Smoking and Selling

We know, we know. Smokers are coming under a lot of fire these days. Smoking is hazardous to yourself, hazardous to others, and expensive to boot. Well, sorry to say it, but smoking can also work against you if you are trying to sell a house.

A recent study by the National Association of Realtors showed that 80% of potential buyers listed the cigarette smoke as the biggest turn off when looking at a potential new home. These results were interesting when one considers that 28% of the population actually smokes. This means that at least 8% of people looking for a house are smokers, and yet find the smell of cigarette smoke causes them to lose interest in a home!

This is in keeping with common real estate sense. One of the primary rules of selling a home is to rid it of any strange smells or sounds which can turn off potential buyers. The problem with the smell of cigarette smoke is that it tends to stick around for a long time, and it can take a lot of effort to get out.

In addition to the smell, cigarettes are detrimental to the home selling process in other ways. The smoke will cause yellow stains to appear on ceilings and walls, and sometimes even floors. A dropped butt can burn a hole in a carpet quickly. All of this damage is very difficult and time consuming to repair; like the smell of cigarette smoke, stains tend to need a lot of work in order to get out.

If you are a smoker and want to sell your house, there are a couple of things to do to keep your habit from costing you a sale.

Get carpets and furniture shampooed. Be prepare to spring for the industrial package, that is how hard it is to get smoke smell out of fabric. You may have to have everything cleaned twice in order to get the smell out. You need to have your furniture done because the smoke smell will cling to it, so even if the carpets are clean the house will still smell like smoke. Wash walls, tiles, linoleum, and cabinets. These are other surfaces smoke scent will cling to, and you need to scrub them thoroughly. Smoke outside. You might want to do this from the moment you buy a home, but if not make sure you start once you have the house listed and everything clean. In fact, smoke as far away from your home as possible.

The smell of smoke will greatly limit the number of potential buyers you get, if statistics are any indication. If you can't butt out, at least butt away!