February 2018

Tidy Kitchens Help Sell Your House

News & Info / By

Believe it or not, kitchens are a big selling point when selling your house. For a lot of people it is the focal point of the home, especially families with children. It’s where the entire family comes together and has breakfast before heading off to school and work, and then in the evening winds down and has dinner and talks about their day. So it only makes sense that it is one of the biggest selling points of your home. Your mission, should you choose to accept it 😉 –  is to clean, spruce up and organize your kitchen so that it is as inviting and “warm” as possible for potential buyers. In this article we are going to cover a few tips on organizing things in your kitchen to give it a more neat of an appearance for buyers.

Declutter Your Kitchen

The last thing you want is someone to open up the cabinet under the sink and find all kinds of cleaning supplies haphazardly scattered throughout, or to open your junk drawer that has stuff in there that belongs in the garage.

The first thing you need to do is remove things that just don’t belong in the kitchen. Start with that junk drawer. Then under the sink. When you start, don’t panic, we know that it can seem a little overwhelming when you look at the entire picture. Organized Home has some good info on this:

Take It Step-By-Step

Once you get started, it’s hard to avoid decluttering all sides at once. For example, you find a lone Christmas plate in the junk drawer, so you go to the high cabinet that holds the Christmas dishes, only to see a sack of whole oats that belongs in the cupboard where sits the bottle of window cleaner you forgot you stashed there while looking for the mop a few days ago … stop!

Declutter a single shelf, drawer or cupboard at a time, no exceptions.

Use one of the boxes to hold items to be put away in another location in the kitchen, and assign a second box for rest-of-the-house put-aways.

Donations or items for storage go to their respective boxes. Stick with your shelf until you’re done, then put away the items from the put-away boxes before moving on. You’ll stay focused when you declutter one step at a time!

Decluttering step-by-step also provides a natural opportunity to break down a big job. If you’re distracted by caring for small children, declutter one drawer or shelf per nap, deep-cleaning as you go.

Read The Full Article “Cut Clutter in the Kitchen” Here

Taking it step by step is great advice. It’s kind of like “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time” (we don’t condone eating elephants 🙂 ). Another great tip is that if you don’t need it right now and can do without an item for a while, go ahead and pack it up and move it to storage, then you are one step ahead when it comes time to move!

Organization

Once you have the kitchen decluttered, next you need to try and properly organize your kitchen, even under the sink. A smart buyer is always going to look under the sink to evaluate the plumbing and/or garbage disposal. Thankfully there are some inexpensive things you can do to help better organize under the sink and other areas of your kitchen. Houzz just put out a great article with some fantastic ideas:

Cabinet door organizers. Make the most of your below-sink area with the addition of slim cabinet door organizers. These mini-shelves are perfect for storing small, frequently accessed items like sponges, scrub brushes and rubber gloves.

Pullout shelves. Part of what makes the below-sink zone such a mess is its depth; no wonder things get all jumbled up when you can’t even see what’s in there! Install gliding shelves inside your cabinet, and when you need to reach something way at the back all you have to do is pull out the shelf.

Labeled bins. If your cleaning supplies are out of control even after decluttering, you may need a bit more structure. Clear, labeled bins sorted by task (floors, windows, etc.) can help you see at a glance which set of products you need. Pair these with pullout shelves for a supremely organized cleanup zone.

Read The Full Article “Post-KonMari: How to Organize Your Cleaning Supplies” Here

The first and third suggestions are relatively inexpensive and easy to do. Pullout shelves maybe a little harder for your average homeowner to accomplish and be a little more expensive. More than likely the pullout shelves will have to be custom built, and without the proper tools can be rather difficult to complete.

Summing It Up

When you first think about cleaning and organizing your kitchen, you may be a little overwhelmed at first. Maybe just set aside a weekend to get it done, depending on how much you have to do and how big your kitchen is. Remember, for most buyers, the kitchen is the biggest selling point of your home, so don’t skip it or take short cuts. Follow the above tips and with a little elbow grease, you can have a clean and well organized kitchen for prospective buyers.

If you don’t want to have all of the hassles of cleaning and tidying up your kitchen, or your entire house for that matter, don’t forget, we buy houses as is and in any condition – Mandich Property Group. Just reach out to us and we will be more than happy to make you an offer on your property just the way it is 🙂

Tidy Kitchens Help Sell Your House Read More »

Improving Curb Appeal To Help Sell Your House

News & Info / By

One of the most important things you can do to help sell your home quickly is to improve it’s curb appeal. You only get one chance to make a first impression. When a potential buyer arrives at your residence they will quickly judge your house on it’s initial appearance, usually within the first minute. If the yard needs mowing, shrubs are over grown and paint is peeling on the siding or front door – well they may think your house is just as rough on the inside and be turned off right away. If you want to sell your house as quickly as possible, then check out these easy and inexpensive tips to improve your properties curb appeal to get a buyer quickly.

Dazzle And Entice Buyers With An Inviting Front Yard

In a previous post “Cleaning Your House Before Selling It ” we touched on the importance of just how important it is to clean and tidy up your house before marketing it. The same holds true for your front and backyard and all of the natural areas. If the yard is unkempt and windows are dirty along with dirt on the foundation from rain, well that’s not going to give the best first impression or be all that inviting.

