News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Home-selling is a competitive sport. Just as on the court or in the field, if you take some time and put a little extra work in to prepare, you can give yourself a competitive edge.
"Staging" your home can make a substantial difference in time on the market and your final selling price.
"It helps people who are interested in buying homes to visualize themselves in your home," Ali Mayea of Ponderosa Properties explained.
Jodi Satko of Cascade Sotheby's International Realty in Sisters says that if buyers are looking at houses of similar square footage and price, and your house is full of furniture and the accumulation of years of living and the other is open, neat and clean, "they're going to buy the other house. It's going to feel clean; it's going to feel bigger. Sometimes that'll trump location."
Successful staging does not require huge amounts of effort or a big cash outlay. The median cost for staging is $675, Mayea reports. And good staging can increase home value by an estimated five percent.
Sellers often overestimate what is required to get their home ready for the market.
"They think they need to do more than they really do," Mayea says.
Expensive kitchen and bathroom remodels are not a good play. You are unlikely to recover the full cost, and there's every chance that your remodel won't be exactly what the buyer wants anyway.
"A lot of it is just getting rid of things ... so you can walk through the home and it flows," Mayea said.
Clean and organize the garage neatly, too.
"If you can't walk easily through the house or the garage, you need to get a storage facility or sell (some stuff)," she says.
Of course you'll want to fix noticeable things, like replacing missing trim or a ripped screen. But cleanliness may trump repairs. A clean house is an attractive house - and clean kitchens and bathrooms are most important of all. Be thorough - it's worth it.
"Each time you clean I think it's worth $1,000," Mayea says.
Jodi Satko of Cascade Sotheby's in Sisters urges sellers to "neutralize the environment. Bright colors should be repainted and if a room is extremely feminine or extremely masculine, it should be redecorated.
"I always like to tell them that less is more," she says. "Look for extremes and eliminate the extremes."
A nice coat of paint can do a lot. Satko encourage muted, neutral colors.
"Curbside (appeal) is most important," Mayea notes.
Again, it doesn't require all-new landscaping; just get things trimmed up nicely, remove dead vegetation and eliminate weeds. Your house should stand out on your block.
"If you can make it prettier than your neighbors' that should be the goal," Mayea says.
Staging is not just for the potential buyer who actually visits your home. Photographs on your Realtor's website are increasingly important to bring buyers your way. The first impression of your home nowadays will often come from what they see on their tablet or smart phone.
Mayea spends a lot of time and effort on photographs.
"I love to do the photographs," she says. "If it's a challenging home, I hire a (professional) photographer at no cost to the seller."
She'll use her own decorative items to help make the photographs "pop."
Mayea cautions that, while it's great to make a house look its best in online photographs, it's a mistake to exaggerate or fake anything. Some photographs exaggerate a mountain view, for instance. That just creates disappointment when a buyer visits the home and discovers that that mountain view isn't quite that spectacular after all.
"I will not size up the mountains!" Mayea says
Staging is a relatively low-cost, effective means of making a quick sale at the price you want. It's also a good way to get a head start on the next phase of your journey.
"It helps them get ready to move, too," Satko notes. "It's kind of a psychological cleansing."
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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