I’m planning on selling my home pretty soon. What are the more important things involved in getting it ready to show so I’ll get the best price and avoid having it sit on the market?

Well, it is a Buyer’s Market, so it’s more important than ever in doing what you can to put your home’s best foot forward so it will be appealing and stand out from the crowd. Here’s a list of basic “Do’s” and “Don’t’s” that will serve you well as a guideline in any market.

DON’T:

1) Remodel. One thing you can count on: for any substantial remodeling job, it will take longer and wind up costing you more money than you’ve budgeted. Be that as it may, you’ll almost surely not get back 100% of the cost you invest. Furthermore, you are gambling that your taste will match the buyer’s taste and they will want the same type and style of improvements you’ve performed. It’s not a good gamble. There are only two exceptions I’ll mention here. One, is that if most of your home is updated and sparkling, but you’ve got one bathroom or a half-bath that has been neglected or in poor condition, go ahead and do a minor remodel. It will be worth the money towards the ultimate sale profit and timeliness of the sale to bring that one room more into line with the rest of the home. Don’t over-perform: if your kitchen and other baths are nice and clean but modest, with laminate counters and linoleum flooring, then don’t put in expensive designer tile and granite counters in the half-bath. Keep things uniform. The other exception is more for professional “flippers” who do a lot of remodeling work themselves or have professional contractors they often use. In some cases, you can buy a “cosmetic” fixer and remodel for a profit, but this takes skill, experience, know-how, and is not the same thing as performing remodeling on your own home. I usually tell my clients that spending the money for a remodel is fine if they’re going to be living in the home for the next 5-10 years, will enjoy the work that’s done themselves, and they can afford it.

2) Leave old wallpaper or painted murals in place.  Unless, that is, you’ve got a 1910 bungalow with unusually pristine, preserved, attractive original wallpaper in place, say,  in the dining room, that somehow was covered for the last 100 years to protect it, or unless Rembrandt has painted the mural. More likely, the wallpaper is yellowed, dirty and is an ugly, passe print from the 40s or 50s. The mural is either in the dining room, a hideous Italian landscape painted by your “very talented friend”, or a kiddie mural with balloons painted by your “artistic” mother-in-law. Get rid of these drags on a sale. Get out the paint cans.

3) Put in “all new plumbing” or “all new electric”. These items typically cost about $1500-2500 each and start adding up, the more you do. Sellers are notoriously weird about these improvements, and believe their home should sell for $25,000 more than the next home if they have “new plumbing and electric.” The truth is, buyers are typically very short-sighted when it comes to things that are really maintenance issues and, while it’s nice to have new plumbing or electric, buyers care much more about things they can actually see than things that are behind the walls. Don’t bother. There is one notable exception: electric breaker panels which are known to be defective. There are certain brand panels which are the subject of many lawsuits and are known to be safety and fire hazards and I see more of these than I’d like; many people are unaware of the hidden dangers.  Chief among these are ”Federal Pacific” and “Zinsco” brands. You should change these anyway for your own safety. Prior to a sale, go ahead and get them changed out. Yes, then you can brag “New Electric Panel” as one nice thing about the house. Get a licensed bonded electrician to do the work (and NOT your Uncle Dave) and get the work permitted by the City. (Permits are always a good idea; for an extra $100 or so, you’ll be reassuring yourselves and prospective buyers that the work has been done correctly.) Typical cost to replace the electric breaker panel is about $1500.

4) Landscape. Forget about spending lots of money on ornate landscape designs. It is definitely not worth this for a profitable sale, and only makes sense to do for your own pleasure. Buyers actually much prefer an “empty palette” when it comes to landscaping and, more often than not, will shy away from homes that look as if the landscaping will require a lot of care and work. Keep it simple — just keep the grass mowed and watered and trim and clean the existing shrubbery.

5) Hire an appraiser. Some sellers feel they should spend $500 or 600 for a “real appraisal” to find out how much there home is “really worth” before selecting a real estate broker to sell it. That’s nuts. Yes, it’s true that a CMA (comparative market analysis, what realtors usually perform) is simply a realtor’s opinion about a home’s value, but an appraisal, too, is simply an opinion by a licensed appraiser as to what they believe the home is “worth” in today’s market. Although it is harder and more laborious to become licensed as an appraiser than as a realtor, and an appraisal is a more complicated, labyrinthian formula process than that used by a realtor to compile a CMA, it’s my belief that a good realtor will know the market better than an appraiser, have a better ‘on the ground’ sense of what’s selling and not and why, and they can offer you a CMA for free. A buyer that depends on bank financing will be required to get a bank appraisal before the closing of the purchase, but let the buyer pay for that; no need for you to do it.

6) Perform major repairs or improvements yourself.  Some folks never learn– “I can do it myself and save a lot of money!” Why is it that it’s usually the folks who are least likely to do a good job that are most certain they’re the most apt to do it well? Especially when you’re dealing with major tasks that should be properly supervised and often ‘checked off’ and approved or permitted by City or County or Federal beaurocracies, let the professionals do it. This would apply to putting in a new water line to the street, replacing a sewer line, decommissioning an oil tank, installing a new fireplace or woodstove, adding on a new bedroom/bathroom suite, and so forth.

7) “Home Staging”. Forget it. It seems practically overnight the home staging business has mushroomed into a giant cottage industry in real estate, with plenty of “home stagers” and enough realtors having convinced the public how important it is to have a home properly “staged.” I have been in countless homes that have been “staged”, accompanied by so many buyers, many of whom have laughed aloud at the kitschiness of some of the staging and the near-identical “Pottery Barn” look that stagers think will appeal to everyone. I believe home staging may be valuable in one exception to my rule of “no staging”: if you have a relatively high-end home, and it is vacant, and it is a home with very large rooms, that may look cold, cavernous and “empty” without any furniture. If your home does not meet the description of this exception, than I would advise passing on home staging. It is not only an unnecessary expense, but more often than not, “kitschiness” aside, most of the homes most of my buyers favor are the “older homes with charm and character,” and these are typically the bungalows, the Old Portland styles, the English, Victorians, foursquares, Cape Cods, cottages, etc that were built from the turn-of-the-century through the 1940s. These homes typically will have smaller rooms, especially the bedrooms and baths and kitchens, but often the main living areas as well. Most often, if these homes are shown truly vacant and without any furniture, it will be a plus — the rooms will look larger and more expansive, and without a stager’s built-in “taste”, it will leave the buyer more free to imagine the rooms as they might like them to appear after they move in, which is exactly the response that you, as the seller, would hope the buyer would have.

Most importantly, be healthy and happy in your home!

Zach Newman is an experienced, reliable and trusted Realtor in the Portland area. He is an agent for Re/Max Equity Group and he is a longtime member of PABA - Portland’s GLBT Chamber of Commerce. Call Zach at 503.287.8989 or visit his website at: http://www.equitygroup.com/zach.

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