Suzanne came prepared with a nicely bound book full of information about the company she works for, Coldwell Banker, nearby listings (along with photos) to use as a comparison and useful information about our home.
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| I wish our house was that gorgeous! |
Ron and I spent the last two days cleaning up what we could: scrubbing old stains away, spot treating areas of the carpet and general tidying up the place. Honestly we thought it looked pretty good.
Suzanne is a Coldwell Banker Top 100 sales associate. She's been working in the same office since 1979. She has held numerous positions on various real estate boards. Her book also lists her accomplishments. We're lucky to have her on our side.
Because Suzanne also "knows her stuff", she gave us some homework, read that as home WORK, projects to help us get top dollar for our house.
We went on a tour of the property starting in the front yard. Let me mention that before the drought we had the most lush green lawn on the entire block. We stopped watering when we were told to and our lawn suffered greatly. There are a few bald spots so we'll need to reseed them. We'll need to trim down some bushes. I get it and it was on my list. No biggie there.
We walk in the front door and she says we need to paint it a neutral color, like Navajo White. Are you kidding me?! White walls. Yuck. She said buyers have no imagination and they want to see their belongings in our house. She said most buyers would over think the price to paint walls, or whatever, so we should make it as neutral as possible. We worked hard to add some color to this house and now we have to paint it white again??!! Remember the bright yellow laundry room we just redid? Think we're repainting that... Nope, it's gonna stay yellow!
Ron was saying how he wanted to remove some of the wall paper in the front room. I said it probably wasn't necessary. Suzanne agreed with Ron so down it'll come. As soon as we closed the front door upon Suzanne's departure, Ron ripped off a small area. It's stuck much better than we expected. He experimented with spraying on some texture thinking that we could paint over it. Afterward we asked a friend and he said he tried unsuccessfully and not to bother. Too late...
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| it's a work in progress |
So in addition to getting ready for our BIG EXPO in THREE WEEKS we need to gut the front room, paint an entire house, finish the tile in the laundry room (yep, still the old floor), refinish the small wood floor in the entrance way, trim a lot of bushes in the yards, reseed both lawns, remove family photos from the walls (good excuse to start packing), organize the garage better and hope we're still sane in the end!
Calgon, Take Me Away!! Those of you who happen to be around my age will get it :-)
Yep, get rid of as much furniture as possible, remove all personal pictures, collections, excess stuff (perfect planning for the RV life!) - but we didn't repaint. Our yellow laundry room sold in five days :-) I used spray starch to remove the wallpaper in a couple houses, works great. Good luck - this is sooooo exciting :-)))))))
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ReplyDeleteWhen we sold our home our to do list was a good size. When we had a open house the realtor had me spray water on the pool deck and play music for the big house showing. :) good luck! :)
ReplyDeleteThank you Janet! Haven't heard of the water or music trick. I suppose they know what works in their particular market.
DeleteIf I remember right, your home was already a pretty neutral color when it went to market. Honestly, your house could've been the gorgeous one featured on Suzanne's cover sheet :-)
ReplyDeleteThis is our first home, been here 26 years. Anyway, we don't have the 'selling' experience so we made it our own over the years not knowing we'd have to make it someone else's down the road...
We plan on tackling one room at a time from top to bottom starting with the front room with the wallpaper. It's great to have a plan though.
Did I hear the words garage sale and sell/donate it? Yep, if it's not needed anymore it's off to a new home.
Spray starch: Ron says he's going to google it :-) LOL
The living areas, kitchen and smaller bedrooms were neutral and the master, main bath and laundry were rich colors. Thanks for the compliment, having it only two years, knowing we were going to sell it made a huge difference in prep time and effort!
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