Selling Your Home? Do This First

Not long ago, I joined a home buyer in a tour of a home, a very nice end-of-group row home with a lovely backyard garden. It had the same layout and square footage as one we’d seen earlier that day. Yet even before we looked closely at the kitchen appliances or HVAC system – just in the few seconds we passed through the first floor rooms – we both sensed a clear difference between the two properties.

Yes, the wooden blinds in this home made the rooms darker than the bright white blinds in the previous house, and the excess knickknacks didn’t help keep our focus on the wonderful spaces and architectural details of the old home. But there was an almost indefinable sense that this house was not up to the standard of the first. What was it?

In a word: condition. But not in the way you might think. Again, we hadn’t had a chance yet to get much more than a superficial look around, and there was nothing obviously broken or falling apart. Yet two basic things were missing that can make a house much more appealing to buyers: newly painted walls and moldings, and refinished or newly carpeted floors.

Often home sellers, when faced with the overwhelming task of moving and the many tasks required to do so, can’t begin to face the idea of painting their walls or redoing their floors. They know they’ve taken good care of their home over the years and have kept everything in reasonable repair. They believe that this will be evident to home buyers, and that home buyers will see their houses as “diamonds in the rough” – just needing a coat of paint or new carpet to make it seem new. Besides, why would you paint or put in new carpet when a home buyer would surely rather choose colors and styles themselves?

Painting and redoing floors is a lot to face as you’re preparing to sell your house – it’s understandable that many sellers find it overwhelming. But, hard as it is to face, the reality is: cosmetic details like paint and floors READ as condition. In other words, in those few first moments of touring a home, buyers’ eyes are picking up on scuffs and smudges on the walls and floors, and their noses are sensing odors emanating from old paint and carpet. In the process, they’re drawing conclusions about both the house and the owners. New paint and floors tell them: this house has been well cared for. And fairly or not, old paint and floors tell them the opposite.

You can ignore this reality or embrace it. To embrace it means to put as much energy as you can into the few inexpensive cosmetic details that will send a clear message: You’re the kind of person who pays attention to detail, who keeps a clean and up-to-date house, and who believes in keeping your possessions in good working order.

I don’t mean to say that cosmetic appeal is more important than structural integrity in any home. Your first priorities are to keep your house intact, functional, and safe. But sellers sometimes mistakenly focus on big-ticket items when they consider how buyers will assess their house’s overall condition. They underestimate how the many details buyers piece together during their first superficial tour of a home all add up to a larger picture telling about the homeowner’s attitude toward homeownership. In a buyer’s mind, this attitude seems likely to have affected all the things in the house the buyer CAN’T see. A cosmetic detail like a scuffed wall may be seen as evidence that other, unseen things have been neglected as well. So while the actual condition of a home depends more basically on whether it is structurally sound and its systems functional, sellers neglect cosmetic details at their peril.

When faced with the prospect of repainting and recarpeting, home sellers may have objections. Some may be unwilling to take on the work themselves yet, out of pride, will resist turning the work over to contractors. Others may not want to pay for improvements to a house they’re leaving behind anyway. But compared to the cost of having to lower your asking price substantially below that of your neighbor who has invested in cosmetic updates, the price of painting and sprucing up your floors is usually relatively low.
If the owners of the second home we saw that day had repainted every wall and molding and replaced the old carpet on their stairs and second floor, this house too would have given any buyer a clear signal. It would have telegraphed that the sellers were dedicated to keeping their home up to a certain standard and in line with the aesthetic likely to be sought by today’s buyers. After caring for your home for many years, don’t sell it or yourself short. Put on those last touches that will help it, and you, fetch the price it deserves.