We bought a true starter home (1 bth-2.5 bdrms) before our first was born. We now have 2 boys and a momma who wants her own "girls only" bathroom. Plus, since we opted to send our boys out-of-district for school, it is finally time to move to the neighborhood where they go to school to make transportation, sports, sleep-overs, etc. easier.
We have been very conservative in maintaining our home over the past 9 years..Meaning, we did not over-invest it when the market was hot and so are in a reasonably (but with the market the way it is, we'll still realize a lower $$ sale than we would have 3-4 yrs ago) good position on our mortgage and can afford to sell without taking a loss.
Have any mommas out there been thru the home sale process (specifically starter homes) recently? Can you give me the good-bad-ugly of what you experienced?
It might take a long time. My house has been on the market for 72 days and I have now missed out on the tax credit for a new house.
We sold our starter home ourselves last year (during the tax credit time). But, we sold it fast and made a bit of money! So, this is my advice. Get the house looking as perfect as possible. We repainted the front (yes, only the front) of the house--but it needed it the most because of the direction it sat, fixed up the yard, and cleaned it from top to bottom. We also packed up a bunch of stuff. Ultimately, we wanted it to be the nicest looking house people walked into (it was a wonderful home and we had taken great care of it). I like to run a sink full of hot water and then put a few drops of peppermint oil in it and then drain the water right before we leave to make the house smell fresh etc. I cut flowers from the neighborhood and had them on the table. In other words, yes it was a tiny house in a very working class neighborhood, but when you walked in it felt great. There was no ugly (well a ton of stress of not knowing). The bad was that if people were using the tax credit you had to meet very strict rules about the condition of the home so we had to do about $800 worth of repairs to sell it (not terrible in the scheme of things). We also sold it ourselves to save a bit of money--if you do this make sure you do your homework--my husband and I are huge nerds who LOVE to research stuff so for us it was pretty easy, but it's certainly not for everyone. Good luck!
We just sold our starter house and bought our next house. Our house sounded just like yours; 3 bedrooms, although the third was so small that it probably was more like 2.5 and 1 bathroom. I'm in Pittsburgh and I know that real estate around here remained pretty stable during all that mortgage crisis, not sure how your area is. We put our house up around Thanksgiving (bad move, which we knew) and we barely had anyone looking. We did price it high because we weren't in a hurry to sell and had no where to go. We finally sold it in January, however, the buyers backed out. They embellished a tiny issue from the inspection and that was that. We lowered the price and had people looking constantly! Finally in March, we had buyers again. This time, everything went through and we closed on April 13. The buyers were doing an FHA loan, so the bank is much more strict on what they want the house to have. We had to do some minor repairs for the buyers loan to be approved and it was frustrating for us, but we wanted to sell. The thing that we hated was that they buyers could back out for ANY reason from the inspection and we as the sellers couldn't do anything about it. Also, it seemed that first time buyers today, as opposed to when we were first time buyers, are much more demanding and picky. Maybe their watching too much HGTV! Anyway, the other thing that was so tough was keeping the house spotless. I have a 2 yr old and a 6 month old. We decluttered as much as possible, fixed anything that needed fixed and removed any toys that my daughter didn't really play with too much. I didn't do all that ridiculous stuff like removing any family pictures! I think that is so stupid. People coming in want to feel like they are moving into a HOME. I wouldn't do any major upgrades just to sell the house. Our kitchen was original (50 yrs old) and the way we upgraded was painting the cabinets white, repainting the walls a neutral color and adding a new countertop (laminate). It immediately updated it for very L. money. The rest of the house didn't really need anything. It is frustrating selling a house and sad too. I cried hysterically as we were leaving for the last time and I still drive by it probably once a week. Our new house is perfect and I love it, but I'll always have a special place in my heart for our starter house. Hopefully you'll sell right away, but if you don't, don't let it get to you. We realized that pricing the house right was crucial, and we were always comparing our house to others that sold and we shouldn't have done that because it just frustrated us even more. Oh, one last thing, we found a house that we loved but we refused to put and offer on it until we came to an agreement with the buyers on the inspection. Thank God we didn't because they backed out and then we would have run the risk of having two mortgages which we couldn't do. That house eventually sold but we then found our current house which ended up being perfect. Doing things that way was just us though, you may be different. Good luck and hang in there!
I wish I had advice for you but Good Luck!!
Well, I don't know that the market is any better now than when we sold about a year ago. We live north of the metro area, and ended up selling it for less than we owed, we had to take a loan out for like $7K, which isn't horrible. Our goal was to break even, but since that wasn't going to happen, we took the offer we got. We were more concerned about just selling it rather than making money. Just work with your realtor.
Check out HGTV's website on clearing clutter for home sales. Dont feel bad, we had our starter home listed for 2 years and gave up! We ended up turning it into a rental. Ask a realtor to give suggestions also, we are sorta friends with our realtor and she told us some tips on things to change! Good luck!!
Some general things...
- if there are any decor or items that are hanging on the walls, take them down, or label them as 'does not convey' prior to your first showing. Once a buyer sees them they're part of the deal. ( i almost lost a set of custom curtains this way)
- read any proposed contracts carefully, especially for specifics of what conveys. (used this to get out of the custom curtains issue)
- keep your house neat, but not drastic. people will understand that you are living there.
- do not box things up while showing. people will see it as clutter.
- keep furniture in the house. a furnished house/room shows better than an empty one.
M.
We live in NE Mpls and sold our house a month ago in less than a week. Our house is 2.5 beds, 2 bath in a blue collar neighborhood, we haven't done a ton of updating since we bought 12 years ago although we did add a main level family room when our 3rd child was born. Mostly we kept the woodwork and floors in good condition and painted over the years. As for getting it ready for the market, we spent a solid three week period decluttering (12 years and 3 kids adds up to a lot of stuff). We rented a paint sprayer and sprayed our basement (unfinished space) and all the closet interiors. The required us to box up the majority of our storage "stuff" which we just stacked in our garage. Once that was finished buyers could easily see clean closets and basement without looking past our stuff. We of course decluttered the living spaces as well, made sure the few toys that were left out had proper "homes" (decorative boxes ect.). I had one big tote that fit in a closet available for those last minute showings. I threw everything in it when necessary (laundry, school work, groceries I didn't have time to put away...). The hardest part was the interruption to our daily schedule. All three of my kids still nap and many of our showings were during naptime. Luckily, our neighbors let us come over and use their beds for naptime but it was still stressful. We also priced our house very competitively. Three years ago our housed appraised at $250K but we priced it at $200K and it sold immediately (for $196K)-as in your case we were able to make a profit due to our long ownership. We have three other friends in NE that priced their houses high (above $200K) and none of them have sold, they've also had very few showings. I think the houses that sell fast (which is better for those of us with young families) are priced below $200K. We haven't closed on our house yet so I'm sure it will be sad to leave it but we have purchased a new house and are looking forward to making it our own. Good luck!
Don't put an offer on a new house without selling your current home first
Declutter, Declutter, Declutter, have honest friends with good style come in & ask them what can be changed
Neutral wall colors
I would have a home inspector come out, well worth the money
Meet with several realtors & find one that you feel is great
Have the realtor take you out to look at your competition
Curb appeal
Best wishes
if it is priced right, should probably sell pretty fast. now that tax credit has expired maybe a little bit longer, but still, houses under $175,000 are still a hot commodiity. get a realator that will give you some free advise.
