Seeking selling advice

[RosieTR]

Our house in Phoenix is approaching the non-underwater stage (at least, according to Zillow), meaning we could potentially sell pretty soon. This is very exciting! We've had crappy renters twice in a row and would ideally like to just be rid of it and not have to think of it at all, ever again. I have a friend here who's a realtor and said she has some contacts in the Phoenix area that she can put us in touch with, so I am starting to work with her on that. However, neither of us has ever sold a house before-we rented out our house here in CO when we moved, and just moved back in after doing the work post-renter here. Having ~900 miles distance seems a bit daunting in addition to just the potential pitfalls of any real-estate transaction. So, what is your general advice for selling a house? Has anyone sold a house far away? Do you have "absolutely don't" items vs "it's good to" items? I'm in the very beginning phases and no experience whatsoever, so any advice will be appreciated, including web or book resources. Thanks!

[redfox]

My only advice is to find a solid realtor whose professionalism you can trust, and let them do their job.

[SteveinMN]

Rosie, will the house be empty while it's on the market? Typically, empty houses look less attractive to people, but if you have to rely on (bad) renters to keep the house presentable, you might want to opt for empty. Note that, depending on the terms of your lease with the renters, you may have to give them a specific amount of notice for showings and, eventually, sale of the property.

Clean and kept-up is a must. If the renters are there, most people will look past kids' toys on the floor and some crumbs on the counter. But everything else should be as sparkling as it can be. Decluttering is always a good thing, too. And everything should work properly: the toilet that runs unless the handle is jiggled just right, the door lock that doesn't quite lock, the doorbell that no longer rings, the bare patch in the lawn, the missing piece of shoe molding,...

Is it possible you could meet with the agent even once as you get the house ready for sale? That would be a good time to discuss repairs that need to be made. I'd think carefully about making any updates/upgrades unless it really will kill interest in the property. Very few updates made to ready a house for sale earn their money back, primarily because people don't want to spend more money on a house they're selling and because the "norm" encourages beige and cookie-cutter. OTOH if, say, the carpets look horrible even after a professional cleaning, you might want to look at seeing if what's underneath the carpet is salvageable or putting something else in.

Beyond that, you will have to rely heavily on the RE agent. As redfox says, make sure it's someone you can trust to do his/her job.

[RosieTR]

Thanks Steve. I figure a trip to Phx is probably in the cards but yeah, maybe after we have an agent or at least a few good prospects for one. There may be some basic stuff to make it have curb appeal but hopefully carpet and paint.

[catherine]

I agree with Steve, and redfox re trusting the real estate agent to tell you.

I had a similar experience selling my MIL's house which was a couple of hours away. It was a nightmare because of the recession, and also because she hadn't had ANY upgrades since 1965. The real estate agent kept telling us that all the houses around were already "done" and that's what new buyers were gravitating towards. NO ONE was looking for a fixer upper because you could get a really NICE house just as affordably because of the market.

So we were faced with how much work and money was going to speed things up and how much was just going into the huge money pit?

One of the biggest time and energy sucks was painting the walls and ceilings and pulling up old carpet and refinishing the hardwood floors underneath. That instantly gave it a clean look. We just whitewashed everything, but if I had it to do over again, I'd have done the walls a darker neutral, like a taupe, to make it look warmer. I would also have hung white or off-white window curtains or inexpensive bamboo blinds. I was just about ready to pay for staging when we finally sold. Steve is right, and real estate agents will tell you, that people really benefit from being able to see how to use the space. Boy did I argue with DH over this!! He kept saying that empty made the house look bigger, but the reality is, as any designer will tell you that, that it often does just the opposite. People need a visual "anchor" to judge the scale. However, staging can be a couple of hundred at least a month if you hire a staging company to do just one area.

We definitely attended to repairs. It's the broken window syndrome. A crack in a tile may not seem like much but it just gives an air of disrepair over the whole house. We spent money replacing crumbling plasterboard in the basement.

As far as the 1940s kitchen, we decided to just try not to hide the fact that it was "vintage"--we went with it--we did replace crummy, bleached-out laminate counters with cheap granite-colored laminate. We painted the metal cabinets. I bought some cute 50s cherry-print curtains off of ebay and put an old-fashioned enamel kettle on the stove. The color scheme was neutral, but I chose red accents to bring a little life into it.

