Believe in preparing your house to sell
Often we hear real estate agents telling their new listings that the house needs to be cleaned up, remove clutter and provide a neutral palette for the buyer to put their touch on. It is tried and true advice that often works, but many people seem to just ignore it. They often give comments like "I will give a carpet allowance" or "I will offer a paint allowance" or "I don't have enough time or money". Well, I want to provide you with one real life experience that drives the point home. Let me explain.
I took over a listing on a home that had been on market for 6 months. The home was priced about 5% too high, but the owners had a great back yard (in Arizona, that often means grass and trees), the house was vacant, tile floors ( a good grade of tile) and carpet that was about 7 yrs old (still serviceable but looking tired). Sounds like the first thing to fix was price, so when I took the listing the price was reduced so it was only about 3% over comparable listings. Still no buyers but we had lookers.
Once price complaints were mitigated, I needed something else to make the home more marketable. Oh I forgot to mention, it was neutral, everything except the beige carpets was white. The fact is the house had no character. It was just too neutral, it was bland, it was like taking a tranquilizer when you stepped in the door. So I discussed this with the owners and frankly it was not to appealing to them because I would not guarantee that paint and new carpet would work. But after reviewing the subdivision active listings, they finally made the commitment to paint and re-carpet.
I put them in contact with a great resource for painting, who did a fantastic job of painting the walls with a nice beige and providing a two tone look by painting the ceilings and trim an off white. The carpet was replaced with a nice but inexpensive speckled Frise carpet. Now when you walked into the house it was warm and inviting, even as a vacant home. Within one week we had a contract at above comparable listings, in fact we sold this house before another of the identical floor plan that had a pool with a very small price differential. Talk about a turn around. Nothing for 6 months and within a week of getting the house really ready to sell, it was gone. And that in a buyers market. This is real proof that preparing your house to sell works!
Finally, yes it did cost some hard earned dollars by the seller to do this professionally. But the result of near perfect paint job and carpet that was not only new but was a perfect fit with the new colors worked to get a good contract. Compare the cost of sitting on the market for possibly another 4 or 5 months and I think you will agree, its better to have your home ready to sell when you first get it on the market then waiting.