The ‘30-Second’ Rule

Buyers look for homes, not houses, and they buy the home in which they would like to live.  If you were selling a car, you would wash it, or maybe even detail it to get the highest price.  Houses are no different.

The First 30 Seconds Are Critical! With plans to purchase, home buyers inspect a number of similar homes at similar prices.  They begin making value judgements from the moment they drive up to each home.  Their first impressions begin with the yard, the driveway, and the front door.  Once inside an attractive, well-maintained home, buyers can sense the presence of ‘pride of ownership’, or its absence. It has been said that buyers make up their minds in the first 30 seconds, then spend the rest of the time rationalizing their decision.  For those who plan to sell their home, a word of advice:  place great emphasis on providing a home in impeccable, move-in condition.

Put the spotlight on the Strengths & Potential of your home

Create the right Mood & Atmosphere given
the room’s function, color scheme, etc.

Accent the Positive Aspects & Unique FEatures
of Each Area of your home

Define the Space!

"How you live in your home & how you prepare it for sale are two completely different things!"

If you're like most homeowners, you are emotionally invested in your home. You've poured a lot of love, sweat and tears not to mention, money to personalize it. If you want to sell your home quickly you'll need to allow a similar experience for your potential buyers. Most buyers use their hearts as well as their minds when shopping for a new house!

To broadly market your house, you will need to appeal to various types of potential buyers, thus increasing your chances for a quicker sale. You will need to tailor your efforts around what attracts potential buyers to your property instead of someone else's. This means de-personalizing and staging it to help buyers imagine their own belongings in your house.

BUYER VISIONS VS DECORATING

Decorating is very personal, reflecting individual taste and style.

BUYER VISIONS  is impersonal, requiring a trained and objective eye to help the seller see past lived in memories and apply proven techniques to showcase the home so a potential buyer doesn't feel like a guest... rather they feel "at home" and begin to imagine themselves living there.

Remember, if they feel at home, they will buy your home!

Buyer Vision Homes

Buyer Visions 
Assessment #1:  Landscaping

The very first thing buyers notice is the landscaping and the front exterior of the home.  Landscaping deserves special attention.  Regardless of the inherent beauty of the home itself, the landscaping will make or break it.  To get top dollar for your home, the grass must be plush and green.  It must be free of clutter, weeds and heavy shrubbery.  And it should have an automatic sprinkler system.  Let's explore the most cost-effective way to tackle each of these:
   
 Green, lush lawns sell homes
If the lawn is fairly green, but needs to be fertilized to get that "showcase lawn" look, apply fertilizer containing one pound of nitrogen per 1,000 square feet.  Make sure the lawn is watered copiously (lawns typically require two inches of water per week, or 800 gallons per 1,000 square feet). 

If your lawn has yellow, dingy patches of grass, seed the lawn.  In a worst-case scenario, if the grass is completely dead, you should consider re-sodding the entire yard.  It's more expensive, but can be done relatively quickly and can completely transform the curb appeal of a home. 

Green, lush lawns during warm-weather months are critical for selling your property for top dollar.  In addition, make sure the lawn does not have any weeds.  If your lawn has a lot of weeds that need to be eliminated quickly,  pull them out or hire a service to do this.  To keep the lawn weed-free, use approved weed killers (herbicides).

Heavy shrubbery can significantly detract from the lawn's appearance.  Often times, homeowners plant shrubbery to ornament the house, but pay little attention to size specifications at maturity.  More often, they simply neglect the shrubbery and it grows out of control. By trimming or eliminating heavy shrubbery, the yard will appear larger and neater.

Finally, you should consider installing an automatic sprinkler system.  With today's chaotic lifestyles, an automatic system is a strong selling point.  Furthermore, most people simply don't have the time necessary to manually provide lawns with the amount of water they need to become and stay green. 

Buyer Visions
 Assessment #2:  Front Door & Front of Home

The second thing buyers notice is the front door and the home's front exterior.  The front door to the home establishes character for the entire home.  It makes a profound statement…it's the entrance to the palace.  Doors can easily be painted with warm, inviting colors like dark-red or hunter-green.  Your client can add a lot of character to a home by investing in a new wood door.  Most of new doors can be purchased for well under $1,000.

Draw buyer's eyes to the palace entrance

The color yellow tends to be the first color that's noticed in the entire color spectrum.  To draw attention to the beautiful door, simply add yellow flowers to a planter and position one on each side of the door.  This will draw buyer's eyes to the door.

To paint or not to paint the exterior

If the exterior paint is badly chipping or fraying, the house will most likely need to be painted.  Homes in the lower price bracket typically attract more buyers with a simple white or beige exterior color.  Homes in the middle to higher price range typically fair better with more sophisticated, earth-toned colors.

Buyer Visions
Assessment #3:  The Foyer

The entrance, or foyer, sets the stage for the rest of the interior.

Buyer Reflectivity
     
The first thing buyers see when they walk through a front door is the wall right in front of them.  Hang a medium to large-sized mirror on that wall to reflect the buyer's image back to them.  Seeing her or his own image subconsciously helps the buyer imagine living in the home.
     
Entry floor
    
The second critical aspect of the foyer is the floor.  Assess the quality of the floor.  This is the one area of the house where you should consider investing in quality tile or hardwood floors.  Add a strong accent to the floor by setting up a small entry table.  This is where people typically leave their car keys, cell phones…and adds a strong personal touch.

Buyer Visions
Packaging the Interior

Walls
The first element of the interior that grab's buyers attention beyond the foyer is the color and condition of interior walls.  In smaller homes and homes with lower-end price points, use light, neutral tones to create the illusion of space.  Sophisticated, earth-tone colors typically appeal to buyers of larger, higher-end homes.   Make sure your walls are clean and in good shape.  Dingy walls with nicks in the drywall will quickly turn off buyers.  I’m told Mr. Clean Erasors work.

