Real Estate Information Center

Staging a home for a sale is as important as being priced ahead of the market. Staging is the art of preparing the house for sale. Staging is what you do after you’ve cleaned, uncluttered, painted, made minor repairs; it’s all about dressing the house for sale. Staging makes your house look bigger, brighter, cleaner, warmer, more habitable and, best of all; it makes home buyers want to buy it!

The staging process starts when you search for a qualified listing agent by asking the questions regarding staging and preparing your home for sale. Some Real Estate Sales Professionals are had earned an ASP RE Certification which is an Accredited Staging Professional for Realtors designation. Other Real Estate Professionals will have a certified ASP Staging Professional on retainer or on staff.

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Everybody reads articles about preparing a home for sale. I think there’s a problem with those articles. Most people don’t really see what they have. Get someone to come into your home, such as a good friend or close relative, who you think will be honest and straightforward and who you think has a good handle on the real estate presentation world. Tell them to be brutally honest about what should be put away, thrown away, given away or stored.

Most owners love what they’ve done to their homes. And they’re color blind too. So if they’re told to depersonalize, reduce clutter or whatever the advice that is coming their way, they ignore it, unless they’re that rare individual who can take off those rose colored glasses and really “see” their home as others will.

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Yes, we all have secrets, some we can afford to make public, but some others should be kept under wraps. When selling your property you should ensure that none of your personal and private items are left out for prospective buyers to view.

Sure, your stager would have advised or helped you to depersonalize your space; but somehow the day to day items that you use or newly received are left in areas that prying eyes can view.

1. Rumour has it that very many normal people peek into medicine cabinets. Do you really want the prescription medication or medical equipment that you or your family use to be viewed by complete strangers? Those items could send the wrong message to the buyer.

Continue reading ‘3 Things You Really Do Not Want Buyers to Know About You’ »

There are many successful home stagers that are not certified and do quite well. Typically, they have been professionally staging homes for a while and have developed a list of realty clientele who utilize their services on a regular basis. If you are fortunate to be amongst this group of professional home stagers, then obtaining certification is probably not on the top of your priority list. However, if you are fairly new to the home staging business, just starting out or haven’t been able to develop a large customer base, professional certification may be something you should consider.

Obtaining certification credentials will identify you as a professional, a master of your trade with the expertise to get the job done. Realtors look to home stagers as a way to boost their showings to sales conversions. If a realtor has never used a home staging service before, presenting as a certified specialist in the area will gain you additional credibility. Just as home inspectors have become the trusted standard to use in evaluating the worthiness of the purchase price; accredited home staging professionals are becoming the standard that realtors look to for moving homes on the market.

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The real estate market is the slowest it has been in many years. One of the reasons is that many homeowners do not know how to get their homes ready to sell. A new facet of real estate is the home staging of a property for sale. A home stager assists the La Mesa real estate agent to get the home ready to be the most appealing to a broad spectrum of buyers and to showcase the best features of a home. This will help the home seller sell their home quickly and for the highest price. This article will guide you through the various steps you can do to stage your home yourself and get your home ready to sell by an El Cajon real estate agent.

Step One: De-personalize
This is the first important step to stage your home. When a prospective buyer enters your home they want to try to see themselves possibly living there and not evidence of your current family living there. One way to do this is to remove all family photos. Many people like to look at photos displayed in the room and by doing so, they forget to look at the room itself. When thinking back of your property, they may not remember your property well enough to want to buy it but they may remember what your family photos looked like.

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Resting in the shadow of Seattle, Bellevue redefines what it means to be environmentally friendly. From establishing green policies and regulations surpassing that of most American cities to adopting a green approach toward community expansion, Bellevue is an ideal location for environmentally-sound development projects.

Bellevue is home to more than 145 Fortune 500 companies, with Microsoft and Expedia headquartered in the city. Many of the region’s high powered executives live in the community and have invested in the civic, cultural, and political infrastructure to enhance Bellevue’s quality of life.

Recently named by Fortune Small Business magazine as the “best place in the nation to live and launch a business”, there is a passion for the growth and a deep community dedication to environmental action and upkeep.

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By now it’s no secret that uncertainty is the only certain thing left in the real estate market. And with virtually all traditional forms of development remaining stagnant, finding opportunity in a more specialized discipline, such as brownfield development, is no easy task.

But even amidst the direst of circumstances, there are opportunities surrounding the redevelopment of contaminated land. However, opportunity for development needs to be highly strategic and is location sensitive.

The trend today and likely into the foreseeable future is “smart growth” and transportation-orientated development. The majority of these proposed developments are located near employment centers and transportation hubs. Municipalities encourage such developments because they do not put a strain on capital resources and use existing infrastructure at no additional cost with the benefit of an increased tax base. The need for infill properties to fulfill this objective provides a unique opportunity for brownfield development, particularly in major cities.

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There is a lot of alternative energy hype these days, but you have to be careful with solar installation sales people. Often, they make claims that you will have the unit, installation and equipment all paid off within 5-10-years with all the money you save on energy, the ROI or return on your investment. If the company’s salesman takes an overly optimistic approach to such promises to get you to buy, you may find yourself underwhelmed with the results and later determine that you didn’t save any money after all.

Not long ago this exact issue occurred and the homeowner being a lawyer asked for the ROI in writing. He lived in a very sunny city with only 6-9 rain days a year on average, so he accepted the salesman on his word, but got it in writing just in case, because he’d heard of problems that other consumers had encountered. Turns out that in 2.5 years of the 10 year so-called ROI, he had not saved more than 10% on his energy bill. Worried that the company wouldn’t be around in 7 and a half years, he took them to court for the entire cost of the unit.

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Modern technology has certainly served us well in our homes. Today we have natural gas lines, electricity, air conditioning, microwaves, hot water, hot running water, refrigeration, and all the modern amenities. But we also use a lot of energy. Now engineers are working on high tech appliances that are ultra-super efficient. It is truly amazing the quality of life we can live for such low costs.

Still, I’ve always thought that the ancient cultures who dug tunnels underground and allowed wind blowing into one end of the tunnel with outlets into the living area for air-cooling were wise, and that was a form of air-conditioning and it didn’t take any energy once the tunnels for ventilation were created. No it wasn’t perfect, but it worked. Even the American Indians built Kivas to stay cool in the hot summers and many of them had devised various rudimentary forms of air cooling vent systems.

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In my previous articles, my focus has been on increasing profit margins for individual property investors. I appreciate that this is a somewhat materialistic focus and wanted to discuss how Environmental Charities or Campaign Groups could utilize the same information. Environmental charities and organizations have two main aims. The first is to spread the eco-friendly message by encouraging the public to change their practices by informing the public of what they can do to better protect the environment. Their second aim is to generate the revenue necessary to spread that message. Employing the principles I have discussed in my previous articles, could help them to do both. Two birds, one stone!

Spreading The Eco-Friendly Message

While there are many ways to reach out to the public about environmental issues, leading by example is certainly among the most effective. Most members of environmental charities and groups are honest, hardworking people who practice what they preach. They educate, encourage and inform people about the impact their actions have on the world and lead the way in showing them alternative practices. In parts of the US, 30% of the waste that goes into landfill sites comes from the demolition and construction of property. What better way to tackle our landfill problems than to promote house recycling to the public and keep that waste out of our landfill sites?

Continue reading ‘Recycling Houses – A Potential Fundraiser For Environmental Charities Or Groups?’ »