Besides the yard, one of the first things people notice is the entry way and the front door. Making this area “pop” is a great idea which HGTV has some good advice on:

Glam the Front Door

Adding pizzazz to your home’s front entrance is an easy, low-cost way to up your home’s curb appeal. Try painting your door a pretty hue that coordinates with your home’s color. “Make sure there is a contrast between the front door and the facade of the home,” says Kristine Ginsberg, owner of Elite Staging and Redesign in Morris County, N.J. If your house is gray or white with black shutters, consider painting the front door red, she suggests. Other ways to beautify your home’s exterior are adding appealing house numbers to your entrance and hanging a pretty wreath on the door. For extra pop, place a potted plant or two by the front entrance.

Approximate cost: A gallon of paint for the front door will cost as little as $25. Metal house numbers can be purchased for less than $4 each, while a potted mini evergreen like boxwood or a dwarf Alberta Spruce could run you less than $20.

Read The Full Article “8 Budget Curb Appeal Projects” Here

You would be surprised at how much just painting the front door can change the look and feel of your property. The entire article from HGTV is full of very inexpensive ways to help boost your overall curb appeal. There is good info in there about cleaning the driveway, walkways as well as the house itself.

Make The Yard As Pretty And Beautiful As Possible

When it comes to the yard itself there is the obvious, mow the lawn and trim up the hedges. Put the kids toys away and clean up any debris. And don’t forget about the side of the house as well as the backyard.

Depending on what time of year it is you can also plant some inexpensive flowers that are blooming for that season. If you need some ideas about what to plant you can ask your local home improvement store or nursery. Houzz also has some good tips on figuring out what to plant:

Look at what’s nearby. An excellent way to find planting ideas for your yard is to look around your neighborhood and see what is already growing — or take a walk in a nearby natural area, if you’re looking to grow native plants. Friends and neighbors are growing in the same, or similar, conditions as you are, and they can tell you which plants, or combinations of plants, do well in their yards.

With resources like Houzz, you can also see which plants do well in your area by looking online. Filter landscape photos by region to see which plants grow in your area. If you can’t readily get a plant ID from the designer, tap an online forum or network, or bring photos of what you like to a nursery with knowledgeable staff. They may be able to help you identify those plantings.

Read The Full Article “How to Find the Best Plants for Your Yard” Here

Just taking the time to drive around your neighborhood as well as nearby subdivisions can give you some excellent ideas. If you don’t know what something is you can always politely compliment the homeowner on there landscaping and ask questions.

Conclusion

Making the front of your house clean and dazzling will most definitely help you bring in a buyer fast for your property. With very little cash and some elbow grease anyone can get these things done. When you think you have it looking really nice, ask your friends or neighbors what they think. They may spot something that you totally overlooked.

Remember, if you don’t want to do anything to your house and sell it as is, contact us, Mandich Property Group. We buy houses fast in any condition, without you having to do a single thing to your property.

Improving Curb Appeal To Help Sell Your House Read More »

Insider Tips for a Rapid House Sale

Sell My House Fast / By

Sometimes selling your house can be challenging. If you need to sell your house fast it can add even more stress and seem overwhelming. What do you do if there are multiple homes for sale in your area that a buyer has to choose from? How do you make your house stand out from the rest and get someone to buy your house rather than your neighbors? We’re going to cover a few things to help you sell your house fast, and hopefully faster than another that’s on the market.

Preparing Your House So That It Will Sell Fast

In our previous post “Remodeling Tips To Sell Your House Faster ” we covered some tips on upgrades and updating your house to help make it outshine the other properties on the market. If your house hasn’t been updated in 30 years, then this is something that you are going to have to do. If your house has been updated then you are ahead of the curve. All you really need to do then is super clean the house and stage the house.

Now you may not know what staging is. Wikipedia actually gives a great description:

Home staging is the act of preparing a private residence for sale in the real estate marketplace. The goal of staging is to make a home appealing to the highest number of potential buyers, thereby selling a property more swiftly and for more money. Staging techniques focus on improving a property’s appeal by transforming it into a welcoming, attractive product that anyone might want. People usually use arts, painting, accessories, lights, greenery, and carpet to stage the home, to give potential buyers a more attractive first impression of the property

Read The Full Article “Home Staging” From Wikipedia Here

We couldn’t have explained it better. Now you maybe asking yourself “do I really need to stage my house?”. The answer is yes, which is explained well in this article from Redfin:

Redfin listing specialists recommend staging for two reasons: The first is that a staged home results in better photos. Photos are your home’s currency online, and the more appealing they are, the more views your listing will receive. A new listing gets three times more views in its first week on the market than at any time after that, so first impressions really matter. This is why we recommend launching your home fully staged, rather than waiting to “see how it goes” and investing in staging if the home doesn’t sell.

Justin Riordan, founder of Spade and Archer, a staging firm based in Seattle, Portland and Palm Springs, says, “Staging is visual merchandising for your house so that you can sell it for more money.” Another way to look at it: if you were headed on a job interview or a first date, you’d make sure your hair was brushed and your outfit was just right, wouldn’t you? The same reasoning applies here.

Secondly, staging allows buyers to understand how they would actually live in the home. The typical person shopping for a home isn’t a trained designer and won’t naturally envision how an empty space could function.

Staging can also help overcome challenges such as odd angles or demonstrate how creating “zones” within a small space make it more functional than it may appear when vacant.

Read The Full Article “Why You Still Need Staging in a Seller’s Market” Here

We like the last point made. We always stage our properties that have been renovated because it helps buyers see the functionality of a space. We think that it does help them visualize living in the house and just exactly what each room is for.

