“What’s with the smell?”
This week Erica & I went on caravan together. If you aren’t familiar with this term, it’s when a group of agents from an office follow one after the other previewing each others listings. The reason for this is to keep up with what is currently for sale and to show off their individual listings to other agents. So this week we previewed 7 homes around Paulding County. The price ranges were anywhere from $141,000 to $ 299,000. Of the 7 homes we saw 5 of them had funky odors. Some of them were pet odors and some of them I couldn’t tell you what the smell was. They just smelled.
When a potential homeowner comes into your house you better believe that smell plays a big roll in whether or not they get a warm fuzzy about your house. The worst thing that could happen is when someone has looked at 20 different homes to potentially buy, and yours is the one that stands out in their mind as “Oh yeah, the stinky house.”
There are things you can do to help with this. Pluggin room deodorizers work well. Keep them in every room. Be careful however about the scents you choose. Everyones nose has a favorite and a least favorite. So keep it neutral & light and clean. I wouldn’t go with heavy flowers or perfumed ones. Before you leave the house spray a room neutralizer around a little bit. But my all time favorite thing to do is right before you know you are going to have someone visit your home, bake a batch of sugar cookies. Nothing says home like freshly baked cookies. Now, not all of us can be Martha Stewart, so cheat. You can find all sorts of cookies in the refrigerator section that are pre-made. They smell just like home-made cookies but are easier. Pull them out of the oven (don’t forget to turn it off) then place them on a plate in the kitchen with a note that says, “Thank you for looking at our home, please help yourself.” I had a home-buyer tell me that she bought my house for two reasons….It was clean & the cookies! They had seen many homes that were amazingly enough, dirty, cluttered and smelly.
It’s a very competitive market right now with thousands of homes for sale. If you want yours to sell, Clean it, De-clutter it & for heavens sake, make it smell good!