Sunday, September 25, 2011

Should I Pack Away My Photos When Selling?

Sellers want to know whether they should remove personal photos when selling their home. Many REALTORS feel all photos should all come down because buyers want to picture themselves in the new house, not the current owners.

Here's my opinion: Leave some pictures so the buyers know it's a wonderful family, or couple or individual selling. Let buyers know a little about you through your photos. Buyers want to konw if this is a happy home and your picture can show that. But don't make your home a gallery of every photo ever taken.

When buyers walk through a home, if there are photos on the walls, photos in frames on living room tables, bedside tables, on refrigerators, etc, it's too much for a variety of reasons. One, it's distracting. We stop at every wedding picture and think, oh, what a lovely couple or worse, I don' like the color of those bridesmaid dresses! Or at each baby picture we stop and say, "what a cute baby." We see pictures of every trophy won and we try to read what it was for. We wonder whether we know the owners or their children. Basically, it disrupts the flow of the tour and we are looking at the photos and not at the home. Everyone once in awhile there is an inappropriate picture.... and being human, we make judgements. Those judgements can subconsciously transfer over to the home.

Secondly, buyers DO want to picture themselves living there and too many seller photos establish the home as the sellers' home, not their possible new home. Too much history to erase, they can't picture themselves living there, can't picture making memories of their own.

My suggestion is to keep the photos that are your absolute favorites and put them on one table in the living room or den. Pack the rest in boxes. Take a cross section of the ones that mean the most to you. The buyers will stop once and glance, get an idea of the kind of good house karma that exists through your photos, and move on to see the the rest of the house.

The bonus? You've already packed one box and are that much closer to moving!

Monday, September 19, 2011

Lead Your Buyer Through Your House by Staging Outside to Inside

If your house or condo is for sale, remember that first impressions are very important. Buyers talk about curb appeal -- they look at your house from the curb and you have about 10 seconds to make a good first impression. When they open the front door and walk in, you have another 10 seconds. Make those seconds count! You want to lead your buyers through your house with your staging.

Now that we are almost at the first day of autumn, here are some ideas.

Most houses and condos have a walkway from the drive to the front door. Put a pot of chrysanthemums on either side of the walk way. Put pumpkins and/or gourds on the steps going up to the front door and put at least one more pot of flowers. At this time of the year, you can get some inexpensive flowers at Home Depot or Lowe's. To get great flowers that are full, try Claussen's in Colchester Village.

On the door, place a wreath of autumn silk flowers.Wreaths are not too expensive at Michael's but if you are crafty at all, they are easy to make. Buy a ring of grape vines and two strands of silk leaves. Wrap the strands around the front of the grape vine wreath and secure with thin wire, or wrap them in a spiral around the wreath. Add a couple of dried seed pods that are on picks that stick into open spaces on the wreath. And voila, all done! Hang it on the door.

If you have a large house with columns, you can get corn stalks and attach them to the columns on either side of the front steps. The pumpkins can be placed at the bottom of the corn stalks. Be careful not to overdo the stalks. They can look corny (oops, no pun intended!) if you put up too many.

As your buyers walk in the door, place a small table that has a couple of chunky, fall colored candles, some more gourds and some dried corn. Have fun!

On the dining room table is another place to decorate a little. Again, small gourds or baby pumpkins, cranberry or burnt orange candles in holders, a couple of scattered silk leaves. These leaves come in a bag and nice to drop on the table. Place a bowl of candy corn for buyers to eat and put a simple sign that says, Please eat the candy!

Total investment with pumpkins, silk garlands, flowers, etc, will be less than $75 and well worth it.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Underwriting is Getting Tricky!

We have about eight sales pending and all but one have had challenges with underwriting. It's not that the underwriters are denying loans, but they ask for more and more information and substantiation before approval. Underwriters ask for banking and deposit information to assure the lender that buyers are not borrowing down payments and that there are sufficient funds to close, and then ask for the information again later. Pay checks have to show 30 days and one of our clients showed 28 days... She is paid every two weeks. 14 + 14 = 28. Not good enough.

Water tests, septic pumping, reinspection after the storm, repairs made to properties with receipts and certification of repairs. The list goes on and on and on!

What is the solution? Keep giving the loan officers what they are asking for; plan that they will ask for the same thing more than once; and plan a realistic period from contract to closing. Especially be realistic about the time it takes to get full approval from the lender. Have faith that if your lender has given the buyer a preapproval; that nothing big changes in your financial picture; that if the house/condo appraises and buyers and sellers are working together to make it a win-win, then the loan will eventually get approved. DON'T buy a car or boat or charge furniture on your credit cards!

It is frustrating for buyers and sellers, but REALTORS are here to help. We've even scraped and painted a house to get the loan approved! Hang in there and have a Plan B -- which is that the loan approval date might need an extension and the closing date might need to be moved also. In the end, you'll be able to move into a great home -- or sell a home and start a new chapter in your life.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

After the Hurricane

I'm feeling really blessed these days because in Burlington, where I live, we just got some moisture in our basement in the aftermath of the hurricane. All we need is a dehumidifier to take care of the dampness. But we are seeing and hearing about such terrible destruction, that I feel very lucky that we didn't have damage.

Tonight, a friend from Waterbury said houses in the South Main area were pulled off foundations. Houses that were for sale a year ago -- houses I showed buyers -- were devastated. Water throughout the first floor, belongings now strewn on front lawns. Another family had water in the back yard, moving toward the house. In five minutes, it was on the front lawn. She grabbed her kids and in the time it took to get their coats on, the water was so high she had to carry the two of them and slog through thigh deep water!

All of our loans are going through an appraisal reinspection to make sure the hurricane did not destroy the house that banks were about to loan money on! I understand the reason why but most of our loans are closing late because of the reinspection. We are now telling buyers and sellers to expect delays.

I guess if it's a delay versus losing a house, I'll take the delay. And I am very thankful that all I have is a damp basement.