Always Be Prepared For Visitors To Look At Your House

Now your house is clean and staged. The next thing is, keep it that way! We know this can be challenging, especially if you have children. However it is extremely important to keep the house spic and span and ready to show at all times. The importance of this is emphasized in this article from HGTV:

Selling Secret #2: Always be ready to show
Your house needs to be “show-ready” at all times – you never know when your buyer is going to walk through the door. You have to be available whenever they want to come see the place and it has to be in tip-top shape. Don’t leave dishes in the sink, keep the dishwasher cleaned out, the bathrooms sparkling and make sure there are no dust bunnies in the corners. It’s a little inconvenient, but it will get your house sold.

Selling Secret #1: The first impression is the only impression
No matter how good the interior of your home looks, buyers have already judged your home before they walk through the door. You never have a second chance to make a first impression. It’s important to make people feel warm, welcome and safe as they approach the house. Spruce up your home’s exterior with inexpensive shrubs and brightly colored flowers. You can typically get a 100-percent return on the money you put into your home’s curb appeal. Entryways are also important. You use it as a utility space for your coat and keys. But, when you’re selling, make it welcoming by putting in a small bench, a vase of fresh-cut flowers or even some cookies.

Read The Full Article “10 Best-Kept Secrets for Selling Your Home” Here 

Good advice. And who doesn’t like flowers and cookies?! Curb appeal is very important. Don’t have the kids toys in the front yard. You should also pressure wash the driveway and sidewalks. You also want to make sure you do the basic stuff such as cutting the grass and having the shrubs trimmed up.

Summing It Up

Getting your house to sell fast can be stressful. As long as you properly clean and stage the house, it should go much easier. It can be difficult if you have small children to keep the house ready to show at all times, but you are going to have to do your best. Hopefully if someone stops by and the kids have their toys scattered throughout the family room the buyer will understand.

As a reminder, the easiest way to sell your house fast is to contact a real estate investor, like us, Mandich Property Group. We don’t care if the yard is a mess, house isn’t staged or even if the kids toys are scattered everywhere. We have the ability to look past all the clutter and make you a fair, all cash offer on your property. You can reach us at (770) 756-8680. Until next time 🙂

Insider Tips for a Rapid House Sale Read More »

Helpful Tips for a Speedy House Sale

Sell My House Fast / By

If you are trying to sell your property quickly, there are things that you need to do to make the sale actually happen faster than normal. Getting a buyer for your property right now will take some work on your part, and there are some things that you can do to make sure you are not stuck holding on to a property for months that you need to liquidate. Get it right and you will have a buyer in no time. Get it wrong and you will have to hold on to your property longer than you want to.

Selling Your Home Quickly

In a previous post we covered how important it is to price your house right as well as cleaning and tidying up the property in “How To Sell My Home Fast By Owner“. The next thing you need to recognize is that there are things that you can control, and things you can not. The Washington  Post had this to say about it:

Some basics: Selling speed depends in part on matters that you can control, but there are also factors you can’t control: the strength of your local economy, employment and income growth. If the economy is on fire and there’s a low inventory of homes for sale to serve market demand, you’re going to see houses zipping from listing to contract rapidly.

Now for things that you can control: Anyone can sell a house super fast simply by cutting the price far below what it’s worth. There are investment companies in most large markets that will buy your house for cash in almost no time — an hour, a day, a week — but at 40 to 50 percent below market value.

Read The Full Article “Do’s and don’ts for people who want to sell their house fast” Here

Right now it’s a pretty good market as a whole in North Georgia. However if your property has been neglected and needs expensive repairs and/or updating, selling to an investor may be your best bet. Most new homeowners don’t want to spend a lot of time renovating and repairing a house. That’s when investors really come in, especially if you need to sell fast. That’s when the 40 to 50 percent below market value comes into play. If your house is in dire need of expensive repairs, it’s not going to bring top dollar and will have to be sold considerably below market value.

Getting Buyers To Check Out Your House

What you really need to do is think outside the box when trying to sell your house fast. Today.com actually has some good advice on this:

YouTube your house

A YouTube tour gives the buyer your personal perspective on what’s special about your house and can be linked with most major search sites. If you choose this method, you should be proactive in getting the video seen. Send links of the video to any interested parties and make sure your broker is doing the same. Insist that your broker get it on to their company’s Web site.

Go beyond traditional realtor networks

Two out of three homebuyers start their search online. The five highest-traffic Web sites are:

  • #1 yahoo.com
  • #2 craigslist.org
  • #3 zillow.com
  • #4 trulia.com
  • #5 homes.com

Make sure people visiting these sites are seeing your home. If you are unable to do this yourself, ask your broker to do it for you.

Organize a neighborhood open house

Join up with other neighbors on a Sunday to lure more buyers in. Include a latte cart or a giant inflatable house in the backyard for kids to jump on.

Read The Full Article “Dump this house! How to sell your home fast” Here

Video is an excellent way to help promote your house for sale. Everyone has a smart phone now and can take some really nice video to show off their house. Just be sure to remember to turn your phone sideways so that it’s not a skinny video. Once you have the video you can share it all over social media announcing your house for sale and help bring in potential buyers.

Summing It Up

Selling your house quickly will take some work on your part. How much work you are willing to put into it will directly effect how much money you get from the sale of your property. If you keep your house in pristine condition and think outside the box for marketing, you will get your house sold faster.

Just as a reminder, if you are in the North GA area and want to sell your house fast, contact us, Mandich Property Group for a free, no obligation offer on your property today.

Helpful Tips for a Speedy House Sale Read More »

Selling Your House Without An Agent

Sell My House Fast / By

Is it time to sell your house? Are you thinking of doing it yourself without an agent? There is good news and bad news that goes along with selling a house yourself. The good news, with the web it’s much easier these days to do it yourself. The bad, it will take you some time and effort. If you tend to be on the lazier side of things, you may want to hire an agent. However, if you are motivated and stay at it, you can sell your house without an agent.

