Flat Fee MLS Blog

Home Sellers need to carefully plan how to enjoy Thanksgiving, while making their property attractive to buyers.   Keep in mind that while you may have fewer showings during the Thanksgiving season, the people that are actively shopping for a home during the holidays are the most serious buyer’s.  You certainly want them to remember your home, not your blowup, gobbling lawn turkey.

Consider our tips for decorating and enjoying the season, without overwhelming prospective home shoppers.

Tips for Staging at Thanksgiving

• When decorating your entrance, think simple.  Add a pumpkin, gourds or a few strands of lights, but this is not the time you want to bring out the full display.  Keep the decor seasonal, but allow the character of your house to come through.

• Update worn out holiday accessories.   Accessorize at Thanksgiving with throw pillows, candles, tablecloths and place settings that bring peaceful, fall colors indoors.

• Use natural items to decorate your home.  Pumpkins, gourds, flowers and fruit make an attractive centerpiece, as long as they are not overdone.   Try to avoid plastic, sparkling or childish appearing decorations.  

• Never hide important architectural details, that may be a selling point to your buyer, behind contruction paper turkeys.

• Instead of entertaining at your house this year, consider going to the home of a friend or relative.  Restaurants also provide a great dining experience without the mess of cooking at home.

• If you do your Christmas shopping early, keep wrapped gifts neatly stacked in one closet or provide a special place to store them that is out of sight.

• Light a fire in your fireplace, or stage it to look good, even if it isn’t burning.  Try adding decorative logs or pillar candles to an unused fireplace.

• Although clutter busting is always extremely important when marketing a home, holiday decorations make anti-clutter a greater battle to overcome.   This year may be a good time to skip decorations, entirely.

It is possible to enjoy the holidays and successfully show your home.  Just remember that less is more, and if you add seasonal touches, do it sparingly.  

Thank you for visiting Why6percent.com, your flat fee MLS listing company.  Happy Thanksgiving!!

  Need free boxes for your move or to store items while you sell your home?  If so, forget digging through the supermarket dumpster.  You can save yourself some money and trouble, while you recycle at the same time. 

The U-Haul Website has a Free Box Exchange Service.   The U-Haul Box Exchange is a messageboard that you can use to trade, sell or buy reusable boxes and moving supplies. With every reuse of a box, a new box is prevented from entering the cycle.

To get started, you will need to create a U-Haul Customer ID.   To post a new message or to see posted messages in your region, simply click on that region listed below.

Thank you for visiting Why6percent. com, your trusted flat fee MLS listing service since 2004.    

P.S.  Sellers should remember to take advantage of a free home listing at the InfoTube.net homes for sale website.  Thousands of Home shoppers visit the site daily to look for new listings, video tours, real estate advise and more.  Don’t miss the traffic.  The Infotube Featured Home Service is Free for Why6 customers.

Given the slowdown in home sales, it often takes more than 130 days or 4 months to sell a property.   If your home has been on the market, as the season’s have changed, now is time to update your marketing material.  Good news is it is free, quick and easy to do.

First, if you are using photo’s of your home that were taken during spring or summer, you should immediately replace them with a current picture.   As we are all aware, little compares to the marketing power of a picture to attract or turn off a home shopper.  And, nothing screams STALE listing like an old photo taken out of season.

You can leave the summer photograph of a swimming pool, flower beds or other feature’s about your home that show off the beauty or quality of life in other seasons.   But, change the captions to reflect the fact that the pictures remain to fully illustrate all ammenities your home offers.  For a swimming pool caption example, consider changing your caption to read something like “Summer fun and Poolside entertaining 2009″.

Changing photographs in your InfoTube.net home listing is quick and easy.  Just log in to the homepage with your user name and password.  Edit your ad and upload the new photo’s.  Then, Save and you are done.

To update your MLS listing photo’s, send the new pictures, along with your request, in an email to your listing broker.  They will handle the changes for you.

Don’t sell yourself short with an old photo that sticks out like a sore thumb.  Out of season photo’s simply mean that your house has been on the market for months and you don’t care who knows.

Update those photograph’s today and make your listing look brand new. 

Listing a home with obvious, even if small, problems are one of the biggest mistakes sellers make. Buyers prefer problem-free houses and as a seller, your top priority must be to overcome any obstacles between you and the sale. Fixing stuff that’s broken and selling a home that appears to have been well maintained will often overcome any real or imagined problems a buyer will have. Conversely, not fixing problems sends a loud message that you don’t care enough about your home. And, don’t forget, the home inspector will not miss problems, even if the buyer didn’t see them.In today’s slow housing market, seller’s should fix anything that a home buyer would expect to be working on the day of the sale, including:

1. Odors and Smells: Obviously, a big turn off for buyer’s in any market, and often poses health concerns. Stinky houses don’t sell. Find the source of of your problem and remove it.

