Home stretch

Extra efforts that can close the deal on the sale of your house

By Sarah Shemkus

When Pittsfield resident Linda Carroll began searching for a house on Cape Cod, she knew exactly what she wanted.

Location was important to her; she wanted to be in a nice, well-kept neighborhood. The home she chose would need to have room enough to accommodate visits from family and friends yet not be too large for a single person to manage. And she wanted a home which would need no repairs or renovations.

“I was looking for something that was updated and would require no work,” says Carroll, who plans to move to the Cape full time in July. “As a single person who’s retiring, I didn’t want to have to deal with that.”

She rejected one house that was too close to a major highway and a few that lacked updated septic systems. In others, bathrooms that seemed straight out of the 1960s proved deal-breakers.

Despite her very specific list of desires, Carroll found what she was looking for on just her third trip to the area: A small, three-bedroom house in Centerville, less than a mile from Craigville Beach.

In the real estate realm, it is undeniably a buyers’ market. Prices have dropped significantly from their peaks in 2004 and 2005, and slow sales mean that house hunters have plenty of options. Sellers, however, are less lucky, facing shrinking property values, lengthened selling times and stiffer competition for buyer attention.

When buyers can afford to keep shopping until they find the ideal home at the perfect price, home improvements and enhancements can be crucial for sellers to give their properties a fighting chance. Local buyers, real estate agents and professional home stagers identify seven home improvements that help sellers gain a competitive edge in today’s very crowded field.

To read more of this story, see the May issue of Cape Cod VIEW on newsstands now. Don't miss a single issue of the VIEW, subscribe today.