Posted on November 21, 2009Getting Ready to Sell Your Home: Roof Maintenance & Cleaning
Buyers are looking for good quality for their dollar; the better maintained that a home is, the better value it is for a buyer. Also, if your home doesn’t sell as quickly as you would like, the plants will not return while you’re waiting for those...
Selling Real Estate Articles
Posted on November 1, 2009Tidying Your Yard for Fall Home Showings
Clean up the stray branches and twigs lying around the yard as well. A lot of the yard waste that you clean up can go into your compost bin, but make sure that you don’t add anything that is diseased or has seed pods that you don’t want sprouting in...
Posted on November 1, 2009Be Prepared for an Open House
Once you decide to sell your home, there is a lot more to worry about than signing a contract with your realtor. Your house must be ready for a stream of potential buyers. And a mere surface cleaning will probably not be enough to encourage people to...
Posted on October 31, 2009Home Sales Still Struggling This Fall
The rate that people are being laid off has, in fact, slowed down but many people are still losing their jobs; as well, in an attempt to hold on to their jobs, many workers have opted to job share or work severely reduced hours which can help them...
Posted on October 31, 2009Staging Your Home For a Cold Weather Sale
There are a few things to consider when staging your home for the cold weather; not only do you want to make sure that any prospective buyers feel welcome and at home but you also want to protect your home from the coming and going of people through...
Posted on October 31, 2009Home Tours: How to Make Sure That Prospective Buyers Don’t Know Too Much About You
The problem with having too much personal information readily available in your home is that buyers can use some types of information for their own gain, identity theft is rampant, and too many personal items around the house can make a prospective...
Posted on October 29, 2009How to Sell That Haunted House
Strive after light, bright and airy. Make sure the electrical system and the lights in your home are well-maintained and serviced. If there is a particular room causing you trouble, strip it to the bones and start aggressively redecorating with lots...
Posted on October 29, 2009Home Staging: Important as Ever in the Current Economy
If the home you’re trying to sell has furniture that doesn’t suit the space very well, your home stager can even rent furniture to set up in your home to better show your home’s assets. This service can be relatively inexpensive or very expensive,...
Posted on October 21, 2009Should you sell your home on Craigslist?
For the enterprising home seller, listing their home on Craigslist may mean that they get more potential buyers looking at the property. It certainly doesn’t hurt, but sellers beware, Craigslist isn’t a miracle working home selling device. Without...
Posted on October 21, 2009Selling Your House Quickly on a Budget
Everyone knows that it takes a little sprucing up to make your house sale ready. The most recent evidence of this is the surge in staging companies, and courses for consumers on how to do staging themselves. But can you do it yourself without a lot...
Posted on October 20, 2009The Important Role of Listing Photographs: Making First Impressions Count
If you take a look around online at all the interesting home listings there are available to look at, you’ll likely notice a huge discrepancy between the images of the homes on the market. While the images of the available homes may not be a direct...
Posted on October 20, 2009How to Know When to Give Up on Selling a Client a Home
Most everyone has in their lifetime met one of those people who can make hide an insult (none too subtly) inside any complement or make you feel about two inches tall every time they speak to you. We are all fortunate when those people are only...
Posted on October 4, 2009Staging Your Home for Successful Fall & Winter Sales
The whole purpose of staging your home is to make the atmosphere appear inviting to the prospective buyers; what buyers will find inviting in the winter months is quite different than what they'll find inviting in the warm summer months. In the...
Posted on October 3, 2009Challenges of Selling a Haunted House
Value: Generally a home suspected of being haunted is priced according to fair market value, and then adjusted depending on buyer interest. Such was the case with a Nottinghamshire property purchased in 2007. The family thought they had found their...
Posted on October 14, 2009Paint Your Way to a Sale
If you have decided to sell your house and want to spruce it up to get the best price you can, one of the most economical ways to start is a simple paint job. It could also hide minor blemishes that could make a buyer be concerned about possible...
Posted on September 11, 2009Selling Your Home After a Fire
Once the fire is out and the fire inspector has finished with the property, have a building inspector come and check out the premises to ensure that it's safe to be there. Your insurance company might make these arrangements for their own records as...
Posted on September 5, 2009Don't DIY: Why You Should Hire a Professional to Sell Your Home
Some people, myself included, have this funny thought process that no matter what the project is, they can do it themselves. Well, in many cases this is completely true; there are a great many projects that you can, in fact, do yourself and get...
