Sellers often want to know whether they can continue to live in their homes while they are being marketed or whether they need to move out.
The Best Advice
Our best advice to sellers is to move out before listing their home for sale. That allows for efficient cosmetic improvements, upgrades, and professional staging. All of these steps are important for obtaining the best price and the highest return on investment.
The Next Best Option
Take a trip for a week or two, or stay with friends for the first week or two that your home is on the market. This allows buyers easer access to viewing your home.
If Sellers Must Stay in Their House
Sellers can stay as long as they follow some simple guidance. All of these precautions invite buyers to relax and appreciate your home:
- Clean and ready to present – The first week or two will be the busiest for showings. Your home should be clean and tidy every day during this period – and of course anytime when the house is still for sale.
- Easy to show – Houses usually have a broker’s open house on Wednesday or Thursday and public open houses on Sunday (maybe Saturday too). It is most important that agents and their clients have easy access to your home during these first few days. Some sellers like to plan a long weekend getaway during the first few days on the market, Wednesday through Sunday.
- No strong odors – What may smell good to you could be unpleasant to a prospective buyer. Be sure the property does not smell of food, scented candles, strong cleaning products, or pets.
- No smoke – If your house has a strong smell of tobacco, marijuana, or wood smoke, it should undergo ozone treatment before showings begin. You’ll need to be out of the house for about three days. Once on the market, do not smoke inside the house.
- Light and warmth – Buyers will be attracted to warm and bright properties. Raise shades, open curtains, and turn on the lights. In winter, be sure the heat is on! A cold house is uncomfortable for buyers; they won’t want to stay to look around.
- Unoccupied – Neither you nor your pets should be home when the property is being shown. Buyers should feel comfortable looking around, stay as long as they like, and discuss their impressions with their agent without concern that you are hearing their conversations. And pets, no matter how well behaved, can make buyers uncomfortable.
- Staging – To best present your home to buyers, staging is important. This means that it will not be the home that you are used to living in. Most stagers will allow sellers to live in the homes that they stage. You’ll have to make up the beds each day with the staging linens, clean off countertops, make sure the staging accessories are in place, and ensure all rooms are as clean as the stager left them.
If you’re thinking of selling your Marin home, reach out to Madeline and benefit from her 30 years of experience in this unique market.