Timothy E. Lockhart - YOU HAVE OPTIONS: YOUR GUIDE TO AVOIDING FORECLOSURE

it is. You aren’t considering that the neighborhood was named ‘Most Livable’ in the local paper!” (But five years ago, and the old neighborhood has since changed.) Emotions almost always lead to problems in a sales price negotiation. Further, real estate transactions involve multiple decision points and often substantial investment of the homeowner’s time, energy, and money. As a seller, you want to find that home shopper who simply can’t resist buying your house at the highest price. To do that, you must provide potential buyers a striking home sales presentation that outshines other homes on the market. This requires creating a fantastic first impression, giving buyers an immediate feeling that they’re traveling up the front walkway of “their” new home for the first time, and not visiting someone else’s. Selling a house is about falling in love at first sight, from the curb, in those initial (and fleeting) seconds. As I said before, here’s the big news — everybody doesn’t get the price they could when selling their home. For example, consider two little ranch houses across from a well-kept cemetery in a nice suburban city near Cincinnati, in Southwest Ohio. One of them, 25 Cemetery Road (three bedrooms, one bath, 936 sq. ft., built 1957) was described as: “Neat as a pin and ready to go. Complete remodel kitchen w/SS appliances, breakfast bar, flattop stove, beautiful tile. Complete bath remodel. Hardwood floors, replaced windows. Great fenced yard, covered rear patio.” It was being fought over at $124,000+. Meanwhile, a comparable single-family home located at 19 Cemetery Road (three bedrooms, one bath, 936 sq. ft., built 1956) sold for $111,800. That’s enough of a difference (almost $15,000!) for the owner of 25 Cemetery Road to pay the cost of his real estate agent’s commission and pocket some profit. Frankly, that commission was money well spent, because it was hiring the real estate agent and following the plan that made all the difference. We’ll talk more about that as we move through this book;