Posted on September 5, 2009Home Staging Photos: Keeping it Neutral
The showcasing aspect of listing online seems to be a little trickier for some people. Take a gander at online home listings and you can see many examples of poorly taken photos that do nothing to highlight the positive aspects of the listing at all,...
Posted on September 5, 2009Are your home’s flaws blocking its sale?
Some people may think that home staging is a waste of time, but when it comes to real estate - especially these days - nothing can be taken for granted. The time when a home could be shown in messy glory and still sell for big bucks is long...
Posted on August 28, 2009Getting Ready to Sell with Unwanted Houseguests of the Insect Variety
For ants, mix either of those two substances with fine sugar or a slightly watered down honey solution because they are attracted to sweet things. For cockroaches, mix with flour or cocoa powder because those are some of their choice snacks. If you...
Posted on August 23, 2009Selling Your Home with Pets: Removing the Evidence
Before you open up your house to prospective buyers consider sending your pets on a little holiday to a friend's or boarding kennel while you're trying to sell your home. This will allow you to clean all traces of your pets out of the house without...
Posted on August 23, 2009Does Sex Sell Real Estate?
Objections to sexually-driven real estate marketing are many and varied. The image of a couple enjoying the privacy of their luxury condo is not likely to put a family in the mood for buying. A scantily-clad youth can draw the ire of people who...
Posted on August 22, 2009The Short on Short Sales
Once you get an offer from a qualified buyer, you can submit the short sale paperwork to the bank. The bank should then order the Broker’s Price Opinion – someone appointed by the lender to evaluate the property and name a figure that they think the...
Posted on August 21, 2009Get Your Home Sold in 10 Easy Steps!
These days, it's a totally different market where homeowners are left holding onto their homes after lingering with sale signs on their front yards for close to a year or longer. Some are forced to rent after purchasing another home and being saddled...
Posted on August 20, 2009Simple Words Sell More Houses
It is also gained through your contact with your clients – listening to their speech patterns and how they phrase what they say. Connecting with potential clients is done online with writing that says to them, “I understand you and your life and your...
Posted on August 20, 2009Send Your Pets on Vacation While Your Home Sells
The absence of pets also means that it's easier to stage your home into a neutral ground for people to imagine themselves in. Not having to work around your pets' accessories and your pets themselves is a great bonus when you're trying to have...
Posted on August 20, 2009Staging a Home with Pets: Getting Rid of Fleas
Sprinkle borax on your carpets and then vacuum it up to help kill fleas. Mop up uncarpeted areas with hot soapy water. Put any textiles that you can into the washing machine on hot. Take care to take your vacuum cleaner bag outside right away when...
Posted on August 5, 2009Number Superstitions and Selling Your House
The fear of the number 13 is one that many Western cultures share. Some of it comes from the Christian tradition of the Last Supper, where Jesus and his apostles numbered 13. The number 13 is associated with chaos in Persian myth. In the Norse...
Posted on July 28, 2009Making your Fireplace Shine for Showings
Take a wire brush to the inside of the fireplace and lower chimney. As the newspapers accumulate piles of soot and ash, fold them up and place them in the garbage. Watch as you brush the brickwork; if any of the bricks look like they're deteriorating...
Posted on July 19, 2009$100-$0 Home Staging
Quite probably the cheapest thing you can do to cover up marks, dings, smells and childhood artistic attempts, painting is easy and cheap if you do it carefully. Cover up nail holes and dents with spackle and paint over. Take the time to tape things...
Posted on July 19, 2009Repainting to Sell Your Home
I've seen bathrooms done in a very subtle parchment finish on the walls that looked beautiful and very unobtrusive; even more importantly, the finish on the walls worked with the fixtures in the room which wouldn't likely be changed because it was in...
Posted on July 10, 2009If You Can’t Spell “Commission”, You Don’t Deserve One
Spelling indicates that you are educated. People respect education. The person who speaks well and writes well will always look better than the person who does not. Education indicates experience and competency. People are less likely to assume that...
Posted on July 8, 2009Premature House Aging: What You Can Do About It
Just like your skin, your home benefits from regular cleaning and care to keep from looking older than it is. Buyers are usually looking for a home that has enjoyed some upkeep and care from the owners, not some property that's been abused and...