Why Choose FSBO?

how to sell your home for sale by owner

Why would someone want to try and sell their house themselves? The main reason is because they are trying to keep as much of the sale proceeds themselves. However there is a lot of debate as to whether or not you can get more for your house if you choose to use an agent.

Susan Johnston Taylor wrote a very indepth article covering this and more:

Forsalebyowner.com is one of several websites that let consumers list their properties on the Multiple Listing Service, or mls.com, instead of paying a real estate professional to do it for them. Eddie Tyner, general manager of forsalebyowner.com, says the website has seen listings grow by 14 percent in the past year. “If a person has the time and willingness to invest in the process, we believe that almost anybody could do this,” he says. “The benefits are pretty substantial.”

Beyond saving on commission (5 or 6 percent is typical when both parties have an agent), Tyner says FSBO gives homeowners more control over negotiating price and other factors. “If you take out the person in the middle and you’re able to negotiate with the actual buyer, you’re the only two people who have an interest in it,” he says. “If you add other people, some of their interests get put into the equation.”

Jane Hodges, author of “Rent vs. Own: A Real Estate Reality Check for Navigating Booms, Busts, and Bad Advice,” offers a different point of view. “Most people choose to FSBO because they want to keep as much of their post-sale proceeds as possible,” she says. “However, the Realtor argument against this is that a good Realtor can get you sufficiently more for your sale, or accomplish the sale faster, such that their fee and your higher sale price still wash out in a way where you make the same or better money.”

Read The Full Article “How to Sell Your Home Without an Agent” Here

If you search the internet for pros and cons of using a realtor you will find a lot of opinions on the subject. From the article above though, we have to wonder about being able to sell the house faster. We would recommend that you do your homework on the realtor you choose. Ask a lot of questions and check their online reviews to make sure that they can sell your house quickly.

Anyhow – let’s move on.

Selling Your House Without A Realtor

There are a few things that you are going to have to do, whether you choose to use an agent or not. The first, which we have covered in other articles, is that you HAVE to clean up the house, inside and out! Your average home buyer isn’t going to be impressed with trash and toys in the yard, or dirty floors, laundry that needs to be done and dirty dishes in the sink and counter top. You have to make your home look it’s absolute best. There’s just no way around it, unless you choose to sell to an investor, which is another topic.

Something that a lot of people fail to do is to consider the timing of their sale. Sometimes it’s unavoidable and you have to sell now. But there are better times than others to sell your house.

WikiHow has some good info on this:

Determine a good time to list your home. There are certain times of the year more likely to yield a profitable sale. Generally you want to sell when the weather is good, before school begins and not near the December holidays.

  • In the U.S. some suggest that the week after the Super Bowl is the best time to list your home (meaning February). While studies show that this time is ideal and has the most buyers, it also tends to be the time of year with the most sellers. Some find that the spring is the best time to list.
  • It will be more difficult to sell a family-sized home at an advantageous price once school has started. After all, it can be tough for families with children to change schools mid-semester.

Consider the weather. Sooner is generally better if you want to “beat other homes onto the market,” but think about the weather. Depending on your location, you may have excessive cold and/or snow to deal with. How does your yard look with two feet of snow? Would your home look better in the spring when your yard and landscaping are at their most appealing? If the yard is not that great looking, then your home might look more appealing when the yard is covered in two feet of snow.

  • Weather-related websites or newspaper offices can provide you with historical data regarding the best time of year to sell in your area. Keep in mind that job relocations occur throughout the year.

Read The Full Article “How to Sell Your House Without an Agent” Here

Really good info about times of year to sell your house. Most people that have children know that selling during the school year could prove to be difficult. Parents don’t want to change their kids schools mid year. With younger children it’s not as difficult, but with teenagers it could prove to be really hard on them emotionally and academically.

Summing It Up

We’ve just touched on the tip of the iceberg here. There is a lot to consider when selling your house without an agent. Whether you choose to use an agent or not, you are going to have to clean and tidy up the house. Depending on how fast you need to sell will also determine the best time to put your house on the market. Stay tuned for more tips or search or blog for more on selling your house yourself.

Don’t forget, if you don’t want to worry about cleaning or the timing of your sale, here at Mandich Property Group we will buy your house no matter it’s condition or the time of year 🙂

Selling Your House Without An Agent Read More »

Finding A Reputable Company That Buys Houses

Cash For Houses / By

These days you have to be concerned with scams everywhere. On Craigslist, Facebook and everywhere you turn. Unfortunately the same thing applies to “we buy houses” companies. So how do you ensure you are dealing with a legitimate company? That’s what we are about to cover 🙂

Legitimate We Buy Houses Companies

You have probably seen all of the signs on the side of the road “We Buy Houses”. But how do you know if that company is really legit? The first thing – is it a hand written sign? If so, if they don’t have the money to pay for a nice custom sign do they really have the money to buy your house??

Do An Internet Search

Can you easily find them on the web? After you call one of those we buy houses signs and get their information, do yourself a favor and Google them. Do they have a website? Can you find who the owners are of the company? If not, you may want to think twice about using them.

The next thing is reviews and do they answer the phone? This was covered in a good article from Active Rain:

Tip #2 – Reviews from past clients

If you can’t find any reviews or only find bad reviews online for a company, this is another red flag. Check Google, check Facebook, and even look at a company’s website for customer testimonials. If you can’t find those, what is the company hiding? If the reviews are bad, read through them to see what went wrong and what people didn’t like. You might end up saving yourself lots of time and money….

