Selling Your House - $100,000 Pets
By Raynor James, Fri Dec 9th

Is your pet worth $100,000? It may be if you don't makeaccommodations for it when selling your home.

A Hundred Thousand Dollar Pet?

A house I'd seen with a potential buyer in an attractiveneighborhood built around two lakes sold for $100,000 less thanwas typical for the neighborhood. Do you know what caused it tosell for that much less? A pet. Actually, two pets.

I can hear you thinking, "How can that be? Surely she doesn'tknow what she's talking about this time. How could two petsreduce the sales price of a home by $100,000? Is that evenpossible?" I understand



your skepticism, but it's true. Let metell you how I know. When I made the appointment for thepotential buyer to look at the house, I wasn't told about thepresence of pets. We arrived at the house, knocked on the door,and when no one answered our knock, I got out my electronic keyto open the box containing a key for brokers to use. While I wasdoing this, we began to hear some loud barking from large dog ordogs inside the house. The buyer said she did not want to gointo the house with "dogs on the loose." I have to admit Iwasn't thrilled with the idea either, so we went on to the nexthouse she was considering.

She asked me if we could see that house the next day sans pets.I called and made arrangements.

The next day we looked at a two story, 5 bedroom, house with afully finished, walkout basement that supposedly didn't havepets. It was a nice house, but the whole house smelled stronglyof pet odors. The furniture in the basement was shredded - trulynot too strong a word to use. I've never seen furniture in worseshape. The front of the house was nicely landscaped. The back ofthe house was a disaster. The door frames and exterior doorswere scratched and gnawed. The lawn had beaten paths andpatches. There wasn't a flower or a shrub to be seen. The"buyer" couldn't get away fast enough.

I later found out the owner of the house had a German Shepherd.The second "dog" was a wolf and shepherd mix. The house stayedon the market longer than typical, the price was reduced severaltimes and the final sales price was $100,000 below what wastypical for the neighborhood. Now you tell me, what cost thatseller $100,000?

Don't misunderstand, I know pets are wonderful. Over time myhusband and I have enjoyed living with a German Shepherd, twoSiamese cats, assorted adopted stray cats, fancy guppies, goldfish, koi, and various sorts of wounded critters our two sonsbrought home.

Pets enrich your life. They don't enrich the sales price of yourhome. Take the right steps though, and they won't rob you of anyof your equity.

About the author:Raynor James is with http://www.fsboamerica.org - providing FSBOhomes For Sale By Owner. Visit our "sell my home" page athttp://www.fsboamerica.org/seller.cfm to list and sell your homefor free for one month. Visithttp://www.fsboamerica.org/buyer.cfm to see homes for sale byowner.

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