Insider secrets on selling your home in a down market

Yes, it’s still possible to sell your house these days.

There are still lots of first time buyers out there but they now have the bigger them of the bat for these reasons:

- People who couldn’t afford to buy a first home at the top of the bubble now can since home prices have fallen.

- Higher priced homes can now be Federally insured making them more affordable.

- New house’s size are smaller they during the bubble years. Contractors are building smaller homes people can more easily afford.

Overall, homeowners should find it harder to sell but as this post says it’s not impossible with some work and down to earth expectations.

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INTERVIEW REALTORS LIKE YOU WOULD ANYONE YOU WERE GOING TO HIRE TO DO A JOB, TO BE SURE YOU ARE COMFORTABLE WITH THEIR METHOD OF SELLING AND COMMUNICATE FREQUENTLY WITH THE ONE YOU CHOOSE.

Before you throw good money out by hiring a stager, research doing it yourself. We had a "professional" stager set up our house and it was a disaster. They broke several items including an antique, by tossing stuff into boxes and piling them in the garage, which also made the garage a crowded mess. They took down the family photos from the walls (also tossed into boxes, broke several frames and glass), but nobody was fooled since they left the nail holes in the walls - would have looked better with family photos left up. They took sprigs of greenery from the yard & pinned them to the walls as decoration, of course it all wilted in a day and we're showing a house with dead leaves pinned to the walls. They took the bedroom curtains down & laid them on the bed as a "bedspread" - leaving the curtain hooks in. Nasty surprise when getting into bed at night. Rearranged furniture so that you could easily bonk your head on a wall mounted TV while walking through the house. It was horrible. Oh, and the house didn't sell. Next time I will stage it myself thank you very much.

Mon? Get a life.....better yet....go out shopping for a house.

Lighten UP. Course you were up at 3 am.....HEY maybe you can take an online class for "staging of houses" Then you could channel your anger in a Zen way...burying the buddha and gargoyles or St Joe.

And NO Joey, only houses that always sell at the right price are Auctions or Foreclosures. I've seen houses my dog wouldn't live in.

I agree with Joey. People are too greedy when it comes to selling homes.

to piggy back on twinkle toes advice about cleaning. However, not only for the first cleaning and not only things like the carpet. More than likely you don't have time to clean. Call a reputable cleaning company such as Merry Maids and set up WEEKLY service with them. A clean house sells much faster. Offer to allow them to leave promotional material for your open houses and possibly receive a discount. In the end, don't forget you can usually write off the costs associated with selling your home just like other improvements. If you can't afford cleaning service, maybe a quicker sale and being able to 'expense it' can make it affordable now- even if just for the short term. Worked for us.

I'm a professional stager and I tell all my clients to remove every single religious item from their homes and yards-even if they are the most devout people in the world. It risks offending someone of an opposite religion, plus it's WAY too personal. I removed my own Buddha from the yard and my gargoyle from the front hall (wards off evil spirits :) when I put my house on the market. It sold in 3 weeks at asking price. Neutralize, neutralize, neutralize!

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I already know all the things mentioned; good suggestions. But what I want to know is... what to do when you have a next door neighbor who is a filthy pig and their house is about to fall in to the basement. It's patched, spray painted... ugh. Only nasty house in the neighborhood had to be next to mine, and people can't help but notice. They are very straight people, no drugs. But you wouldn't know by looking at the house.

Hey, Mother3: I live in a house with people that worship buddah, I am Christian, it does not offend me...you must have a closed mind!

I think the number one thing is fresh paint and I also think some people should hire maids to come in and clean their house from top to bottom before putting it on the market. My husband and I are looking at houses now and I will not think twice about a house if things are yucky, because that is one more thing I will have to do to move in. Im talking about the spaces you forget to do with your "everyday cleaning", like the cracks between the windows and outside or under the garage stteps or under the sink. That stuff is yucky :p.

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Are there no home buyers out there with imagination? When I look at a house I don’t care what they have in it or how its been personally decorated! As long as the rooms aren’t painted to brightly I don’t care about that either, chances are I’m going to paint anyway. I want to know that there are no plumbing, leakage, or electrical issues. Then I want to know the size of the rooms so I can picture my things there.

Make good use of a product like Fabreze, but NOT two minutes before your house is being shown. Give it a while to work, and not have so much scent remaining in the air that people are overwhelmed. You may have lived in the house long enough to have become used to the pet odors and musty smells and don't notice them, but they'll be the first thing a buyer notices when he steps into the house. Also, something people tend to forget is to clean the windows until they almost look non-existent, and open the drapes/blinds/shutters! Sparkling clean glass lets in a tremendous amount of light and says the homeowner paid attention to details.

DONT WAIT FOR BUYERS TOO FIND YOU, YOU MUST TRY EVERYTHING TOO FIND THEM,
THERE OUT THERE, START LOOKIN,

JUST REMEMBER,PRICE,PRICE,PRICE,LOCATION

When I sold my last home, I was advised by the realtor to remove all religious statues, crosses and religious pictures. I did not and I sold my home in one week after listing, five thousand under asking price.I did remove most family pictures, organized, removed all clutter and staged it myself from magazine pictures. I cleaned, cleaned and cleaned.

The market here in Fl. is horrible! We now have an upside down loan. I have a home that has been on the market since Jan 09. It has been priced below houses selling in the area. Not that it's my home, but it is beautiful. It appraised 2 and a half years ago for $411,000. We have had three contracts, each one for some reason has fell through. The last contract we were selling our home for $185,000. No homes in this gated community sell for that. The last contract fell through because it appraied for $163,000. $20,000 less than the contract we had on it. We were totally SHOCKED! I refuse to give my home away and still owe on it. It showed as well as a model. Can't figure out why we are stuck with this thing. Any ideas???

Make sure your house is CLEAN, CLEAN, AND I MEAN CLEAN AS CAN BE! Our realitor while in Tx told us that when we sold the house we owned and I agree with him 100 percent. I remember looking for a house to buy and some of them that we looked at, looked almost as bad as the houses you see on the show of clean house or how clean is your house. It made you wonder if the people would have left it dirty and messy for you to deal with. Plus, fix up the little minor things that are noticeable like a broken door nob, replacing a burned out light bulb, a sink that drips, and so forth. You don't want those things to keep a buyer to overlook your house. You sure do not want a dirty house to keep a buyer from over looking it either. Dirty houses have kept me from even considering the house.

Cool Ideas,.. but really nothing we all haven't done. Gladiola's!! I get them at Safeway here,..because they are fresh and nice looking,... And per flower,.. more reasonable than most. Here in Colorado,..The Spring has been a little cool this year,.. cloudy and some snow flurries,... makes it feel like spring hasn't "Sprung" So Gladiola's in a corner here or there,.. Brighten up the place and makes it feel fresh and "springy"

If you're selling your home during a season when nothing is really blooming, but you're proud of your landscaping, leave little notes taped to windows describing what you've planted that they can view from there, the sizes and colors. I did this when I sold my house, and the comments from the lookers were very very positive. They said it helped them visualize what they could expect later.