No one likes a “tight-wad,” but, they’re the ones laughing all the way to the bank when it comes to selling these days.  The point is, sellers who take meticulous care of their home and property and look after all the details have a much greater chance of selling quickly, or selling at all.  Here are 5 critical details to look after to give you and your family the absolutely best chance to sell your home:

1. Baseboards and ceilings.  Ever walk into somebody’s home and cringe at the dust, cobwebs, dirt, and grime that are in the corners of the rooms?  Yeah, we’ve all been there.  No one means to be dirty; most people don’t even think to clean those tough to reach spots.  But if you want to make an impression on people, look after those far-reaching, out of the way areas and impress buyers.  Clean and dust the corners.  Put a fresh coat of paint on the ceilings.  Walk the perimeter of the inside of each room in the house with a paintbrush and touch up all the nicks and scratches along the baseboards.  When you’re done, you’ll be amazed at how much brighter your home looks and feels.  Buyers will be blown away by how meticulous you are and will feel real security in buying your home.  If you’re anal enough to dust and paint the corners, you’ve certainly kept up all the other parts of the home.
2. Make your gardens look like the flower beds at August National Golf Course.  Well, that may be extreme, but you get the idea.  If you have fresh mulch, bright, healthy looking plants, absolutely no dead branches on a single bush, and your garden is 100% weed-free, your buyers will be drawn to your home.  Take the time to meticulously weed and edge your garden and keep it fresh.  Buyers will be pulled inside after salivating over your property.
3. Organize drawers and closets.  Buyer walks past your beautiful, lush gardens; they are impressed with your meticulously cleaned corners and baseboards.  They’re really warming up to the place.  They open the hall closet….and are nearly trampled to death by all the crap that falls out.  All your hard work on the rest of the place just went down the tubes.  Here’s a thought: buyers hate “packrats.” Or maybe they don’t hate them, they just don’t buy their houses.  Take the time to go through all the drawers and closets.  Throw out 90% of what’s in there.  The reason why drawers and closets exist is so you can store stuff you think you need but never use.  Get rid of it.  Take all remaining stuff out, clean drawers and paint closets, and then organize the 10% of stuff you decide to keep.  Buyers will think, “Wow, look at all this free space to store all my stuff.”
4. Plants.  Two points here.  One, have them all around the house.  Healthy plants spruce up the look of a room and just as importantly, bring a real calming, peaceful, positive energy to rooms.  Two, keep them healthy and trimmed.  A plant with brown leaves or dead branches has the opposite impact.  Buyers will “feel the love” in a home with fresh plants and flowers.
5. Less is more.  A.K.A. don’t “over-furnitureate” (I made that word up…maybe it will stick and start a trend).  You get the idea.  You’ve been inside homes where people cram all kinds of furniture into rooms and they either don’t match or make a room feel small and cramped.  Get rid of old, beat up furniture and don’t overload a room with chairs and couches and tables.  Furthermore, look up “feng shui” in the yellow pages and have someone come to your home.  The spacing out of furniture in a room is no hocus pocus; a perfectly spaced room will bring inviting energy into it and attract buyers to it.  They’ll feel at home. 

Buyers have too many choices today.  You can’t give them a reason to cross your home off their list.  Selling is strategic.  By looking after the 5 critical details above, you are giving buyers peace of mind.  Buyers walk into a house and look for reasons to give your home the axe.  When they see details looked after, they think “boy, if the owner takes care of closets and corners, then I’m sure the expensive stuff like roofs, and plumbing and electrical and appliances are in great shape too…I feel safe here.”  And if you’ve got your buyers thinking those thoughts, start packing. 

There are 2 very important points here for motivated home sellers: 1) you need to create a sense of urgency for your home in order to drive up demand, and as a result, your price; 2) you need to make your product (home) desirable. Put the 2 together and you’ll have people lined up at your door, just like Microsoft did earlier this year, regardless of market conditions. So, how do you do it? Keep reading.

First, let’s look at the current landscape for home sellers and FSBOs. There is an oversupply of traditional homes on the market which means there is no sense of urgency for buyers and consequently, low demand. Thus, the first thing sellers need to look at to get out of this vicious cycle is to prep their home in a way that makes it new and fresh, like the Xbox 360 did to videogames back in 2007.

