Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

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What We Did To Sell Our House Faster By Owner

Ok, so today our house looks like this. So – spontaneous decision! – while we get settled and find our underwear, this week is going to be moving week! Turns out you guys still wanted to hear a whole lot about the sale of our current house. So let’s do the dang thing. Here’s what we plan to cover in honor of Spontaneous Moving Week:

Dated Kitchen Cluttered With Items From Moving In
  • How we staged/sold our house (including a glance at our real estate flyer, a list of what we changed before showings, etc)
  • What we made when we sold our house vs. what we put in- budget breakdown included!
  • Empty house pics (dude, it’s trippy to see your house all echoey and vacant, but it’s pretty awesome closure too)
  • Moving day photos of our new house (we love having this Day One post from our last house to look back on)
  • A house hunting post about a few other homes we casually checked out (sort of like these that we did last time)
  • Other stuff that I’m forgetting right now because our house looks like this:
Kitchen Area Cluttered With Pillows And Other Items From Recent Move In

So onto the first bullet! We got a lot of questions like this:

“Did you stage your current home to sell it? I’d be interested to hear if you’ve made any small changes/put things in storage in order to make it seem less personal to potential buyers.”

“Would you be willing to share your For Sale flyer (obviously without any too-personal details like price and address)?

So here’s the little double sided flier we made in Photoshop (minus the address, price, and our contact info). Just click the image below to see it larger.

Flyer For Sale By Owner Real Estate Listing

And here’s the back (again, just click it to see it bigger).

Back of Flyer For Sale By Owner Real Estate Listing

Turns out we’re not really staging rule followers in the traditional “neutralize and de-personalize” sense. The whole repaint-rooms-so-they’re-all-neutral-and-remove-all-personal-photos-from-the-wall approach isn’t really something we subscribe to since we sold our first house by owner without doing that, and it seemed to work out for us again this time around.

So when we were showing our house to potential buyers our frame hallway was still very much intact. We think it’s helpful to show off how cozy and personal a home can be. Chances are that it could “speak” to a prospective buyer more than a stark and stripped down house might anyway.

Hallway With Lots Of White Picture Frames On Every Wall

But that doesn’t mean we didn’t do anything at all before a showing. Instead of taking things away, we mostly focused on making things look their best. Here’s our list:

  • We over-seeded the lawn a few weeks prior and let the rain do its thing to help the grass look fresh and green.
  • We mulched the garden beds and planted a few annuals (it definitely ups curb appeal and sends a “this house is cared for” vibe)
Front Of Modern Brick Ranch With Porch Columns And Window Boxes

  • We organized closets, the attic, the basement (basically any nook people could peek into should look functional and not stuffed-to-the-gills)
  • We wiped down counters in the kitchen and bathrooms and quickly polished the faucets with some Mrs. Meyers so they looked and smelled clean
  • We rolled up the rug in the cooking part of the kitchen and stashed it at the new house, just to show off the cork flooring a bit more
Cork Floors In White Kitchen

  • We mowed the grass and used a leaf blower on the driveway, patio, and deck to clear off any errant pollen/twigs/leaves/acorns
  • We touched up any paint that was scuffed in doorways, baseboards, etc
Bathroom Vanity Nook With Quatrefoil Mirror Over Sink

  • We also tucked Burger’s food and water away since it’s stored in our walk-in closet and we realized that might be weird for non-dog-folks who were trying to feel at home.
  • We removed Clara’s bath toys along with her potty seat and sink stool from the hall bathroom so people without kids didn’t just see it as a “kids bathroom” (we left her other toys in baskets in the living room, nursery, and playroom since those seemed easy enough to see past)
  • We removed the bath mats in every bathroom to make them seem more spacious and show off the tile (matted stepped-on-with-shoes bath mats aren’t always that pretty, which tends to happen during showings).
Bathroom With Vintage Basketweave Black And White Tile

  • We vacuumed, dusted, and generally cleaned things up (this included following Clara around for the last half-hour before the showing and singing the clean up song about a million times while we dumped stuff into bins and baskets)
  • I took a damp rag with a bit of mild soap (Mrs Meyers) and scrubbed the front door, which was still glossy and yellow, but had a haze of pollen. It really made a difference and only took five minutes!
Yellow Front Door Open To Brick Ranch For Sale

  • We left the separate entry basement door unlocked during showings so people could easily check out that space without trekking down there and then finding themselves locked out
  • We put a little note on the microwave cabinet in the kitchen and said “there’s a vented microwave in here!” so people knew where to look
  • We tossed a runner on the table on the deck along with a few cups (even though the furniture came with us, adding some color and that sit-right-down vibe couldn’t hurt)
Deck Built Between Original Brick Ranch Home And Addition

Most of those items just had to be done once before the first showing, and then keeping them up for the following ones wasn’t too bad. Sure, getting a toddler and a dog out of the house on time before each one was a little hectic, but we feel really lucky to have only had three showings this time around (we had 14 last time!). What do you guys do when your house is on the market? Any other tips for folks who are about to list?

