Dirty Houses Don't Sell

Dirty houses don't sell: We just showed a few homes in Dunwoody today to a buyer and what we heard just reinforced what we already knew - dirty houses don't sell. Nobody likes to walk into a house that smells, is dirty, has cobwebs, grease on the kitchen counters, the carpeting is stained, moldy grout in the baths, and you can't see through the windows...

When a home is not clean, it distracts the buyer from noticing what counts - the best selling features aren't even noticed - floor plan, square footage, design elements - because the buyer is fixated on the dirt and the unpleasant odors and just can't get past it.

By far, when preparing a home for sale, the best money invested is with a professional cleaning service. Everything needs to be super clean - starting with the kitchen, including the refrigerator, onto the baths, including the grout, the floors and baseboards, the ceiling fans, window treatments - especially when the curtains hold all sorts of odors - from smoke to pets...

According to the National Association of Realtors, buyers are used to seeing as much as 25 percent of available inventory as new. Brand new means clean. That's the competition, and the closer the home owner / seller can get the buyer to think of the house as new, the likelier the property will sell.

More than 33 percent of home buyers prefer a home less than 10 years old, yet the typical home purchased by all buyers is 12 years of age. This tells us that condition is very very important. And if you take a community like Dunwoody, where the average age of a home is 30 plus years, there could be a lot of layers of potential dirt to be dealt with in order to make a home to feel fresh and clean. So here's the ROI... for every dollar spent on cleaning could mean thousands kept as equity...and who doesn't want to get the most amount possible on the sale of their home?