North Idaho Janna

I am racing to finish up my chores so I can be free for the remainder of the weekend to be out and about in beautiful North Idaho with my hubby and son!  I think I will do something I have never done before - drive the circuitous route from Coeur d'Alene around the lake through Harrison and up the other side back home.  I love it when I can just cruise in my convertible with the top down, taking in the sights and sounds and going wherever the road leads me!  I'll take pictures as I go and post them for your viewing pleasure.  What a magnificent place to call home! 

I don't remember what the source of this photo was, but I think that the odds are good that it really is what it looks like.  A house for sale (notice the lock box on the rail) with the porch roof being supported by.... Crutches!  It gave me a chuckle and I really mean it when I say that nothing surprises me anymore!  Some things amaze me, some leave me scratching my head. If this house was really listed for sale with the crutches in place, the Realtor should have been a little more aggressive in their home staging recommendations! 

OK, that horrible photo in my previous post below was too depressing to leave sitting at the top of my blog, so here are a few  photos I took of some of my listings.....

All right, I FEEL MUCH BETTER NOW!  I might point out that it takes some EFFORT to get a photo when the sky is bright blue and the sun is in the right spot in the sky to illuminate the front of the house.  But that effort pays off big time in making the house AND YOU look like a million bucks!

  This is a real, true photo I came across in an MLS search.  It is the primary photo that came up in all the searches, Realtor.com, etc.  IF YOU TRIED, do you think it would be possible to take a worse photo?  I doubt it.  I was so startled that I had to take a drive by this house to see what it REALLY looked like.  I wondered if perhaps the photo had been taken during a tornado that I had managed to sleep through!  Turns out that it was a perfectly cute little house, very normal. 

I wonder if any prospective buyers came upon this beauty online and said "Honey, we have just GOT to see this one!"  What do you think the chances are that this homeowner had any clue that this was how ridiculously bad his home was being marketed?  I think zero.  I have a collection of horrible MLS photos.  If you have any you would like to submit, send them on to norhtidahojanna@gmail.com. 

If you are a seller who has listed your property for sale, do yourself a favor and search online to see how your agent is presenting your property to the market.  I'd like to think that  photos like this are a rarity, but I have a file full of 'em that proves they're not!   

No one was more surprised (and pleasantly so) than I was that my home sold so quickly.  I was expecting to have more time to get my life in order for my relocation from Colorado to Idaho.  Being a Realtor, I knew what it takes and figured I better practice what I preach.  I had been watching the neighborhood comps closely for about 6 months.  I needed a quick sale, which meant I needed to PRICE my home correctly.  Like everyone else, I didn't want to leave any money on the table. But the happy circumstances of my son, daughter-in-law and darling granddaughter unexpectedly relocating back to Colorado and moving in with me until we found THEM a house lead to a looooong delay in getting my house listed.  I had already missed the peak selling season.   

After settling on a realistic listing price I went to work.  I had several adult kids who had mass quantities of furnature, clothes and misc. stuff throughout the house and garage.  CLEAR IT OUT!  I was met with resistance, eyes rolled, time went by and my house was still full of their accumulated debris.  After calling in some teenage reinforcements to start hauling loads to the garage, and a visit from the Epilepsy Foundation charitable truck, and a U-Haul rental, I succeeded in clearing it out!  Phew!  Next, I scheduled a deep cleaning from top to bottom.  A top-notch carpet cleaning, then professional window washers who removed all the screens for cleaning and even cleaned the tracks. 

I went through the house and removed 2/3 of the knick knacks, personal photos, and anything that didn't NEED to be there. For showings, I even stashed the kitchen trash can under the BBQ cover on the deck!  I set the stage for showings with soft music, all the lights on, & curtains pulled back to let the light in through my sparkling clean windows.  By the end of the first week I had competing offers.  One was nearly full price but had a 2 month contingency.  The other was about 5% under full price with no contingencies.  I countered that at 99.5% of full price and was under contract a week after listing with a closing date set in just three weeks! 

It has been my experience that Sellers will pick and choose which suggestions I give them that they accept and act on.  My experience proved to me that doing it by the book really DOES pay off.  You can be certain that the more closely you follow the staging advice of your Realtor, the greater your chances for success!