We did not touch the older bathrooms. We almost replaced the vanity but it was in decent shape, so we left it.

Of course we spent money on the outside trimming and pruning and tidying up the yard.

That was it. We did not make money on the sale. But at least we didn't have to pay the bank back anything, though, which was all I cared about.

Good luck!!

[RosieTR]

Thanks, Catherine! The house is pretty modern but we may have repairs. It's very likely we'll need to attend to carpet and paint on the walls-hopefully the renters weren't too harsh with the blinds which are nice wood. The back yard may also be an issue but we'll see. Property management didn't say how that was; we had lots of fruit trees but they require water so may not have survived. The sort of "bones" of the house are good-all tile except bedrooms and no stairs. Luckily for us, we have a paint sprayer so could do the work ourselves if necessary. My main worry is damage from the renters: they did break a couple of windows and messed up some other stuff, so hidden problems are a worry. Hopefully no tiles broken; replacing carpet is probably a given but not too bad since it's just the bedrooms.

[rodeosweetheart]

We are going through this right now with our house in SC, 1300 hundred miles away. Ugh. We talked the realtor out of showing it until we had packed all our stuff in the POD and had spent about 10 days painting everything. We painted the inside, every room, I think, and repainted two painted floors. I did something to the floors--they were hardwood in the living room, and I remember I got some Bona floor polish and my Oreck orbital and polished them up. We slept on an airbed and worked on a foldup table and a couple of chairs that we threw out on the last day.

When we finally let him in to take pictures, he said he thought it had added 5-10000 to value of house. We painted it all Valspar fresh cotton, which had been already and looks very good in a beachy house.

When we got here, the p[revious flipper had painted everything dark taupe, and I have to say, it really turned me off, but I am a white wall person, and that guy had taupe in every room, including the one bathroom. Went with Behr creamy white it's warmer and a little darker than the fresh cotton. I painted my study Petoskey stone which I got for 10 bucks at Habitat--they combine all the paint and somehow come up with these standardized colors--that one is a taupe, but it is in a room by itself--rest of house all flows together.

SC house was already under contract once--first offer came in Day 2 of listing and second offer Day 3--but the buyer we went with could not get her financing straightened out--she was too close when they added for insurance; we live on an island. Buyer 2 has new offer in but it has only actually been on market maybe 5 days in 3-4 weeks, so I'm trying to see if anyone else bites before deciding to go with Buyer 2.

So I am abig fan of the painting. And if it has carpet, have you tried getting someone like Stanley Steamer in to see what they can do? You might not have to replace.

I think a good, good relator is key. We sold our last house ourself to someone who had had the land in their family; tehy approached us. But before that we sold in 2 days in Illinois--again, I moved most of our stuff out and painted EVERYTHING. I did stage that one--it was really charming, just left enough and the buyer bought my couch--still miss that couch.

With tha one we rented a storage locker to get it all out. It was a godsend. Oh, and I staged the kitchen--it was my new IKEA kitchen, when I was working there--bought Dansk dishes for the glass front cabinet, it was great.

And weirdly, both of my houses I staged and sold were sold to bachelors, divorced dads with kids. So maybe they are yuour staging market, who knows.

And for some reason, maybe it is those staging shows on tv, flippers are always painting houses red and salmon, and for me, it is veyr hard to like those colors on the walls. I am partial to the whites, although Catherine is right, you might want to consider staging if you do that. It's odd that a house looks bigger with furniture in it, just not very much furniture!

[Gardenarian]

In California, it is common to use a professional appraiser. The appraiser will go through the house and check EVERYTHING, both structural and cosmetic, and then give you the house value "as-is" and what it would be valued at if you fixed everything. Appraisals cost $2-400, depending on complexity, but I think it is money well spent.

[Gregg]

Most houses I've looked at in the past are dirty. Not garbage in the living room dirty, just not actually clean. In my own experience cleaning, as in really deep cleaning, almost always offers the biggest bang for the buck. Floors, carpets, woodwork, etc. Scrubbing cabinets is often overlooked, but they get greasy so not only look lots better, they SMELL better. Cleaning windows inside and out lets in light that always makes things look better. I've had the same results with fresh NEUTRAL paint as rodeosweetheart. Its cheap, easy and makes a huge difference. Replacing carpet or other flooring is something I'd consider only if the existing is completely worn out or just looks gross. Trim the hedge, pull the weeds, plant a few annual flowers, mow the grass, pick up the trash... All those little spring cleaning items that apply to the outside. Wash the pig before you decide to put lipstick on it. You might decide no makeup is needed.

