Selling in Twinsburg? Start Outside, Because the City Will

Selling in Twinsburg? Start Outside, Because the City Will

By Mike Ferrante, Broker Associate, The Mike Team at LPT Realty

When sellers ask where to start getting ready, most of them picture the inside: paint the bedrooms, replace the carpet, clear the counters. In Twinsburg I'd start outside, for two reasons. The first photo buyers see is almost always the front of the house. And the City of Twinsburg inspects the exterior before a home can sell.

What Twinsburg's point of sale inspection covers

Twinsburg runs an exterior-only point of sale inspection on residential and commercial properties. The city inspects against Chapter 3 of the International Property Maintenance Code, sections 302, 303 and 304. In plain English, that covers:

• The exterior property: grading and drainage, walkways and driveways, weeds, fences and accessory structures like sheds.
• Swimming pools and hot tubs, including the barriers around them.
• The exterior of the house itself: roof, gutters, siding, trim, windows, doors, steps, decks, railings and peeling paint.

The city asks sellers to allow five to seven business days for an inspection or a re-inspection, and notes that violations can be corrected or assumed before closing. If your home is in a community where an association maintains the exteriors, ask the building division how that affects your inspection. My company, Bamco Real Estate, has a Twinsburg address, so this is a local rule I'd want every Twinsburg seller planning around instead of discovering mid-deal.

Schedule it before you list, not after the offer

Order the inspection early. A short violation list you fix on your own schedule costs less, and stresses less, than the same list negotiated with a buyer under a closing deadline. And the items a city exterior inspector flags are often the same things a buyer's inspector would point out anyway.

The exterior is also your marketing

Our listing photos lead with the single strongest image, and for most Twinsburg homes that's the front of the house. Peeling trim, a cracked walkway, overgrown beds and a stained roof all show up in that one photo, and buyers scrolling on their phones decide in a second whether to open the listing.

We saw this play out with two homes our team was selling that needed about the same amount of interior work. One had a manicured yard. The other's yard was unkempt. Buyers liked the manicured one more. Nothing about the houses themselves was different enough to explain it.

Inside: paint usually, carpet sometimes, big renovations rarely

Fresh neutral paint is one of the cheapest things that changes how a house photographs and shows. Carpet is a closer call. If it's stained, holds odors or is visibly worn, replace it or, if there's hardwood underneath, pull it and clean up the floors. If it's clean and neutral, it may be fine as is.

Large renovations are a different story. Here in Northeast Ohio it's uncommon for a kitchen or bath remodel done right before a sale to return 100% of its cost. The small jobs a seller can often do themselves, decluttering, yard work and painting, tend to go much further for the money.

A simple order of operations for Twinsburg sellers

• Order the city's exterior point of sale inspection.
• Walk your own exterior with the list above and fix the inexpensive items: paint, caulk, gutters, trip hazards, overgrowth.
• Paint and declutter inside.
• Photograph last, once the outside looks the way you want buyers to remember it.

If you're thinking about selling in Twinsburg, we can help you get ahead of the inspection and the listing prep. Reach The Mike Team at www.21mike.com, call +1(216)373-7727, or find us on Google.