Start with curb appeal. When a buyer drives by the house, make them hit the brakes. That means your yard is in mint condition. Grass is green, full, cut, trimmed and edged. Spruce up your garden with fresh mulch; weed it (I know, I’m asking a lot here); cut back dead branches and plant colorful plants. Make sure the front of your home looks brand new. Add a fresh coat of paint; have new stucco put on; add a brand new shiny door knocker; replace the old garage door or clean and paint it. These are just a few of the things you can and should be doing to the front yard and face of your home.

On the inside, make people drool. Give people what they want and expect: granite, stainless appliances, tile, hardwoods, light colors, updated fixtures. Builders are giving away their new homes with all of these upgrades. If you want to compete, make the inside of your home beautiful with upgrades. Do this, and you’ll have the advantage of a beautiful house that is a home – it’s lived in and people will feel the love and positive vibe.

Now that you’ve created your very own Xbox 360 that people really want, you’ve got to manufacture a sense of urgency. How do you do this? You guessed it: perform a real estate auction. Auctions create a real sense of urgency because like an Xbox 360 that has a short shelf-life, so does your home. Give people a deadline. They get one weekend to look at your gorgeous house at a discounted price and make a decision, and then the product goes away forever. Residential real estate auctions, executed with proper strategy, are extremely effective. Want to sell quickly for a fair price? Try executing your own home auction.

Part of the reason why auctions are popular is because all parties involve win. In a recent article in Realty Times, a popular on-line publication with real estate news and advice, Broderick Perkins concisely explains the clear benefits to all parties that auctions provide. Here’s what Broderick says are the main advantages for all 3 groups involved:

• Seller. Buyers come pre-qualified and prepared to buy. A quick sale reduces carrying costs. Auction action sets off a bidding war with the potential of final price that exceeds the price of a negotiated sale. The auction takes the seller out of the negotiation process.
• Buyer. The buyer determines the selling price. Assuming there’s no overbidding, the buyer gets the property at fair market value. The buyer knows the seller is motivated to sell. Purchasing and closing dates are immediately known. Buyer competes on the same terms as all other buyers. Due diligence packet gives buyers comprehensive information on the property.
• Real estate agent. Agents can earn commissions, typically as a share of the auctioneer’s percentage. They also obtain a list of qualified buyers and obtain another marketing niche. Auctions also bring in clients to look at all listings, not just the auction items.

There are many different auction routes to choose from. You can list with traditional auction companies who will come to your home and auction off your property on the spot; you can list with an internet-based auction company who will do an on-line auction; or you can facilitate your own home auction. The good news is that based on the points above, know that the auction process gives all parties involved tremendous upside and in the end, everybody wins.

So let me bottom line you: if you, the seller, are using traditional real estate methods to try and sell your home in a very atypical, non-traditional real estate market, you are the living, breathing Webster’s dictionary definition of insanity (you know…doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result). What are traditional real estate marketing methods? Here are the basic 3: listing in your local MLS; putting a sign in your yard; placing an ad in the newspaper. Boooooorinnng! If you want to change your result you must change your tactics. You’ve got to move from a passive marketing campaign (i.e. the basic 3 listed above) to a proactive marketing campaign. Below is a fantastic true story in a recent real estate publication that gives real credibility to this important marketing principle.

Lois Geller is President of Mason & Geller Direct Marketing, a full-service direct marketing agency. She recently wrote an article in the July/August issue of LORE Magazine (LORE stands for Lives of Real Estate and is a very popular and well respected realtor publication) about thinking out of the box when it comes to selling one’s home. Lois had been trying to sell her high rise, oceanfront condo for 2 years. She tried everything that traditional real estate sales had to offer. She tried listing with multiple agents; didn’t work. She lowered the price (many times, to well below market value); didn’t work. The bottom line was her place was gorgeous but no one came through to see it. Her marketing wasn’t working. She fired her agent and implemented a strategic, proactive marketing campaign that included direct mail. Her phone started ringing off the hook and she literally had to take time off work to handle all the activity and showings (she did it all herself). After dozens of showing to interested parties, she sold and closed in 30 days.

Effective, proactive, strategic marketing is one critical factor to selling your home quickly (or at all!) in this type of non-traditional, heavy buyer’s market. Learn more about proactive marketing approaches and other critical sales factors by listening to a brief, 5-minute, content-rich pod-cast by clicking here.