Selling a Home in Mission Viejo? Here's How to Make the Buyer's Life Easier

If you are a home seller in today’s Mission Viejo Real Estate market, you know that buyers are all looking for a deal. And as an equity seller or a short sale seller, you are competing with the deal-making buyers’ dream – the REO listing. 

You know, the REO that the bank has priced to fly off the shelf and torpedo the comps in your neighborhood.  So what can you do to improve your sex appeal to these ruthless, let’s-make-a-deal-bound buyers with such stiff competition? I’ve written volumes on

• purging
• staging
• pictures
• pricing

– so you know all that already. Once you have those boxes checked off your list, here are a couple of other ideas to make your home easier to buy and appease the deal-seeking buyer who actually is looking for a wonderful home:

1. Get the Termite Inspection done. If you can, make the necessary repairs Section 1 repairs. (Section 1 is what every Mission Viejo Home Buyer will ask for in their offer. This is to get rid of any termites you might currently have living with you and to repair any damage caused by those that have moved on). List your house with a Termite Clearance. One less thing for a buyer to have to negotiate or worry about. Look how sexy your listing is getting!
2. Get a Roof Inspection done. Find out if your roof needs any tiles or shingles replaced, new mud stops, or any other form of maintenance. Then get the work done and show the buyer a Roof Certification--a Golden Ticket to a deal-seeking, savvy buyer.
3. Get a Basic Home Inspection done. Cut the buyer’s off at the Home Inspection pass. Then fix as much as you can. Be pre-emptive in your strike against a litany of items showing up on their inspection. And then include everything you’ve done in your disclosures to actually show the buyer what you’ve already fixed. That way they don’t have to negotiate for it or figure out how to do it themselves. It's one more way to make it easy for a buyer to stay in love with your house.
4. Get a Mold Inspection. If you’ve had a leaking faucet in the upstairs kids bathroom that has gone unnoticed and unattended to for the past year, you might want to have a mold inspection done after you fix the leak.  Include scientific sampling to find out what you are dealing with. And if it is a health hazard, get your kids out of there and take care of it, before a buyer finds it and hallucinates about how horrible it is and runs for the hills and away from the deal. Not very sexy, but this will keep your listing out of the proverbial gutter.

Just a couple of advanced seller strategies to keep you on the top of the heap. There are a few more homes on the market in Mission Viejo today than there were last year. Put all of these improvements/certifications/clearances in your listing where the Bunny Slipper buyers can see it when they’re shopping on-line at 2:30 AM. Every little thing you do to make you home the best one on the market will help you get it sold. And sold faster and for more money.