What makes a house ‘unique’ in the real estate market?

Where I live, the market now is definitely a seller’s market. Houses are getting multiple offers within a couple days of listing, which is great for selling, but not when buying! I have put in cash offers within 24 hours of houses coming on the market and been outbid with higher cash offers! You would think that if you put in a cash offer that quickly, that you would potentially get it, but in the current market, this has not been the case.

If you live in an area where the market is a bit more stable, you might not sell your house quite this quickly. In a subdivision or association, many houses are very similar and are even called ‘cookie cutter’. So what can you do to make your house stand out from the rest to be a more competitive seller?

Consider these 3 things when getting ready to sell:

 Unique Character:

In older homes, you can usually find some ‘character’ which is what many buyers are looking for in today’s market. Not many years ago, people would rip out all of the original pieces of their home to modernize it. In today’s market, having original character and charm in a house is something that many people are looking for.

Our last house was built in 1869, yes 1869! I had a difficult time when walking through it because I felt like it was two different houses put together.

The upstairs was so unique and the ‘old farmhouse’ was dying to be uncovered. All the original wood floors were intact throughout the whole upstairs simply buried under disgusting carpet. All the original doors with porcelain knobs were hanging on the original ornate hinges. There was a gorgeous brick chimney covered by drywall with an adjacent hole in the ceiling. Throughout the upstairs, all the trim was painted the same color as the walls- a light hue of dated blue. These are all things that can easily be restored back to their former unique charm!

Upstairs Main Bedroom Before:

A clutter filled, disgusting room turned out amazing! Original wood floors, original brick chimney, freshly painted trim and walls, and original doors, knobs, and hinges restored! This room was big enough to have a bed, sitting area, and desk space. Having the chimney exposed gives it that unique character.

Pay Attention to the Small Details

What will make your house stand out among the rest? Spend some money putting in some unique detail. I mentioned earlier that I struggled with the more ‘modernized’ downstairs so we really wanted to try to install some character back into the main floor. How did we do this? Trim, trim, and more trim. There was not really any trim on the main floor so we had a lot to buy. We could have gone and bought the cheapest stuff at the big box store, but that really wouldn’t have helped the flow of the house. Instead we went with a little bit nicer trim and added some ‘rectangle pieces’ at the bottoms of the door frames and the ‘bulls eye squares’ at the tops.

All the trim we bought was ‘primed’, but realistically, it still always needs two coats of paint. So here is just SOME of the trim we bought with a first coat of paint put on the night before install.

Another small thing we did to add some character was to re purpose an old wooden bookshelf that we found in the garage. It was never our plan to use this, but before we closed on the property, the former owners put a huge crack in the wall while trying to move stuff out. So rather than replace the entire wall, we nicely cut out that section that was damaged, put the bookcase there, and finished off with some trim. Behind that wall was dead space so it fit perfectly. This was a clever fix for a small problem….and I strategically placed our ‘VH’ letters there as part of the staging. 🙂

Staging

Some potential buyers simply cannot see how they can make a house a home. It can be difficult walking through an empty house and imagining where furniture can go. So the third way to make your house unique from the rest…staging. Now you don’t need to go crazy with your staging. The last thing you want to do is to put too much into your house that it then looks cluttered. This will scare buyers away. Rather, keep it clean, organized, and simple. Streamlined staging can make your house appear more cozy and welcoming. If you have a good realtor, he/she will tell you if your house is too cluttered. Here are a couple rooms from our last house with some staging.

What have you found that helps make your house ‘unique’ in this housing market?