Comments

  1. RebeccaH says

    I used to work for several realtors and helped photograph the homes they had listed as well as doing some staging. I agree with a number of commenters who suggested decluttering (especially the kitchen counters!). We also did the baked cookie trick :) (or sometimes just warm some vanilla in water in the microwave). One of the biggest things that a realtor I worked with had clients do is to turn on all the lights in the house before a showing. Ceiling lights, lamps, whatever you have. It really helped the home look bright and inviting as soon as prospective buyers walked in the door. And congrats on your successful move! Can’t wait to see what you do with this one!

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Smart about the lights! We forgot to bullet that, but we ran around turning them all on before leaving (except for closet lights since we voted the whole “glowing closet” looked strange, haha!).

      xo
      s

  3. Julia @ Cuckoo4Design says

    That flyer was so awesome. I have never really seen any homes for sale anywhere that looked as pretty as yours. Somebody got really lucky!
    And how awesome is it that Clara loves her new room!

    Reply

  4. Amy says

    I just wanted to say how impressed I am that amidst a big move, you still manage to update your blog with interesting and informative posts! I always look forward to reading your blog on my break at work and you never dissapoint. Good luck with everything!

    Reply

  6. Laurie says

    I don’t know if you’ve been alerted to the fact that Emily Henderson is a “massive fan” of yours! Check out her blog post today – in the comments section (9th comment or so). Just read it and thought you might like to see ;)

    Congrats on the new house!

    Reply

  7. Eri says

    That first photo — the terracotta orangy wall and the blue rug combo makes it feel oddly trendy :) Glad the moving went smoothly!

    Reply

  8. callina says

    We recently sold our house FSBO, and I’m definitely having house staging and showing flashbacks! It can be a lot of work, but it really pays off. It’s nice to set up the ambience of each room before lookers come in–we noticed realtors will usually turn on all the lights, so we started doing that, especially in rooms where accent lighting could really make a difference, like table lamps that most people wouldn’t bother to turn on themselves but that really added a nice welcoming feel to the room.

    Reply

  9. jeannette says

    i hope you all will let the baby teach you. get one room set up nicely for yourselves and go play with your dollies on the windowsill. i’m sure burger also has lessons to impart.

    Reply

  11. Alyssa says

    Yay! So happy for you guys :)
    Off topic, random question – do you guys ever use eBay to sell things? I know you use craigslist and I read all your helpful posts on that, but our craigslist here has waaaay too many postings and my posts keep getting buried! Considering trying eBay next, but I am a little nervous! Haha thanks :)

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      I used to use ebay in college and right out of college back in NYC! It’s fun for getting stuff for the home (it’s where I got the white bentwood chairs by the window in our old house’s living room) and it’s also where I used to sell things (although most of that was DVDs, clothes, and jewelry/purses). Anyone sell home stuff on Ebay?

      xo
      s

  13. Megan says

    Congrats on selling so quickly. I’ve never sold a house personally (although I was around when my parents sold a few of our family homes) so I couldn’t imagine doing all of this. We have 4 pets and a 4 year old so that’d be the hardest part. I think it helps to have decorations (at least like your house, not like an old lady’s house) up to show how modern, family oriented, and welcoming a house can be. I do like the tip of removing rugs though.

    Reply

  14. Lauren H says

    “Turns out we’re not really staging rule followers in the traditional “neutralize and de-personalize” sense. The whole repaint-rooms-so-they’re-all-neutral-and-remove-all-personal-photos-from-the-wall approach isn’t really something we subscribe”

    I think that really applies when you’re addressing poor design choices, super-dated spaces and overly personal (as in personal family photos on every wall of every room). And, of course, your homes never fall into those categories when you’re done with them! ;)

    Reply

  15. mribaro says

    I love your new kitchen setup! It’s such a refreshment from your usually neat and tidy style :) Also, love the rug switcheroo – same things but in a new way. The many possibilities in front of make it all so exciting.

