How Not to Sell Your House

Leave minor maintenance jobs until they become major ones. This rotted fascia board is caused by a roof leak on the patio overhang. It would have taken about fifteen minutes to fix what was probably a missing shingle or two. Now it's a roof repair and fascia replacement.




Be sure and leave unusable items (aka "junk") laying about. Buyers always have too much stuff to store at their old place, why else would they move? Now they know exactly where they can store their old tires and scrap metal in their new home.



Cause permanent damage to your home in order to make it "fit" your needs.



Don't bother with litter boxes or with house training your pets. Besides, that overpowering smell won't be so noticeable so long as the temperatures stay down. What's that? Oh, we live in Arizona and summer is coming? Huh, I guess we never noticed because we always had the a/c on but now that the power is off...



When you do take on a home improvement project, always make sure you do it half-assed. Why bother taking down the blinds to paint? Is it really worth the effort when nobody will probably notice anyway?



Never, ever clean. People won't think twice about the fact that they can see a perfect outline of filth around the areas where your dog kennels were kept.



This could be a really cute home and it's in a great neighborhood with excellent schools within walking distance. It's also a short sale, which means the owner won't put another penny into it and the bank won't either because they don't own it (yet). Someone will buy it, but it will most likely be an investor who will pay bottom dollar and then flip it. I can't judge what's happening in someones life to make them want to live like this but I can tell you that some people are just not responsible enough to be homeowners. Come to think of it, I probably wouldn't want them as tenants either.