On the market…phase II
If you’ve been following our real estate saga, and if you read Ted’s blog as well as mine, you know that we had to make the very difficult decision to fire our real estate agent this last weekend. She is a wonderful person, and worked very hard for us, so to get to that point SUCKED. But her boss was a complete asshole, and since he would be getting some of our money from the commission, we bailed.
Also, though, our agent was our neighbor, and brand new to real estate. We like her a lot, and wanted to give her the chance to sell our place. A few years ago, someone just getting into the business could probably sell a place based on holding a lot of open houses and doing some hoofing around the neighborhood, knocking on doors of neighboring apartment buildings, etc. But the market has changed a lot since then, and we need someone with a bit more experience. Someone who can come in and say, “Your walls look great, and 5 years ago, the thing to do was to paint them white before a sale, but nowadays, people want warm colors, ala’ pottery barn, so if you want to sell quickly and get top dollar, you need to paint. Also, granite countertops are key these days.” Our agent had the knowledge to say, “Places with updates sell faster for more money”, but we needed more specifics, real life type experience.
Enter the new agent team. (I say team…it’s a husband wife duo, and they’ll both be involved. But she has been working at it longer than he has, and she does most of the talking, has most of the vision..so I’ll be saying “she” rather than “they” from now on.) Over the past 8 years, about 80% of the units in our complex that have gone on the market have been sold by one person. She does a great job, and really knows the area. In addition, she has enough real life experience that she knows that the color of the walls can make a big difference, as can the countertops, etc. Our old agent tried to nudge us that way, giving gentle hints. Our new agent, still nicely, but firmly, said, “For $40K less than your asking price,  you can sell this place as is. Put in maybe $5 – $8K in improvements, and you’ll sell more quickly, for much closer to asking.”Â
So I guess, being first time home selllers, we kind of needed to hear that. We needed to be told exactly what to do and how to do it. We needed someone with real life experience of what sells, what doesn’t, what matters, etc. Also, no asshole boss, which is a biggie for us right now, because with the price of real-estate around here, there’s a lot of money changing hands, and we don’t want to be paying assholes if we can help it.
So here we go again…our place is off the market, and we need to:
- Paint most of our house with warm, inviting colors. (She has good suggestions for what colors are popular and make buyers say, “Wow, I love this place!”)
- Put in new closet doors in the bedrooms. (She knows which ones people like.)
- Put in new door handles and fixtures through most of the house. (Again with the specific suggestions and good ideas.)
- Put in granite countertops. (Which CG, Ted’s mom, has been telling us all along. Guess we should have listened sooner, huh?)
- Put better lighting in our bathrooms. They both have fluorescent lights in the ceiling, which has to GO.
She has people that she works with, who she says are slow right now, and will do the work inexpensively.  She will pay to have the house professionally cleaned before our first open house, plus she’ll pay to have it professionally staged. Nice. I know, we pay for it with our commission, and the old agent was taking a smaller commission than this one, but if the new team can get us more money, and get the place SOLD, it’s worth paying the higher commission.
We have a lot of work ahead of us, yet again. Blech. I hate those exhausting weekends of getting things ready. But a lot of it is done already, so we’re hopeful that this time, we’ll have better luck. Hoping to have the place back on the market in just a few weeks, before things slow down for the winter. We’ll let you know how it goes.
19 Comments
Beenzzz
Geez, after putting in granite countertops, I say you guys should stay! I hope the remodeling goes well though. Selling can be a lot of work…….
Py Korry
With all the upgrades we’re going to do, if the place doesn’t sell at least we’ll have a nicer house!
ML
Man, I would want to stay after doing all the upgrades 🙂
Good luck selling your home!
Autumn's Mom
Ok, this may do it. I’m glad you are still trying. I can’t wait to see the improvements. 🙂 Good luck!
Gina
I’m glad you were able to find someone who had concrete advice rather than just vague suggestions.
In a tough market, I’m sorry to say that a good Realtor does make a difference. Either that, or you could also try re-working the commissions and give more to the buyer’s agent?
