SMOKING CAN CERTAINLY BE AN ISSUE

Since the time when it became no longer in vogue, smoking has become a hot-button issue in so many areas of our lives, so much so, that it can affect almost everything we do. Maybe it’s because I’m a former smoker that I’m so sensitive to it. I believe that if I were a smoker today, I’d be far more careful of how and where I smoked and certainly more conscience of the effect it can have on the valuation of my assets.

I don’t know the statistics, but I would bet that if you smoke in your car and go to sell it, your audience would be at least 50% less than if you didn’t. I know that I can get into someone’s car and know in an instant that the owner is a smoker, or someone who has been riding in it has. As a matter of fact, like myself, I know people who wouldn’t even consider buying a used automobile from a smoker.

The other day I was in the home of a FSBO, and as soon as I entered the front door, I was literally overwhelmed by the presence of stale smoke. We are at the time of year here in South Florida where we finally have the luxury of being able to have our windows open and the a/c off because of the lack of appreciable humidity, and yet this lady, a schoolteacher she said, had her house totally buttoned up. The odor of the smoke was so bad that I had an extremely hard time walking through the house and almost offered to do my presentation outside on her lanai, (porch).

After my presentation and upon leaving, I found myself wondering just how many people would be completely turned off and not even consider making an offer because of the smell. I also tried to calculate how many bottles of Febreze, bleach, rug cleaner and the like it would take to get the house to the point where it would be very hard to detect or if you even could. I guess that if my presentation was as good as I thought it was, I have a good shot of finding out.

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