As a Metro Detroit real estate agent that has worked with home buyers for almost 18 years now I have the sense of what home buyers want from their reactions when viewing homes.  I also can make notes of what homes they eventually buy and also on my listings which homes take longer to sell.   I am just going to discuss my local area.  Many times news agencies talk about real estate across the country and readers and watchers of the show take it as fact that something happening in Florida or California makes the real estate market in Metro Detroit the same way.  That is not so.  Real estate is local.  When the mortage meltdown happen our real estate market in Metro Detroit went down the tubes before most of the country.  What I am trying to say is that there could be a really hot sellers market in Houston Texas, a neutral market in Charlotte South Carolina, and a luke warm seller's market in Metro Detroit.  Real estate is local and I am going to talk about what is happening in Metro Detroit.

So what causes homes in Metro Detroit to take longer to sell?  Home buyers like move in ready homes right now.  They want homes that are not money pits.  Home buyers do not have time to make the homes move in ready?  They do not have the inclination to do it.  Home buyers pass up homes that need lots of work all the time.  They tend to like the fixed up nicer homes. Another reason home buyers do like move in ready homes is because they may not have the money to fix up the homes themselves.  Let's say the house needs a kitchen remodel or a bathroom remodel.  They may not have $10,000 for the bathroom remodel or the $50,000 for the kitchen remodel.  So it is easier for them to buy a home that already has the kitchen or bathroom re-done.  The buyers do not have to save or wait to have a nice kitchen or bathroom.

This article started out about de-cluttering.  Why is de-cluttering so important to the move in ready home.  You want your home to appear spacious.  You want the home to have continuity.  You want the home to flow.  You want the home to appear to be taken care of.  You want it to appear to be clean.  De-cluttering does all of that.  As home owners we tend to keep buying and keep adding to our homes.  Sometimes we tend to fill up every space on a wall.  So when you get ready to list you need to start pre-packing.  You need to make decisions on what is going with you to the new house.  Sometimes we added something from mom and dads house.  It really doesn't go with your decor or the other furniture but you loved it and it has sentimental ties to your mom and dad.  To make your house flow it needs to be taken out of the room and stored, donated, or sold.  This accomplishes making the room appear spacious and keeping the room flowing.  You make the room more attraction by keeping the same style and not having "old or worn" furniture in it.  We want your home to be like a model home.  It doesn't matter if it is an lake homes for sale in Oakland County MI or an regular home in Metro Detroit let's stage it to sell!

Yes I know that is not how you live but I hope to convince you to do that for a few months.  Sure you may have a great stereo system and computer system but the wad of wires has to go.    We need to make it neat.  Even if we have to tape the wires together every six inches.  Making appear neat, newer gives the buyers the impression that you have taken care of your home.   De-cluttering gives the house the appearance of organization.  Home buyers like that because many of them do not have the time to do that themselves.  But you the home seller have given them the idea or vision that they could have organization and a nice appearance in your home.  That is our goal to help them visualize themselves in your home.  That they can see themselves living in a nice neat home.  They don't want to see themselves in a cluttered home.  So let's sell the dream of your home being