Selling Your Home As A Buyer
Sometimes concepts or ideas make better sense if you can see the issue from another perspective. If you are thinking about selling your home a Buyer’s perspective may help you make better decisions. I produced a DVD called “What a Seller Should Know” and it is a compilation of interviews of real buyers on various topics. I provide this DVD to prospective clients. It lets them see what a real-time buyer thinks and says when walking through a home. I asked all of these buyers questions like, “What do you think when you see a litter box for the cat” or “What do you think of plug-ins or potpourri? 
All of the respondents indicated that the sight of a litter box was a huge turn off. Now I found this personally interesting because over the past 20 years of selling homes I have had few buyers vocalize an objection to this issue. But the buyer’s in the interview said that the sight of cat poo in the box was disgusting and they began to wonder if the cat peed and pooed in the house, while this is gross it does indicate that the aversion was strong enough to deter them from pursuing the home. Many buyers are allergic to animals and the reminder of a pet can be an instant disqualifier.
The plug-in/Potpourri answers were obvious because I have seen firsthand buyers react very poorly to plug-ins when viewing a home. Most buyers feel that the seller is trying to hide an unpleasant odor in the house. In many cases they are correct. If you have an odor problem in your home– fix it. Many owners cannot smell pet odors in their own home so it is always a good idea to ask the agent if they can smell the pet or offensive smell.
Here are a few other issues that buyers have with homes that they view and their assumptions about the home.
1. Overall un-cleanliness of a home meant the seller did not care about the house and probably did not care for major items like the roof, furnace and overall upkeep of a home. Can you see why having your home presentable for showings is so critical? Sometimes you never get a second chance.
2. Overpricing the home gave the buyer license to either write a very low offer or in most cases pass on the house. They want to make an offer on a house that they feel the price is in line with the market.
The pricing issue I will discuss in my next blog post.
When a REALTOR provides advice on how best to market your home, listen to them. We have years of experience and have worked with hundreds of buyers. We see firsthand what they like and don’t like. Tap into the resource, it could save you thousands of dollars.
Posted by: 
Glenn Hanon
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