12 Tips to Sell Your Home, Part 2

*The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

The following is a podcast from a qualified senior care provider, hurt, on the answers for elders radio show. And welcome back everyone to part two of the things you need to know before lifted listing your home and whether it is with you or a senior loved one or just a general person that’s interested and and selling. We are here with CEO and founder of Sash Services home sales and Rebecca Bowman. Welcome back to part two. Thank you, it’s so good to be here with you, Suzanne. In part one we talked about the first thing is trying to pack up as much of the house as you can before photos are taken and then also to try to sell a few things around the house so you can pay for helpers to come to get the house ready for sale, so it doesn’t have to be out of pocket expenses. So I’m going to go into some more of the cosmetic kinds of things that can be done now now that we have a little pocket money from selling off a few things in the home. So the third tip, and these are all low budget ways to get a house ready for market, is take down the heavy drapes and window coverings and I know they were so beautiful when they were purchased, you know, a couple decades ago, and all of the heavy blinds and drapes and when you’re living in the home it provides privacy. It’s very practical. But when you put a home on the market, we want all of those to be opened. We want natural light to come into the home, we want to show off the view, we want to allow all that light. And then natural light makes the home feel bigger. It makes each room feel bigger and it makes it feel more cheerful and welcoming and inviting. So one and also brings the outdoors in. It brings the outdoorderful things, specially if you’re listening in the spring and you know you’re having this wonderful you know, greenery out outside. That’s a good thing. One of the things we do with every home that we renovate, and we’ve renovated about three hundred, is we do take all those heavy window coverings down and it makes such a big different m the next tip, number four, is this is a real quick and short easy one, but be careful on the ladders. Have someone else do it, is swap out all of those burned out bulbs. And the low wattage bulbs around the House for Nice new bright ones. And this seems like such a small thing, but I’ve been into so many homes where there’s a dark hallway, a dark closet, a room they haven’t had a light in for a couple years and they go well, we we just kind of turn this on or that. We want to bring lots of light in. So natural light from taking drapes down and then lots of lamplight for the evening the clients, the buyers, are walking through the home and it’s evening out, at least sixty what in the bulbs and just go through every room in the house and make sure every single one is well lit. Lots of lamps and everything to make it shiny and cheerful and welcoming. HMM. The next good one, Yep, is this is number five. Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a sweet family members home that proudly hangs every picture on every wall and you know when you come and visit, oh it’s so endearing. There’s forty or sixty pictures of the family from the last seven decades just my mother’s bedroom. Yeah, and they’re they’re basically a place of honor. You know, if you’re on this wall you matter to them and it’s chronicling the family history. It’s chronicling, you know, all the people that were important to to your loved one or to you. And so this is tough. It’s delicate to ask people to take the family photos down, but when buyers are looking at these photos online there they feel like they’re intruding on your space. If your family photos are everywhere, it’s harder for them to imagine it being their home. And so I say pick two or three per ram two or three of your favorite pieces of art or all hanging, and then pack up the rest so the walls are a little bit cleaner, decluttered, and it makes a big difference, of course, making the rooms look bigger and and letting the buyers imagine it as their own space. And that can be a little bit delicate, yeah, but necessary for sure. Yeah, or maybe it’s not photos, it’s a cross stitch collection. I’ve sold a number of homes where the the senior loved one painted their own art. They the whole home is full of gorgeous paintings that they put up and you think all you just wanted to play it. It’s so it’s such a part of them and their personality, and so pick the best two or three and and keep those up. You know, segue. How do you how do you address these kind of issues with with seniors? I know that there’s it’s got to be a very delicate, you know, subject. Yeah, so the first thing is to acknowledge to the senior loved one, to the homeowner, how special their home is, how special everything is that they’ve hung, to compliment what they’ve done with the home, the art that they’ve hung, all the photos, and really acknowledge that this is their happy place and they’ve done such a beautiful job in the home. And then to say, you know, when we sell, we’re going to have to take all of these down eventually. We’re not going to leave all these photos up for the buyer right, but we’re going to take a few down now so that we can just allow the buyer to imagine their own family photos on them. Now. Yeah, I try to Laime everything on the buyer. That’s one of my treath. Well, the buyers didn’t expect this and buyers are hoping for that and it kind of takes being the bad guy away from that adult daughter or son who’s trying to her mom through it. Well, that’s