Sacramento Real Estate Blog

As part of an ongoing series, I am dealing with common mistakes home sellers make when they put their home on the market. As you already know, getting a house sold can be hard work. The current real estate market is making it even harder. So it is more important than ever to price the home right from the beginning, get a good Realtor® and take her advice, and learn to study your competition. We covered each of these in detail in the last post. Today we’ll go over a few more.

Not taking down Personal Items and Getting Rid of Clutter

There seems to be some disagreement between people when it comes to taking down personal items when the home goes on the market. The reason is this: some tastefully done artwork or photographs can actually enchance the look of the house. My personal take on it remains, “Yes, but…” Yes, but no one knows what constitutes tasteful when the house is on the market and we’re referring to personal items. Yes, but home sellers - especially if they have lived in the home - usually can’t distinguish their lives from it. They must take it all down, because they will inevitably leave something. And to be honest a wall of pictures never sold a home. Yes, you can quote me on that.

On the topic of clutter, it’s almost the same. You want to bring your house down to the bare essentials and box everything else up. This is what makes selling a home so hard - you have to live in it, but barely. I always recommend getting a storage place and storing most of your furniture, pots and pans, personal items, whatever you are not using and whatever is not essential to make your home look complete to the homebuyer in it. It’s amazing how much we leave in our home which we never use and when the home becomes a listing impedes the sale. Homebuyers get caught up in your stuff and get distracted from what they should be looking at, the house. They also want to see their own things in the home and cannot do so if you have too many things. They are trying to use their imagination - you just have to help them out.

Not Having a Lockbox

I mention this next because this point ties in very well with the previous one. Many clients do not want to use a lockbox because they have too many things in the home. Unfortunately, they have not mentally moved out of the listed home. Hence the recommendation for getting a storage box.

Lockboxes only allow access to a Realtor® with an e-key. They are coded with the time the access occured as well as the name, phone number and real estate brokerage the Realtor® was associated with. As such, there is an added level of security. If you have ever seen a lockbox you can tell that no one can get into one or get a key without using the electronic key used by Realtors®. Lockboxes also have a default time during which they do not open - I’m pretty sure it is between 9 p.m. and 8 a.m. so you can be assured that no one is going to be lurking around in your home when you are asleep.

Lockboxes make showing your home convenient. Remember your home will not be shown by your Realtor® alone. You can ask for a courtesy phone call before the buyers come by (called “Call first lockbox) but asking to make an appointment with you only when you are available severely limits the pool of buyers.

Not Pursuing Curb Appeal

If clutter is important to get rid of to encourage home buyers that walk through your home to make an offer, curb appeal is important to get the potentials walking by your home to come inside. “Curb appeal,” now a common term thanks to HGTV, literally means the appeal your home has from the curb. This includes landscaping, siding, windows and everything else that entices the homebuyer to come inside the home because he or she thinks it will be prettier or just as nice as what it promises on the outside.

Some sellers focus on the inside of the home so much they forget about the outside. Remember that most homebuyers first do a drive by properties they have shortlisted from the MLS. You want to then encourage those buyers to call their Realtor® and come see your home. It’s the only way it will sell! This is not to say that you should spend thousands on landscaping your property; just ensure that the lawn in mowed, plants are trimmed and the front door looks like it is in good shape. Dust the entryway and remove dead flowers and plants. If it is fall and your are lucky to have a centerpiece like a maple tree, draw attention to its color by removing distractions. Remove peeling paint and fix anything broken that can be seen from the outside. Repaint if you have to. You will see your return on investment by just the number of buyers who make appointments to see your home!

This series is of course by no means over. Come back for more! There are thousands of errors I see home sellers make and in this real estate market some of those errors can be fatal. So watch out for these pitfalls!