Posted on July 5, 2009Staging Your Desert Yard
Staging your yard to sell your home is usually somewhat of a production, even when you live in an area that gets moderate amounts of rain yearly. However, dressing up a yard in an area where it rarely ever rains and water is a hot commodity is...
Posted on July 4, 2009The Importance of Staging an Older Home
Another important aspect of home staging that is vitally important when you're trying to sell an older house is repainting and wallpaper removal. Many older homes have outdated wallpaper or paint colours; these outdated walls will just accentuate how...
Posted on July 1, 2009Staging Your Home with House Plants
The species of house plants to purchase or borrow for your home will also depend on how much light each room gets. Sun loving plants will not tolerate shady areas well and vice versa. For any rooms that you think lack of light may be an issue, look...
Posted on June 13, 2009What Makes an Outstanding Listing Agent?
Your listing will be on the top websites where home seekers go. It may also show up local newspapers and magazines that your target buyers may read and the places they tend to go. You will have big signs and flyers outside of your home to catch the...
Posted on June 11, 2009Staging Your Yard
There are two main things to consider when staging the outside of your home, one is the outside of the house itself and the second is the yard. Both of these elements need to collectively present an attractive welcome to any prospective buyers....
Posted on June 11, 2009Use a Professional Photographer for Your Listings
They have intricate focusing capabilities on their camera(s) that makes pictures look like a window that the buyer is looking through. They have lighting that can make up for a dark day or poor interior lighting. This is the kind of thing that you...
Posted on June 8, 2009Say Goodbye to Your Home
There are memories attached to every room that will make parting with your home wrenching. Perhaps you should go around the house and say goodbye to every room and acknowledge the experiences that you have had there. Then let it go and start looking...
Posted on June 8, 2009Really Awful Listing Photos
For most real estate agents, especially in the current times, staging a home for good photographs is a foregone conclusion. However, there are those among us who obviously don't want to sell the home at all. Whether on the MLS or Craigslist, home...
Posted on June 6, 2009Can You Tweet Your Way to a Home Sale?
One of the keys that Twitter has given people who use its services is SEO optimized titles that have had an immediate effect on rankings for the individual or group represented on the page. The simple reorganization of the Twitter page title from...
Posted on June 6, 2009Green-Staging Your Home
It's a buyer's market and selling homes for their maximum sale price is hard in these days of foreclosures and short sales. You've heard that home staging is the way to go, but you don't want to rip out perfectly good fixtures in order to make your...
Posted on June 6, 2009Geocache Your Way to a Home Sale
This cache usually took the form of plastic or metal canisters which housed tradable items and a logbook. It has grown to nearly 850,000 caches logged around the world. For more information about geocaching, head over to geocaching.com
Posted on June 5, 2009The Disclosure Debate
As real estate agents, it's our duty to disclose any and all features of a home that may affect its value in the eyes of the buyer. This naturally includes telling buyers about material flaws like water damage or deteriorating roof shingles, but full...
Posted on June 4, 2009Dear Sir or Madam,
This is your realtor writing to you to request a few trifling favors in order to sell your house. Please be advised that, although this are merely requests, it may behoove you to acquiesce to them, for the sake of your home’s future sale.
Posted on June 4, 2009Sell Homes with St. Joseph
There is a story about a Brother Andre of Montreal, who wanted to purchase property on Mount Royal for a chapel, but could not get the landowners to sell until he started planting St. Joseph medals on the land. However, none of these stories have any...
Posted on June 4, 2009Why and How to Carefully Avoid Needless, Unnecessary Descriptive Words in a Listing
The adjectives and common phrases that agents use when composing a listing have become clichés. There are presently several humorous “real estate lexicons” circulating the Internet, which illustrate what people think of a number of overused terms and...
Posted on May 30, 2009Don't Let Your House Come Back to Haunt You
People don't like being surprised. Oh, they might like surprise birthday parties or checks that come in unexpectedly, but they don't like something negative or possibly negative coming at them from out of the blue, especially with a major purchase....
Posted on February 9, 2009Curbed Appeal: Things Home Sellers Do That Don't Sell Homes
This is very important. In order to discourage buyers, make sure that you leave rooms untidy and dirty. Don't under any circumstances let a cleaning product come into contact with anything in the kitchen or bathroom; it will only make things appear...
