6 things to do before putting your home up for sale (Part 4) - by JENNIFER V. 

Here is the last part of the 6 things to do before putting your home up for sale:

Pre-inspect your home

Everyone knows that the buyer will bring in an inspector to take a thorough look at the home, but many sellers are also doing it themselves. The idea behind a seller's inspection is not to hide anything but to head off potential deal killers.

"You want to correct and address any major issues so they don't create a problem," said Craig Sharf, owner of HomeTeam Inspection Service in Closter. He said he has been seeing more preinspection work, "but not enough."

"It's funny because it's like getting the answers to a test beforehand," he said. "It's finding out what to do to make your buyer happy from the beginning."

Sharf said a preinspection can cost $375 to $500. Not long ago he said he did a job in Tenafly where the sellers were shocked to find water in the crawl space of the home they had lived in for 25 years.

"They had no idea it was there," Sharf said. "I'm sure it would have frightened away some buyers."

Instead, the sellers had a new drainage system and pump installed.

Sharf said a preinspection can also head off other problems. Say you know you have some problems with your deck. With a preinspection you can get repair estimates.

"That way you know it's a $700 repair and if a prospective buyer says, 'Oh we need $10,000 to fix that deck,' you can say that you have an estimate already," he said. "Knowledge is always power."

Hire another professional

In addition to a real estate agent, today's seller should also consider what other professionals to hire. Whether you pay for it directly, or whether it's considered part of the services provided by your agent, a stager is a must for many sellers.

Karen Parziale, owner of The Real Estate Staging Studio, said that beyond staging, she is getting more requests for organizing and decluttering.

"People say, 'I want you to help me stage, but first I need help to figure out what is going to stay and what is going to go,' " she said. "It helps the seller to prepare to move for sale energetically."

Parziale said that for about $400 she can do a five-hour walk through of the home to give tips on what needs to be done to get the home to sell.

Other options are a housekeeping service, a landscaper or a handyman to make small repairs.

Work the Web

Susan Laskin, a sales associate at Coldwell Banker in Hillsdale, said one of the keys that sellers should focus on is how the agent plans to market the property on the Internet.

She uploads videos to YouTube and on her blog and to other general real estate blogs and websites.

"You want to get as much Internet exposure as you can," she said.

Many real estate companies have their own YouTube channel or Facebook page. Search "Bergen Countyreal estate for sale," on YouTube and you can come up with more than 500 hits. Facebook has more than a dozen hits for real estate in Passaic and Bergen counties.

"You never know where the buyers are looking," she said, "but you know they are looking on the Web."

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-Daniel Barli, Esq.

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6 things to do before putting your home up for sale (Part 3) - by JENNIFER V. 

Here is the third part of the 6 things to do before putting your home up for sale:

Pre-appraise your home

Jon Rosa, owner of Palisades Appraisals, said he is doing more work for sellers requesting appraisals of their homes. In some cases the request comes from the real estate agent who needs to get sellers to open their eyes to the reality of the market.

"A lot of times the broker has to talk the seller into having an appraisal done because they are so far off on price," he said.

About a year ago, he worked with a broker on a home in Franklin Lakes. The sellers were insisting on a $3 million price tag; Rosa said it should be $2.1 million. The sellers didn't budge, and the property remains unsold.

The other customers Rosa said he is seeing more of are sellers who want to work without an agent and need a firm idea of how they should price the home. Usually, for-sale-by-owner properties are in a range of $800,000 and under, he said.

"They're trying to save that 5 or 6 percent commission and do a sale by owner, so they need to know what to sell for," he said.

A prelisting appraisal for a for-sale-by-owner home will cost $300 to $400. If the home is larger and more expensive, it can cost upward of $1,000.

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6 things to do before putting your home up for sale (Part 2) - by JENNIFER V. 

Here is the second part of the 6 things to do before putting your home up for sale:

Shop for a real estate agent

You should ask friends for recommendations and interview at least three agents before choosing one. Look for someone who's honest about your home and realistic about the asking price. If one agent suggests a price that's much higher than the others suggest, be wary. It might be tempting to try the higher price, but it's probably a waste of time. Buyers are too smart to overpay for a house, and banks won't write a mortgage on an overpriced house.

Ask the agent how she is going to market the property. The home should be listed on the multiple listing service and also advertised extensively on the Internet. Some agents even create a website just for the house. Open houses for the public and real estate agents also open the door to more buyers.
"You want to know what exposure the agent is going to get for you," Wilke said. "In the past all you had to do is put the house on the market and there were bidding wars. It's not like that anymore."
Wilke said to ask for the agent's statistics comparing the listing price with the sales price and how many days their properties spend on the market.
It's also a good idea to ask agents for the names of previous clients and call them to see if they were happy with the agent's work.


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6 things to do before putting your home up for sale (Part 1) - by JENNIFER V. HUGHES

You've been thinking of selling your home for several years, so you can downsize or head off to retirement bliss. But the depressed housing market had you spooked, so you delayed your plans — until now.

You're finally convinced the market has hit bottom and will head up again, albeit slowly. So you are ready to take the plunge and put your house on the market.

What to do?

By now you probably have a long list of to-do items, some obvious, others maybe not. Conversations with North Jersey real estate agents and other housing professionals turned up this list of a half-dozen tips on what to do before you put your house up for sale.

Consider a home warranty

Not long ago, the real estate agent Barbara Wilke was working with a seller in Ridgewood on a home that was in decent condition, but older.

"The house had been pretty well maintained, but there were not many updates. Things were pretty old," said Wilke, broker and sales associate with Keller Williams Village Square Realty.

The seller decided to offer a home warranty that would cover most of the cost of repairs if something broke down.

"A single mom wound up purchasing it," said Wilke. "That gave her a year of comfort knowing that if anything happened, like to the heating system, it would be repaired, and she didn't have to worry about the cost."

Wilke said she's definitely convinced the home warranty pushed the sale through more quickly.
"It was just a few hundred dollars to the seller, but it really made the difference," she said.
Offering a home warranty is just one of several things a seller can to do try to make a home really stand out in a soft market.
You'd pay a contract fee — either in one lump sum, or spread out over a year — to offer the coverage. You can chose to cover everything in the home from the HVAC system to the appliances, or pick and choose. Contract costs are about $300 to $500, said Peter Tosches, senior vice president of corporate communications for ServiceMaster, parent of the home warranty company American Home Shield.
If the new buyer ends up having a problem, they'd have to pay a small service charge. That price varies depending on what's broken, but Tosches said it can range from $65 to $100.
"It definitely adds a great deal of value when people are trying to sell, especially when there are a lot of properties on the market," said Tosches. "It can really set your home apart from the competition."
Tosches said it is good to have that piece of mind, especially in today's shaky economy, when everyone is nervous about the future.
Before buying a home warranty, it's a good idea to check out the warranty company with consumer officials and the Better Business Bureau. According to the online review company Angie's List, home warranty companies have consistently gotten the worst grades among service companies for seven years, with homeowners complaining about the coverage limits and the quality of repairs..."


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