Don't let your 'Blinkers' distract your Buyers

When I was a kid, I used to call it ‘taking a left around the world.’ You’ve seen them – Those people who can’t seem to remember to switch off their turn signal.


As I’m headed to work this morning I found myself behind a car whose left turn signal was happily blinking and winking away at everyone around it.




There wasn’t a left hand turn ahead of us for quite a few miles, and they probably were not giving me REALY early notice on their driving decisions, but instead they simply hadn’t noticed their blinker was on.  While I tried to ignore it, my eye kept coming back to the flashing light. Remember, these are devises that are designed specifically to draw a driver’s attention, and it certainly drew mine.


It’s wasn’t a big deal. It wasn’t hurting anyone and really doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.


Yet…

I noticed it.

I continued to notice it.

And it was distracting!


When you are selling your home, what little insignificant signals are you showing your potential buyers? What little problems have they noticed that they now can’t stop looking at or thinking about?  Do you have some baseboards that were never painted?  A small patch of water damage on your ceiling from a leak repaired years before?  How about a bit of torn weather stripping around a door?   These are all easily solved problems that usually only cost a few dollars to repair.  They certainly don’t have any bearing on the overall value or quality of your house.  They are just blinkers.


But your buyers are noticing them and they are thinking about them.

They are thinking “If these little problems aren’t taken care of, what big problems haven’t been taken care of?” or “If I can see these problems, what problems are there that I cannot see?”


Will a buyer immediately make a decision based on these little ‘blinkers?’ Probably not, but when they go to make that big decision, those little problems are going to come back and they will carry a higher value to the buyer than the minimal cost you would spend to fix them.  Will it mean that the buyer will offer a bit less, or, worse, will the buyer decide to buy the other house that they were considering?  You know the one down the road that didn’t have any blinkers?


What do you have that needs to be fixed?  What are your eyes missing that your buyer’s eyes aren’t?


The problem is the little things that you’ve lived with for the past few years aren’t even visible to you anymore.  You aren’t seeing them because those small details are what makes this house a home for you.  Your relationship with the house has become more like a close friend, whose small imperfections have become the character you love. 


Buyers who walk into your house don’t have any problem seeing the blinkers.  They don’t have the memories of Holiday dinners or first baby steps.  They are looking for an unblemished canvas to paint their own memories. 


Sometimes it takes a fresh, and preferably well trained, set of eyes, to find the perfect balance of blank canvas and positive blinkers in your home.  Give one of our experienced REALTORS® a call today for a free consultation and make sure you don’t have any negative blinkers that will send buyers to your competition.