Quick Sale
By Sushil cheema
Want to know the big secret to selling a home quickly?
Make it look pretty and price it to the market. Patrick McAllister and his wife Lisa Cox had an edge in that regard. Their 1917 Craftsman house was beautifully renovated with hardwood floors and bright, airy rooms. Carefully chosen artwork hangs on the walls. In the master bedroom a balcony overlooks the Seattle neighborhood of Wallingford.
The couple put their home on the market on a Friday in January, just one month before they planned to relocate to Bangkok where Mr. McAllister is starting a new job as director of housing finance for Habitat for Humanity International. Two days later the 3,040-square-foot home had three offers and sold for $753,000—$3,000 more than the asking price. The buyer's real-estate agent says that the couple could have gotten more. "I think if they would have priced it a little higher, they might have gotten fewer offers, but it would have sold," says Mary Durkan of Windermere Real Estate/Northwest. Ms. Cox was just gratified they sold quickly. "I think any money we might have lost was just made up in peace of mind," she says. That's the other part of the secret: Price the home to move. This may seem glaringly obvious, but it is increasingly important at a time when foreclosed properties dominate the market. Nationwide, "distressed property," including foreclosures and homes at risk of foreclosure, accounted for 32% of fourth quarter transactions, according to a report out Thursday from the National Association of Realtors. In areas hardest hit by the housing downturn, such as Las Vegas, more than 50% of the homes on the market are foreclosure resales, typically priced very aggressively, according to data from real-estate site Zillow.com. Last September, foreclosed homes in Las Vegas were discounted 23% from their market value, according to Zillow, and the median sale price of foreclosures was 30% less than that of non-foreclosures. Since foreclosed properties have the edge on price, it's up to the seller to give their home the edge in aesthetics. "A lot of foreclosures are sold as is—appliances have been taken out, walls have not been painted, there is not furniture to make it look nice," says Amy Bohutinsky, a vice president of communications at Zillow. "You can go a long way by adding fresh coats of paint, sprucing up the yard, fixing things that are broken. All of these things that would make your home something that a buyer would say, 'I could make my family move in here tomorrow.'" Other simple steps include changing light switches and removing family photographs. Ms. Bohutinsky also recommends that sellers consider staging—that is, decorating with the buyer in mind—and she says that generally, it's better to furnish rooms than to leave them empty. "You want the buyer to imagine themselves living in the room. That said, when you have furniture, it should be furniture and décor that's pretty neutral and could appeal to a wide variety of people," she says. Take the case of Craig Cahill, a homeowner in Tampa, Fla., whose four-bedroom, two-and-a-half Problem two: dark carpeting. Mr. Cahill replaced maroon-colored carpets in the master bedroom with a more neutral tone. The bedding got a $150 upgrade, as well. In all, Mr. Cahill estimates that he spent about $2,500 to pretty up the house—Ms. Delhaes won't charge for any of the supplied furnishings unless Mr. Cahill decides to keep them—and he and Ms. Delhaes bumped the asking price back up to its original $585,000. About three weeks after Ms. Delhaes re-listed it, the home went into contract for an undisclosed amount. Patrick Sanger, the buyer of Mr. McAllister and Ms. Cox's Seattle home, had only just started his home search when he and his fiancée made their offer. The couple knew they wanted to live in Wallingford because it is convenient to both their schools—Mr. Sanger, 28, will start medical school at the University of Washington in the fall, and his 32-year-old fiancée is currently studying naturopathic medicine at Bastyr University. "We decided to walk our dog around the neighborhood to see what was available and looked online to see if anyone was by chance having an open house," Mr. Sanger says.
Mr. Sanger and his fiancée planned to look at two or three homes that day, but after seeing this home, they immediately forgot about the others. The main attraction, Mr. Sanger says, was its condition. "We knew we weren't going to have a lot of time in the next years, so we didn't want a fixer-upper," Mr. Sanger says. "It had a lot of character, and everything felt very modern and fresh." The furniture and finishings helped make the home stand out, he adds. "The furnishings that are in there now and the art and everything really kind of puts the house in the best light that it could be in—the absolute best light, just because the art and the furnishings are really interesting themselves." Of course, on moving day those furnishings will be gone. "Sometimes you get overtaken by how beautiful a home looks staged that you forget to think of how practically this will work," Ms. Bohutinsky says.
|
in the Emerald Coast for nearly five years. This market condition does not come along often. 