Tip #3 – Does the company answer the phone or call you back quickly?

Bad companies are impossible to reach on the phone and never return your call. They might have a working phone number but their reluctance to talk to people on the phone is a read flag you should be wary of. Legitimate companies will answer the phone or call you back quickly. They ar eeager to talk to you and answer questions. If you do get a company on the phone, ask them questions about how it works or their company.

Read The Full Article “Avoiding we buy houses scams”  Here

A couple notes on reviews. Customers with a bad experience are 10 times more likely to leave a bad review than a satisfied customer. Also, even with careful monitoring, some companies pay for reviews, so always take them with a grain of salt.

Reputable Companies That Buy Houses For Cash

Now are they really cash buyers? And are they giving you a written Purchase And Sale Agreement, or is it just a verbal offer? Susan Jones has some good info on this:

Unrealistic high offers. We have found out that amongst other tricks is that sometimes the property organisation, company or person who claims to want to buy your house fast will make you an un-realistic high offer to get your initial interest. Then they will try to reduce the amount they will pay at the last minute or near completion (when you are most vulnerable – and need to sell your property quickly or facing home repossession).

Are they real cash buyers? You should also be aware that there are only a handful of real cash property buyers operating in the market (our buyers being one of them!) which means that many advertsing here on the internet and within your local paper for example dont have the financial means to purchase your property as quickly as they say they can, or to provide you with the professional service you deserve and demand.

Read The Full Article “WARNING: Watch out for The Buy My House Scams!” Here

We have had customers in the past that have run into the first problem of unrealistic high offers only to try and drive down the price before closing. This is a real problem when someone needs to sell in a hurry and either has to sell the property to them for a lower price or has to hold on to the property longer. This is why we always recommend that no matter who you are dealing with, you get a signed Purchase And Sale Agreement when selling your house.

Summing It Up

When ever you have to sell a house quickly and are looking for a legitimate “we buy houses” company, do your homework and make sure you know who you are dealing with. The two biggest things is search the web and make sure when you do find one that they give you a written Purchase And Sale Agreement and not just a verbal offer.

If you are searching for a reputable we buy houses company in Metro Atlanta, be sure and contact us, Mandich Property Group for a free, no obligation to you offer on your house at (770) 756-8680. We would be more than happy to speak with you and buy your house! 🙂

Finding A Reputable Company That Buys Houses Read More »

Proven Techniques to Sell Your House Quickly

Sell My House Fast / By

Having to sell your house and move can be a real headache. Add in having to sell your house fast – that can add even more stress. Unfortunately people do find themselves in situations where they need to sell their home quickly, usually because they have a new job in a different area. If you are one of these people and are looking for some tips to help you sell your house quickly, keep reading 🙂

How To Sell Your House Fast

The first thing you need to be concerned with is how the house shows. Is it clean? Is everything put away in it’s place so that the house doesn’t look cluttered? We covered some of this in a previous post “How To Sell Your House Yourself Fast” about making sure your house is clean and de-cluttered, so check that out.

But what your really need to pay attention first is this – how does the house look when you first drive up to it?

Besides making sure your house is clean, how your house looks from the outside is extremely important. You only get one chance to make a first impression. We have heard that people make up their mind if they like a house or not within the first minute of looking at it when arriving.

Laura Adams wrote an excellent article concerning “curb appeal” and much more in an article on Quick And Dirty Tips:

Selling Tip #1: Improve Your Curb Appeal

Nothing is more important than a first impression. So consider what a potential home buyer may think as he or she drives up to your property for the very first time.

Walk out into your street and look–and I mean really look–at your home to see its shortcomings. Is it attractive, clean, and well-kept, or does it need maintenance that you’ve been putting off?

After you’ve been in a home for a while, it can be difficult to see it objectively. So take suggestions from a real estate professional, friends, or prospective buyers about how to make it show better.

When your home is on the market, it’s critical that your landscaping is well-groomed and your lawn is mowed 24/7. Plus, your driveway, exterior porches, and exterior walls must be clean, too.

If you put money into cleaning up the outside of your home, I can guarantee that buyers will be more likely to take a tour of the inside. Curb appeal is what draws buyers in, helps maintain their interest, and sets your home apart from the competition.

Continue Reading The Full Article “6 Tips to Sell a House Fast in Any Market” Here

Really good advice from Laura! We especially like the tip of asking your friends and anyone you can to look at your house from the outside to see what they think. They may spot some things that you haven’t.

Getting Your Home Sold Quickly

Once you have the property cleaned up on the inside and outside it’s time to get the place sold. So just how do you go about that? Of course you can list your house with an agent, but that may take longer than you have. You might want to try and sell it yourself, or maybe even try and do both. Just make sure that if you decide to do both that in your contract with your realtor that you don’t owe them money if you sell it yourself.

Elise Sole wrote a great article with some tips to help in getting your house sold quickly:

Set a hard deadline

Want to bring buyers out of the woodwork quickly? It’s easy: Set a deadline for offers.

You can make this clear in your listing by saying you will be accepting offers only until a certain date—even as tight as one to two weeks after your home is listed for sale. That said, you should probably not announce why you need to sell quickly due to a new job or other circumstance, because buyers will smell desperation and take advantage of that. Just state your deadline without further explanation, and watch the offers roll in.

Selling your house to a flipper

There’s no faster home sale out there than to a flipper. These buyers enable you to usually sell the home as is—often for cash—removing the burden of costly home repairs.

