Staging & Selling a Home with Dog & Cat Pets

Today we have a new addition to the family. Chloë (my wife thankfully won naming rights, as my son wanted to name the dog “Chuck Norris”) is a Cavachon. A Cavachon is a mix of King Charles & Bijon. She will join our Persian rescue cats, Knuckles & Daisy, along with 2 kids and a fish tank. Why we have all these creatures I’ll save for another blog. This article is on how to stage a house with pets if you are selling. Thankfully, our Egret Landing Jupiter home is not for sale!

Pets can destroy a sale. Turn-offs include litter boxes, urine stains on carpeting, odor, lawn droppings, chewed furniture, paw & lick marks on windows, pet food, noise, and even presence. If you have pets, here are my recommendations….

Presence

As much as you love your furry friend, there is a chance the new buyers won’t. Some people have phobias, allergies, and some just don’t like animals or have long-standing fears. They get turned off from jumping and licking. Best to keep them out of sight.

Noise

See above. Barking and whimpering are a huge distraction.

Pet Food

Model homes that builders are trying to market don’t have pet on the floor. Buyers trip on it, smell it, see it. Just remove it or hide in the panty.

Fur

Constantly vacuum if you have a shedder. It’s a turn-off and looks like you don’t take care of and clean your home. People with allergies or perceived allergies will almost rule your house out on first sight.

Odor

Odor is one of the top reasons people do not purchase. If they don’t like the smell, it is almost impossible to overcome because people do not believe it will come out. Carpeting with lots of stains needs to be replaced, not cleaned, including the pad. For one, the stains usually do not come out; secondly, the odor won’t come out because it’s in the padding as well. Air scrubbers and HEPA filtration are last-ditch efforts.

Carpeting

Carpeting with lots of stains needs to be replaced, not cleaned, including the pad. For one, the stains usually do not come out; secondly, the odor won’t come out because it’s in the padding as well.

Lawn

Do not leave droppings outside. Nothing will kill a sale faster than the Buyer avoiding land mines. The Buyer is there to look at your house. Stepping in you-know-what doesn’t give them that “meant to be” feeling.

Furniture

Dispose of any chewed or stained furniture. Buyers assume if the sofa is scratched, then other parts of the house are neglected.

Windows

Dogs love to scratch and put their nose to the window. Replace windows or tint those with scratch marks. Constantly wash the areas with nose marks.

Litter Box

Keep it out of sight! First choice would be to throw it in the car trunk so it can’t be seen. Second choice is the garage or covered in the laundry room. You can also purchase litter boxes with covers on them. Seeing litter or foul odors can be a deal killer turn-off.

Palm Beach County, Florida, 2nd Quarter 2012 Real Estate Summary

1. What’s Happening?

I’m seeing continued improvement in the real estate market. Still nothing to get over-excited about. Kind of like an F student getting a D+. It’s better but not a cause for celebration.

2. Prices

Home prices are going up. The average price per square foot was $156 in March versus $147 in February.

3. Sales

Sales were up in March (1,071) compared to February (1,002). However, they were down compared to last year at this time (1,223).

4. Buyers: Who’s buying? First-timers, mover-uppers, downsizers, foreign buyers, or other?

Inventory is moving fast in the $200,000 to $400,000 category (8.7 months worth of inventory), and slowest in the $1,000,000 market (34.8 months of inventory). However, both categories are going down regardless.

5. Distressed Properties

Short sale inventory is stable but foreclosure inventory is rising. I’m also seeing the first beginnings of the end of the short sale. I lost a deal with a purchasing client on a deal because the court and bank would not stop a short sale and the property went to auction. Have 2 other properties where the auction process has started. Part of the reason banks have wanted to short sell is they have been waiting for 3 years on average in Florida to foreclose! Homeowners have been basically living rent-free for 3 or 4 years! The party is over as banks are now foreclosing faster. While it’s still advantageous for banks to work out a short sale and avoid the foreclosure costly process, we will see much less of this as that 3-year time table goes down significantly. One investor who purchases lots of short sales told me that he thought there was a 12-month window left for short sales. In 2006, I had no idea what a short sale was, so the rarity of the short sale might be what we are going back to.

6. Financing

My clients are not having that many issues getting loans. It’s just a lot more red tape with more verification (a good thing) and scrutinized appraisals. The short sales are the most difficult because you need to do a double appraisal; one that appraises low (for the 3rd party institution) and the other high for the new lending institution. More on those goofy dynamics below.

Comcast Must Be in the Short-Sale Business

New federal rules that could speed up the short-sale process to within 30 days if the loan is owned by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac should be taking place by June. To that I say there is a better chance of my cable company getting their customer service act together. It’s just not going to happen. Cable missed 4 appointments with us last week. They have this automated system that confirms appointments. Twice the automated system never called. Once it did, but I picked it up in a middle of a message, and another time I missed the call by a minute. Only after a call to my HOA and the threat of losing 640 homes, did the account representative make it happen. Short-sales are like our cable company only far worse.