    Reply

  16. Autumn says

    I love all of your distinct colors… I had a question though, Do/did you leave a list of colors or cans of the old paint so if their nail holes don’t match yours they can patch them up?

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Yes, we leave all the paint we used on the walls/ceilings/trim behind (in cans in the basement) and take the paint that we used for furnishings that come with us since they won’t need that and it could be more confusing to have all those options…

      xo
      s

  17. Judy Clark says

    I hope that you youngsters enjoy your new home. Cherish new beginnings.

    I noticed one feature in your new home that caught my eye and made me laugh. I call it the “squawk box”. We had one in every room of our house when we moved in. When we took them out we had this huge hole in the wall. My hubby filled them in, sanded and painted over the hole, which was very interesting. I hope that you enjoy every minute of your new life in your new home.

    Judy Clark
    Kennesaw, GA

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Oh yeah, that funny old intercom still intermittently blasts music and then falls quiet when we turn it on. Should be interesting to tackle that…

      xo
      s

  18. Mary says

    I’ve been reading your blog since I discovered it while researching for our own backyard wedding three years ago. We had just bought our first house around then, too–so it’s been nice to follow your blog since then. I am also from Richmond, and find myself wondering what part of town you’re in. I see your old home is in Bon Air–are you sharing what your new neighborhood is? I was trying to guess when you first described it. ps–I’m from Short Pump!

    Reply

  19. Mike says

    Ha. We made sure to get our son’s room all ready before moving in to our new house, which all of needed serious updating.

    We even painted his walls the same color to try and give some continuity with the move. :)

    Reply

  20. Lauren says

    Good luck with the unpacking, and I’m looking forward to reading all of the moving posts this week.

    I’m just curious…did you paint the kitchen blue for resale, or did you truly just want to get rid of the grellow?

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      We loved the grellow but it never quite worked as well as we’d hoped with the cork floor and the white counters (made them look yellowed) so we just repainted it for us (we’re no strangers to repainting if our first color isn’t the one). I’m sure it didn’t hurt resale, but I don’t think the grellow would have been a deal breaker either.

      xo
      s

  21. Dona says

    I just sold my big house for a smaller one and I used Mrs. Meyer Basil to wipe down my counters, kitchen and bath, and even the front door to carry the smell through the house. Sold it in less than 30 days …..

    Reply

  23. John says

    Yep – moving is always a good time! It’s amazing how trying to pack all your belongings into a truck can highlight how much stuff you really own!

    I can’t wait to see what you do with that old intercom system. Our house looks to be about the same age and has the 1980s-style Nutone intercoms everywhere. They work, but they are pretty useless next to our iPads!

    I’ve thought about replacing each one with an iPad or iPod touch or something … and one could video call down to the kitchen or something!

    Reply

  26. Lily says

    Congratulations!

    We are planing to move into our newly bought house. Very excited about it.

    Saw your first picture of a door casing. We have that kind of door casings throughout the house, wondering how you want to do with them? Paint or install new ones. Thanks,

    Reply

  27. Ashley H says

    YAY new house and moving!!!

    I wish I had known that you were leaving those curtains in the spare bedroom….I would have offered you guys something for them!!! I LOVE them :)

    Reply

  28. Lucy S says

    Congratulations on what seems to be a well thought out and relatively bump-free move!

    We are a military family, and have moved into new homes 7 times since having kids, and we ALWAYS do what you did for Clara. Getting the kids’ their room cozy and looking like home goes such a long way to making everyone happy.

    Don’t kid yourself, no matter how many times you move, it does work on your stress meter/nerves to have the rest of your house looking like it does now, but it will all be worth it! And, no matter what, the most important things are all intact: Sherry/John/Clara & Burger… best wishes!

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      The master bedroom and bathroom along with the living room were an addition, so one water heater worked the kitchen sink, hall bathroom, and guest bathroom while the other one ran the master bathroom and sink in there. Seemed to help from running out of hot water with three full baths on those occasions when they were all in use.

      xo
      s

  30. Desiree says

    I love your blog and I’ve been following you for years and this is the first time I’ve pursed my lips in jealousy.

    Three showings? Sold after 36 hours? My lips are pursed.

    I had a small baby and a large dog and our house was on the market for 10 months and we had over 50 showings. We did all that stuff too – rolled up rugs, wiped stuff down, except times 50 and times 10 months. Oh yeah, and my husband had already accepted the new job in the new city so I was back at home, doing the mad scramble by myself. Every time. Times 50, times 10. Pursed lips.