“These situations usually appeal to homeowners who just need to get a property off their hands,” says Benuska. But there are downsides: Flippers may demand below-market price, so they can resell it later for a larger profit. So just be sure your flipper isn’t fleecing you up the wazoo; at the very least, compare offers from two or more investors so they can’t steamroll you.

Continue Reading The Full Article “How to Sell Your House Fast Without Losing Your Shirt” Here

Setting a hard deadline is a fantastic way to bring in buyers really fast! However we think that no matter what when selling to a conventional buyer and setting a hard deadline will tip them off that you need to sell quickly and will want to force negotiations for a lower price.

We really like her last tip of selling to a flipper – probably because that’s what we do 🙂

Summing It Up

Getting your house sold fast can be stressful, especially all of the prep work that you need to do just to get it ready to sell. As a reminder, if you need to sell your house fast, contact us, Mandich Property Group for a free, no obligation offer on your house. The plus side is that you don’t even need to clean up or worry about curb appeal!

Proven Techniques to Sell Your House Quickly Read More »

Packing & Moving Tips When Selling Your House

News & Info / By

When it comes time to sell your house one of the most important things is to clean and declutter for showings. You will have a much harder time trying to sell your house, either with or without an agent, if your house is dirty or cluttered. One of the best things you can do is to go ahead and pack some things away and store them to help give your house a more spacious feeling. But just how do you go about that? We are going to give you some good tips for packing and putting things away in this short article.

Packing Things Up

An important thing to remember when selling your house is that you want to de-personalize it as much as possible. Put away family photos and nick knacks so that a potential buyer can visualize their own belongings in the house. You do want to leave your furniture and properly stage the house to further help the buyer visualize the house as theirs.

When it comes to packing things up, a lot of people make things harder on themselves than it has to be. You want to be able to unpack in your new dwelling to go as smoothly as possible, as well as being able access things that are already packed just in case you need too.

The Denver Post gives some really good tips:

6. Don’t pack air

Many folks empty dressers and chests before they move. Don’t. This adds to packing time, and wastes usable truck space. Leave dressers full. If a chest is empty, fill it with linens, said Howell. You will also get less load shift. Likewise, don’t pack empty suitcases. Fill them.

7. Trash bags are treasure

Boxes are great because they stack, but so are sturdy trash bags, because they squish. Fill large trash bags with soft nonbreakables. They can be stuffed into trucks and morph into shapes that boxes can’t.

8. Hang ’em high

Don’t pack hanging clothes. Keep them on hangers and put them in the back of your car. flat. Then hang them back up in the new place.

9. Pad, stack, and pack

Don’t pack blankets or beach towels; use them as pads and save on boxes. Wrap and tape blankets around artwork and lamp bases. And stack and pack lampshades; they often take a beating in a move. Remove each shade; stack them small to large, then put them together in one box to ensure that they arrive intact.

10. Label on two sides.

Mark every box with its contents and destination (kitchen) on more than one side. Also note if contents are fragile. Though movers likely won’t care, you’ll know to go easy on them.

Read The Full Article “Home design: Pack fast, move fast, with these 12 tips” Here

Really good tips there. Some people may frown on using trash bags, but they do have a point about how they squish. This would be great for clothes that are out of season and can be stuffed in between things in storage. We also like their advice for using blankets and towels for wrapping things. Moving places, and truck rental services usually charge for extra blankets.

One word of caution though, some dressers are extremely large these days and if you leave them full of clothes, you will make it much more difficult to lift and maneuver into the truck and storage.

Putting Things In Storage

Have you had things in a storage unit before, need them and practically have to complete move everything out to find it? That’s a real pain! Houzz gives some excellent advice for making the most out of your storage unit :

  • Make sure clothing and other fabric items are clean.
  • Put heavy items in small boxes and light items in large boxes.
  • Put clothing in wardrobe boxes.
  • Put the heaviest stuff on the bottom of the unit and distribute weight evenly.
  • Put anything you need to access often at the front of your unit.
  • Leave a pathway to the back of the unit.
  • Elevate things off the floor.
  • Store mattresses, protected with a cover, upright along the side of the unit for short periods only; for long-term storage, keep them flat with nothing on top.
  • Wrap mirrors and pictures with bubble wrap and store them upright along the side of the unit.
  • Disassemble weak or heavy pieces of furniture.
  • Cover furniture with sheets, not plastic, which could trap moisture.
  • Store sofas (except sofa beds) on an end to maximize space.
  • Clean refrigerators and freezers, drain water supply lines, vacuum coils, fill with other kitchen items and store with doors slightly ajar.

Read The Full Article “A Guide to Self-Storage: Packing Tips” Here

There’s a lot more good information for you. We have to admit, some of those things we have never thought of, especially about covering furniture with sheets instead of plastic. That’s a really good tip, especially if your storage unit is not climate controlled.

Summing It Up

We don’t know anyone that likes to move. It can be a real headache. However, with some proper planning it can go a lot smoother. Important take aways are you need to de-personalize your home and put away as many things as you can. Not only will this make your home more appealing for potential buyers, but will also give you a head start when you do sell your house and it’s time to move.

Another thing to remember, here at Mandich Property Group, you can leave all of your belongings in the house and get an all cash offer from us. We have the ability to look past the clutter and see your properties true potential. Contact us anytime at 770 756-8680 for a hassle free sale of your property 🙂

Packing & Moving Tips When Selling Your House Read More »

Key Tips for a Successful FSBO (For Sale By Owner) Home Sale

Sell My House Fast / By

It’s time to sell your house and you are thinking about doing it yourself. Maybe you have a new job in a new city, downsizing or the opposite, need a bigger home for a growing family. Whatever the reason you need to sell your house, you can do it yourself without hiring an agent, thus saving yourself some money in realtor commissions. However you must take some careful steps to make sure the process goes smoothly.

