Philadelphia Real Estate Blog

No. You should clean your house like you have the plague and pretend a decontamination/haz-mat team needs to help. That is what you should do to present a house to a potential buyer. THAT is the key to selling a house…that and a fair price.

And there you have it- My 27 years of inside knowledge to the real estate market summed up

in one brief sentence. Clean your house, then do it again. Then do it one more time just to make sure your home looks like it did the day it was built. And that is how you maximize your resale price

1. Change light bulbs- make your home brighter
2. Spend a $1000 or so to touch up all painted walls and baseboards
3. Re-Caulk around the bathroom tubs and showers
4. De-clutter. Then de-clutter again.
5. Clean. And I mean clean- including the outside of your stainless steel appliances, your carpets, your tile floors, your ceiling fans, interior and exterior windows.

If you want the most for your home– you have to put your best foot forward. Kinda’ like going on a date for the first time. This is a dog and pony show….and you wouldn’t go out on a date without flossing your teeth, or wearing clean clothes, or washing your hair would you? Of course not….

1. Lower your asking price.
2. Hire a professional photographer if you didn’t do so initially
3. Further de-clutter and try some fresh paint on specific walls if needed
4. After say 180 days- Personally, I would hire a new listing agent.

Homes do indeed get stale as the “days on market” clock grows. Value has a tendency to decline as the “d-o-m” clock grows and all sellers should be pro-active in dropping their price as time goes on. If you are not allowing your Realtor to do open houses- change that ASAP. Open every other week at a minimum. Install a for sale sign if you have yet done so.

Spending $5,000 to go repairs, upgrades, staging, etc is so MUCH MORE IMPORTANT than dropping your price $10,000. It may not seem logical to you- but look at your home through the eyes of potential buyers. That $5,000 you spend is going to put your home in a whole new light-

A $10,000 price drop may not. This final rule of thumb does not apply if your home is already super duper gorgeous. If that is the case then your only option is to drop your asking price.

Let’s say a home is asking $500,000 and a buyer makes an opening offer of $475,000. Here are a few things that are typical under this scenario:

1. The eventual price is probably going to be $487,500- split between asking and initial offer
2. That price will often be renegotiated as a result of a home inspection
3. The buyer is going to submit his offer via docu-sign and the seller will respond initially to the offer verbally. The buyer will counter verbally as well. Until a price is agreed upon- everything is done verbally.
4. Once a “meeting of the minds” occur- the offer is sent back to the buyer with all changes initialed that the offer can be presented to seller in a fully executed format. Seller will then sign via docu-sign as well. Seller may continue to show the house, but may not enter into another contract unless the first contract is dissolved.
5. Seller signs. Once this happens- the contract is fully executed and THAT is the day in which the “clock” starts in terms of when the 2nd deposit is due, and when the home inspection needs to be done, etc
6. Although a seller may negotiate an “AS-IS” clause into the contract- that does NOT prohibit buyer from having a home inspection and cancelling the deal if they so choose (of course IF done within the time frame allotted to complete inspections)
7. NO terms of the contract are valid or enforceable unless in writing. Period.