If You Want to Sell, Your Home Shouldn’t Smell
Thursday, July 3rd, 2008If you want to send potential buyers running for the hills, having offensive odors meet them at the door is a great way to do it.
I recently had an open house at a home that always smelled fine on all the other occasions that I visited it, but this particular Sunday afternoon, the house smelled like pee. As tactfully as I could, I asked the homeowner about the “slight urine smell”. She quickly answered that her youngest son often peed the bed, and she just didn’t have time to do laundry that weekend. Sure enough, as I went toward her son’s bedroom, my eyes began to water. Air freshener didn’t help, and removing the offending linen seemed to be too little too late.
Needless to say, the home was not sold that day. First impressions in real estate sales is almost everything (pricing is more important, but that’s another blog entry), so when you’re planning to sell your home, give it a good sniff in every room (don’t forget the basement). If you can detect any bad odors such as mold, cat or dog smells, cigarette or cigar smoke, or strong food odors like garlic, then its time to take measures to correct the problem.
Often times, a good scrubbing is all your home needs. Soft surfaces hold odors so cleaning carpets, curtains, bed linens and other fabrics will often solve pet and food odor problems. Cleaning (or removing) ashtrays, mopping floors and wiping down walls, in addition to cleaning all soft surfaces, will often eliminate or reduce the stale cigarette smell left behind by smoking. However some odors require the replacement of old carpets or the priming and painting of walls to remove them.
If you want to get the best possible price for your home, preparation before every showing is essential, and part of that preparation is to eliminate any bad smells.
