i i'm tom callahan and welcome to all the seniors the show where we talk about senior issues senior care and we give tips about things to do in senior living today we're going to be talking about selling your house exactly and there's a lot of emotion that goes into this i can't especially with somebody who's been living in a house for thirty forty fifty and in some cases sixty years definitely when getting the house ready for sale what are some things that people should be doing or should be looking for well actually the first question i would say is what should they look for in a realtor they should look for somebody who's going to advise them and guide them for dealing  senior population people in the understanding patient a good listener and help guide somebody through all the steps needed to get from actually putting your getting your house ready for sale through to finding a buyer and then going through the sale process to completion and then possibly helping them find somewhere else to go i mean it sounds so easy when you say it but there's one there is a lot  living in a home versus selling a home are two very different things very good point and it's hard for people to wrap their head around that sellers in general when they put their house on the market it's when you initially go through the house for an initial consultation you'll see those filled with memories and pictures and people living their day to day lives which usually means at least in my house it means clutter but it means things you know in piles places because you're living your life getting your house ready to sale is you have to get rid of all of that stuff neutralize clean things up which is neutralized me depersonalize so you want to take those family photos and probably tuck them away if you have eccentric paint colors you probably want to paint to be more neutral tones what you're looking for is to get your house ready for so it appeals to a broader population of people we're somebody can walk into a space and feel like it could be there versus seeing how you've lived in it and trying to imagine it it also means less work for a buyer when they move in and if you've already done all the painting for them you've taken down wallpaper those sorts of things and it just falls into what they call curb appeal right or that's the outside curb appeal to the outside ok which is also very important and most buyers when they're looking at properties make their make a decision about a property party even walking in the front door so for instance if we have clients that are looking in a large geographical area will recommend that they drive buy houses because eliminate a lot of homes just by driving by say who their neighbors are next door to they keep up with their property on that street or do they not seeing if there's could be power lines in the backyard that somebody doesn't want or a water tower nearby or you know people make decisions about properties party even going in based upon location so you want to lead you want to seller can go through when having to get the house ready besides having to depersonalize it spends on the person so if people can try to remove the emotion from the sale it will help them it will help them get their house ready if they try to detach themselves from the memories that they have in that space so that they can properly stage the home i heard a realtor once said to me that somebody put an emotional price tag on the house and that can be very detrimental to a sale i take it isn't and what's that typically means is that they have all of their memories attached to this property they know what they've spent on upgrading the property if they've upgraded it and they typically want to get that money out when they go to sell and just because you put in x amount into a house doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to get that amount out if you over improve for the neighborhood meaning you put in high end you know kitchen high end appliances but your neighborhood can't get that amount out free with the sale meaning what other properties typically sell for you want to sincerely get that money out of it so an emotional price tag means that it's an elevated price point and it's  very difficult probably to to sell that house at that price point and then the longer that house sits on the market at that price it becomes what people call stale and people wonder what's wrong with it and usually there's nothing wrong with it it's usually just price  yeah and it's interesting when you were saying about homes being over improved you see all these d i y shoes and these she t v and everything you know they're just putting in like these courts countertops and write ins amazing things and i write i was like well this is that would really sells i was you know if it can expand on the buyer coming in if that appeals to that individual buyer if they like that as static then maybe yes it will help that house sell if i walk in and i don't care for the granite that you chose and i don't care for the dark cabinets because i like light cabinets then in my head there's dollar signs going up the what i need to side of it it was one of those things and it was a personalized carpeting right add it that just i think that's as you said you know depersonalizing and taking someone memories now there know what about when people do interesting things inside the house you know they've turned their living room into a music room or or something traveling like that is that does that help us house sale or does it endure it probably hinders if the buyers coming through can't imagine the space and don't know what to do with it for example i have a client who bought an active adult community recently and she loves to entertain all of the dining room zero looking at were small and she ended up taking her family room which was off the kitchen and turning it into a dining room now when she goes to sell so probably have to flip flop that and make that family room space back into you know a seating area for people and make the dining room actually a dining room because that's what it would appeal to the broadest section of population so it's as you said you know you've got to make your house as a pua bowl i think that's worth as appealing to the broadest section of  people as you possibly can and that's where painting neutral colors comes into play maybe putting down a neutral carpet if you have magenta carpet throughout the house redoing hardwood floors is that all part of what's called staging it can be yes what is staging your realtor can advise you on things that would appeal to a broader section of population but there's also certified homes dangers and that's their profession that's what they're trained in that's what they do they can come into your house and for a nominal fee they'll spend a couple of hours with you and they'll go through the entire house and they'll give suggestions room by room by room of things that you can do to improve the space make it more appealable