You need to be able to look at your house like a buyer and if you can’t, find an honest friend that will serve it to you straight.

Once you’ve gone through the list and completed, have a friend or coworker come over and again, give it to you straight.  Sometimes people are in denial about their own house.  Sometimes people don’t even have a clue.

We visited a house while we were considering buying that from the road looked okay.  As we got closer we found a lot of clutter outside, but still everything from the outside wasn’t too bad.  Then we had a little surprise, the homeowner was still home.  See typically when you are looking at someone’s house as a potential purchase they aren’t home.  That way you can go through it and really look at it instead of worrying if you were going to offend someone.  Well this lady was still home and her main concern was her dog would jump.  We assured her a dog jumping wasn’t a problem.  And it was a Boston Terrier so that small dog jumping certainly wasn’t a problem.  I mean come on, I owned Great Danes for many years and have been a dog trainer even longer!

So Doug is holding Isaac and we enter the house…HOLY CATS….HOLY CLUTTER.  This lady might have been on an episode of that show hoarders…animal or possession hoarders because either fit.  See there was STUFF E-V-E-R-Y-W-H-E-R-E!  The tops of her cupboards were packed, the floor was packed.  There was a small path throughout the house.  The worst part, was the floor, the CARPET was slick with cat urine. It was so pungent I think I lost some nose hairs that day and sometimes I feel I can still smell it.  But again, the lady’s main concern was the dog jumping….Oblivious much?

I sent Doug to the car proclaiming that Isaac looked fussy (thank God for babies!) and I did the tour. As we passed one door the lady said “That’s the cat room, I haven’t had a chance to clean it.”  I wanted to say lady the whole house is the cat room!  But I had to see these cats.  So I asked if I could peak in and as I did, 5 cats came running out.  But as I looked back in the room I saw that the cats had been eatin
g the drywall!!  I mean she had plenty of food available, but there were holes and chew marks all over the walls.

The sad thing about that house was that she was renting it.  She had completely destroyed someone’s property and wasn’t even aware of it.  And not only that, but gave pet owners that want to rent a bad name.

So take the time to enlist a friend so you aren’t the crazy cat lady.  Have them go through the entire house like they were interested in buying.  If you can’t handle the truth upfront (grow a backbone!) or have them write it down.  It might mean more work for you, but you get to choose what you will fix and what you won’t fix.  Some of their points will be valid, some will be insignificant.  But take the time to know them so you can decide if they should be eliminated or not.

In the end this step is essential to selling your house quickly.  Otherwise you may have just been looking at your house through rose colored glasses (or in the case of the cat lady, smelled through cat urine burnt nostrils)!