Preparing a house for the real estate market.

It's hard to get a true assessment of your home without knowing more of the details. How is the market where you live? The luxury market is always slower than the lower markets, so that is also something to contend with. Instead of paying $5000 dollars to renovate, use that $5 grand to find a stager. If you are on the low end of the high end, you might be able to get away with just buying storage as suggested above and working with less. Remember that less is good. You want to leave the buyer prospect with an opportunity to envision themselves in your parents home. That means making it simple. If you haven't done the basics yet, try these steps: a. Lower the price of the house. Every objection can be overcome with price. If the house hasn't sold in a year, it might be something you should consider doing steeply. Get a Comparative Marketing Analysis and find out what homes are selling for in the area- homes that actually were purchased or are pending. Asking prices don't mean anything. b. Eliminate clutter. Go into the closets and work on sets of threes. Three shirts, three trousers, three dress shoes and maybe a tie or two. It gives the idea, without taking too much. c. A fresh coat of paint in a neutral color. offwhites and beiges, preferably. d. manicured lawn. No use in doing anything if there is wild grass bushes all over the place. e. visit other homes in the area that are being sold. You'll know what stands out for you, and can act accordingly. Over all, tell your parents to stop trying to hold on to all the money. If you've ever tried to squeeze and handful of money, you will understand the analogy of being tight fisted, eventually, they will end up with nothing.

My experience is different. I help my friend by rearranging her furniture and paint all of her walls. We also add some pillows and make everything not to busy. Total cost: $250

We upgraded the carpeting in our house when we sold in 1990 ($30/yd...ouch). Our house sold very quickly, but the new owner ripped out the brand new carpeting and put in tile throughout the house. Go figure! I wouldn't go to a great expense, but I would think about what might make the house more appealing to a buyer. Put yourself in a buyer's place and figure out what you'd like to see changed if you were to buy it. Good luck to your parents in selling. I know that the real estate market has really slowed down this past year. Houses in our neighborhood usually sold the same day a sign went up. Now they're sitting for months without anyone even looking.

i had a new house on the market for sell in oct.i only had a few lookers,but the house didnt have any furniture in it so it didnt sell,, so in nov we put furniture in it an it sold,just make sure your home has wide open spaces an not alot of stuff sitting out when someone come to look at the home. a clean kitchen is also very important when trying to sell a home plus add a few update

I'd work on lowering the price. No house that's priced right stays on the market a year. Your parent's home is getting stale in a declining market and that's not good.(I used to sell real estate on the Philadelphia Main Line which is a super luxury market. I hated it. Most of all I hated telling sellers the truth which was usually "lower the price or it won't sell" In fact I often couldn't say what I typed here. A lot of agents can't)

I don't have personal experience in this, but for $5000, get a detailed list of what improvement this will include. Does it include merchandise and labor, all inclusive? Get it all in writing and in a contract. Certain improvements are more worth the investment than others. I think I read that an updated kitchen is always a good selling point. There are various other way to "stage" a home that will give you good return on your dollar. See if your agent can give you a guarantee with that $5000...would she guarantee a return n that investment? If the investment does not give you good results, would she adjust her commission? The housing market is cooling down now. So get all her promises in writing!

okay we are in the same situation. We have a house that is on a lake, so it is considered Lake Front Property. We have a large property, it is a 4 bedroom 4 bathroom home....It is in a good area, close to the city, close to the airport without the noise, and a great close knit community. Some of the homes on our lake are over a million, now ours is not over a million but it is close...we actually put our house up well under and within what the market bares, and so far we have gotten offers but we are well past that 6 month mark.. The market in real estate has been going strangely, with interest rates rising and now falling again, there seems to be more people looking around but no one seems to be too serious. It seems to me that being in this bottom end of luxury market is really tough because the people that look either have the money to buy the 1million plus, or they are not able to squeeze an extra $100K to what you would be willing to sell at... It is like we are stuck in this weird small or rare price range....it is so bizarre. Anyway, we had a stager come to look at our house but here is my thoughts on it, Why spend a bunch of money on making the house more appealing when more than likely the new buyer will just look to change it anyway when they get back in. I have heard that most people like the house to be staged, and then I have heard that most people like it when it is as empty as possible. It just depends on the people....and the potential buyer. My dad sold his house and had done a lot of renovations to it, because one issue was the windows on the top floor, he decided to go ahead and take his house off the market and put in new windows and then put it back on the market, well, it did not get him much more - as a matter of fact, he wanted to sell his house at around $800 thousand and honestly his house was worth that, but the problem was that he was in a neighborhood where no one else updated their homes, so the other homes selling were all teardown conditions and would be priced from the $500K - so when people would look at his house and think, okay I do not have to do much work but the house down the street is $300 less and the updates I would need to make for that would still be less than what they would look to pay my dad for his nice finished house... In the end, he sold his house for under $700K - with the windows he added he spent another $10K - he was hoping that he would have gotten up to about that $700 mark but it was under even with replacing the windows. I told him tons of times not to bother with updating the windows it is not going to get him the money he wants....(we have sold 6 homes) Anyway, he got desparate because they had purchased another house and needed to just get rid of the previous home. He is now worried we will go through the same thing, but this house is different and therefore we are doing okay. I think Staging is a joke but that is my opinion, I have heard painting is a waste of time, and again, sometimes it is better to have it all a neutral palate than to have colors and schemes and the like. My dad said that they did a downstairs room and it was beautifully done, professionally faux painted and the like. Well the new owners painted over it!! YEP so you see, what is the point? Some agents will say that it is easier to sell when it is a "model" home, but that is if someone purchases a new construction home is what I think... Anyway, I hope that things go better, I would say they may need to have a new market analysis done we did that and we are still well within the price range we figured we needed to be at....(we went under the market range in beginning and when it was going down we are now at average in the range) good luck