more appealing to a broader section of people and then you can either hire that state or to do some of that work for you so if you want to hire them to paint when i hire them to help organize that would be an extra fee involved that they can help us or you can take those suggestions and do things on your own you know once they have the house stage and they're ready you know the regular things like that house done and we saw in the first day what is part of the upkeep and maintenance which they be aware of when they have that house that's staged what's the next step and has to be shown they want to try to keep it as neat thing clean as possible so that if for some reason somebody is down the street looking at another house then they see that your house is up for sale you get a phone call last minute you be ready to have somebody come in that doesn't always happen but  the point is to try to keep your house in good shape keep things neat and clean wash the dishes put them away in the dishwasher you know things like that now what about you know we share that story of you know they know they know a case or bake cookies or something before somebody comes in is that a fallacy or is that something people should be looking to do i guess that's personal opinion i think if it's something like baking it's probably more appealing than a house that is filled with fragrances you know from a plug in oil warmer or you know one of those types of products you almost wonder and i hear this from my clients from the buyers what are they trying to hide because that scent can be so strong it actually does bother some people that people will burn candles that are heavily scented that really bothers some people and i've had clients i've had to leave properties and not even walk through the entire property because of a heavy scent like that so i would stay away from those types of things your best thing to do is to clean and have the space smelling fresh and clean and if you want to do something like that you know you certainly can i don't find it necessary i don't think that most people do it and usually if they do do it the buyer knows why it was done now if you leave the cookies out for people to have back and he's like you know lawn care i'm sure is also horton to does that help to sell a house it does because it shows that you're maintaining a property as i said people make a lot of people make their decision before they even walk into the house so if they see that the lawn is cut they see lots of weeds in the garden they see that the paint is coming off of the front door and you know there is moss growing on it all of those things in the buyer's mind they start to think what else hav these these a home owners done what else haven't they done to keep up with the property so having those things done ahead of time and just gives and fresh meat clean appearance to people which is also good needy family members who are trying to sell the house of a loved one and somebody isn't living in that property you want to make sure that you have somebody that's going to be maintaining the lawn and the weeds ok what about trees on properties i would make sure to cut down any dead trees if there's lens that are hanging over roofs or sections of the house those would be a good idea to cut back  because they do affect things i just had a buyer the other day who had a home inspection and because of the trees hanging over the roof now the roof needs to be repaired the buyer is now looking into having trees cut down or trimming back it's just general upkeep of a property but a good thing to do and then one more thing about cleaning up the house windows it's a good idea to clean them or have a service clean them for you you know i i could get something for the inside to be really happy i know that's one of the things when i was looking at houses myself wyndham's is looking out and just kind of like they were dirty but i guess you know a good clean window is very important you know what about you know if well i know the term as is you know people sell their home as is what does that mean what the seller is generally saying is that they're not going to do any repairs care so they're putting the buyer on notice that the buyer still has the right to do their home inspection and they can do their home own home inspection but the seller is saying i'm not going to do anything that may come up in that oh wow however there are times where if it's a large ticket item or a structure structural safety that's found in a home inspection and the seller is going to have a hard time selling their house to another buyer because now they have to disclose that something was found and then the seller may be more apt to do it or to discount the price accordingly monoxide going into a property you know those types of things you know those are big health safety things it's can be very difficult to have a buyer accept something like that so the homeowner may be more apt to repair those things because a number of seniors who are selling their house you know again they've been in it say average thirty to forty years right they've been living in it they don't realize that these things are have gone wrong with the house right you know still work it's all good right  know home inspections who's responsible for that is that the buyer or the seller once you're under contract the buyer will have their own home inspection done however if you want to avoid some of the issues that may come up in the home inspection or you to sell your property as is the seller prior to putting their house on the market may want to have their own home inspection inspection done because then that way they learned what is wrong with the property and it also allows them to fix things on their own get their own contractor in that they trust bid out the job and find a reasonable price and they can fix it under their own terms important to keep those receipts so those receipts could then be passed along to the to the buyer  t you know it's a way for a seller to avoid the headache of some of the things that might come up in a home inspection and again like the things we're discussing those would come up front you would do home inspectors look for  cannot do what's called destructive testing so they can't go put holes in the walls or i have one house where just by pushing on the wall the home inspector suspected termite damage behind the wall now at that instance he couldn't go and open up the wall we need to get permission to do that type of testing so it just basically what you see really should take the panel off of the furnace look at the inner workings of the furnace those types of things so if it comes up and you mention that you know they can get a they can they have one of two options they can either get the work done or they can discount the price when you were pricing out a house  pricing come from how have you people arrive at the price of their house looking at what other properties similar to theirs have sold for and that's what an