We Buy Kansas City Houses

As you are reading this you probably have recently lost a loved one.  Let me first offer my condolences.

After all the services, flowers, and caseroles are all gone, we are often left with a house that is full of stuff and memories and we have no idea where to start.  My family and I were actually quite lucky in this area as when Dad passed Mom took the time to deal with all of Dad’s stuff.  His clothing she donated, his tools and man stuff in the garage she sold or gaveaway.  Then she downsized to a little bitty house.  Then when she passed a few years later, we didn’t have quite the mess we could have.

So for those of you with less than organized loved ones, that like to keep everything, and possibly did not quite keep the house up to modern HGTV standards, I wanted to offer a few tips to get through the process of dealing with the house.

First, before you start digging through closets and storage and pulling stuff out, while it still looks clean and neat and sort of lived in, take the time to call 3 or 4 Realtors who work in the area, have them all come over on the same day and give them all the same tour.  Ask them their honest opinion about:

1. What the house would be worth in tip, top shape, and what would need to be done to hit that tip top shape.
2. If you were to remove all belongings and list it right now today to sell, what would it be worth.
3. If it were their house and they wanted to sell for the most money with the least amount of work, what would they recommend.
4. Make them back up their opinions with other sales printed out of the mls.
5. And have them explain all the time and money involved in getting it ready to sell, time on market, realtor commission fees, title companies fees, home inspection repairs, and other fees.

Next as you are getting the house ready to sell, you also need to keep in mind that someone needs to maintain the utilities, the yard, and check with the insurance company to see how long the previous owners insurance will cover a home that is sitting vacant, you may need to find other insurance.

Now you are armed with some facts and figures about how you may want to approach selling the house, but you need to get it ready to sell.

If the home is in need of a lot of repairs and updates, you may want to take out the few key items that you want and have a real estate investor come in and make you an as is offer with all the stuff and an as is offer with all the stuff removed.  Investors deal with “stuff” all the time and can save you valuable time in sorting through stuff that you may not want to deal with.  But note that a Real Estate Investor is in this to make money, so it’s a trade off.  Do you want top dollar or do you want to get it overwith faster and save time and money spent in holding costs, marketing cost and selling cost.

Now on to the hard part, if you determine you want to attempt to sell the home for sale by owner or list it with a Realtor, you do need to get it ready to present to the home buying public.  Here are some things you really need to do to get that top dollar!

1.  Take out all food & personal hygine items from the house, it’s just in the way and not really worth selling.  Take home what you want, toss what you don’t, and/or take non-perishible items to the food pantry.  Now you have emptied 1/2 the kitchen and bathroom closets.  Be sure to dispose of all medications properly.

2.  Personal Belongings:  Unless your loved one has some really expensive furs or collectible clothing, their personal belongings are not going to be worth much.  So rather than having potential buyers have to look around packed closets full of Dads old suits, lines of Grandma’s sturdy shoes by the bed, or the display of Aunt Betty’s wigs, take them all to goodwill.

3.  Pets, you will have probably already moved the dog and cat to a new home, but if not, find them a good home and send all their stuff with them.  They are going to be scared with out their mommy or daddy at home anyway and could scare potential buyers.

4.  Now it’s time to tackle all the stuff, dishes, collectibles, furniture.  If your loved one was a collector of stuff, it’s now garage sale time.  You would probably want to take some key pieces and market them on craigslist to get people to your garage sale.  Secure some tables to place in the garage and in the middle of rooms and price all the stuff and get it out where it can be seen.

Many people tell us as we come through that they don’t want us to take the stuff with the house, that they are going to get an estate sale company to have a sale.  But we have found that most often the estate people don’t want to work with you unless you have a house full of antiques or a ton of valuable items.  So the garage sale promoted by craigslist is a great way to sell everything in 2 days.

Take stuff that does not sell to Goodwill or a Thrift Shop.  We also have a connection of a Church that will just come and take everything from from #1 on down (except for the pet) for free, if there is enought decent stuff for them to sell at their thrift shop.

Now you have an empty house that people can walk through and see.  Now you are ready to put the house on the house on the market or make any repairs you have planned before you list with a Realtor.