What Ice Cream Has to do with Selling Your Home
October 9, 2007
Most home sellers these days in the Valley are savvy enough to realize there’s a lot of competition out there. They know they’ve got to spruce up, clean up, organize, and stage their house so it stands out from the competition. The process of doing this is a whole other post that I’ll get to in the coming days.
Here, today, I want to talk about my Ice Cream Analogy. I whip this one out when I’m talking to sellers who are resistant to the idea of painting, carpeting, or snazzing up counter tops. The usual refrain I hear is, “We don’t want to waste money updating that when the buyer might not like the color or style anyway. Why bother? Just let them do it once they move in.”
Folks, that mind set is a cop-out. Why do I say that so bluntly? Here’s where the ice cream comes in.
Let’s imagine you & your neighbor both stand in your front yards offering free ice cream. Your neighbor offers vanilla ice cream. You’re offering almond nut crunch with chocolate sprinkles and caramel sauce.
Whose ice cream offering do you think will get more takers? Vanilla! More folks will choose the vanilla ice cream, every time, no matter how yummy the almond nut crunch looks and tastes. Why? You can dress up a vanilla scoop any way you like. Add chocolate sauce, rainbow jimmies, chopped peanuts, Oreo cookies, strawberry topping or anything else to make it all yours. But the almond nut crunch w/ toppings is an option which is hard to un-do. You can’t easily turn that confection into anything else. It would take time, patience and some creativity.
Time, patience and creativity are qualities most buyers are lacking or are unwilling to exercise, for a variety of reasons. Today more than ever, buyers want a blank canvas that they can just spend a little money & effort personalizing. Most are turned off by a home that needs a lot of “un-doing” before they can get to the personalizing stage.
Need to sell? Vanilla-ize your digs. It’s called “Real Estate Beige” for a reason - it sells real estate.
October 10, 2007 at 4:09 am
“Most are turned off by a home that needs a lot of “un-doing” before they can get to the personalizing stage.”
I couldn’t agree with you more. We bought our current house with white walls, plain carpeting and no fizzle and took our time making it our own. Now when it comes to sell, that’s a whole different story…
October 11, 2007 at 4:18 am
I like to take my sellers out to look at homes, either in their neighborhood or not, so that they can see the differences between a house that is well prepared, a.k.a. “Vanilla-ized”, and a house where the sellers were resistant to painting, carpeting, etc. I can almost actually see the light bulb going off when they experience the two types of listings. Makes my job of convincing them that it’s a “must-do” much, much easier.
October 12, 2007 at 1:43 pm
*Excellent* analogy!