appraiser is going to do is well once you have a buyer and the buyer is getting a mortgage the bank sends out an appraiser to also come up with the value of the house so they're generally looking at the closest sales to the houses that are most comparable to that property that have sold most recently so we'll take that information will also look at what is currently on the market how long things have been at a certain price sitting on the market and if they're not selling they're most likely overpriced so you don't necessarily want to price to where those properties are but where they should be right now would you go with somebody brings in you know you've done all that work and you come back and you say it's x amount of dollars but the person who has that emotional price title in their h and they counter you with something else what negotiation takes place between the realtor and the seller at that point well that the homeowner is best to price their property properly up front and because studies show that the longer a house sits on the market the less that that homeowner will get for their property versus if they had priced that correctly up front so will give them data to show that and to help explain that some people still have that emotional price tag you know in their head if we feel that there might be a chance that they could maybe bump the price a little and we think that the person will listen after the house has been on the market it spends on how far apart we are in price but we may opt to take that property and help them sell it and then while the house is on the market you get feedback from buyers and a feedback is they love the house but they choose not to make an offer but usually it's always price stock price always price and you get that feedback to the sollars and you know most sellers once they see buyers coming through when they aren't getting offers will bring their price down but it's really best to price  on on the market and you know reducing it by a thousand dollars reducing it by five thousand dollars that's not going to bring a new buyer to your property all of the buyers that been looking in that price point who are ready to do something for the senior house so it usually means a more substantial price reduction what you're looking for is a new pool of buyers to be looking at your property so once you bring the price down in the buyers feel like it's within reason of where it should sell you will you will see activity on your house again it's like a light switch and we've done a lot of talk about getting the house prepared and getting it onto the market and then tell us what happens once you sign the agreement to sell my  a system that all realtors will look at and they'll be notified of new properties that come on the market and that's what i search every day for my buyers that i'm working with it'll also then depending on what company you use  what realtor you use it will likely go out to other websites and that's where you have your other big home search sites if that individual realtor in that company or you is using you know those sites so they'll be out there for buyers to see on the internet and buy other realtors will come show the property me if i'm the listing realtor all get buyers they inquire about it online will show the property and then hopefully you get an offer and you can move on to the actual sale process ok what is an open house so there's two kinds of open houses ok there's what's called a broker's open house and that is usually on a weekday and you  vite realtors from other companies out to come see the house so that if they have a buyer they they know about the house ahead of time versus just seeing it in the multiple listing system so the brokers open house public open house is what most people are familiar with usually on the weekends and it will be advertised for the advertised on the internet that we signs usually out on a saturday or a sunday and the public can come in and walk through in see that property do you need to have an open house and or the so property depends on who you ask and we tend to find that at least for ourselves most of the people coming to an open house would have heard about that property anyway meaning most people are already working with a realtor and likely would have come through with their realtor we find that some people come in just off of the signs and they don't necessarily know anything about that property what its price point is how big it is that sort of thing so that's not necessarily the buyer you know that that seller is looking  for but other people will come through when they see it online so they know something about the house they may not be working with a realtor they may think it might fit their needs and get through the property but if the house is priced correctly you don't necessarily need an open house now we've done all this work we get we get an offer and it's below what we're asking what's the next step negotiations take place so  you're listing realtor so the person that has listed your house for sale can take comparable sales and show them to the other realtor as to why the house is priced where it's at and negotiations go back and forth between the buyer in the seller usually through the listing and the selling agents and you try to have an what's called a meeting of the minds and you have a price in terms everybody agrees to and once you have that then you can move into being under contract ok very good  what is the best advice you feel that you can give somebody who's thinking about selling their house there's lots of things that want to be anything that you're going to get rid of and not take with you get rid of it now  you know donate a salat give it away to family members start the process of declaring your house have a home inspection done so that you know what's wrong with your house things that are going to be found later on it's probably the easiest best way that you can help retain some of that money that you're in and get from the sale of your house so you're not giving it away too to a buyer coming in because what tends to happen is when a buyer does their home inspection they may get an aston met and that estimate may not be accurate if that contractor doesn't necessarily need the work at back given point in time you know we tend to find that sometimes that that might be an inflated price versus you know getting it done through somebody who's not under those time constraints so those are two big things it's just two very big things just happen to somebody get in touch with you acco m e network any t w o r k dot com ok it's my website and a phone number to your office is six zero nine nine eight seven eighty eight eighty nine is the main office number  sure that you're thinking the whole process through if you want to sell your house start early start doing these things start to clutter his genset just have a home inspection so that you know what you're in for there was a story years ago that you say an educated consumer