Sellers, here are some tips on what makes your home hard to show. If you want to sell your home quickly, avoid these What Makes Your Home Hard to Show no-n0’s:
No-no #1) Restricted showing hours. Generally, buyers have a window of when they can go house shopping. If you have restricted hours or need a lot of advanced notice, your home may drop off the list. If a buyer’s agent cannot get access to your home, they cannot sell it.
No-no #2) Combo lock boxes. I hate combo lock boxes. If a home has a combo lock box, it tells me several things. One, the seller’s agent is not member of MLS or was too cheap to buy a real lock box. Two, combo lock boxes are a royal pain in the you-know-what to get into. And three, combo lock boxes get rusty and hard to get into over time.
No-no #3) Smells. Most buyers can get past messiness or some clutter. No buyers can get past smells. With cigarette and animal smells being the most obvious, even good smells can be bad. You could have the best floor plan in the neighborhood, but smells will make your home hard to show. Get rid of the wall plug-ins and for goodness sake please no Febreze!
No-no #4) Tell a story. Why did you buy your home in the first place? What is it about your home that you love so much? Be sure to highlight those areas. Buyers can’t see your awesome game room if there is laundry all over the pool table or can’t walk into the “walk-in closet”.
No-no#5) Overall condition. If your home needs many updates and a lot of TLC and has several large projects that are obviously waiting to be completed, there is a very good chance that your home will be hard to show, and ultimately sell. Projects equal money and you could cost yourself more money off the sale price than the projects are worth.