A Sellers Guide to Making Buyers Feel At Home
From finances to fine print, home buyers have a lot of worries.
So when they decide to go over your house with a fine-toothed comb, how can you help ease their minds?
As a seller, you want visiting buyers to be as comfortable as
possible in your house. If they feel at home in your house, they will be much more likely to make it their home.
In a recent column, we discussed ways to fix up a house for
showings, making a good first impression on buyers. Today,
let's discuss how to make buyers comfortable at showings.
First and foremost, buyers must feel welcome. They must feel
free to scrutinize all rooms and inspect every aspect of your
home. By simply turning on all lights and opening all doors,
you'll let buyers know that they are not intruding. It's a tacit
invitation to check out the entire house.
Of course, every room should be kept clean, too. This is often
easier said than done when you have children. But rather than
closing doors to children's bedrooms or bathrooms because of
a mess, encourage and recruit your kids to help keep those
rooms clean. And keep those doors wide open at showings!
Keeping a house clean is an essential element of helping
visitors feel at home. If buyers have to walk through kitchens
cluttered with stacked dishes or basements piled high with dirty laundry, they will feel like they are sneaking into a house
uninvited. More important, the agents who schedule the
showings will be less eager to present a messy house to other
prospective buyers.
In the real estate business, cleanliness is next to offer-
worthiness. So try to keep your house clean everywhere - even behind those doors that you would normally keep closed:
closet doors and cabinet doors and drawers. The cabinet
under the sink, for example, can be a critical place. Make sure
the space beneath the sink is as clean as possible. Remove all
those cleaning supplies you've collected over the years.
Leaving them there may only remind a buyer of how much
work your house is to clean ... or how many dangerous
chemicals their kids and pets might get into.
To make them more comfortable with your home, let them see
as much empty and extraordinarily clean storage space as
possible. And that means you're better off getting rid of your
junk than hiding it.
Another way to make a buyer feel comfortable in your home is
to depersonalize it; try to clear out some of the items that
convey your character, disposition, and preferences.
Throw away magazines, for instance. Why? Because it's
human nature for people to take sides. And the magazines you
subscribe to may declare where you stand in the buyer's world.
If you leave reading material lying around, you risk buyers
making unsubstantiated judgments about you, which may
subconsciously affect their feeling about the house.
For the same reason, ask your children to take down any
posters in their rooms. Remind them that they are not
compromising their individuality - just their rooms'. And the
sooner you sell the house, the sooner they can give their new
bedrooms all the personality they can muster.
Depersonalizing your house may mean removing some
cherished items. Get over it. Remove trophies from shelves.
Store or sell knickknacks and gewgaws. Be stingy with wall
space. A few family pictures on the walls and mantel are a nice
touch. But if you display too many treasured moments, buyers
may feel like an intruder or worse, a usurper, depriving you of a beloved home.
Rather, let buyers think about what a wonderful home your
house would be for them ... instead of what a great place it was for you.
Lastly, it's been said before and it merits mention again: Be a
no-show at showings. Pack up the kids and the pets and let
potential buyers inspect your house at their leisure and in your
absence.
Remember when you looked at houses? Remember how
uncomfortable it was to inspect a house and make comments
about a house when the owners were present? When you
leave the premises, you invite buyers to take their time and
give your house their full attention.
If they feel at ease in your home, it will be a lot easier for
buyers to ask to see it again. And ultimately, they will be much
more comfortable with making you an attractive offer.
