Take family pictures, kids art/drawings down. They make potential buyers uncomfortable. If you can, have some fresh floral arrangements near the entrance and bake some cookies etc before your open house. The candles are a good idea.
#1 Clutter. Get rid of it.
#2 Most people move because they are out of space so don't let the buyer see that as a problem. Rent a self storage and move unnecessary contents of garage, attic, and closets. Sucks to move your shit twice but it makes the house look much bigger.
Ask them if they would like a tour or just walk around on their own. You can sell the place better than a realtor, so give a tour pointing out all the good things if you can.
Call a local mortgage company and see if they'd be willing to work up a Good Faith Estimate that would show your potential buyers what the payment would be and the closing costs involved. Have them run several copies so people can take them home with them. A lot of buyers have no clue what a payment will be. Have the mortgage company provide one with say...5% down and another with 20% down. The mortgage company should be willing to do this because their name will be on it and they might get to do the loan. If nothing else, they may have buyers that don't want your house call them to do their loan on another house. Win-Win situation!! :thumb:
Find a reputable appraiser......corrupt him.
Get him to give you a high appraisal of the property. Insure the house and your Rembrandt collection.......Be in the company of a minister, the D.A. and the Mayor and have it and three other random houses burned to the mutherfuckin ground. Other than that, the cookies are a good idea.
Redbeard, ya weirdo! Just the smell of baked cookies? Gtreat idea. Tempt them with the smell of baked cookies and tell them 'sorry, they're all gone'. [img]/images/graemlins/laughing.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/laughing.gif[/img] GTREAT IDEA!
Print a form to give out out with all the house dimensions, rooms, util. etc.
A color picture of the house on the front of each one is a nice finishing touch.
Have all the proper forms ther eand available. One reason FSBO's are harder to sell is that the buyer may not be educated in what it takes to buy a house. MAKE IT EASY FOR THEM TO MAKE AN OFFER - have disclosure documents filled out, Offer to Purchase forms on the table.
Make some info packets as suggested, with room dimensions (layout / plans even better), take a couple of pics and make copies.
Fresh flowers on porch. Make sure front porch / outside entry is SPOTLESS - door hardware, windows, etc.
Decide early is you will pay 1/2 commission if a Realtor brings someone. Often, a Buyer's Agent will bring people to your house if it's not listed if they still can get paid.
Declutter, de-personalize, CLEAN everything - ask a good friend to come in and be a picky bitch going through an open house - and tellyou everything she sees that she'd laugh or be grossed out about -that includes any weird smells....
We have a candle that smells like cookies baking - no shit - two birds with one stone. Its by Glade I think and its called "Grandma's Cookies" or something like that.
Other than that, just make sure you wear pants and don't let the dogs hump.
The age old trick was to bake something that had cinnamon in it. I think they wrapped cinnamon in foil and baked that for a few minutes. I honestly don't remember but I know it makes your house smell AWESOME when the prospective buyers come in!
