So what does a financial planner know about
real estate? Nothing, except that I wanted to sell my house for top dollar. I’m
a financial planner, not a real estate agent. That being said I wanted top
dollar for my home, so I had a vested interest. Here is what we did, and it
worked.
We sold our house recently and between the real estate
agent and my wife, we actually sold the house on the very first viewing the day
after it was listed, for 100% of the asking price in Bedford NS. Now I’m not a
real estate agent, but I understand sales and I know things just don’t sell that fast,
so how did we do it?
The first thing we
did was to listen to our real estate agent about the pricing. Of course we
thought the house was worth more than what the market analysis showed- everyone
does. However, we wanted to be fair to ourselves, the agent and a potential
buyer. We built the house 10 years ago
and had designed it for our family with all the things we wanted in a home.
We wanted to down
size, or as I call it, right sizing. The kids have grown and are on their own
now. We just didn’t need the big house any longer; so we didn’t de-clutter, we
purged, cleaned, touched up paint, removed screens, thinned out furniture,
removed personal items and “Value Villaged”
a bunch more.
As we looked
around, we took out everything that we knew was going to be eventually tossed
anyway. Many things I would pick up and say “if I had died last night, would my
wife throw this out?”. If the answer was yes, it got tossed. I don’t know why
we had so many doubles of so many things.
We even had a yard
“give away”, not a yard sale. We put a few tables on the lawn and filled them
with hostess gifts we had received over the years, old kid’s games, teddy
bears, pressure cookers, and pans. Everything went to passer buyers and
everyone was happy. If we had tried to sell it, we would have spent the entire
day and would have made very little.
We also sold many
things on Kijiji. A simple photo, a little well-crafted write up, and people
called interested in our tables, chairs, and the pool table all for decent
prices. If we weren’t going to take things with us, and if the kids didn’t want
them, it was sold. We raised enough to pay for all new leather furniture for
the new place!
We had been
advised to remove all the little things around the house. The little personal
things that other people would only see as junk. Magazines, candy dishes, cell
phones, charging wires and the dried flowers were all removed. Even the pantry
was allowed to become emptier for the weeks before the move. We wanted every
cupboard to look spacious, and not full.
We even had a
display of unopened imported liquor from around the world. We were told it
might look great to us, but it could be offensive to the buyer so we drank one,
and stored the rest. Don’t worry; they will be reopened in the new place.
The closets, oh
yes, the closets. They were all full, so we thinned them out, stored all the
winter clothes, and then sorted the remaining clothes according to color, from
light to dark starting on the left. The walk in closets looked like a clothing
store.
The garage was cleaned, the tools boxed up,
and the Christmas decorations were stored too. We even cleaned under the sink
and stuck the end of the vacuum into light fixtures to dust them out.
We took down all
the screens on the windows as this allowed additional light to come in. It’s
amazing how every bit of light helps. In the dining room we removed one leaf of
the table and stored a few of the dining chairs. The table fits 12, but “looks”
better smaller. Buyers want your house, not your furniture, so you need to give
them room to place furniture in their mind.
The deck received
a fresh coat of stain to bring up the color. The store room was pretty much
emptied so its large size could be viewed. The concrete floor was mopped with Mr. Clean
too. The driveway was pressure washed. I even cleaned the garage door windows, oiled
the garage door chain and door hinges. The hot tub was drained and water
replaced. The oven was cleaned, the fridge was washed out, and the magnets were
removed from the fridge door. We even replaced many light bulbs around the
house.
In the end, we
turned our home into a show room and the only cost was for a little touch up with
some paint, some stain and a few wall hangings from Winners. The rest was elbow
grease and some forward thinking.
We thought of the
dream houses and how pristine they all look, and they do. This is because no one
has lived in them and everything is staged. So, this is what we did to our
place too.
The bottom line is
that there is a difference between living in a home and selling a home. In the
end, we did everything that ultimately made our move that much lighter. We
don’t really know why we kept that much stuff around for years anyway!
For Mortgage Insurance call:
Corry Collins
corry@maritimewealth.com
902-444-7000
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