Getting Your House Ready For Sale By Owner

You may think that all you need to do is put a sign in the front yard “for sale by owner” and you will have a buyer for your house in no time. However, without some careful planning it may take some time to get the right buyer, or even a buyer for that matter, to put your house under contract.

In reality there are a few things that you must do to get your house ready to sell. People are going to want to look at your house. So a dirty or cluttered house most certainly won’t entice any would be buyers. Getting the house ready to sell should be at the top of your list. For Sale By Owner has a great article that explains this and more:

1. Make Your Home Look Great
Presentation is everything. Home buyers are attracted to clean, spacious and attractive houses. Your goal is to dazzle buyers. Brighten-up the house and remove all clutter from counter tops, tables and rooms. Scrub-down your house from top to bottom. Make it sparkle. Simple aesthetic improvements such as trimming trees, planting flowers, fixing squeaking steps, broken tiles, shampooing rugs and even re-painting a faded bedroom will greatly enhance the appeal of your house. Also, make sure your house smells good. That’s right, clean out the cat box and light mildly scented candles.

Invite a neighbor over to walk through your house like a buyer would. Get their opinion on how it “shows.” The stuffed donkey in the family room may have to go to your in-laws for a while.

2. Price Your Home Right
Careful not to over price your home. Over-pricing when you sell a home reduces buyer interest, makes competing homes look like better values, and can lead to mortgage rejections once the appraisal is in. Over-pricing when selling a home is the single biggest reason why many “for sale by owner” (FSBO) home sellers don’t sell their homes successfully. The home selling market dictates the price (not what you think it should be worth).

One of the best ways to correctly price your house when selling is to find out how much other homes, similar to your own, recently sold for in your neighborhood. Talk to home sellers, buyers and check out the real estate listings in your local newspaper.

Typically, if you set the price of your home at 5 to 10 percent above the market price, you are likely to end up with an offer close to your home’s true value. Also, you may try calculating the cost per square foot of your home compared to the house selling prices in your area (divide list price by square footage of livable space). If your house has more features or other desirable qualities, you may want to set a slightly higher house selling price.

The easiest way to accurately price your home is to contact your local home appraiser.

Finally, set your house selling price just under a whole number, such as $169,900 rather than $170,000.

Read The Full Article “8 Easy Home Selling Tips” Here

All good stuff. Your house HAS to be kept clean when you are trying to sell it, whether you use an agent or not. Some more good advice is to go ahead and pack some things and put them in a storage unit before you start to show the home to make it less cluttered. You don’t want potential buyers to think the house doesn’t have enough storage.

Also pricing is another big point. Over price your property and you won’t get any interest. When you are trying to determine the price make sure you are comparing “apples to apples”. You can’t expect to get as much for your home that was built in the ’70’s and never updated to one that was built around the same time frame and has a brand new kitchen and bathrooms with granite counter tops.

Please read the full article as there are a lot more good tips on getting your house sold.

Closing The Deal And Getting Your House Sold

So you have cleaned the house top to bottom, put the sign in the yard, maybe done some internet marketing and ready to start showing the property. What next? US News has some good info on that:

4. Be available

Once your listing is up, potential buyers will likely come to you. Are you ready?

Udelson says being available in multiple ways is essential for good marketing. In other words, potential buyers should be able to reach you by email, phone or in person. Some prospects will email first and won’t want to meet in person until later. That’s OK. Your goal is to engage prospective buyers in conversation, and try to get them to look at the home in person eventually.

Also, be sure to welcome calls and interest from agents. “Just because you elect to sell without an agent,” Udelson says, “doesn’t mean that the buyer should be expected to go without.”

On this note, be prepared to work with a potential buyer on arrangements for showing the home. If the buyer is coming with an agent, you can most likely leave the home, allowing the agent to take his client through. But if you’re showing directly to a buyer, you’ll need to be there to highlight the best points of your home, and answer any questions the prospect might have.

5. Get ready for closing

Before you even start marketing your home, it’s important to know what you’ll need for closing. This can be a complex process with lots of paperwork. You’ll need to stay on top of the paperwork, and make sure your buyer is on top of things, especially if the buyer doesn’t have an agent. Closing is one good reason to use a FSBO sellers website, since many of these sites have helpful information to walk you through the closing process.

Read The Full Article “5 Tips for Going the For Sale By Owner Route” Here

Great advice. We would add that you might want to go ahead and schedule a few Saturday’s & Sunday’s for showing to tell people about when they call or email about your property. That way it will be a little easier on you to have the house spic and span when a buyer is looking at the property and not just have people popping in.

You may also want to contact a closing attorney to check and see what documents you need to sell your house. They may have a template that you can use and make the selling process that much easier.

In Conclusion

Selling your home by owner can be a lot more involved that just putting a sign in the front yard. As long as you clean your house well, do some marketing and make sure you contact an attorney to help you with the closing, the entire process should go smoothly.

As a reminder, one of the best ways to sell your house by owner is to contact a real estate investor like us. We have a streamlined process to purchase properties. In fact you don’t even have to worry about any of the things we have listed above, not even clean the house because we buy houses as is. You can contact us at 770 756-8680 for a free, no obligation offer any time 🙂

Key Tips for a Successful FSBO (For Sale By Owner) Home Sale Read More »

Should I Sell My House As Is

Sell My House Fast / By

There is a lot to consider when it comes time to sell your house. One question that pops up quite often is “should I sell my house as is?”.  This is a great question, but really needs some careful thought and consideration. You have to ask yourself how much are you willing to invest in your property, do you have the money you need to make all the repairs and lastly will you recover that money you invest getting your house in tip top condition. These are just a few of the things you need to consider. If you are wondering if you should sell as is – keep reading.