 2. Appliances: All appliances advertised as a part of the sale should be clean and in working order, before your first showing.

3. Plumbing: If it leaks, drips or runs, fix it or replace it.

4. Windows/Doors: Repair or replace cracked panes or fogging windows.  If windows are painted shut, fix them. Put WD 40 on any squeaks and creaks. Replace torn or missing screens.

5. Cabinets:  Doors should open and close smoothly and quietly. Buy some sitck on pads at the hardward store to make your cabinets sound more solid, when the door is closed.  Knobs or pulls should be tightened or replaced with updated hardware.  Remember that Buyers will be opening every drawer, make sure they glide smoothly. Wipe all surfaces clean.  Remove and replace old, dirty shelf paper and liners.

6. Paint:  Is the biggest improvement you can make for the money.  If paint is dingy, chipped or cracked, repaint.  If your rooms or hallways look dark or uninviting, repaint in white or off white.

7. Wallpaper: If it’s peeling up in places along the seams or corners, use wallpaper glue and press it to the wall. Be sure to remove all bubbles. If your wallpaper is old, dated or unappealing, remove it and paint the walls white or off white.

8. Carpet:  If the carpet is in good condition, clean it.  If it is pulled up in places, tack it back down.  If it is old, dated, or worse, it stinks, replace it with a nice neutral color.   If replacing the carpet, also replace the padding. Use a thick padding to make the carpet feel more luxurious.  If pet smells or odors are on the tack strips, replace those at the same time.  If you have hardword floors covered by old carpeting, remove the carpet and show off those floors.

9. Lighting: Replace all burned-out light bulbs with the brightest wattage the fixture allows.   If your fixtures are dated or don’t work properly, replace them.

10. Exterior:  Clean and touch up the front entry and sidewalk.   Add a splash of color with some inexpensive plants or a pumpkin at this time of year.  Remove or trim over grown tree’s and shrubs, especially those that block the front of the house or sidewalk.   Weed landscape beds, mow and edge the lawn.   Repair missing or damaged fencing. Replace missing shingles. Clean out gutters and downspouts. If puddles or a wet basement is a problem, correct the drainage.

As you walk around your home, remember that savvy buyers will check every nook and cranny.  How well things work and look says a lot about how you’ve taken care of the property.   Make a good impression and it will go a long way toward getting your home sold quickly —and for more money.

Thank you for visiting Why 6 Percent.  Please feel free to submit any questions or comments in the space below.

                                                                                                            If you really want to sell your home, you need to expand your pool of buyers to include those people who want to buy a home but can’t qualify for a standard mortgage at this time. This pool is actually much, much larger than the pool of buyers who can get a mortgage right now according to real estate expert Wendy Patton.

If you’re ready to get creative about financing to entice buyers, here are three major options:

1. See if your lender will allow a mortgage assumption.

2. Help a buyer build a down payment through a lease-to-own deal.

3. If you’ve got the equity, offer financing yourself.

If stressed-out sellers and hard-to-qualify buyers could just join forces they could both achieve their goals. The answer may lie in “creative financing.”

Here are 10 Unique Selling Tactics:

1. Hold an open house party

2. Take home staging to the extreme

3. Help serious buyers with financing

4. Have a little faith

5. Throw in some extravagant extras

6. Make your home a grand prize

7. Get Web savvy

8. Let your house do the talking

9. Put your house on the auction block

10. Let buyers sleep on it

thanks for visiting www.why6percent.com

         Whether you are selling your home yourself “fsbo“ or you are advertising your home on the MLS, sometimes you need to attract a different breed of buyer. For a home that might sit on the market for a while, you might want to take the time to highlight the pet-friendly aspects of your house.  Marketing to pet owners can make your house sell more quickly. It’s a real selling tool if you can show your home is good for pets.

Here are some inexpensive tips you can use to appeal to pet lovers:

1. Hang a couple of leashes on a coat rack by the back door.

2. In the kitchen, place a large jar of doggy treats on the countertop.

3. In the master bedroom or family room, set out a stylish dog bed, don’t forget the dog or cat magazine on the nearly table.

4. Let the agents know that pet owners are welcome to bring their dogs along to the property to scope it out. Don’t forget to set out a water bowl for the visitors.

5. Pet owners will get a kick out of viewing your personal photos of your pets, so post a few on the fridge for them.

The best pricier option is to install an electric, invisible fence around your property and the newest thing is to put a pet bath in the laundry room or garage. A sure fire attention-getter is a custom-built doghouse that is a replica of the main house.

