Tucson AZ Real Estate

This is our 100th post on our 100th day of existence for Tucson AZ Real Estate. Please allow me to firmly place my tongue in cheek as I present a little satire on marketing homes in Tucson : )

Taking a page from the old reverse psychology we are going to look at an actual home we were in this past week while previewing homes and include some additional handy tips.

This post isn’t about this home as much as it is getting a Tucson Home ready for the market and how to present the home using reverse psychology. You have to remember this is the presupposition of this post.

Helpful Notes

Leave Helpful Notes around the house to help the potential buyer get a feel and flavor for the home and what they would be getting into if they decided to make this their new home.

Be sure to have the home listed with the following verbage:

“Home Sold AS IS, no warranties, inspections, or clue report. There is no Seller Property Disclosure Statement”

No reasons to fix anything up after all “Let the Buyer make it their home and do to it what they want.”

Keep the notes short and sweet and add a little humor by including the words “Don’t, Won’t and Ain’t” as often as possible. After all what are a few red flags tossed around the house in the overall scheme of things.

Here is another example of a very effect note to potential buyers that for some unknown reason might actually want to go into the garage.

I left our reflections in this image to show how effective a note can be to bring a little levity into the moment and still dissuade anyone from going where you don’t want them.

Notice the polite manor and tone in the note “Feel Free to open the door. . .”

Helpful notes are a very effective way to point out slight defects and imperfections.

Interior design and staging

I don’t have many pictures of this home but I can describe for you some of the attention to detail items done inside the home. We will address Landscaping and Curb Appeal in the next section.

1. Place Iron Bars at a 45 degree angle over any exterior doors you don’t want opened and nail them into place bending the nails to make sure the door and bar can not be opened or removed. Rusty nails are preferred. Do this from the inside of the house.

2. Remove all the carpets and pads in the house to help hold down the odor, but removing the tack strips are optional. Exposing the vinyl tile or cracked concrete in the floor is considered good disclosure practices. And if the buyer wants to carpet the rooms again they can pick their own pad and color and you have provided the tack strips. You can see this effect under the call for help to Batman, but trust me even he can’t help this one.

3. Paint at least one room all black. This includes the ceiling and walls and put down black vinyl tiles on the floor. Then throw in a few musty bean bag chairs on the floor to complete the ambiance of an “entertainment room”.

4. As noted above in the helpful notes section. Be sure to disconnect all the plumbing pipes and while you are at it have all the utilities turned off so no one gets hurt. Well, maybe you can leave the electricity on so they can see the black rooms but turn off the gas and water for safety. Yes they have to be turned back on during the inspection period, but you don’t have to be there. You will have to pay the re-connect fee, oh well.

5. Don’t empty the fridge or clean it out. Put some bottles of water in the fridge with a note on the door for people to help themselves but make sure the fridge is turned off and what ever is left in the fridge provides a pungent odor. This provided hospitality but guarantees you won’t have to restock the water.

Landscaping and Curb Appeal

A built in barbecue area is often appealing to buyers but there are limits. So don’t spend a lot of time cleaning it up or removing litter, leaves, old hoses etc. If you can get the hood over the barbecue area to rust it will add character.

Make sure if there is a drip system to the landscaping you shut that off. This way all the landscaping will die from lack of water. Once again providing a valuable service to the potential buyers so they can visualize the yard with their own plants.

Finally price it well above market value. The gem in these photos is listed above $200,000.

There are more helpful hints on listing and marketing your home but this should be enough to get you started. Now don’t fall into complaining about the rotten Tucson Real Estate Market and the finicky buyers that want everything to work for rock bottom prices. This kind of thinking is not the positive attitude you want to present.

(Have a great day and thank you for allowing me to have some fun today. Tomorrow we will be back to our regular broadcast schedule.)

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