[shadowmoss]

My house in Nashville finally has a cash offer, and I'm hoping to be done with it finally in 2 weeks. I had friends who needed a place to stay temporarily stay there, but they had a motor home parked there and only used 1 room in the house for an office and used the bathrooms and kitchen, so no clutter. I did get some feedback that they weren't keeping the place clean, but a call to the husband who is my friend in the family and given that it was keep it clean or move out they cleaned it up and have kept it that way. They figured out that even though I'm so far away I was getting the information. Not malicious behavior, just a tad lazy with me not there. So, perhaps you could advertise for a house sitter to stay until the house closes, with the stipulation that the place has to remain show-ready, and that the Realtor lets them know when the house is to be shown, and they go somplace else for a couple of hours? That seemed to work in my case. Also, I add on that a trusted Realtor is the part that make long-distance selling work. We do everything on-line. My Realtor is great, and if anyone needs a Realtor in Nashville, I can recommend her without reservation.

[rodeosweetheart]

Shadowmoss, that is great news!! We had a cash offer yesterday, too, so maybe the market is turning around. I will keep my fingers crossed for both of us. I think your housesitter idea is a good one for Rosie if she can get a great realtor who knows of someone--I have thought this would be a good business, to house sit like this through the realtors, since renters are such an unknown, and Rosie's were not good.

Rosie, I have not tried this, but there are realtors advertised ont he Dave Ramsey site, but I don't know if they are really overseen much by his people--I have not tried them personally.

How can you get some leads on a great realtor out there where the house is? Can you spare 7-10 days to go out and paint/clean--either do it yourself or hire someone to do it with you in the area overseeing it? We did that before letting the realtor in to take pictures and to actually show the house. I think it turned out really well, much better than letting folks in until we were really ready, and we are not slobs, and the realtor said the house was ready to show before we did anything to it.

I just thought it would show better empty and painted and deep cleaned, and he said it did.

Is it empty? Yoiu could stage it cheaply yourself with one of those furniture rental places--that was what I was going to do if this did not sell empty. It would be kind of fun--just watch HGTV a couple of days and you could do this.

[RosieTR]

So, progress on the realtor front-a woman I swim with is a realtor with family ties to the Phoenix area, and she gave me contact info and a guideline of what to ask, so I will do that next week. The comps look doable-the realtor contact said she was concerned that it may take 60-90 days to sell but since we'd lose that much on the difference in rent vs mortgage for a year it doesn't seem too bad.
As for staging, I don't know about that. We did buy it empty (as a foreclosure) and that was fine. The layout is nice even without furniture-very open. I will see what the realtor's opinion is before planning that, though yes I think a painting/cleaning will likely be worth doing. I don't know what the carpet is like, but it was kind of cheap when we got it and looked a little worn even after we lived there for 3 years with pretty light use. I could drive down and bring our good vacuum and carpet cleaner, paint supplies, etc and do a bunch of work, coordinate a carpet installation if needed, and all that. I think there could be staging companies if needed but I am not good at that and would vastly prefer to have someone deal with all of it. Always the question there is finding someone good, and we ditched our Angies list membership for Phx when we left. But, I will cross that road when I have to.

Thanks for all the advice! I'm pleased that this is becoming a possibility. :)

[Miss Cellane]

To some extent, what you need to do depends on your target market. My cousin sold her 1920s house with older kitchen and bathrooms in two weeks at the height (or depth, if you will) of the housing collapse. She choose her agent carefully, picking one who knew how to market her type of house. Not to first-home buyers, who in her area want totally move-in ready with all new appliances, but people who wanted an older house with good bones in a nice neighborhood with good schools.

Her agent's advice was to spruce things up a bit, but not to spend any real money on the house. She painted most of the rooms and did a little staging with lamps and some other stuff she bought at thrift stores. And the house was super clean and decluttered.

Get some agents into the house and see what they say.

At the minimum, the house should be as clean as possible. Everything should be fixed--loose knobs on kitchen drawers, squeaky doors, etc. Carpeting--clean it first and see what it looks like. I'd rather have an allowance for new flooring, rather than have cheap, new carpeting that my frugal soul would not let me rip out right away, but which I would not like (I just don't like wall-to-wall, not with my cat the vomit queen).

