DebOnTheWeb AKA Deb Agliano - Medford, MA Real Estate

You're probably thinking, "What's the big deal about selling a home during Halloween - it's not a major holiday". That's a very good point, but I'm starting to notice a trend that can affect your chance of selling if your house is on the market right now. More and more people are decorating their houses for Halloween. Sure, it's a fun holiday (what's not to like about a holiday based on dressing up and eating candy!), but are those fake tombstones going to help you sell?

Last year a house came on the market in my area in the beginning of October. The sellers had done a nice job decorating the house for Halloween, but on top of the witches and other ghouls, they put bright yellow caution tape around the house. Now, this tape said "Happy Halloween", but from the picture in MLS, it made the house look like a crime scene. Not only did the house come on the market looking like it was a CSI investigation, the listing agent never changed the exterior photo during the entire 6 months the house was trying to sell. I'm sure you won't be surprised to hear that the house didn't sell.

This morning, I saw another new house for sale here in Medford, MA only to see that same yellow caution tape again. The moral of the story: If you're trying to sell your house, don't sabotage your sale. Go easy on the Halloween decorations so your sale isn't DOA.

Massachusetts has a law that before a house can sell, the town’s fire department must come in and inspect that the smoke and carbon monoxide detectors are in the right place and are working. The majority of the houses I see either have smoke detectors in the wrong spot or the batteries no longer work. Many houses don’t have carbon monoxide detectors until the owner installs them before the closing.

Whether you’re looking to sell now or not, take the time to replace the batteries in all of your smoke alarms and make sure that you have a smoke detector and carbon monoxide detector on each floor of your house. Each city has their own requirements, but here are the basic rules:

Smoke Detectors

• Since smoke is light, you should mount your smoke detectors on the ceiling, not on the wall
• There should be a smoke detector at the top and bottom of every staircase (unless your basement stairs come up into your kitchen because the smoke from cooking will set it off, causing you to take out the battery and thereby defeating the purpose of having a smoke detector)
• There should be a smoke detector no more than 10 feet away from all of your bedrooms (some towns require smoke detectors in each bedroom)
• Change the batteries in your smoke detectors every time we move the clocks forward or backward to ensure you always have fresh batteries

Carbon Monoxide Detectors

• Carbon monoxide is heavy, so mount your detector on the wall, not on the ceiling
• Carbon monoxide detectors come either battery powered or as a plug in. If you get a plug in type, make sure it has a battery backup so your family stays safe in the event of a power failure.
• There should be a carbon monoxide detector no more than 10 feet away from all of your bedrooms

Your local fire prevention office will be happy to help answer any specific questions you have regarding carbon monoxide and smoke detector placement. The

I know that my title is a tongue twister, but that alliteration is true for first time buyer houses in and around Medford, MA. Although the #1 saying in real estate is still “Location, Location, Location” it has met its match with the new saying “Price, Price, Price”.

As a seller, it can sometimes be a hard pill to swallow to realize that you might not sell for as much money as you hoped for, but in today’s market, you are much better off pricing your house aggressively rather than pricing it high. I meet with many sellers who feel that they have to overprice their house in order to let the buyer feel they have negotiated while they still get the price they want.

There are markets where you can come down if you aren’t priced right without it negatively affecting your chance of selling, but we aren’t in that type of market now. In the last month, I’ve put 2 of the houses sellers have trusted me to sell under agreement in less than 3 weeks. That’s in a market where the average time a property sits on the market is 109 days. Kevin Costner said, “If you build it, they will come”, but in my market, “If you price it right, it will sell!”