By Living Room Realty, August 31, 2018
This beautiful Craftsman located at 7715 N Albina Ave. in Portland went pending in just five days. With inventory ticking up, price reductions happening, and buyers becoming more picky ( as they should be ). My sellers took the proper steps to entice buyers to love this wonderful home even with the slight market shift.
Clean, staged, and pricing, those are the major three items to focus on when preparing your home for this market. A clean home should be a given, but it’s not. Make sure the walls don’t have holes, carpets don’t smell, the simple items like cleaning gutters, painting non-neutral colors, pressure washing the home if it’s dusty/dirty. The list can go on and on, but make sure the presentation is to the best of your ability. Buyers can make up their minds if a home is a possibility within the first few minutes of a showing. Don’t make them think about cleaning up house before they take possession.
Staging, I can not begin to express my feelings on staging this year. It really just sets the home apart from others that are not staged. Find a good stager, or ask your agent who they would recommend or have utilized before. My recommendation is Lana @ Simply Staged. They are reasonably priced, stylish, and have helped several of my sellers.
Of course if your home is owner occupied, this is a different story. You will then want to declutter, yes I said it, “declutter.” Take down any personal photos and always be thinking less is more. Get ready for those professional photos/videos!
Now we get down to Pricing, this is becoming more difficult as the market shifts. I am seeing more days on market then in the past five years, more price reductions, and more homes selling slightly below asking. I believe we are headed into a slight correction, inventory is resting at 2.4 months for July, which is the highest it has been in three years. However, I don’t want to start a widespread panic, cause I personally don’t think now is the time. Interest rates are still historically low, people are continuing to move to Portland, and supply and demand is still an issue. I just think this is giving buyers a bit of breathing room to be able to shop and not give up every contingency in their contract.
In short, pricing is everything. Make sure to scrub the comparable properties, look at the solds and pendings, go further back in months. Instead of only six months back on comparable properties, look at nine months back. Then make the decision, do you think the market is still increasing, or do you want to be ahead of the curve and shift slightly down to give yourself that market edge. I can honestly tell you I’ve had more Brokers call to ask what my clients homes are pending at than ever before. Problem is, I don’t give out that information until my clients homes are sold.
I truly hope this helps! I know my clients are excited as ever to have their home sold within just five days on market and look forward to moving on to their next home purchase 🙂
                  
