House Showing

This weekend while I was showing some houses to a client I was reminded just how much help the average homeowner needs in selling their home. I walked through a house that overall was very nice. It was priced a little high but on the immediate surface it appeared as though it could demand the price. After about 10 minutes in the home and viewing the rooms from different angles it became apparent that the seller just gave up and stopped working. There was an end panel on the kitchen island that was missing, outlets without any covers, baseboards that were about 1 inch short in a couple of places. The backyard was basically barren. It looked like it hadn’t been watered in a couple of months. And the A/C condensation line was dripping 2 feet outside a back door onto concrete.

If you are really interested in selling your home, try to walk through your home with an unbiased point of view and make a list of things that you would want finished if you were the buyer. Even though the above mentioned issues were minor and very inexpensive to rectify, buyers will be put off by them. It can also result in a lowball offer because the buyer will think, if these little things are not finished what big things that I don’t see could be wrong.

This house has been on the market for quite some time and it is a shame that the owners just seem to have given up on it. All agents should tell their clients to fix those items which are immediately apparent to a prospective buyer. And all sellers should heed their agent’s words.