I recently learned that you blink 25 times every minute. Each blink takes about one-fifth of a second. So, on a 10-hour drive averaging 40 miles per hour you will drive 20 miles with your eyes closed.
When it comes to selling a home in a shifting market there is no time to blink. You don’t want to wind up 40 days down the road without a sale. I know many sellers and real estate brokers go through the home-selling process with their eyes closed.
Sellers and some real estate brokers want to keep their eyes closed to the fact that we are in a shifting market. It’s not that they can’t understand, it’s they don’t want to understand. The median sales price in our area dropped 2.03 percent from $418,500 in 2018 to $410,000 this year for the month of June. The total supply of homes increased +14.86 percent. I’m not suggesting that the market is crashing. Home prices are adjusting, and if you are planning on selling your home or rental, I have three steps you can take that will ensure you start your selling process with your eyes wide open. These suggestions will allow you to sell your property for a higher price and faster than your competition.
•You know all the junk you’ve been holding on to, get rid of it. The first step to decluttering is make a trip to the dump. Another possibility is to sell it. There are places to do that, such as craigslist.com and offerup.com. If you incorporate your sale with others, you can draw even more customers. A good example is Marysville’s city-wide garage sale Aug. 16-18; you can register your garage sale online at www.marysvillegsale.com
•No. 2 is paint your walls and shine your floors. If you have a nasty carpet replace it. Some say offer a carpet allowance and let the buyer pick out their own colors. But remember, you never get a second chance to make a good first impression. Buyers want to see a turnkey home. Plus if you are going to stage your home, and you absolutely should, would you want to put staged furniture over a nasty carpet? You are not selling a fixer, and if you are that’s a completely different story. If you cannot afford new carpet clean it the best you can.
•Finally, clean up the yard and power wash the walkways and driveway. Clean exterior windows and touch up the exterior paint where needed. Inside, do a deep clean of the entire home. Pay special attention to the bathrooms and kitchen. Now you’re ready for staging. Staged homes sell 97 percent faster and for 3 percent more than non-staged homes. Consult an expert for tips. Here’s one for free: Every room should have three points of light. That means a table lamp, a floor lamp and a task light or an overhead fixture and a couple of table lamps.
This may seem like a big job, and it should be. You are selling a huge investment.
Todd Fahlman is a local real estate agent who writes a monthly column for this newspaper.
