Wallowa County Real Estate
Listing 101
Okay, you have made the call to me to come visit with you about listing your property for sale... What can you expect from me?
We will arrange a time to get together at your home/property.
From this meeting, I will be able to take pictures, notes and just visit with you about your home.
I Will go back to my office and within a few days, I will have had time to check with the courthouse for legal information and to compile a Comparative Market Analysis. This will enable me to compare your home with others that are currently listed and also with ones that have sold within the last six months. This gives me the information to determine a reasonable listing price for your home.
We will meet again and review the document I prepared for you.
At this time, if you have decided to list your home/property, I will prepare the listing forms for your signature. The forms will include the Listing Contract, the Seller Property Disclosure (4 pages), the Siding Disclosure, the Lead Base Paint Disclosure (if built prior to 1978), and the Agency Disclosure.
Okay - It's Listed, Now What?
I will:
- Input the information into the Wallowa County Multiple Listing Service
- (this allows all the Realtors in the county to access your information)
- Put a Wallowa Mountain Properties For Sale sign on your property
- Send the information/pictures to Wallowa Mountain Properties webmaster for input onto the company website: www.wallowamountainproperties.com. You may also see the information and pictures on my personal website: www.wallowavalleyrealestate.com
- Write ad copy to be used in all advertising. This includes the Wallowa County Chieftain, the NE Oregon Real Estate Guide, The Real Estate Source, and other individual advertising avenues.
- Put your property on the weekly Realtor tour on Tuesday. This may take more than one week to accomplish as the tour schedule changes throughout the county towns.
- As other brokers have clients come in that are interested and qualified for your type of property, either myself or Belinda (from our front desk) will contact you to make an appointment for showings. Afterwards, I will find out from the other agent how the showing went and I will call you with the details.
If the showing went very well, we will have an offer to review.
Real Estate Seller's Guide
It is important to attract as many qualified buyers as possible by preparing your home for sale as though you were in the Buyer's shoes. Make your home as appealing and uncluttered as the home you would like to buy and in so doing, improve the market value of your home.
When you hire me to list/market/sell your property, I will...
- Provide you with pricing strategies for the Joseph, Enterprise, and Wallowa area.
- Help you define what needs done to your home or property for real estate marketing.
- Place a professional quality FOR SALE sign on your property.
- Produce full color brochures.
- Prepare professional advertising in the various Wallowa county real estate publications.
- Place your property on this website.
- Help you showcase your property on www.realtor.com.
- Help you negotiate the best offer including all paperwork and forms.
- Guide you through the escrow through closing.
- Provide top level real estate expertise.
Outside
- Mow the lawn, trim trees and shrubs away from the house. Rake leaves, remove dead plants, flowers and shrubs.
- Put away tools, garbage cans, hoses, toys and building materials neatly in the garage.
- Check for broken roof shingles, straight lines on gutters, shutters, windows, and siding.
- Clear patios and decks of debris.
- Dress up the front yard around shrubs and home with freshly cleaned flower beds, decks, porches, carports. Your front entry is the first thing people see.
Remember: You only have ONE chance to make a first impression!
Inside
- Use bright light bulbs in light fixtures.
- Turn on all lights in the home for evening showings to welcome buyers.
- Fill the house with a pleasant aroma of cinnamon, vanilla or other fresh scent.
- Spotlessly clean woodwork, cabinets and carpeting throughout the house.
- Wash all windows, inside and out.
- Repaint walls if necessary in neutral colors.
Living Room
- Discard worn furniture and move extra to a storage area. Too much furniture makes rooms look small.
- Clear away all magazines, books, and unnecessary objects from rooms throughout the house.
- Take down pictures that hide walls. Patch holes and paint, if needed.
- Open curtains, blinds, shades. Let in the fresh light.
Kitchen
- Clean oven range and top.
- Replace broken appliances, repair squeaks, dripping faucets or drawers that stick.
Family Room
- Clean fireplace if summer time, have doors clean. In winter, have a fire burning.
- Replace carpet if worn, stained or a loud color, if possible.
- Create an easy-going, relaxed atmosphere in your family room.
Bathrooms
- Remove any unnecessary items from counter tops, tubs, commodes.
- Make each bathroom look like a guest bath. Sink, commode, bathtub, tile and shower curtain should look immaculate, no soap film or hair.
- Fix leaky faucets, rust stains, and faulty plumbing that may squeak or bind.
- Caulk and grout tile. Bleach discolored grout.
- Replace or remove any wallpaper that is not conservative.
- Place softer bulbs in bathroom fixtures and scented candle on the counter.
Bedrooms
- Try to have the bedroom look as simply furnished as possible
- Be sure all clothes are hanging up neatly and not lying around in the room.
- Make closets more appealing by storing off season clothes somewhere else.
Children's Bedrooms
- Here is a challenge! Ask children and teenagers to help by thoroughly cleaning up their rooms, removing all posters, questionable photographs, etc. Low lighting and clutter make bedrooms look smaller and darker than they are.
- Patch and paint walls if necessary.
- Open curtains and blinds.
Garage & Basement
- The perfect garage contains only cars, BUT if this is not possible, clean up, fix up, sell or toss out unneeded items.
- Neatly stack tools and clean up work bench and tidy up storage shelf areas.
- A finished basement is great! Just follow the same guidelines given for preparing the family room.
- If unfinished, make sure concrete floors are well swept and clean.
- Seal or paint concrete floors.
- Clean water heater, change filters and put strong light bulbs in fixtures.
- Turn on basement lights for showings.