If the house will be unoccupied for selling, it might be worth while semi-staging a few rooms. Get thrift store furniture or cast-offs from friends. What you want to do is show that furniture will fit in the rooms, and suggest the use of each room. So a bed, possibly just an inflatable bed, in one or two of the bedrooms, to show that at least a queen-size bed will fit in the master bedroom, that sort of thing. A loveseat in the living room. A small table and chairs in the dining room. Some lamps, as getting as much light into the house as possible is key in making the house look good.

[rodeosweetheart]

Hey Rosie, did you get any farther with your thinking on the house? My house closed yesterday--yay--it went to the 3rd person who wrote a contract on it because he paid cash with a really short closing. I had priced it very low, about 8% where the realtor suggested it be priced, because I was out of town and did not want to deal with it from a distance. Start to finish, 7 weeks and 2 days after going on market, closed.
So I want to reiterate the "paint EVERYTHING" and spend 10 days driving yourself crazy working on it to get it as clean as you can. We fixed a couple of little things (really little, trim kind of stuff, like Steve said) but honestly, it was all painting and cleaning, and I don't think we are truly slobs normally or anything. But you want it to smell like fresh pain--it is subliminal, and they feel like it is a new house, maybe?

I am so thrilled because I could not figure out lawncare--which in SC where we lived is more jungle vine care--seriously, those things can grow 2 feet in 2 days. I did NOT want to deal with paying someone to care for my yard when I never did that when I lived there!

It was completely empty, since I did not want to deal with having to get rid of stuff. If you have a larger/more upscale/nicer house, maybe do the complete paint/clean thing in 10 days and get a furniture rental place to place a few things in there--you are at a distance and you don't want to have to travel there to get rid of stuff after it sells. But that might be doable, and cheaper, too.

And we had the world's best realtor. He did an amazing video tour-- 3 dimensional--it made one person make an offer without even having been inside the house. HE was with Coldwell Banker. He might know someone in your area, pm me if you want me to ask him.

[shadowmoss]

My house closed last Friday! Finally! My Realtor was with me to the end. It was a cash buyer, the only way the house could have been bought realistically. I'm still in shock. Less than I wanted, but it is out of my life now.

[SteveinMN]

Congratulations, Paula! A load off your mind, I'm sure.

[rodeosweetheart]

Wonderful news, Paula!!

[Lainey]

My house closed last Friday! Finally! My Realtor was with me to the end. It was a cash buyer, the only way the house could have been bought realistically. I'm still in shock. Less than I wanted, but it is out of my life now.

Terrific, Paula - that's an early Christmas present for sure!

[RosieTR]

Congrats, Shadowmoss!

We will try to list next week. Not ideal with the holidays, but the realtor thought it possible people would be looking over the break potentially, plus didn't want to come in with a bunch of first-of-the-year sales. So we'll see. She thought the carpet would be fine with a really good clean, and we will have a good, deep cleaning done. Based on opinions here, it's the very most important thing to do. The realtor also thought we'd stand up well against other homes in the area for sale which are generally smaller with a poorer layout and having not had much done to them (maybe flipped foreclosures? not sure). It's not the most expensive house on the block, which no one wants, but it's not the very bottom of the barrel so will hopefully look good against the smaller, less well-kept ones. I have some hope, anyway.

[sweetana3]

Back in the early 80s when mortgage interest was high and condos never sold, we put a condo on the market just after Xmas. It sold in 3 days. (We had nowhere to move to because we thought it really would not sell.)

We put Mom's house on the market about 2 years ago in an economically depressed area with bathroom issues and yet it sold in 7 days for full price no inspection.

You never know when one person will step in and want your property.

[RosieTR]

Thanks for the pep talk, Sweetana! We were supposed to list tomorrow but because of a snafu with the former property management company, it will have to wait until early next week, maybe Tues. After all this, maybe Friday the 13th would have been a bad omen anyway, ha ha :~) I do have to say, being in this position of having to sell when it well could be a squeaker in terms of what we get vs what we owe, I am constantly thankful we ignored the "expert" advice and went ahead and paid off the house we're now living in. Much less stress, though not stress-free of course, to be only on the hook for one mortgage. If it sells any time before summer for anywhere close to break-even, I will be pleased as punch.