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Adapted From: Dress Your House For Success Many Realtors suggest that home sellers cook some cinnamon on their stove to give their house a home-like scent and feel during an open house. In Dress Your House For Success, Martha Webb takes this concept to an entirely new dimension. If home sellers only do one thing to prepare their home for sale, they should purchase this guide and follow the detailed instructions inside. As the subtitle suggests, this checklist-filled book is de-signed to help sell your house, apartment or condo for the highest possible price. As Ms. Webb acknowledges herself, everyone knows that a house should be clean before being shown to buyers. But what exactly does "clean" include? For those not sure, mountains of detailed, room-by-room checklists show sellers how to first unclutter and then clean like one has never cleaned before. Once a home is thoroughly cleaned, Ms. Webb advises sellers on analyzing which repairs should be considered. The important key to repairs is making sure that additional sales dollars generated by the repair are more than the cost of the repairs themselves. Dress Your House For Success guides sellers through this decision-making process by suggesting which repairs payoff best and by providing numerous inexpensive repairs that yield big results. For example, oiling squeaky hinges and replacing worn switch plates may have as big an impact as painting a room. If this guide stopped at repairs, it would seem that home sellers could simply hire the best cleaning service and home improvement contractor and put their home on the market Two additional steps, however, set this book apart from any other on the market today. Neutralizing is the process of eliminating "distracting odors, colors and accessories that prevent a buyer from visualizing their things in your house." Using paint and air fresheners while avoiding smoke and pet odors accomplishes these goals. Ms. Webb points out these important issues in a straightforward, non-judgmental way, as few people want to hear that their home smells bad to buyers. The last step shows where Ms. Webb's experience as a video producer shines. "The goal of dynamizing is to create a memorable feeling that lasts beyond the tour and makes a buyer want to come back to your house...to live. Dynamizing reaches the psychological needs of home buyers." To give an example, Ms. Webb suggests buying brand new place mats, napkin rings and dish towels. In addition, tips for furniture placement and "props" to "stage" your home for viewing are listed in abundance. All of the suggestions included in Dress Your House For Success are done with an eye toward improving the bottom line profit for a home seller. In that light, specific examples of budgets for each step make up a good portion of the guide, so that sellers can evaluate the net benefit of each step. In fact, the only possible negative to this guide is that it may ask too much for home sellers with lower priced homes because they may not realize a return on their time and money. For owners of more expensive homes, however, the benefits of implementing this guide may exceed even the most optimistic of expectations. As Ms. Webb reminds us, "A buyer's first glimpse of a room...forms the first impression of that room or area...you have only a few critical seconds to make a positive impression." Martha Webb is a marketing consultant and the founder and president of BCW Video. Her work promoting the Dress Your House For Success concept has won her wide recognition in the real estate community. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Sarah Parsons Zackheim, the author of two previous books, lives in Westport, Connecticut. A companion video is also available. |