Who Will Buy Your Home As Is?

This is really important and depends on how extensive the repairs are that need to be done. The balance wrote an excellent article that covers some of this:

Do Home Buyers Want Fixers or Fixed Up Homes?

Some home buyers want to buy a fixer upper home, but generally these buyers want a home that will require light cosmetic repairs. Buyers who gravitate toward fixers are those who either don’t qualify to buy a more expensive home or those who want to make a profit by fixing the home themselves.

I’ve yet to meet a novice first-time home buyer who says, “Give me a home I can tear down to the studs.” Most fixer buyers are willing to do simple repairs such as paint the walls, put in new carpeting or replace light fixtures. They typically don’t want to rebuild a foundation or move walls.

Fixer-upper buyers will discount the price of the home to allow for the repairs and, for the inconvenience, a bit more. Say, a home is worth $100,000 fixed up, but it needs a new roof. A new roof might cost $10,000. A buyer most likely will not offer $90,000 for this home. Otherwise, they could buy an identical home with a new roof for $100,000 and not have the hassle.

A buyer for this type of home might offer $75,000, or even less. In this scenario, a seller would be smarter to pay for a new roof and sell the home for $100,000.

Moreover, many buyers will not buy a home that needs a new roof. They will worry the work involved will cost more than what they anticipated. Perhaps replacing the roof would involve tearing off the sheathing and repairing rafters, which could add to the cost. Most buyers want a home that is in move-in condition. By not making repairs, you will limit the number of buyers who may be attracted to your home.

Read The Full Article “Should I Fix Up My Home or Try to Sell As Is?” Here

This is generally the case when you put your house on the market and are trying to attract your regular home buyer that is purchasing the property through conventional loans. But what if you don’t have the 10k that is required to put a new roof on?

What If You Don’t Have The Money To Make Repairs?

Unfortunately this is often the case for a lot of homeowners that are living from pay check to pay check. Furthermore you may be in a position where you need to sell your property very quickly. In this situation you can always sell your property to real estate investors. You can always go to the internet and perform a search like “sell my house fast as is” to find investors that will do just that, buy your property in it’s present condition.

This is a good option for anyone that needs to sell quickly. But if you are not in a rush you can always list your property with an agent and market the property as “handyman special” or “fixer upper” to make sure you attract the right kind of buyer.

The next thing  you have to consider is the cost of the amount of repairs that need to be performed on the property. You may actually end up spending more money on your property than what you will be able to sell the house for. Just because you have 150k in your house doesn’t mean that it will sell for that, especially if all the properties surrounding you are selling for 100k. This scenario is another good reason to consider selling to an investor.

You Must Be Truthful When Selling As Is

The last thing we want to cover about selling “as-is” is what you have to be careful about. Selling your property as is doesn’t mean that you don’t have to disclose problems with the property. While a good inspector will pick up on many things for the buyer, you still have to disclose things like foundation issues and the like that you are aware of, or asked about.

This was emphasized in this article:

What Selling As-Is Does Not Mean

Unfortunately, many homeowners are under the mistaken impression that selling as-is relieves them from all the general obligations that come with the sale of a home. They imagine that they can unload the property for whatever price they can get while avoiding the need to talk about or disclose any issues with the home.

Selling as is does not relieve you from your legal obligation to answer questions honestly concerning the existing problems with the home per the rules of your state.

Read The Full Article “Pros and Cons of Selling a Home As Is” Here

The writer of that article goes on to explain in more detail about disclosure, but for the state of Massachusetts. However Georgia has a lot to say about disclosure when selling your property:

Although Georgia law does not require a seller to fill out a specific disclosure form, the law does require a seller to inform a buyer about any known material (important) defects in the condition of the home. There’s an exception if the defect would be discovered by the buyer upon a reasonable inspection, but that’s meant to cover fairly obvious things – for example, you don’t need to point out, “the porch roof has collapsed,” if anyone looking at the property can see that the porch roof has collapsed.

The Georgia seller must also honestly answer a buyer’s questions about the home. Buyers might ask about anything from what repairs you’ve done in the past to how your dealings with the neighbors have been. Attempting to obfuscate can lead to lawsuits later, so it’s best to be honest and open.

Again, however, you are not supposed to wait for questions if a defect is “material” and not readily visible. Georgia courts have generally held that a defect is “material” if the buyer would consider it material; that is, if known to a prospective buyer, it would cause that person to not buy the property, or to pay less for it -– such as, for instance, the fact that it was built on unstable ground.

As a general rule, in order to prevent later accusations of misrepresentation or fraud from a buyer, as a seller in Georgia you should be upfront, answer the buyer’s questions, and tell the buyer about any problems you are aware of regarding the condition of the home (most likely by filling out the optional standard form described below).

Read The Full Article “Selling a Georgia Home: What Are My Disclosure Obligations?” Here

We agree that it’s much better to disclose any problems with the property that you are aware of to the buyer. In the long run it could save you a lot of headaches and a long drawn out law suit that could cost you thousands.

Summing It Up

There are a few factors that you must think about when it comes to selling your house as is. Really you are the only person that can decide if it’s right for you. If you have the money to have the repairs made and have the time, then no – go ahead and have them done so you will bring a higher price for your property. But if you are short on cash and don’t have the time, then selling as is may be the route you need to take.

Should I Sell My House As Is Read More »

Scroll to Top