    I told my husband I will never ever do that again and we’re not allowed to move for at least five years. I need that long to recover. I pray to the heavens that if we move again, it’ll be more like your experience and less like mine.

    I still love y’all tho – and I put board and batten in our entry and followed your tutorial! :-)

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Haha, thanks Desiree! That sounds INTENSE! You get 100,000 points for all of that wiping and cleaning! Wow, I couldn’t have done it!

      xo
      s

    • YoungHouseLove says

      It has definitely been bittersweet to kiss the penny tile goodbye and pack up our wall of frames, but we’re just so excited about the potential and the possibilities of the new house, and now that we’re in it finally feels real! Wahoo!

      xo
      s

  32. Kate says

    An ugly truth is my husband and I moved into a brand new house we built about the same exact time you guys bought your last house…and we have yet to decorate and finish so many areas it’s embarrassing. We did have our first baby in that space of time and are coming up on #2’s due date so we’ve been busy but I always looked at your progress and felt so far behind. Seeing your new home and that you’re starting over is weirdly inspiring to me to get going on ours. It’s as if the fact that you guys are starting from scratch makes the fact that I’m only half done not seem that bad anymore. So thanks! I can’t keep up with John & Sherry pace, but if I don’t have to go back to start then I’m already ahead. New goal: paint at least every room in my house before John & Sherry complete a whole second kitchen renovation. But if you could give me fair warning on your kitchen…I tend to procrastinate…

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Haha! We like to plan big things like kitchen renos for about a year (and just live in a house to see how it works/what it needs) so you’ll beat us I bet!

      xo
      s

  33. Laurie Sullivan says

    ARHAUS ME!
    I would love to put a new sofa down in our rec room for the kids to entertain their friends. Love Arhaus!

    Reply

  34. rachael says

    Why did you guys not use the most updated pictures of your home for your flyer? I’m seeing an old TV stand and small TV in the living room picture. I know your home sold already so it obviously didn’t make a difference with that, but I was just wondering….

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Oh my gosh! We must have just grabbed the wrong picture for the flier and didn’t even notice that! We have about ten million house pics in folders so I think we just got confused.

      xo
      s

  37. Kari says

    We just sold our house, and took possession of our new house on last week. Whew! Our showings go a little differently since the market is crazy hot here – we had time slots available for showing on Thursday and Friday evening, and Saturday, Sunday and Monday all day with an open house on Sunday. Then we took offers on Tuesday evening, and got to go through all five and pick the best one. We have three small kids, so keeping the house up was a bit crazy. The biggest tip I can offer is (like you mentioned!) to clean out all of the cupboards and closets, and also any other places that you can use to stash the extras that are around. For example, we cleaned out the drawers under our older two kids’ beds, and each day before we left they piled all their extra blankets and toys in the drawers. We cleaned out our storage ottoman in the living room, and all the extra books, toys and remotes were stuck in there. It made cleaning up much less stressful because every single thing had a hiding place :).

    Reply

  39. KarenH. says

    I think when a home is decorated as nicely as yours and looks so contemporary, you can fudge a little on some of the hard/fast staging rules. MOST of your rooms already were nicely neutral, and the ones that weren’t still played into the neutral palette well. In my not very humble opinion, obviously! LOL And since every SINGLE surface and wall wasn’t impossibly cluttered, the photo hall wasn’t overdone.

    Since you DID follow the rules on making sure the closets and storage areas were organized and decluttered and you made all your upgraded (or just awesome) flooring stand out by removing area rugs, your house still meets the spirit of the staging rules, if not the letter of them. And it’s the spirit of them that sells homes.

    Check out the interior shots in this listing (I have no association with this; it’s simply a home that helps illustrate the difference between your house and a house that needs to be depersonalized and neutralized) http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2413-44th-St-Moline-IL-61265/5182133_zpid/

    Although my condo was staged (and neutralized with a creamy butter yellow throughout), what really sold it was that because I’d lived there 22 years, I was able to price it below 2 foreclosures and 6 short sales in our community (and still make buckets of money).

