newjerseynewsroom.com

BY WARREN BOROSON

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

BOROSON ON MONEY

“How’s business?” I asked a real-estate agent recently.

“Terrible,” she replied.

Wow. For a real-estate agent to admit that things are less than hunky-dory means that things are really, really terrible.

People are still buying houses – just not as many. The buyers include people whose jobs are transferring them, people moving down or up, people looking for bargains, people getting married, people getting divorced.

Now, I don’t want to boast, but I once co-authored a book called “How to Sell Your House in a Buyer’s Market.” 301 pages.

And mainly what I said was: Lower the price.

Forget about what your house could have sold for five years ago. Ignore what your ex-neighbor told you about his own selling price. Forget about all the expensive improvements you made on your house – like that swimming pool.

Find out what houses similar to yours have actually been selling for.

And underprice your house a bit.

Some other pieces of advice:

Improvements rarely add value – unless you’re curing a defect. Like substituting a new kitchen for an out-of-date kitchen. Another bathroom is good. Chimneys are good. Swimming pools are bad. (Here in Jersey, you don’t get many months to use them.) Ditto greenhouses.

I like the idea of trying to sell your house yourself, without a broker. But the best time to do that is when houses are selling like hot cakes. Which is not now.

As for decorating, the operating word is “bland.” No bright, gay colors. Nothing very unusual. Another word to keep in mind is: white.

Repair things. Don’t tell the buyers that the cost of repairing the thingumbob is reflected in the lower price. Repair the thingumbob yourself. Buyers have little imagination. I once walked through a wonderfully charming house. But I’d have to repair the screens, fix the leak over the garage, stop the toilet from running, and so forth. I decided: The hell with it.

A survey of houses for sale found these typical flaws: loose toilet bowl, continually running toilet, water in the basement, low water pressure, windows that don’t open and close properly – and so forth.

If you ever did anything really dumb with your house, make amends. A seller didn’t like mowing his back lawn, so he had it blacktopped. Before selling, he had to un-blacktop the back lawn.

De-personalize your house. Take down family pictures, your kids’ paintings, your trophies from your office softball team. Turn your darkroom into something else. (A gym, maybe.) You want buyers to picture the house as belonging to them, not to you.

Have you heard that houses don’t sell at open houses? Nonsense. I myself once bought a house at an open house.

Ask your agent whether you should offer a reward. Perhaps an extra $500 or $1,000 to whoever brings in a ready, willing, and able buyer.  Agents know that some buyers are more ready to buy than others – and you want those ready-to-buy buyers to see your house promptly.

Ask an independent person to critique your house. A common complaint: boring. So add some life to the old homestead. New drawer pulls, new shower curtains, a new front door – spiffy touches that won’t cost too much.

Your house is empty and cold? You can hire people to “stage” your house – bringing in temporary furniture, for example.

Make yourself available, so your agent can show the house whenever.