My house was ugly. Ugly.
Neglected for years, I rented it to a distant uncle who did not improve it. So when I decided to sell it, I had a big dilemma: how to privately sell a dog house, because I was not willing to pay any commission to real estate agents.
Well, where are you going? As you might guess, I started searching the internet for advice, but boy, is there a lot of useless information out there. Millions and millions of websites all trying to get your attention and are useless regarding how to sell privately.
Anyway, after going through page after page, hours and hours spent searching, I’ve collected some handy information that, if you haven’t already asked for it, you might want to consider:
– List the house on Craigslist and similar places. The problem I have with this is that your listing gets lost among the thousands of real estate agents who post their own listings there. Craigslist’s goal is to get people to post private sales, but these guys have taken over and take away the legitimacy of the listings and the credibility of Craigslist as a resource for buyers. A bit disappointing, but still very tempting to post.
– Put your pets in another place and any sign of them, such as toys, dishes, food on the floor; this is in case buyers don’t have pets, in which case you should be fine, but how do you know?
– Make sure the house smells good. Use Febreeze or similar products and ventilate rooms properly; however, it is good advice
– Wash the windows and clean the house so that buyers find it more attractive.
– Price it appropriately: Don’t scare off buyers with a price that is too high
OK, well, I applied these, and nothing. The house would not sell. Not only that he had no buyers, but there is no interest at all.
And that’s when I came across a website that was particularly helpful and provided some really good stealth tactics that made all the difference.
This made me realize that anything can be sold as long as you have the right guerrilla tactics in your back pocket.
And my jaw dropped, but after taking the advice, I sold the house and got what I wanted.
But it’s all in the little marketing secrets. Too many people take the same boring, placid approach to home sales that doesn’t get results. And I found that actually selling a house is so much fun for me that it was very exciting to succeed despite the ugliness of the house.
If I had a nice house, I would have sold it much, much faster, but this way I have a good story to tell at parties.
I hope you all succeed and have fun along the way.