    You have to know your property, and your community. And if you want to fudge some of the conventional staging rules, you have to have a killer instinct for style and current trends. And you guys have that last bit in spades. :)

    Reply

  40. Carrie says

    I am cleaning and recleaning today because our realtor is coming over in (ahhhh!) 2 hours to take pics of our home. How many times can I wipe down the kitchen faucet??? I agree that neutral is good but a little life in the house shows others that your house is better than a staged model down the street. Also, I am moving earlier than my husband so I hope it sells and we have all our stuff out before we drive 2000 miles across the country. I, too, like the closure of an empty house. It would be very sad to leave here with all our things still hanging out without me and our two little people.

    I did the same “staging” that you did. Gussied up the closets and inside cabinets, cleaned scuff marks (I love Mr. clean magic eraser!), touched up paint, and cleared the counters. Great tip on the bathmats. They look blah so quickly and we’re going to be out of town for a couple weeks so I won’t be here to refluff them! I also won’t be here to make a mess. Score!

    Hope our sale process goes as we’ll as yours has! Excited for your next BIG project.

    Reply

  41. Lauren says

    Congrats on the move! We’re not planning to move for a few more years, but I’m looking forward to all the tips you’ll share this week!

    I’m sorry if this has been asked already (I didn’t read through all the comments :-) ). Does Karl fit in your new living room? It seems like it might be tight with the fireplace…

    Reply

  42. Amber says

    Congratulations on your new house. It’s been really fun to follow your journey. Our house has been on the market for almost a year now, hoping it sells soon. Looking forward to watching you transform another house into a home.

    Reply

  43. Darcy says

    Congratulations on surviving “Moving Weekend”!! I am so excited for Moving Week – I can’t wait to learn all your tips and tricks for packing it all up! LOL!

    I am dying to know if you guys have found an inspiration of colors for this home, a la “Sue the Napkin”?

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Not yet but we’re really feeling white (this house is so dark) with natural accents (wood floors, woven blinds) and pops of nearly every color of the rainbow. Can’t wait to see where we end up!

      xo
      s

  44. Karen says

    When we sold our house just as the market was tanking. I made sure to have a beautiful fresh flower arrangement on the dining table, clean towels in the bathroom, dishes done and put away. Our house was always spotless which our buyer said was a huge selling point to her since most houses she looked at were quite dirty. I never changed any of my paint colors because I tried to pick modern neutrals that appeal to almost everyone. It worked for us!

    Reply

  45. Alyson says

    What kinds of things were deal breakers for you guys when you were looking for a house (foundation work needed? old plumbing?) and what did you find easy enough to update? Or was it just what things needed to be fixed in combination (like, were you willing to consider a house that needed a new roof but not one that needed a new roof and a new furnace)? My husband and I are starting to think about buying a house, and I’m definitely not afraid of putting in some sweat equity, and we’re both reasonably handy and willing to learn as we go. While I understand it’s an individual decision what each buyer is willing to put up with or what s/he thinks is worth updating, what kinds of needs-fixing things did you see and think, no way? Thanks! LOVE your blog!!

    Reply

  46. Nikki says

    Along the lines of paint colors. Do you have an inspiration like Sue the Napkin this time? It was fun to watch that play out in your last house.

    Reply

  47. Steph Nelson says

    I commented earlier but something occured to me….
    Perhaps your buyers took an hour at their showing because they
    couldn’t tear themselves away from your frame wall!!

    Haha…:) Looking forward to the moving posts this week!

    Reply

  48. Kathy Zimmerman says

    We found that potential buyers gave us a two hour time frame, i.e. “We’ll be there between 5:00 and 7:00pm.” The showings tended to be scheduled around meal time. Since we wanted to save our money for our new house, and NOT on a million meals out, we would wait until the perspective buyers showed up, then leave and drive around for 15 minutes. Fortunately for us, we could drive by a nearby road to peek and see if the showing was done or not (we’d look and see if the cars were still parked outside). 95% of the time, it was done in 15 minutes.

    Reply

  49. Alison says

    That flyer was very nicely done. It really shows how well all the rooms coordinate with each other. I remember in you first house how you had all sorts of colors, and learned to tone down and coordinate your color pallete. Good job. More colors than white add light to a dark room. I hope you don’t paint everything white!

    Reply

  50. Chenell Tannure says

    I am so with you on the not needing to neutralize and de-personalize. I think that comes in handy if things are, well, in poor taste. No realtor wants to offend a client, so it seems easier to sell the “de-clutter rule” as a bit of real estate gospel. I guess it IS a better way to put it than, “hey, dude…your house doesn’t look nice, and that’s going to put buyers off”. I also assume some realtors just say it to all their clients, even if things look great. Either way, it didn’t apply to you. Congrats on the sale!

    Reply

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