I recently experienced a couple of sales in Missoula, MT that made me think about the importance of presentation when a home is listed. One of the homes was one of my listings, while the other one was a home that I had a client interested in purchasing. Both were priced near the high end of the surrounding properties and sales, and both went under contract within two days. How did it happen?
My thought on this – they were extremely clean and well maintained properties with good space. It is amazing to me how much weight having a clean house can have. Of course, we all would rather look at a house when it is sparkling clean, but isn’t this something that is easily fixable if it is not eat-off-the-floor clean? It seems like cleaning might be the very easiest fix a house could have, yet I have heard so many buyers be turned off on a property because of this one thing.
In my example, neither of the homes had any grand upgrades – they were both pretty basic quality, but what was there had been impeccably taken care of, and things like landscaping looked very clean manicured. My listing received an offer within $2,000 of the list price in the first week, and the home where I was working with the buyer received 3 offers within 2 days, and actually bid the price up over the list price.
I am not trying to say that this was the only factor, as by all means location is extremely important, as well as other things. I just found this to be thought provoking and potentially useful when it is time to list your home.