Holidays are over! Should you make a move in 2008?

As the holiday season comes to a close I think we can all say, “Thank God!”
“Thank God” we were all blessed enough to spend the season with eachother.
“Thank God” all the family healthy and doing well.
“Thank God” it’s all over and everything is going back to normal!
The holiday season is a great time, but how many people do you know that think, “Geez it’s nice to be back at work where I can get some rest!” Let’s face it, the holiday season does carry its share of stress. In my case, more stress for my wife since she pretty much handles everything, but there was a good amount of stress on me too – really. Even though she bought the gifts, wrapped them, put them under the tree, cooked, cleaned (I helped!), and pretty much coordinated all of our family activities. Did I mention she’s a pretty darn good wife?
Well, my point is that there is a lot of stress on all of us, and now it’s time to get back to work! For me, and many I know, that means it’s time to get back to work at the gym (I think I gain 10lbs over the holidays!). And for some it’s time to take a look at 2008 and decide if it’s time to make the move to a new home. That’s where I come in, and where I go BACK TO WORK.
My name is Chris Cowley (www.chris-cowley.com), and I am a Realtor in San Antonio, TX with Heart of Texas Realty (www.heartoftexasrealty.com), and that is what I do. I help people BUY and SELL properties in San Antonio and surrounding areas. If you are one of the people who are looking at buying your next home or selling your current here are a couple things to consider when you get ready to sell your home:
1) Take a look at your home with “New Eyes”. What I mean by this is act like you are someone buying a house when you look at yours to sell. Drive down the street as you approach your home, what do you see? Are there things that may hurt you when you sell? If there are, are they things you can do anything about? When you drive up to your house, how does it look? I mean, how does it REALLY look? Those little weekend projects you know you should have gotten to making some part of your home look junky? Be honest, the only person your fooling is yourself if your not! How does your yard look? Is there anything you see that YOU would consider a negative? If so, then you better get out there and take care of it! The last thing you want is someone ruling out your house before they even go inside! People want to have a house that looks nice, clean, and inviting on the inside and the out.
Continue this process through the inside of the house. How does the house look? How does it smell? That’s right, SMELL! If your a pet lover, and I am with 2 dogs, you need to really be honest with the smell of your house. If there is any hint of pet or smoke odor, you can bet some people are going to be turned off, and some will be turned off enough to strike your house off their list! Remeber, you want your house to be at its best and that takes some work so if it smells, make it smell good. If you have neglected area of your house, fix them! Unless your advertising your house a “fixer upper” or a “handyman special”, people are going to want this to be a turnkey operation. They are not going to want to buy your neglect or your problem areas. Think about that really hard. A Realtor can do a lot to help sell your house, but if you are not going to do your part and give us a good product to sell, it may not sell!
2) DE-CLUTTER. This is every Realtors biggest issue with homeowners. If you have been in your home for longer than a couple years there is a good chance you have a bunch of stuff. Most of us do, but some of us are better at storing and hiding our stuff, and you need to be good at this if you selling your house. Here are the two biggest culprets when it comes to clutter:
1)People with kids that have way too many toys
2)Fanatics – Sports, antiques, hunters, knick-knack buyer, etc.
If you have kids, and I do, you know they have a lot of stuff. You’d better store it in neat looking toy boxes, or in closets, or somewhere. If you are a fanatic, and you know who you are, then you need to do the same. I once went into a house listed For Sale and it literally looked like a library. Every room had custom made bookshelves running around the walls with additional rows of book shelves running several deep through the middle of the room! It was rediculous! You couldn’t get any feel of how your furniture would look in that because it didn’t even look like a house! Lucky for me I wasn’t listing it! It did take a long time to sell, and I’m sure they gave a lot of grief to the Realtor who finally did get it sold! If you are a fanatic, you may even need to consider renting a storage space. It will probably cost you less than $50 a month and if it sells your house just 1 month sooner, you will have clearly saved enough to cover that expense!
There are two tips that you should consider if you plan to sell your home in 2008! These are probably the biggest issues that slow the sale of homes, and for the most part they are controllable. In the next blog, we’ll continue the discussion of getting our homes ready to sell! So Happy New Year, and let’s get back to work!
If I can help you buy or sell your next property, or if you live outside of San Antonio and would like me to help you find a Realtor where you live, please check out my website.www.Chris-Cowley.com