I think the trick is in making everything look uncluttered and clean. A little paint can go a long way. You can do that yourself making sure to keep colors neutral. Putting away a lot of extra stuff (even if it means renting a storage locker for awhile) and especially putting away all pictures and personal effects. Arrange the remaining furniture attractively and sparsely. Look over the entire house and yard and see if there is anything else you can make look nicer, like the approach to the front door. Have a few friends over to offer suggestions. It seems to me that this is pretty much all they do on TV. Why should you pay $5000 to have it done when you can get some friends and easily do it yourselves at a minimal cost.

I sold my house 6 years ago, and what I did was repaint the rooms a neutral colors. I took down all the family photos. I made sure the place was neat, and I actually got $2000.00 more after I did the upgrades. I usually watch Design to Sell on HGTV you might want to check that out great show.

Obviously something is wrong with the house if it hasn't sold in over a year, maybe the price is too high, maybe the place is a dump. When I've been in the market before for a house, the ones that are cluttered with knick-knacks, pictures, toys, junk really turn me off. If the house isn't clean, has a weird paint scheme, funky smell, or general neglect, these are all negative signs. You have to do everything possible to differentiate your house and show people the value. $5000 is a lot to spend on a $100,000 house, but not much to spruce up a $300000 home. How much is it costing to hold on to this house for a year? Maybe there is a compromise that can be made for less than $5000.

This depends on more factors i.e. the price, u should ask other livings who are already living there

We also have the same problem. We been trying to sell the house over 5 years now, and didn't succeed. If we don't sell the house by the end of this year, we give it the bank and they can sell out hours almost in every price. We want to get rid of it.

When my parents recently sold their house these are the things they did to make it sell quicker: Decluttered- a cluttered home appears to be smaller Take out the personal stuff- don't have tons and tons of family photos and personals it makes it hard for the buyer to picture themselves in the home Paint- all walls had a fresh coat of neutral colored paint Clean- make the house as clean as possible before showings Finish unfinished projects- if they started something such as tiling the bathroom and didn't finish they got all that stuff taken care of Their realtor told them not to make too many changes because like you're saying you won't get the money back in return.

the way wht i suggest u is tht pls wait patiently for sometime.let market get pickup.and then u sell ur house.it wil be better if u sell ur when the markrt is good.

I think that the housing market is slow right now. I would wait before spending 5,000 on updates. there are a few houses around here for sale that have been for sale at least 8 or 9 months now. hopefully the housing market will pick up again soon. good luck to your parents in selling their home.

I believe you mean went up in value by $20K. Yes, putting money into the house to make money is the best thing. We sold our parents house that way. We spent about $3,700.00 in repairs, new paint, new appliances and a new floor in some rooms and received offers $10-12K over the rock bottom price we had been asking for over a year. It does work, just dont go overboard and always buy quality, not on the cheap or necessarily expensive replacements or enhancements. Remember, you're selling, not gong to live there!

I think that a few rennovations could help a lot. Good luck to your parents with selling their house! I'm sorry that it's taking them so long to sell it. Having it be on the market for over a year must feel so frustrating.

You guys should go around to open houses in the neighborhood to see what the going rate is for houses with certain features. With that said, I also believe that home staging WORKS. I think that you can stage the house yourself if you do some research. FT http://www.MillionDollarJourney.com

well i didnt experence this but one of my family members did.there agent said the best thing to do first is fix the things that needs to be fixed.go for a more modern look with family pics put up.just make sure the home fells homie. well the $5000 is pending on how big the house.like for instance three bedroom,two baths,one 1/2 bath,family room,living room and kitchen that amount of money is resonable.anything bigger umm. it might be.