Starshine
Yep…sometimes having someone say, “You need to do x,y, and z!” really gives you the vision you need to “git ‘er dun”! I hope you sell soon. I wonder, though, if you’ll fall so in love with your new colors and countertops that you won’t want to leave!!! 😉
J
Gina, we tried upping the commission on the buyers end, which got us a few more viewings, but not much, and no offers. 🙁 Our current realtors say they haven’t seen many results with that, and today’s house hunters are pretty savvy, and tell the realtors which places they want to see, based on pictures from the internet, etc., so it’s more important to have the place look great.
Starshine, ML, and Beenzzz, yeah, we may decide we want to stay after all of the improvements. But we’re hoping there will be improvements on the other side as well…
laluna
Wow, she sure knows what she is doing. Lots of work again ahead,that is sad news sorry.
Ginger
Seven years ago we had a house on the market for a year before we sold it. We had to let our agent go after 6 months. Looking back you realize that he was a bad agent but at the time he impressed us and we were novices. The next agent made some sound suggestions and ultimately (because we were a little desperate with a newborn and a mortgage on the new house we built) we lowered our asking price and sold it. I wish we had been told upfront to spend some money on improvements and how to “stage” our house. Good luck!
MsMamma
That sounds fabulous. If I were your neighbor I could have done all of this for free. You guys will get it done and things will turn out great! Maybe you won’t want to leave. Nah, you will. 🙂
Joan
I’ll be interested in hearing how it goes. A lot of people don’t want to pay realtor’s fees or higher ones for good agents. I was the business mgr for our state’s association of realtors and saw the advantage of having them sell your house – not just quick selling but legal issues, too. The first house we sold took a while and it was in a healthy market. We didn’t do a lot of spruce it up. We figured the new owners would want to paint, decorate etc. Never assume. Good luck.
Cherry
YAY!
I really hope this new realtor’s suggestions really pay off. I’ll be coming by to see what colors she picks out for you guys!
Maya's Granny
I’m sorry things didn’t work out with your friend, because I know you wanted to give her the work.
And this is really the best thing I know of that you could do. Realize that you need a more experienced realtor in today’s market. I hope you sell the house quickly.
CuriosityKiller
Oh dear, it sounds like a ridiculous amount of work just to sell your house. I’ve had to fix up my house before to sell in Toronto, and I just held as many garage sales as possible, clear up the junk, and just keep things clean. I don’t know what your place looks like, but the most generic (and most sold) model homes have white/cream walls. It’s clean and simple with some pictures would be fine. And I don’t necessary think you have to change the fixtures unless yours are really horribly old and worn. But that’s just me.
Sorry to hear that you have your weekends all booked with more renovations.
ally bean
While I’m pleased that you found someone knowledgeable about the how-to’s of the sale, I am irritated by the fact that this is how real estate is now sold. I don’t believe that the seller should be doing all the work for the buyer. I believe that it is the buyer’s responsibility to envision what the place can be, and then buy the place and make it so. I’m an idealist this way.
J
I agree…it’s stupid to have to make paint color changes to entice people into buying our place. And if they want granite countertops, wouldn’t they be happier picking it out themselves? Sigh. But this woman knows her business, and if she thinks we can get more money this way than the way we’ve been trying (unsuccessfully) so far, we’re willing to give it a shot. And if it STILL doesn’t sell? Our house will look mighty spiffy!
Jimmy
Wow! J
That sounds like a lot of work? I would want to stay there after I did all of that. It’s a crappy time to sell nation wide.
I put a “For Sale By Owner” sign in front of my place! I’m really doing it to aggravate people! Tee he he!
I don’t care if it sells or not. Just testing the waters to see if I get any offers.
I’m hoping someone wants it for business property would make me an offer I couldn’t refuse!
My advice is to not be in a hurry and hold out till ya get what you want!!!!!!!
Black Belt Mama
Isn’t it funny that you always do upgrades right before you sell. I’ve been trying to get my husband to do some things around our house, so that we can enjoy them for a while!
And you must share on the colors. . . I’m curious.
J
BBM…the three colors she gave us were:
Benjamin Moore (I think, could have been Kelly Moore): Wise Owl. This will be most of the house…living room, hallway, dining room.
Maya’s room: Kelly Moore (I think) Hillsmere – It’s a sage green color.
Our room: Straw (also Kelly Moore?), cut with a bit of white to keep it from being too yellow.
She said these colors are neutral enough for everyone, yet give buyers the feeling that the place is ‘current’ and well maintained. 🙂