House Hunting Shockers - 10 things to do

As I previously mentioned we are looking to sell our house.  The last couple of months our Sunday’s, between 2 and 4pm, have been spent looking at open houses.   I love looking for houses, but am shocked at the way some people “present” their house when they want to sell it. 

Here are 10 things I think you should do to help your house sell:

1. Before you leave your house please wipe the toothpaste off your mirror, it looks really gross and it will only take you a couple of seconds .
2. If you are a smoker, try to not smoke in your house for a least a week before the open house.  Nothing worse than the lingering smell of stale smoke.   There was a beautiful house we saw, but the smoke did it for me.  We would have had to rip out every carpet and scrub all the walls – not something I am willing to do.
3. I know you love your collections, but try to clean some of the clutter up.  I know you are supposed to look beyond that and look at the bones of the house, but some knickknacks are just hard to see beyond- especially if there are 50 wooden Santa Clauses that take up the entire corner of a room.
4. If you have air-conditioning and it is above 25 degrees out, please turn it on.  People don’t want to spend a lot of time in your house if they are dripping with sweat.
5. Air fresheners work wonders, invest in some and place them in stinky areas i.e. by the cat’s litter box OR better yet, remove the litter box all together.
6. When you declutter and start packing, keep in mind people want to see areas where you would likely store these boxes, i.e. near the furnace.  Try to keep a clear path around your furnace and water heater as these are important parts of a functioning house.
7. Put your unmentionables out of sight.  I don’t want to see your red bra lying on your bed!
8. Clean the inside and outside of your appliances.  I saw an oven once, I wouldn’t even want to touch to move it, let alone cook in it. The thing looked like a fire hazard there was so much grease build up.
9. Mow your lawn, if the front hasn’t been mowed in weeks it makes me wonder what other things you are neglecting inside the home.
10. Make sure your agent will engage people when they walk through your door.  I know this tough to enforce, but there are some lazy agents out there that don’t “show” the house at all.  I recently came across an agent sitting on the couch knitting.  I guess she really didn’t want to sell the place, or she really needed to finish that scarf she was working on.

Have you come across any shockers while house hunting?