judyo's Blog: Selling Tips

I don't care how good a real estate agent one is, we all run into sellers that just won't listen to us about price.  I can sit there with factual information, thinking I'm getting through, only to be told that they want to list at $25,000 or more than my Comparative Market Analysis gave as market value.  And when that happens, I walk away.

I'm starting to collect good articles and posts I've found regarding price.  I had many in my Firefox Favorites but lost them when I cleaned up my computers.  Some I still had saved were no longer on good urls.

So I'm starting again and will list a couple good articles I found:

• Marc Rasmussen wrote a good one on REW that sounds like a recent NAR article I read called "10 Tips to Pricing Your Home in a Down…

I'm walking away from more listings lately than ever.  More this year than in all the 25 years I've been in the biz.  And I'll keep doing it when sellers won't face the facts.

I was on a listing appointment for Blue Island real estate last week.  It was a legal 2-flat that looked like a single family residence with a 3 bedroom unit on the main level and a 1 bedroom unit upstairs.  The sellers lived in another home and needed to get one of their properties sold.  They said whichever one sells first means they'll keep and live in the other one.

I explained today's Buyer's Market to them and showed them all of the comparable listings.  However, this was a unique set-up so I got as close to their unit as possible.  They seemed to understand, even though…

I have written two staging stories you can read here and here.  As popular as Home Staging has become in today's real estate market, I can't believe the majority of sellers in my area that either haven't heard the term or just don't think it will make a difference in their property.

I have shown more vacant homes than ever in the past few years.  When I first started in the business in the '80's, there were few vacant homes to show.  And if they were, it was an estate sale or a job transfer.  Today, there are many "flipped" homes that sit vacant (you can usually spot these investment properties pretty quickly) and homes that sit vacant for many other reasons.  Even I ponder how average people can afford having a home sit vacant if it's not an estate sale…

This is the 2nd installment to my first Home Staging story.  I am not a professional home stager but in my 24 years in real estate and reading and watching shows on staging homes, I feel I can offer some free expertise on the subject.  Plus, I'm experienced on what buyers want and expect and how most buyers are visual and cannot see past what is in front of them.

Another story I remember is about a home for sale in Oak Lawn that was a unique floor plan that one builder incorporated into a particular subdivision in the area in the 1960's.  I have never seen this same home since.  It was a nice home that had a few full, wide steps up from the living room, giving it the appearance of it being a "sunken living room."  Not quite a 3-step ranch, not a raised…

I have been giving home staging advice before it was called "staging."  One of my fondest memories was the appointment I went on for a Burbank IL real estate listing.  It was a basic split level style home with 3 bedrooms, formal living room, kitchen and down a few steps was a family room. 

A family of 7 lived here and it was time to move on as they were very cramped.  I walked through the home and we went over things that I felt the house needed in order to sell at the price the sellers wanted to get.  There were some repairs that were needed but the first thing that I told them was that they had to clean up the family room.

This room must not have been used for its purpose in years.  It was stacked from wall to wall and top to bottom with furniture,…