Selling Your Home—Food for Thought

There are a lot of people thinking about selling this year. If you are one of them, consider these factors.

What is your motivation? 

It’s not a market for the faint of heart. Don’t underestimate how painful the process is. It’s hard work to get your house ready to sell and it’s emotionally difficult. Once you are on the market, it's not natural for most of us to live in a perfectly staged home, but unless you move out for the process, you will be challenged to keep everything just as the stager left it.

If you need to sell or you want to make a move, then this may be the time to do it—because the market has been picking up. But the homes that are selling are priced well and show nicely. Or they are bank-owned homes that have potential and are priced under-market. There is no question that spending a little money to make your home show its best will result in a faster sale and a higher sales price.

You want to sell. How to begin? 

Start with a Realtor. We will provide you with an idea of where you would need to position your home price-wise—and some general suggestions for getting your home ready. We have a list of names for you and can coordinate everything from stager, to painter, to kitchen renovation.

One thing I always suggest at this first meeting, is to ask a stager to come in for a consultation. This is something I provide for my clients, so there is no cost to you, and a stager will equip you with a detailed “to do” list. It’s important to realize that the list is not a set of marching orders, but rather a set of suggestions. 

You may not agree with everything—and you may not be able to live comfortably with some of the ideas. If the stager suggests that the oversized TV in the master bedroom should be housed in the garage for the showing period—but you know that your life will not be complete without Letterman to tuck you in each night—then just say “no."

You will need to find a way to live in a “perfect” house.

It’s not easy. We all enjoy the feeling of a perfectly staged home, but there’s a reason it’s not called the lived-in look.

If your carpet is old and needs to be replaced—that’s an important thing to do before you go on the market. It’s perfectly logical that the buyer might enjoy selecting the new carpet and picking something that is to their taste—but “credit to buyer for carpet of choice” does not sell the house as fast as having the new carpet looking and smelling new. Most buyers have no imagination.

There was a decade or so when the bright brassy gold fixtures were in. Today that is the biggest timestamp we have. If you have gold trim on a fireplace, paint it black. If you have a gold chandelier in the entryway, it’s time to replace it. 

I have a “coming soon” in Walnut Creek where there was an abundance of the brassy gold—every door handle, every faucet, every light fixture, every shower enclosure—it was pervasive. We got a bid for replacing the brassy gold throughout the 3,600 square foot home with brush nickel. It’s a sizable budget item, but makes the house feel fresh instead of dated.

Oak is another timestamp. Get out the white paint and transform your oak built-ins or your oak door trim—it will lighten the home immediately and wash away the years.

My family and I moved about three years ago, having outgrown the little home in Alamo that we moved to with a small baby 15 years ago. 

I love my new house and am delighted every day that we made the move—but I'm especially grateful for the insight it gave me into the process. 

I feel so much empathy for every home seller I work with. Putting my house on the market with a family of four trying to live a "normal" life, including enjoying meals together, getting homework done, never leaving the house without every bed made to perfection no matter how rushed the mornings were ... it was a challenge. 

One day I was cooking dinner, my kids were doing their homework, and a realtor knocked on the door with clients behind her. I had somehow missed the message on the machine—we took off so fast, gathering our books and clearing out of the way—that none of us had our shoes on. 

We drove off, considering the options of where we could go without shoes.  In the end, we sat in the car, lurking around the corner, spying on our house, and waiting for them to leave so we could go home.

Selling a house might make you crazy, but with luck the end result makes the journey worthwhile.