“Are you thinking about selling your home? Maybe you thought you’d be in your home for a long time to come. Perhaps you thought your grandchildren would play on the same swingset your kids played on . . .”

Home sells for $100,000 over the asking price.

Home sells without ever hitting the market.

Home receives 56 offers in 30 seconds.

OK, maybe not 56 in 30 seconds, but it doesn’t stray too far from all we have been hearing: there is a significant dearth of available homes for sale. Any of these headlines could be written about any number of markets in the country, but our market here in North Jersey seems to be one of the hottest of them all.

Are you thinking about selling your home?

It’s a little bit of a scary prospect. Maybe you thought you’d be in your home for a long time to come. Perhaps you thought your grandchildren would play on the same swingset your kids played on, and sleep in their bedrooms when they came for long weekend visits. 

But every day, reading about the shortage of inventory for homes in your area gets you wondering if this is a really smart time to sell. 

Hmmm.

I spoke to a few home-selling experts in BIG (Believe, Inspire, Grow), a networking group for women entrepreneurs I belong to for some of their professional guidance.

Specifically, I wanted to know if my clients are thinking about selling, how much streamlining of their “stuff” and home prep is required to get the house to move, and if they did decide to move what would make them be an attractive buyer to the current owners of their next home. 

Sell Your Home “As Is” or Fix Up: A Real Estate Agent’s Perspective

Lucy Thompson, of Keller Williams Realty in Summit, NJ says that while it is still a seller’s market, the amount of work done to prepare a home for resale directly impacts the selling price.

“It boils down to what is more important to the seller — the maximum price achievable by pulling out all the stops or the average price achievable by leaving buyers to use their imaginations,” she says.

“There is a direct correlation between the prep work done and the rewards,” Thompson said. “Sure, you can leave everything ‘as is’ and look ‘average’ on the market and still find multiple buyers and perhaps achieve over list, or you can go all out and declutter, clean out, touch up painting where needed, spruce up older parts of the house, and fix red flag items before photographs are taken and showings start and, as a result, achieve astounding results, leaving no money on the table at closing.”

Regardless of what you may have heard, it is always a beauty contest and a price war, and you don't want the buyer to start asking for credits or work to be done when they feel they are already paying way more than they expected, Thompson said.

“It is nearly always better to invest time and money up front and get ready for listing rather than leaving things to chance and neglecting, at your peril, things that make buyers wonder what else is going on ‘behind the facade’,” she said.

Getting Mortgage Ready: Tips from a Specialist

What if you are on the flip side of the sale? You have your house all ready to market  and need to find a new place to call home. What can you do to make yourself look the most viable to an active home seller?

Cathy Maloney of Guaranteed Rate Mortgage in Chatham, NJ also suggests taking the time to do some “prep work,” although it is a different kind. 

She suggests that buyers not only secure a preapproval letter from a mortgage lender, but an actual mortgage commitment to make them as strong as a cash buyer. 

“All you will need is a sales contract and an appraisal to close because you can show the seller that you have your financing all set and approved and underwritten and you’re as strong as a cash buyer,” she says. “Instead of showing your bank statement that says you have $1 million, you can show a mortgage commitment that says the same, which will help people choose you.” 

So there you have it. It’s always better to do all of your prep work and not allow “chance” to figure into the equation.

Give me a call if I can help you tackle the decluttering process, whether you are getting your home ready to take advantage of this market, or just want to live more comfortably in your home. Either way, I can help you achieve A Simpler Life Now.

10 Things You Can Do Right Now to Alleviate Some of the Stress of Moving

“It seems such a waste of time
If that’s what it’s all about
Mama if that’s movin’ up
Then I’m movin’ out
I’m movin’ out”

When I started this blog on moving, I decided to begin with a song. Billy Joel’s anthem immediately came to mind. I wanted to offer a selection of tunes to get you humming, and my Google search led me to so many songs about leaving home. 

Country songs about breakups and moving on; songs about kids growing up and leaving home; and songs about the bittersweet feeling you get looking back on a life well lived, they were all there. 

Moving is one of the most stressful events in a person’s life, even for the most organized among us. No wonder there are so many songs about it!

Finding a home; packing everything up; deciding what to keep, give away and discard; the actual move itself, and wondering how you will fit into your new place (physically and emotionally) are all factors that elevate our stress levels through the roof.

Lots of people are rushing to put their home on the market to take advantage of the dearth in residential real estate inventory. Once the decision is made, they panic, because they look around and can’t believe how much stuff they have accumulated over the years.

Where do I begin? — They ask themselves. 

They call me with great urgency as they need to figure out fast what they should take with them. 

With some forethought, there are ways that you can manage some of that stress and anxiety.

The first step is to figure out what fits into your new space. This is the expertise of A Simpler Life Now, down to determining the correct number of place settings from your dining sets that you should take. 

If you follow these 10 tips, you will be singing a happy tune throughout your move.

1. Contact family members to see what they might like to have.

2. Get to know your garbagemen and recycling providers. Once you make the decision to move, you should spend time each week tossing out the stuff that is unwanted. 

3. Decide if an estate sale or online auction is for you. Perhaps you have valuable sterling silver, artwork, or gold items that you can sell.

4. Think about repairs you should make to your home that will help it sell such as a new coat of paint, removing old carpeting, and some attractive landscaping. 

5. Declutter, declutter, declutter. And then declutter some more.

6. Call me to help you organize and stage your home for realtor photos.

7. Sort through junk drawers, closets, attics. Figure out what you have and start to clear it out.

8. Remove photos from their frames and keep just the photos. Our framed photos take up so much space!

9. Check your spices and cans to make sure they are not expired. Is your make-up old too?

10. Be on the lookout for days in your town when you can drop off old chemicals and cleaning products. Did you know that you can use cat litter to help dry up the paint in old paint cans? Once the can is empty, you can throw the can in your regular trash basin. 

    
    A Simpler Life Now can help you with any and all of the above, and get you singing with happiness again!