Floors
Buyers almost immediately notice the floors.  And remember…most buyers have very little imagination.  Worn, dirty carpet that's in bad shape will turn buyers off…most buyers simply can't see beyond the need for this simple cosmetic fix-up.   Ensure your carpets are clean.  A good carpet-cleaning service can take care of this for a few hundred dollars, including removing stubborn stains.  If the carpet is worn out, it needs to be replaced.  Likewise, ensure your wooden floors are clean.

A relatively inexpensive flooring upgrade that appeals to buyers is replacing cheap-looking linoleum tiles with either attractive tiles or a wood.  This is especially effective in bathrooms and kitchens.

Quality blinds
Blinds are usually one of the last things sellers think about replacing.  However, quality blinds have a strong visual impact on the overall quality of the interior…and buyers always notice them.  For instance, if you have metal Venetian blinds, replace them with wooden blinds.  This can be done relatively inexpensively through a neighborhood window treatment store, like Lowe’s.  Wooden plantation shutters or blinds are very popular and do a good job of accentuating the interior.  If you can’t afford wood, at least get the vinyl look-alikes of decent quality.

Create an illusion of space in the master bedroom
Large master bedrooms are in vogue.  If your master bedroom is small, make the room appear larger by getting rid of nightstands.  And if possible, remove heavy pieces of furniture like armoires and bookcases.  Getting by with the bare minimum in a master bedroom will make it appear significantly larger, and more desirable.  If possible, add a chair and lamp.
 

Buyer Visions
Packaging the Interior

Create an illusion of space in family living areas

The same strategy should be used in family living areas to make them appear larger.  For example, removing coffee tables, bookcases, and extra chairs from a living room can make the room appear significantly more spacious.  If you absolutely don't need the furniture, have it moved into public storage. 

Removing excess furniture from family living areas gives the added benefit of improving traffic patterns.  Rest assured, if buyers are forced to weave through furniture patterns as they walk through rooms, they won't feel comfortable.

Make closets look larger

To make any closet within your home appear twice as large, simply remove 50% of the items.  Next, push all of the clothing on hangers away from the entrance to the closet.  This gives the impression that there's lots of ample room in the closet to hang additional clothing.  You should neatly organize clothing like shoes, pants, and sweaters onto shelves.  If the closets don't have shelves, purchase some closet organizers.

New appliances

Outdated appliances are detractors.  Upgrading your appliances will cost a relatively small amount and dramatically improve the appearance of the kitchen.  Chrome refrigerators, stoves, and dishwashers are extremely popular and can dramatically enhance the look of any kitchen.  Best of all, these appliances can be purchased in package prices from most appliance and furniture stores, or Lowe’s or Home Depot.  Pay later, when your house is sold.  Spending a few thousand dollars on new appliances can add a lot of value; the corollary is dingy, outdated appliances which can detract value.

Buyer Visions
Alternative Investments for Quickly Maximizing Price

Once you have made the basic enhancements to the interior, you should consider remodeling projects that don't take a lot of time and can potentially add more value to the selling price.

Surprisingly, the most desirable home remodeling projects (like a gourmet kitchen) can be the least profitable when you sell, while a relatively inexpensive project like adding a deck can add the most value to the home.  Bottom line, when adding investment to your home, and the most value to the selling price, think return on investment.

The no-brainer:  New carpet, paint, and possibly tile
We call this the cosmetic quick-fix.  Repainting the interior and replacing worn, dirty carpets almost always add value to the purchase price as they are more likely to sell quickly and for top dollar. 
 
The runner up:  Add a deck!
Compared to kitchen and bath remodeling, adding a deck is fairly inexpensive.  And most buyers love decks.  They conjure images of family gatherings and barbeques…they are very desirable for entertaining.  Nationally, decks immediately return 118% of their value.

Heating, ventilation and air conditioning:  leave them alone!
If you home has old heating, ventilation and air-conditioning, but they work, leave them alone.  The fact is, buyers pay little attention to these items when they make their offers.  It usually becomes an issue only during inspections. 

These items are almost always taken for granted when buyers walk through a home.  If they are malfunctioning, pay to repair them…but don't replace.

Remodeling the bathroom on the main floor:  Wise choice!
The trick here to maximizing return on investment is to spend just enough to update older bathrooms.  How often have you seen an attractive home with a bathroom straight out the 1970s?  In this case, replacing the vanity cabinet with an attractive, neutral color pedestal sink with a matching mirror will work wonders.  Accessorize the sink with attractive paint, flooring (we love tile or wood), and nice towels.

Buyer Visions
Alternative Investments for Quickly Maximizing Price

The kitchen quandary

In higher-end homes, the quality of the kitchen is one of the most critical selling features.  If your home has a higher-end price point, and the kitchen needs new cabinets, countertops and flooring, you might consider making the investment. 

According to cost-value reports, a $5,000 investment in quality granite kitchen countertops can add $20,000 to the selling price of the home.  The corollary is lower-end homes, where your clients could easily lose money by remodeling a kitchen.  In these cases, it's best to stick with what's already there.

The Master Bath dilemma

Master Bathroom updates have low cost-recovery rates.  Nice master bathrooms are taken for granted.  In most newer homes, they're a "given" and most buyers are not willing to pay a premium for them.  However, if the master bathroom badly needs updating, it may be an necessary expense.

Finishing off basements:  Be Careful!

Finishing off and adding bedrooms to a basement typically does not provide a positive return on investment.  It does add value if your home is competing against other homes for sale in the neighborhood that are similar, but have fewer bedrooms.  However, consider that the cost of finishing a basement typically starts at $20,000 and goes up from there.