the thing because especially with, you know, parents and children, there is that dynamic. So that’s why I ask that question and I often tell that was it’s such a good question, Suzanne, because this whole conversation is delicate and sometimes mom or dad is feeling very emotional, very resentful, angry at their son or daughter. And I always say to this UN her daughter, you know, take yourself out of the the role of the bad guy by bringing in other professionals to do as much work as possible, back to the garage sale to pay for it, so that you’re not the one telling mom you can’t take seven lamps to your one bedroom apartment. You know, let the downsize or do that. Let other people come in and do that, and your mom or dad is likely to be listening to that professional more and then you can just be the sun, our daughter who’s there supporting mom or dad through this. You know, and Rebecca, I did. I did the worst thing in the world. As long as we’re talking about, you know, personal possessions. I decided, when I moved my mother into assist a living, that I would surprise her with new furniture. Oh, that was the wrong good intension to do. It sounded like such a good idea though. I gave her a new love seat and a new hand a news a chair because she had a couch sectional or couching, a love seat Combo, and you know she had it on her list to pack up. But what we did do, which, by the way, I just we rented the guest apartment at her new community. Okay, in advance. So what ended up happening was she thought that that couch and lost seat would be coming with her and she walks into a new, new apartment. You know, that day that she left her old house to move into a living and here’s this new furniture did not go over well. Oh I’m so sorry, Suzanne, because I know your heart was really into it and you had really good intentions, for I did, and all they want is what’s familiar. I moved a client out of a home that I ended up selling for five hundred thousand dollars and Susanna, I kid you not, she took the furniture with her to her brand new house. We had it built her brand new house with duct tape all over the furniture. I believe she was happy as a clan with her duct taped furniture in her brand new house and it’s like this is what you want, you can have anything you want. Absolutely I learned the hard way, but I had to know that in you know, this was in my years of taking care of mom. It’s like this is like a two thousand and six and I will say, you know, I totally just blew it the but I didn’t mean to. It was a good intention. So two families understand that. There is an emotional attachment two things, and I think sometimes we forget that. Yes, we do. I’ll just do one more tip here in this segment, and that is do a professional deep cleaning. And when I say professional, let a professional do it. Don’t do it. Don’t be overwhelmed by how big that task is, but that professional needs to come in and do everything, the tops of the ceiling fan blades, the tops of doorways, the window sills, back in the corners of closets because, yeah, fires look everywhere and it feels really good to have a really sparkly clean house and having a professional come in and do that doesn’t mean the house was dirty it just means it’s been given a whole once over and by the professionals who do it for a living, and there’s a good chance they can get on their knees and get behind chairs and fridges the way that you know, I seen your loved one might not be able to. The House feels good, it smells good and that deep cleaning with open windows and the clean windows without drapes on them, makes a huge difference one it even little things like your your blinds, you know, which is you never realize think about those things that get, you know, dusty and grimy and things like that. Yep, those things are all, you know, really important. They sure our YEP. So it’s found, deep clean. Well, you know, that’s a that’s a lot to be said and certainly that goes without saying. I’m sure the outdoors to we’re going to get to that. Oh, you’re going to get to the outdoors, because I was gonna say there’s a lot of things you’re going to do outdoors. But yes, in the meantime, I’m Rebecca, I’m going to ask you two things. Number One, I’m going to talk about what area is that self services serves, and then, if somebody’s from another state? How how you know? What’s the advantage of calling you? Can you connect them? Absolutely so. We serve most of the western Washington area here in the Beautiful Pacific northwest. People can still get a lot of great information from our website at SAS Servicescom. And yes, if they call us, we can certainly help steer them to a qualified professional in their area to help them through this well, and that’s what’s most important, because we are here to help all of you, all of these families that are making these big transitions right now. And you know, in the meantime, I’m going to repeat it one more time, you can reach Rebecca at www dots s like Sam ash services with an Scom and Rebecca will be right back for segment three on her right twelve tips right after this. Answers for elders radio show with Suzanne Newman. Hopes you found this podcast useful in your journey of navigating senior care. Check out more podcasts like this to help you find qualified senior care experts and areas of financial, legal, health and wellness and living options. Learn about our radio show, receive promotional discounts and meet our experts by clicking on the banner to join the Senior Advocate Network at answers for elders, RADIOCOM. 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