Don’t forget the clean-up area, the lawn should be immaculate when you show the house. If you can’t clean-up the area yourself, hire a pooper-scooper company to do it for you.

thanks for visiting www.why6percent.com

   Why not reupholster your old and worn furniture instead of tossing it out? Bring new life to your style and cut down on waste and further resource use.

Many antiques dealers would kill to get their hands on the bones of much of the furniture that is thrown away or even burned as firewood. Between 1960 and 2001, discarded furniture and furnishings ballooned from 2.2 million tons a year to 8.1 million tons, reports the EPA. Furniture is bulky stuff that takes up a lot of landfill space.

Extend the life of your furniture and save money by getting it reupholstered. Be crafty and do the job yourself or support local artisans who specialize in the time-honored trade. You have an  unlimited range of colors, textures and styles. Style is really limitless, from ancient aesthetic to uber-modern. 

Get the freshest look to match your changing decor tastes without contributing to the removal of more trees or the mining of more metals. Every day can be Earth Day, when you think about it.

 thanks for visiting www.why6percent.com

      Let’s face it, not all plants can stand up to dogs, bouncing balls, kids and all around foot traffic. But there are some plants made for the feet-whether two or four.

These creeping perennials are very low growing ground covers that, when stepped on, bounce right back, and they come in a wide variety of color. Some favorites include blue star creeper, stonecrop and creeping wire vine. Miniature rush resembles grass but holds up to foot traffic. The choices are endless.

Before you rush out to buy your creeping perennials, you need to make an assessment of where you’ll plant them. For sunny locations, select something like thyme or stonecrop. If the soil is wet, choose plants like viola and Lysimachia. And also, how much foot traffic will the plants really get? The rule of thumb is this: The more delicate the leaf structure, the less traffic they’ll be able to withstand.

If your pathway is stone, soften the look of the edges by choosing plants that will give it some old world charm and make it look like it has been there forever. If the area is in full sun and drains well, Potentilla, an aggressive speader, will fill in the cracks quickly.

Space between stepping stones and pavers will vary on type of path. Plant a full plant in wider spaces for faster “fill-in”. In small spaces, use a utility knife to cut your plant into quarters. If the space is very tight, try slicing long slender pieces to tuck in. If your existing path needs more space, chisel out some of the original path to creat more of a gap for your plants.

A good place to visit these plants that are “Good For Your Sole” is www.STEPABLES.com.

The true test comes with help from the dog. If the plants can  withstand him, they can withstand anything.

 Thanks for visiting www.why6percent.com

Prospective home buyers form an opinion about the home you’re selling in 15 seconds and the clock starts ticking at the curb-even before the home buyers get in the house. 

In this competitive market if you’re not staging your home, you may be at a disadvantage. It is estimated that about one in four homes nationwide are staged. Staging takes some time and money, but it works. Staged homes remain on the market less than half the time that unstaged homes do.

Staging is all about paring away personal decoration. Why? The idea behind staging is to let buyers imagine themselves living in your home. It’s all about them and their taste, not yours. Everything about staging starts from this basic idea.

Here are some tips:

1. Declutter- this is the GOLDEN RULE. Basically, remove two-thirds of the visual knick knacks and arrange the rest in nice little displays.

2. Remove half of the furniture to stage your home, rearrange remaining furniture to highlight the focal point of the room providing an inviting, approachable scene.

3. Be a neat freak-this is important, steam-clean the carpets, paint walls if needed, clean all outdoor decks and patios, super clean the bathrooms, declutter  ruthlessly and add a candle or two.

4. Hide all the collections-this also means all family pictures and religious items, remember, you’re selling your space not your taste.

5. Let some fresh air in before a showing-don’t try to hide odors with potpourri or by baking cookies. Search out the odor and destroy by cleaning or removing the litter box or the dog. Just open the window and hope for a cool breeze.

6. First impression is at the front door-this is where the buyers spend the most time, waiting for the door to be unlocked. Paint the door if needed and make sure the light fixtures are clean and functional. A potted plant by the door adds a nice touch.

7. Next impression, the foyer-this is where you WOW the  home buyers. Make sure your paint and flooring look great, a small table with a lamp and a vase of fresh flowers is a great way to make a good impression with a small budget. Fresh flowers thoughout the house is a must.

7. Make your home current -you want your home to have a  feeling of up to date and maybe a little trendy. Pick up some magazines that focus on the style that’s popular today to get some ideas. Think streamlined and spacious, that’s what’s in today.

8. Let the light in-you want as much light as possible, pull those drapes aside or make it as sheer as possible. You want to hear the buyers say ‘I could live here, it’s nice and bright.’

Now start your decluttering. Be ruthless.

Thank you for visiting www.why6percent.com