Summer, the prime time for selling a home, was approaching and Jeanne and Eric Mehan wanted to sell fast.
In the rush to sell before fall, the Woodinville couple acted on some bad advice.
Put it on the market, full of clutter, not cleaned, at top price, even if it’s not ready, advised their real estate agent. Let’s market your home to a flipper, someone who wants to buy it, fix it and resell. Let’s see if we get a nibble and you can work on it in the meantime, the agent told them.
The agent took marketing photos of the laundry room with the toilet seat up and dirty clothes piled on the floor – with his cell phone camera.
The Mehans’ house got some foot traffic and a few offers for half the $475,000 asking price. Meanwhile, the precious summer season faded. The agent suggested pulling the property off the market and re-listing.
“At that point I wanted nothing more to do with him. I fired him,” Jeanne Mehan said.
Now it was fall and the holidays were around the corner. Could they sell their home quickly during a traditionally soft market?
Yes. But it would take the right strategy, aggressive marketing and ample elbow grease.
The months before Christmas are often considered a difficult time to sell a home. Potential buyers are hunkered down for the holidays and sellers don’t want to mess with listing a home during those busy months, the thinking goes.
But sellers can make the holiday season work to their advantage, said Pat Deptuch, a top-selling agent for Re/Max Metro Properties.
In 15 of the 16 years she has worked in real estate, she has sold more homes in December than any other time of year. In 2002 she sold eight houses in a two-week period between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Deptuch’s success notwithstanding, fewer people are buying single-family homes and condominiums in November, December and January, according to statistics kept by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.
Pending sales were at their highest last year in June, with 8,896 recorded in King, Snohomish, Pierce and Kitsap counties. By December, sales had dipped to almost half of that, with 4,837 recorded.
Still, Deptuch is shocked when agents use the holidays as a reason for not selling.
“It’s an excuse,” she said. “If you’re working, there’s never a bad time.”
Ken Bacon, a director of the listing service, and a managing broker for Windermere Real Estate, said the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas is a more difficult time to sell, but it’s no reason to pull a house off the market.
Plenty of people still need to buy and those that are tend to be more serious, he said.
This time of year, fewer homes tend to be on the market and that means more competition for the houses that are for sale.
That doesn’t mean selling is going to be a cakewalk. Houses need to be priced what they’re worth, agents need to market homes aggressively and sellers need to be willing to clean and fix problems, Deptuch said.
Buyers are pickier than ever, she said. Buyers expect the walls to be painted and the carpet to be in good shape. They want homes clean and free of clutter. Buyers want to walk into a home and feel like it could be theirs, she said.
The couple made repairs and Deptuch helped them prioritize what needed to be done, focusing on problem areas that might make a buyer balk. The couple replaced an unsightly range hood and fixed the trim in the kitchen, for instance.
The agent steered the couple away from fixing up an old barn on the property, something a potential buyer probably wouldn’t care about.
The Mehans moved extra belongings into storage and hired professional cleaners. They painted the house in and out, replaced dated garage doors and put in a new lawn. The house got new light fixtures, doors and carpets.
The result: the couple put their house on the market for $429,999. Within a dozen days they received three offers and a sale is pending.
Reporter Debra Smith: 425-339-3197 or dsmith@heraldnet.com.
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