Preparing your home for showings and picking a list price
After a fairly long week, I just needed to grab a bit of a break this weekend. I haven’t been able to crank out a single thought worth digitizing so I thought I’d share a couple of the best posts that I’ve read this week on other excellent blogs.
Both of these posts are most relevant to home sellers.
Teresa Boardman, “the goddess of blogging” from St. Paul, Minnesota writes an engaging post titled, “Sellers, can we talk?” It recounts her experience in attempting to show a home which has been left in total darkness. I couldn’t help but relate to most of the issues she encounters. Her experience brings home the importance of properly prepping your home for each showing. You’re going to be much better off as a seller if the showing agent can focus on the home, and her client, as opposed to chasing the cat down the street or stumbling around looking for lights.
Doug Quance, of Atlanta, Georgia recounts a rather sad but true story of a stubborn seller who is cheating himself out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in “When do you know the listing price is too high for your home?” Even in a good real estate market, a listing price needs to make sense to prospective buyers. They almost always look at several homes and an overpriced listing serves nobody, except your competition. In a declining market, proper pricing is paramount. If the price is too high to start, it can only look worse as prices decline (not a real concern in the Saskatoon real estate market at this time).
Teresa and Doug, thanks for letting me lean on you this evening. Nice work with these excellent posts.
There's 4 Comments So Far
April 3rd, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Norm, I have a confession to make. Everything I wrote is true and based on real life experience but I combined 4 different showings into one. My knee doesn’t hurt anymore. That did happen last Thursday.
April 3rd, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Thanks for coming clean. It was a great story and one I could easily relate to. I think we should put together a book of the best showing horror stories. I’ll bet there are enough of them.
I once got attacked by a cat that I was trying to keep out. He was showing interest in getting inside while I was opening the door. As I had no idea if the cat actually lived there, I was using my leg to block his entry to the house. Suddenly, he got extremely upset with me and jumped on my leg. His claws dug right in and he bit me.
April 3rd, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Norm,
Love your blog. Just one thing, I couldn’t find a way to contact you — so I’ll post this as a comment.
I’ve created a Carnival for those that feature consumer-oriented posts on their blogs. The goal is to focus on the best consumer-oriented blogs tha appear each week.
Read more in my introduction post: http://tinyurl.com/2b58sq (this links to my blog, but the permalink was nearly 80 characters long!)
April 3rd, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Toby,
Thanks for the visit and your kind feedback.
I had an email button until yesterday when I realized that emails were simply evaporating. I’m using the Point2 platform which I quite like, but it’s still in beta so I’m reluctant to squawk too loudly. However, you’re right that it’s something which needs to be addressed soon.
Thank you for the heads up on the “Carnival.” As a fairly new blogger I still have that crazy “fish out of water” feeling and I’m not sure that I’m ready to play at that level. I will certainly check your site out. At the very least, I know I’m interested in following the carnival. I’m sure it provides a great opportunity for learning.