Staging your home for a quick sale

When you are selling your home you need to properly represent or stage your home.  Staging a home creates a feel for your house that potential buyers will appreciate the first time they view your house (whether in pictures or in person).  In today's market, it's important to take the time to set the stage for a quick, full-price sale.  Selling a house is not an easy task and you have to devote some time to get ready for it. 

Here are some tips for staging your house:

Boost The Appeal

In order to attract a buyer to come through the front door, you have to pay attention to your curb appeal.  Power wash the walkways, driveway and house siding to create a cleaner look.  In our area, you also need to pay attention to any moss on your roof.  A mossy roof, or mildew/green patches on the house or driveway give a dingy/dull appearance and make the potential buyer wonder what other parts of the house have been neglected.  Cracks on a concrete driveway should be repaired.  Worn away paint or stain on your front steps needs to be spruced up too.  

Outside the house hang some easy-to-read house numbers and keep some blooming flowers in your flower beds and in pots (hanging or otherwise) out front.  Wash the front windows and if there are any stains repaint it. All these will accentuate the look of your house.

The Home Should be Neat and Tidy

A neat and tidy house attracts buyers.  If they are unable to look past your clutter to picture themselves living there, then you've lost a potential buyer.  Make sure that the house is sparkling clean with neat and clean closet, bedroom, kitchen and clean bathrooms.  

Clean the Clutter

If you have kids or children at house then a heap of toys or a clutter of clothes over the bed or floor is quite common.  Pets can also create their own messes of toys and equipment.  Even adults can keep large volumes of personal items laying around.  Yes, the potential buyer recognizes that a person still lives in the house... but they still want to walk into a model home.  Remove half the items in your closet - a large closet begins to look like a small closet when you have it operating at max capacity.  A potential buyer will envision more storage space when it appears that you were unable to even utilize all the space available while living there.

In the kitchen, remove all items from your refrigerator (time to pack up you're child's A+ on the spelling test and recent art creation).  Remove all items from your countertop as well (if possible).  The less items on the counter, the more potential counter space available and you can never present too much cooking space.  Yes, we recognize you still live there, but it is an easy step to remove your favorite toaster, canisters, cooking equipment and even coffee maker.  If your counter space is limited, remove it all.

Rearrange Your Furniture

Before the buyers pay a visit to your house, make sure that all the pieces of furniture are at their right places. Rearranging the furniture neatly is very important.  If your dining room is large, accentuate this with a large table and chairs.  If it's cramped, remove any extra table leaves and remove some of the chairs to not show how cramped the situation can be.  Decorate the top of the table with a vase and flowers as well as decorative plates, napkins and glassware that you might use for entertaining. 

In your living areas, accentuate focal features by positioning the furniture properly.  For example, do not block a fireplace with your coach, instead re-position the coach so that someone sitting in it would be facing the fireplace.  Remove over-sized furniture and opt for smaller pieces.  While the large furniture might show that you can fit big pieces in the room, it also takes up a lot of space and can make the room appear smaller.  Set the stage with decorative items like throw pillows and soft blankets to make potential buyers feel at home.

Beware The Odor

Staging a home doesn't just stop when things look good, it also needs to smell good.  The use of air fresheners can help with this.  You could opt to turn on a wax tart burner for a few hours before showing your house.  If you don't happen to have that much time, add a couple cinnamon sticks to boiling water for a few minutes as this scent seems to over power a lot of other common household odors.

You want to sell your home for top-dollar, and setting up an environment that is welcoming to many people is the best way to do this.  So take the time to remove some of your personal items and rearrange things to make it more inviting to others.  Although it may not be the easiest home to live in for a week or so, it will help you to quickly move on to your next home.

5 Ways to Increase the Value of your Home

With the real estate market still recovering, many people have decided not to sell their homes. Instead, most of them have chosen to work on increasing the value of their homes through renovations in preparation for the market to fully return. The following article provides a glance at some of the best renovations for home values.

Bathroom addition

A complete bathroom renovation can easily recoup 70%-140% of whatever you spend on the entire exercise. According to real estate agents, potential buyers are usually attracted by spacious bathrooms that have clean bath tubs and stand up shower facilities. Other things like stylish shelves, sinks, and wide mirrors can also attract more clients and in the process help the homeowner make a good sale any time.  Adding an extra bathroom can also greatly increase the marketability and re-sale price of your home as prospective buyers love the idea of not having to share bathrooms with their guests.

Deck Addition

Currently, outdoor living spaces are considered to be the "in" thing to many people with our love of personal relaxation as well as extra entertaining space. According to analysts, the cost of adding a deck is usually determined by its size and features. Such good renovations usually cost about $7000 or more. However, despite being costly, beautiful decks often attract more clients and increase profit margins by up to 25%.  If you intend to be in the house for a long time, the use of composite decking materials can help to reduce maintenance headaches... but will also boost the cost significantly.  If you are adding the deck for a little personal use, but ultimately will sell the property quickly then use of cedar decking may be a more cost-effective material.

Installation of energy efficient insulation

A poorly insulated home can quickly drive away potential buyers and at the same time force home inspectors to write negative reviews about it in their reports. Ironically, installation of such equipment normally costs very little since the government supports such exercises. Some of the most common energy-efficient insulation options include fiberglass batts and blankets, loose-fill fiber (blown-in insulation like you find in an attic), structural insulated panels, and foam insulation.  Most of these additions are difficult to do once a home is built, but if you are lacking some attic insulation, this is an easy update you can do without tearing open walls.

Reinventing a room

The number of rooms in a house can easily dictate its selling price in any property market. Thus, by adding square footage, a homeowner can easily increase his profit margin since he will have more reasons to convince clients to pay extra.  The cost of simply adding extra square footage can often be quite costly and you would have to cross your fingers that you will recoup that money when you sell.  It is best, instead to take the room you have to work with and be sure to maximize it.  Do not opt to convert 2 medium-size bedrooms into one huge one, unless you are wanting to stay in the house and get the most out of this massive room.

Introduce an income suite

With the introduction and promotion of domestic tourism, many homeowners who have rental income suites in their homes continue to make enormous profits throughout the year. Such individuals stand good chances of getting returns from the sale of their properties.  If you intend to live in the house while renting out another portion of the house you will have to be sure that your home is zoned by your city/town to allow for this.  Then also be sure that you can easily create a separate living area for your tenant with their own entrance.  To preserve your own sanity, you do not want to be sharing a front door with your tenant and it will eliminate a lot of safety concerns.  Also be sure to screen all tenants thoroughly since you will both be living under the same roof and you don't want to find out after a few months that they have undesirable habits.

Any reliable renovation exercise can easily increase the value of the property and at the same time attract many buyers within in a very short period. Other benefits associated with such kind of activity include reduction of regular maintenance costs and strengthening of the positive relationship you have with your immediate neighbors and community at large.