Quote:
Originally Posted by newts
I've actually had some good success with most of my listings in this market. A house that is right priced and shows well does have good potential to sell. But there's really no room for error in this type of market:
a) Your house needs to show perfectly in every aspect. You can't expect someone to walk through your house and love it if you're not willing to put the work and discipline in to make it perfect. Furthermore, you see a lot of listings out there with bad photo's and bad descriptions on the listings. I can only imagine how badly they show as well. Actually, I know, because I've walked through a bunch of them.
b) Your price needs to be competitive vs. what else is in your trading area. It's really important to get a grasp on the other houses that your potential buyers are walking through, and price accordingly. In this type of market, if my sellers are willing, I make it a regular practise to actually physically visit with them the 4 or 5 closest comparables in the trading area to get a first hand look. In addition to really analyzing on paper all the comparables in the area, this exercise can be a bit of a wake-up call and add extra motivation in terms of getting what needs to be done to prepare a house for selling.
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I bought my house last May and it was a rough time for sellers. Inventory was pretty high and not moving at all. Finding comparable sales as a buyer was near impossible, and it was all guess work.
The amount of houses I went through that looked like absolute crap compared to the pictures was very disappointing. I grew to hate the photography tricks some people would use to make their place look better on the internet, but like crap in real life. They need to get higher resolution pictures on realtor.ca because it would have saved me hours of looking at junk.
It was just as shocking how many people put no effort into getting their place to show well. Clean up all your baby junk and tidy the place up a little. You're trying to stack up against hundreds of other sellers. There were some relocation agencies trying to sell places with dead lawns and interior paint in a horrible state of repair.
People can be picky right now, the attitude of "they can paint it the color they want and we'll knock $1000 off the price" doesn't work. Buyers can find places with all these things already taken care of and still move a lot on the price.
When I sold my place I ripped through everything and got rid of all my junk. I then packed up about half of my stuff to completely remove any clutter and make it look like I had ample storage. I sold my place in 6 days for more money than an identical place that was brand new. It was a lot of work to get it ready, but it was certainly worth it.