Listing Triangle™ - Front Street Brokers | Page 23

footage. This is a quick tool when comparing homes that have basements
versus homes that don’t.
Garage Size
Garage size is something that impacts a lot of buyers. Can they park
their car in there or not? Even though it has a one- or two-car garage, how
practical and functional that garage is means a lot to potential buyers. Two
similar houses might have three-car garages, which seem like nice features, but
one of them is extra deep and has a lot of space for parking bigger trucks and
bikes or allows room for a shop. The other one is very shallow, so they could
maybe park the car in there and not the truck. Those kinds of things make a big
difference when it comes to what kind of offer you may receive on the home.
The buyer’s going to pick the one with a bigger garage, and possibly pay more
for it because he’s going to value that feature more. It’s something to keep in
mind when you’re pricing a house.
Curb Appeal
First impressions are so important. This goes back to the presentation of
the house, because curb appeal is something that is going to have huge
implications. When you first pull up and look at a house, pay attention to see if
there’s anything you can do to improve the first impression.
Sometimes there’s nothing you can do, because sometimes the first
impression of the house is not the house at all, it’s the house next door. If the
neighbors have a junkyard, that is going to have huge implications for the
pricing of your house. Buyers are going to pay less for the house because it’s
in less desirable surroundings. What do you do about it? Maybe you can talk to
the neighbors about having a work party and offer to help clean up their
yard—do something nice for them rather than demanding they do it
themselves. Maybe offer to help the neighbors paint their house or repair their
fence. Curb appeal and first impressions can hugely impact pricing, so you’re
going to want to pay attention to that when you determine the right pricing for
the house.
Improvements Don’t Always Mean Improvements
It’s important that homeowners share all their recent repairs and
improvements with their agent so they can share that information with buyers
and appraisers; however, homeowners often believe every dollar they invest
into improving the home is a dollar they will get back when they sell, which
unfortunately is often not what happens. Improvements don’t necessarily add
value to the price of the home. A lot of times when sellers put in a $15,000
The Listing Triangle™
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