Do we have to move out of our house before selling it?
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Anonymous
If you want top dollar, then you don't want potential buyers to come in to the house and start making a list of things that they'll need to do before they move in. A lot of young buyers nowadays don't want to do ANY work, I mean ANY work. Not even paint. |
Anonymous
Oh girl, you don't need to do anything. Just put it on the market and it will be gone tomorrow. |
Anonymous
There is also a sense of ‘if they couldn’t be bothered to do this, what else couldn’t they be bothered to do?’ |
Anonymous
We just did this in N Arlington in the same price range. We didn't move out. We did store about 1/3 of our stuff and our agent staged the house with a mix of our furniture and hers. It was a lot of work getting it prepped but we sold in the course of a weekend. We needed the funds from our house to buy the house we were buying so couldn't move out first. |
Anonymous
Good advice here but also would add it’s another good idea to take a vacation or a staycation in a local hotel or friends’ house and board any pets for the first week it’s on the market. That keeps it in perfect condition and minimize disruptions for showings/ inspections etc. If you price it right or slightly under right you will have a lot of traffic. |
Anonymous
| We did this a few years ago, similar situation in N. Arlington. I'm guessing your place is on the smaller side - recommend you aggressively declutter and put a lot in storage to make the place feel spacious. Especially kid stuff if you have kids. We did this and used our own furniture, had the windows washed and the fence power-washed and did some paint touch-ups. Went away for a long weekend as PP suggested and the whole deal was done by Sunday morning. |
Anonymous
Ah yes the PP here-- we did all of this too. Washed the windows, repainted areas that needed it, added a new hallway light fixture. We boarded our dogs and spent the first weekend out of town. |
Anonymous
I think this is true of most first time buyers. Most first time buyers are renting and need to be out by a certain date, so they don’t have a lot of time to make repairs before moving in. Most of them are also looking at houses close to the top of their range and can’t afford additional work. Add to that, most first time buyers don’t know what the cost of something like painting a house would be and they don’t want to have to have to deal with finding reputable vendors and getting estimates. And if you have young children, pets, and are working there is never a convenient time to do a lot of work once you move in. Lastly, most people are not interior designers and having never lived in a house of their own as an adult, it’s hard to imagine what a space could look like if X, Y, or Z were to happen. Hence, the appeal of move in ready. Previous homeowners who have lived through renos and various projects and know contractors and vendors who they like and trust, even if they work and have pets and kids, are more likely to find something like needing to paint tolerable. |
Anonymous
We’re planning on selling in a few years and this is what we’re thinking: Dec: get feedback on staging and decluttering Beginning of February: declutter and potentially put some items into storage Mid-feb: touch up paint, (would have refinished floors the years before) End of Feb: do partial staging, if suggested, and take pictures Early March: go away for 2 weeks (14 days) on kids’ spring break and bring dogs |
Anonymous
THIS |
Anonymous
I’ve sold multiple properties as well as rented recently. And I’m always surprised how staging and for superficial features, like cool sconces or marble look quarts cover up old roofs or old HVAC or single pane windows. |
Anonymous
+1. Fresh paint is all about the psychology of buying. Buyers aren't entirely rational and a dingy house in need of paint makes a negative impression on many buyers, even if they don't admit it to themselves. And even for buyers who plan to renovate, some may want to live in the house for a bit before they start. A fresh coat of paint (and other small cometic fixes) helps a buyer feel comfortable that they could live in the house if they had to for a short time before beginning renovations. |
Anonymous
| Do you have young kids and pets? If so it might be easier to move out your house before selling, although not necessarily essential. A middle-of-the road approach is to move as much of your stuff as is realistic to a storage unit so that you can really clean out and pare down your house before putting it on the market (i.e. you can stage it while still living in it). You could also consider staying in a hotel or airbnb/with relatives etc. for the first weekend or week that the house is on the market if you anticipate a lot of traffic, especially again if you have young children and pets. |
Anonymous
If you have lived there for 5+ years, the house will looked lived in with the paint, even more so if you have kids. So spending a bit to paint and freshen it up can help buyers view it better. Just like if you don't stage it, rent a storage space and move 50% of things out. People want to envision living there, not think there isn't enough space/that it is crowded. So fix up things that are obviously broken and paint if it's needed, clean the carpets and wash the damn windows. Little things make it much more appealing |
Anonymous
+1 Also fix basic things. We once looked at a house where the living room had 4 different types of wall paper (yes, 4) and no they did not "go together", just poor work over time. Same house was only 12 yo and the built in microwave had the handle broken---you open it and it was only attached on one screw and almost fell off. Add to that no filter in the furnace and it was definately a Not interested from us, because if you cannot take care of basic things like those, then what the hell else is wrong/hasn't been maintained in the home. The house took 3 months to sell when most things sold in 2-3 weeks . |