Tips for getting my house sold fast?

[peppermack]

So does anyone have any advice to help me get my house sold by Mid July? I have been painting the inside, fixing everything up that needs fixing, realtor is coming by today to get it listed, bought a ton of flowers. What else do ya all suggest? Help me out PLEASE!

[Dig It]

All I got.
Some pretty good tips in there.

[Frank Delicious]

- Take down all personal pictures, pack up all your books, movies etc. You want the buyers to be able to envision their furniture and stuff in your house.

- Clean every day

- Make sure if you have the blinds drawn up, they are level with each other. You should have them at least partially open to let in as much light as possible.

- clean every day

- increase the curb appeal of your house by making your front yard look really nice (however you do that).

- Have the exterior of your house pressure washed. If you have a driveway and anything else made out of concrete, try to talk the pressure washer into doing those also once he gets there for a few bucks extra ($25-$50), they will usually do it because it takes them no time at all.

- clean every day.

- Offer a one year warranty on the house, they usually run $500 bucks and you can just throw them in with the closing costs and all that jazz.

My Brother in Law is a house flipper and Realtor and I'll ask him if he has any other ideas.

edit: got distracted while typing this up and see that Dig It posted a link that says a lot of the same stuff.

[tito]

I just bought my first house and here's some advice I have for you:

when you get to the stage where you have an offer and the buyer has some requests for repairs to be done, respond immediately to their requests rather than taking a few days to decide if you want to do the repairs or not... People can get tired of waiting and request their earnest money back and back out of the deal if you take too long in negotiations.

[sunspot]

Make sure it's up to code. Have an inspector come out and look at it.

[Solty]

if feasible....offer a seller credit....sometimes called seller assist. i think you can do up to 3% depending on what kind of loan the buyer is getting. You can use this as a negotiation tool...depending on how you have your house priced.

Oh....If you haven't obtained seller representation....if you do....talk with realtors to change commission from 6% to 5%...then you can use that 1% to negotiate even more.

[peppermack]

Well 12 hours a day for 2 weeks solid = a wicked sparkley house. I am fuckin
tired out. House has been officially listed with Centery 21
for 2 days, no calls yet:(

[Dogma]

Invite someone over who isn't that familiar with your house. Ask them to critique (criticize) the appearance of your house. Tell them to be ruthless. They will notice things you don't since you see it every day. Give them beer if they need help getting started. Don't be defensive (harder than it sounds).

And if you aren't getting calls at all, I'd look at:
1. Price. Always an issue. And a big factor in selling in a hurry.
2. Pictures. I'm amazed how awful the photos are that realtors take. If your house looks like crap on their website, no one will ever see wheterh you've cleaned or not. Hire a photographer if you have to. And don't be shy about telling your agent "Use these pictures instead. Now."

[dgdave]

Hot Chicks Room

[black udder]

the more empty the house, the bigger all the rooms look. with stuff in, they look smaller.

Find out the market price for your house in your neighborhood.

Finally, you need to set the price that you'll accept. The best way to sell a house? Sell cheap, but that's not always something you can do, so you have to decide at what point you *have* to sell vs really want to, etc. It'll help the anxiety.

Understand the market isn't back up yet and prices of houses are coming down. Selling takes time and you can help. Post pictures in places, etc.

I saw something recently that a realtor did: www.9008kingscharter.com

Pretty cool - register the address, put whatever you want up on the page and it's easy to look at. Then you can put the address on facebook, everybody will see it - ask friends to comment and you'll get lots of free publicity as everybody will see the post.

[some call me...tim?]

Hot Chicks Room

Nice UCB reference.

[peppermack]

Well 4 different groups of people looked at my house this weekend, the of them seem pretty interested.