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Selling in Los Angeles.

What buyers are deciding, and what to do about it before you list.

A successful sale is mostly a series of decisions made before your sign ever goes up. Which work is worth doing, which is not, what a buyer will notice first, and what sale price will get the job done.

1. Light is the first thing they judge, and the last thing you can fake.

   Buyers decide how a house feels within seconds, and in this city that is almost entirely about light. Walk your own house at nine in the morning and again at five. Whatever is dark at both hours needs attention: a window uncovered, a hedge cut back, a dim fixture replaced, a heavy drape taken down.

2. The approach from the street sets the mood for every room after it.

   What a buyer registers walking from the car to the front door decides how generously they look at everything inside. Consider your approach to the house as the first room of the house the buyer will see.

3. Flow matters more than square footage.

   A well planned floor plan makes a house feel larger than it measures, and a poor one makes it feel smaller and awkward to furnish. Removing an obstruction that interrupts the path through the house is often worth more than anything you could spend on finishes.

4. Fix what cannot be changed, or price for it.

   Foundation, architecture, and where the house sits on its lot. A buyer cannot alter any of these without razing the house, so these are the terms on which your home is really judged. If one of them is a genuine problem, it belongs in the price rather than in a surprise during inspection.

5. Spend one dollar wisely and you will get three.

   The hard part is knowing which dollar. Paint, light and the condition of floors return reliably. Elaborate taste-specific renovations rarely return what they cost, because the next owner has their own taste. Spend on what makes a house read as cared for, not on what makes it read as finished to somebody else’s preference.

6. You cannot out-renovate your street.

   Every neighborhood has a ceiling, and money spent above it does not come back. This is the most expensive mistake a seller makes, and it is the reason to ask someone who has actually built where that ceiling sits before the work starts rather than after.

7. Get your own inspection before you list.

   Whatever you know about and have not fixed, a buyer’s inspector will find and renegotiate over, usually at a worse exchange rate than fixing it would have cost. Finding it yourself means you choose whether to repair it or price for it. Letting them find the defects means you will be negotiating from behind.

8. The photographs are the showing.

   A buyer sees your house on a phone before they see it in person, and decides right there whether they want to see it at all. The first image is not a picture of the house. It is the reason somebody drives across town on a Sunday.

9. Presentation is not decoration.

   The goal is not to make the house look styled, and not to leave it cluttered. It is to let a stranger see the rooms rather than your belongings. Fewer things, clear surfaces, clean closets, open doorways, clean windows.

10. Do not fall in love with your own price.

    Sellers overprice for the same reason buyers overpay, emotions. A house that sits gets stale, and a stale listing invites lower offers. Price the house properly and the odds are you will get multiple offers.

11. Know what you will actually net.

    The number that matters is not the price. It is what remains after commissions, fees, repairs and taxes. This number should be worked out before you list your home rather than discovered at closing.

“As a Realtor, interior designer, developer and project manager, I have the ability to see the maximum potential for your home. I look forward to working with you.”

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