The loan company won’t verify the price until an offer is received, paperwork goes from one department to another and instead of using licensed appraisers, and the lien holder gets a broker’s opinion. While this saves them hundreds of dollars, the broker has to do huge volume and cover a vast territory. I had one house recently that the broker told me he does 60+ “broker opinions a day” and goes from Miami to Orlando. That’s crazy, as you can’t be an expert for the whole state. He also thought there were 3 baths where the house only had 2½ baths. Further to complicate things, the house has to appraise in order to get the price low enough so the lien holder knows they aren’t giving it away. On the flip side, you hope it appraises high when the buyer’s mortgage company appraises it for sale. Furthermore, with some institutions, if a buyer walks, they start the whole process all over again. The lien holder has to be incurring a ridiculous amount of costs holding the note and analyzing each short sale. What really should be done on short sales is that prices should be set before they go on the market like a foreclosure. Those prices should be good for 3 months. If they really analyzed it, they probably would be better off foreclosing on the house because the time and energy to handle the short sale has to be enormous. Fortunately, the red tape in the court system is speeding up and short sales may be passé in a year or two. Until then, maybe the lien holders should do like me and order Direct-TV.

A Smile Goes A Long Way When Dealing with Multiple Offers

Indeed, multiple offers are back this season. I can actually count on more than one hand times that buyers have lost out on a home this season. It’s always devastating for them! The supply in south Florida, while still very high, does not have the excess investment properties, must-sell Sellers (who already purchased something else), and builder spec homes. 90% of that surplus of inventory dissipated in the past 6 years like a slow dripping faucet. Eventually the drips (buyer purchases) add up and the bathtub overflows. If the bathtub size (supply) were expanding, this would be ok, but builders have been constructing homes at historic lows.

In Palm Beach County, we have seen a 12% drop in supply from this year compared to last year. Today’s buyer on average also has different values. They want new construction (which is now defined as 2000+ since there is no new inventory), low HOA fees (this has replaced luxury items), and location-location-location. Homes fitting this description are the ones typically receiving the multiple offers. The other category are short sales, since they are marketed at a must-sell price or sometimes below. Whether the short sale gets approved or not is an entirely different story. If a buyer is purchasing in this category, they need to be aware that they aren’t in a complete buyer’s market anymore. Below are the following strategies I work on with Buyers.

Prepare a Buyer

It’s important the client is aware of what is available, what is under contract, and what has sold. Going through details of statistics in advance is vital.

Exhaust Them

Most clients just don’t believe the market isn’t god-awful until they lose out on something. It’s important to show everything and then some. Sometimes looking at everything gets the point through.

Story Telling

I share stories about how clients lost something in advance.

Visualize

I ask my clients to visualize that they lost the house and how would they feel in a week if they lost it. Try to picture the future.

Promise

Visualizing is not enough. I make them promise and shake my hand that they won’t come back and say I wished you pushed me harder. This gets them to really think about it.

New Properties Will Come On Higher

Homes that have been on the market the longest are often the ripest to sell. When homes sell faster, prices go up. The new listing is going to want more for a least the first 90-180 days.

Give The Lady What She Wants

An old selling by Chicago merchant, Marshall Fields. Give the Seller what they want. Be nice, offer cash or at minimum a preapproval letter, close to 10% down, closing time that the Seller wants. No one wants to do business with an insulting bottom dweller. The Seller doesn’t want headaches. Present yourself as the nice person you are. A smile goes a long way.

Speed

Like in the Rocky Balboa movie. Mickey had Rocky chase those chickens. Get your offers in fast with the same day or next day acceptance time. Sellers will take the time that is allotted to them. Make decisions faster and cut down on the possibility of multiple offers from coming in from the get-go.

Awareness

Sign up for internet IDX automatic emails on an hourly basis. Knowing about the listing first will give you a head’s-up over the competition.

AS-IS Contracts

While not always great for the Seller, they offer free options on tying up the house. Once under contract, Sellers will usually agree to repair items because they will have to fix it up for the next guy. Once under contract, the negotiating power will even itself out.

Last Thursday was Take Your Kid To Work Day, so my 8-year-old daughter, Jade, came with me.  Other than the big breakfast of eggs, bacon, and rye toast with lots of butter, I asked Jade what she thought of the day.  Jade said, “Dad, you work with a lot of stubborn people”.  I laughed, as I never thought of it that way.

One example was a meeting we had with clients on an offer we had on their home. My reply to Jade was that the people were not stubborn, but it was my job to help them clarify the situation so they could make an intelligent decision.  A home sale is a stressful event.  Money is involved, people don’t know where they are going, etc. My worst fear is if they call me in a week to ask if the buyer is still interested, only for me to say that they purchased something else or felt it “wasn’t meant to be”. Clients end up regretting their initial ‘stubbornness’.

The offer on the house was lower then what my client wanted and their ‘bottom line number’ was not going to keep the negotiations alive. If they didn’t work out a deal, my clients would probably have to wait at least 6 months for another offer because their home was more of a seasonal buyer purchase.  That becomes 6 months worth of taxes, insurance, cost of money, depreciation, HOA costs, and worry.  I outlined those costs for them and asked them to fast forward a month into the future. Would they still be happy hanging onto the house, paying all of the costs, going through hurricane season, etc? They ended up countering at a number which ensured a better chance of a deal happening.  Today the house went under contract! And thankfully there will be no regrets at having been too stubborn a month from now.

I guess I owe Jade a referral on this one!