Selling Your Home - Why Should Buyers Choose Yours?

November 20, 2008

Assuming certain factors are the same - such as location, amenities, approximate price range, features - what would entice a buyer to put an offer on your house instead of another in your subdivision?

It’s been my experience that most buyers lack imagination when it comes to looking at properties. They are effected by your decorating, your taste and how your home makes them feel. Only about 20% can detach themselves from your decorations and imagine their home in its place.

So how do you appeal to the 80% of buyers who want to walk into your house and feel at home?

The first step is to de-clutter your home. Any clutter translates into a read-between-the-lines detractor of “not enough storage space”. If you truly don’t have enough storage space for all of your possessions, treasured though they may be, then rent a small storage space. Go through your home and remove everything except the most flattering and visually appealing items. Your home does not want to look bare, but it needs to give the impressions of elegance and space.

The next step is to take care of any maintenance issues before you put the home on the market. You may be temped to say, “I’ll fix anything their home inspector finds”, but in my experience, your initial offer will be lower (or even non-existent) if the impression the buyers get is that you have not taken care of the home. So replace rotten wood, fix and paint damaged or grubby walls, replace torn or damaged flooring, service HVAC units before you call your real estate agent.

The final step is to thoroughly clean the home. Hire someone to help you do a deep spring cleaning - clean baseboards, polish mirrors, shampoo carpets. Make your home sparkle. Buyers will notice on a subconscious level that the home is clean. Why do you think new homes are so attractive to buyers? It’s because no-one’s dirt is there - it’s virgin and pristine.

Once you have listed the home, keep it clean and tidy. Make beds and put away dishes before you leave in the morning. So often I’ve tried to make appointments to show a home, and the seller has said that we’ll have to come back another day because they left the home in a mess that day. Normally there is no “another day”. So if there is a day you’ve had to run out in a hurry, take a deep breath and let it be shown anyway and hope that the buyers are the 20% that can imagine the dishes in their right place!

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Local Information for Moore, OK

Latitude: 35.338813 -- Longitude: -97.487584

Other Area Cities: Moore Choctaw Del City Midwest City Norman Oklahoma City Mustang

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Moore is a rapidly growing suburb in Cleveland County, Oklahoma and is part of the Oklahoma City Metropolitan Area. As of July 1, 2003, the city population was 44,987. Situated next to the northern boundary of Cleveland County, Moore is the second largest city in the county and the ninth largest city in the state. Moore is less than twenty minutes from downtown Oklahoma City, Will Rogers World Airport, Tinker Air Force Base, the University of Oklahoma, the Federal Aviation Administration's Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center, and thousands of businesses, industries, public and private schools, as well as recreational and cultural facilities. The city often falls victim to tornadoes, and has been severely damaged by tornadoes on October 4, 1998 May 3, 1999, and May 8, 2003. The May 3, 1999 tornado that hit Moore was rated an F5 on the Fujita scale, and was one of the strongest and most destructive tornadoes ever recorded in history. -- Source: Wikipedia.com

Oklahoma 2000 Census Population Profile Map

	Moore	Oklahoma	United States
Population	41,138	3,450,654	281,421,906
Median age	32	35.5	35.3
Median age for Male	31	33.9	34
Median age for Female	33	36.9	36.5
Households	14,848	1,342,293	105,480,101
Household population	40,875	3,338,279	273,643,273
Average household size	2.75	2.49	2.59
Families	11,565	921,750	71,787,347
Average family size	3.13	3.02	3.14
Housing units	15,801	1,514,400	115,904,641
Occupied units	14,848	1,342,293	105,480,101
Vacant units	953	172,107	10,424,540

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