What Turns Home Buyers Off When Viewing Virginia Beach or Chesapeake Real Estate

filed under: Main category posted on January 14th, 2008

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Every REALTOR® hates this. You are out showing real estate whether in Virginia Beach or Chesapeake. You pull
up in front of the home to show it, your buyer looks at you with a scowl and says “no thanks” we don’t need to go inside.
What happened? The outside of the home was so ugly it immediately turned off the potential real estate buyer.
ZERO CURB APPEAL can equal ZERO INTEREST inside the prospective home regardless of the condition.

I like to drive around local neighborhoods in Virginia Beach during the weekend. I look at homes from
the road with a critical eyeball. I always check for new curb appeal trends in real estate, interesting architecture, or landscaping ideas.

But, my biggest pet peeve is a run-down home where the owner has not cared for the outside of the dwelling, including the exterior of the house, or forgot about maintaining the yard.
You know, we have all seen these homes wherever we may live. This isolated type of real estate is not
common to Virginia Beach or Chesapeake nor is it occurring in most local neighborhoods.

But it only takes one bad apple home owner to cause our Hampton Roads neighbors to be distraught, particularly if they or other home owners have their real estate for sale. Yikes!!

More ugly home things that bother me and you:

The yard needs mowing

Weeds have overtaken the flowerbeds

There is garbage on the yard

The garbage can is left outside

The house needs maintenance.
The trim paint is peeling, moisture damage has occurred where wood meets
the ground.

Mail box rotted or falling apart

Windows are fogged from moisture

Front door dismal

The coupe de ville has not moved in years

All kinds of funny statues in front yard causing you to worry about VOODOO.

AND my biggest complaint – the fence is falling apart, it has no commonality with any of the neighbor’s fences, or it has taken on a mysterious color of its own. This may be the single biggest recurring real estate problem in Hampton Roads. Whether wood, vinyl, aluminum, or chain link, they all have issues. Thank God for home/property owners associations who may be able to save property values.

Virginia Beach and Chesapeake buyers want a home that shows pride of ownership, is well taken maintained, and does not require voluminous work when they move in.

The only difference with sales of homes today versus three years ago in Virginia Beach and Chesapeake is that the ugly and neglected (condition) real estate is not selling.
There are just too many “almost perfect” homes or condos available for buyers. Sellers must get a grip with this fact.

posted by Dennis Blackmore

This entry was posted on Monday, January 14th, 2008 at 9:01 pm and is filed under Main category. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.