with the garden hose sprayer.

I had two outdoor chairs and an outdoor table (Freecycle again!) and this was the end result:

Price of this project: $0.00!

Now if I owned this house, this would be the perfect spot for a Pergola! I would repair and do a decorative concrete treatment, stone edging and more landscaping. String white lights and maybe even add a fire pit, wouldn't that be cool?

Here is another perfect example of a patio just teeming with potential. First: cleaning. Always. Suggested staging ideas:

• planters on each side of the back door
• a 5'x7' indoor/outdoor rug ($35-$200 depending on where you shop)
• ask if you can paint the door (optional, but would add so much)
• a small bistro table set (Freecycle, thrift store, or buy new.)

Here's an idea for the painted door. It even looks cute from the inside!

This wicker outdoor bistro set sells at www.target.com for $170:

And here's a cute idea for the 2 planters. If you know someone handy with building boxes, this could totally be a DIY project:

Expenses

Now you might be cringing at the thought of buying things for your staging needs. Keep in mind, these things belong to you and will be returned to you after the sale. You can use these things over and over, house to house and they will more than pay for themselves. 

Tip:  When not being used for staging, bring this stuff home with you. If it's furniture, use it! If it's containers of plants, decorate your own porch or interior of your house.  I have been known to take things out of my own home to stage a property!  As long as it's in good shape, make use of it. Just remind the agent to mention to potential buyers that the furniture and landscaping containers don't come with the house. Anything you put in the ground stays, obviously. ;)

Next: Windows