Less is More, A Lot More, for Today's Buyers

Less house means less money...and less hassle, less cleaning and less maintenance.
According to the Chicago Tribune, home buyers are getting very practical. They're zeroing in on their needs and quickly eliminating their 'wants' as they seek to get the most for their money.

Here's a summary of most-wanted and least-wanted amenities. You're in luck if your house already has the most-wanted. If your house has the least-wanted, consider how staging can reposition those spaces as most-wanted.

What buyers want:

• First-floor flex rooms that can be used for dining, exercise, games or a home office
• 'Pocket offices' for household billpaying and paperwork
• Larger, informal, eat-in kitchens
• Lots of storage and walk-in pantries
• Spacious mudrooms and laundry rooms

What buyers aren't willing to pay extra for:

• A breakfast room off the kitchen
• A sitting room adjacent to the master bedroom
• Overly large secondary bedrooms
• Formal dining rooms that can't be repurposed

Glow Your Sale

It gets dark early, and that's an opportunity for you house to glow.

 

Cozy it up with these seasonal homeselling tips and seasonal selling strategies from ForSaleByOwner.com.  

 

Meanwhile, be sure to keep your listing photo current. If it snows, or if you can take a photo of candles in the window, with some details of your house still visible, consider updating your primary photo. (Go to the seller's admin 'manage your photos' page and swap in a new photo. It's that easy!) 

• Zero in on a welcoming porch that is cleared for safe navigation past ice and snow.
• Put clear lights on shrubs and keep them on during the day for extra sparkle.
• Build a snowman and have him hold your ForSaleByOwner.com sign!  

Image courtesy of Morguefile contributor Earl53.

It's a Wrap: How to Sell During the Holidays

Going in to the holidays with your house on the market can bring unexpected advantages.

• You can stage your house for maximum emotional appeal. Without over-emphasizing highly personal accessories, especially those with religious meaning, you can make the most of evergreens, candles, spicy scents, and decorating.
• Emotions run high during holidays, and that can be to your advantage. People want to envision themselves making their own memories in their new home. Light a fire in the fireplace, build a snowman in the front yard, and hang a bright wreath on the front door. It's hard to buyers to resist the pull of iconic holiday hospitality.
• It's the last window to take advantage of any tax gains that buyers might capture, from limited-time employer incentives for buying, to maximizing their own cash flow through a home purchase this year.
• Your neighborhood will never look more cheery and inviting. Holiday decorations and a light snow can turn even the most routine neighborhood into a Norman Rockwell scene. Consider timing your final open house of the year to coincide with the hours when your neighborhood looks its best -- perhaps in mid to late afternoon when lights start to twinkle in the lengthening shadows.
• Get the word out at holiday gatherings. Does your neighborhood host a cookie walk? Carolers? A steady stream of families looking at light displays? Take advantage of holiday traffic by hosting an open house when traffic is at  its peak. It doesn't have to be fancy -- serve hot spiced cider and store-bought-cookies -- but it will take househunters by surprise.

Visit the ForSaleByOwner.com Education section for more stories on selling during the holidays, and year-round.

Image courtesy of Morguefile contributor taliesen.

Staging Where the Sun Doesn't Shine

Bathrooms don’t usually get natural light. Which is why the light they do get shouldn’t be …unnatural.

Light bounces and reflects. In a small room, you can make the most of that to provide bright indirect light, says California lighting guru Randall Whitehead. (He provided the photo at right.)
The sun is the ultimate overhead light, but if you have only ceiling-mounted lights, anyone using the bathroom will be standing in their own shadow. That’s not a flattering look. With lights on either side of the mirror, the shadows cancel each other out. Guests or buyers looking at themselves in the mirror see themselves as shadow-free, refreshed and young. And that’s a good reflection on your house.

Stage to Sell, Stage to Stay

What do buyers want?

Not necessarily a brand-new bathroom. That came in close to last in an informal poll of 1,025 ForSaleByOwner.com site visitors in mid-2011.

Also low on their priority lists: fun and funky decorating, and showers big enough for two.

No, what buyers want is good design for daily use. That was the top priority for a healthy third of polltakers. Second was ‘a clean, fresh environment.’ Luxury finishes, like granite and travertine, came in third, the top choice for only 16% of respondents.

Thankfully for home sellers, a clean, functional bathroom that presents as fresh and inviting, trumps the trophy bathroom.

If you have white fixtures, consider adopting a favorite tactic developed by staging guru Barb Schwarz www.stagedhomes.com. She paints the walls a medium green, throwing the white fixtures into a sculptural relief. Here’s the difference that green made to one of her clients’ bathrooms. Scroll down to the prior blog post to see this bathroom in its unremarkable ‘before’.

Someone Stage This Bath!

Here's the 'before' of a client bath from Barb Schwarz of http://www.stagedhomes.com/.  It's neutral, all right...so neutral it has no appeal. All-white walls show every smudge.                                 

3 Minutes to a Guest-Fresh Bath

What do guests see when they pop into your bathroom?

Themselves, of course. That means that the number one thing to keep clean in your powder room is…the mirror.

Freshen your bath in three minutes:

• Turn on the fan
• Spritz glass cleaner on a clean linen dish towel or paper towel
• Clean the mirror
• Using the same towel, wipe down the faucet and the sink
• Using the same towel, swipe the seat, underseat, rim and down the front half of the toilet to the floor
• Throw the towel in the laundry or trash
• Sweep personal accoutrements into a drawer
• Dim the lights
• Turn off the fan and keep the door ajar

Done!

Find more inexpensive ideas for freshening your bath at the ForSaleByOwner.com Education section.

Steamy Doesn't Sell

Do you live in a terrarium?

If your relatively new house is energy-efficient, or if you’ve recently weatherized your place with more insulation, tighter windows and weatherstripping, you’re keeping chilly air out.

But you’re also keeping moist, stale air in, especially in poorly ventilated bathrooms. Plant life is lovely when contained to a glass bowl. Mold creeping up the shower wall? Not so much. For the next week, we’ll be rolling out ideas for making bathrooms more welcoming for guests or buyers.

You expect the bathroom to be warm and steamy when you’re using it. If that air doesn’t clear, though, the terrarium effect sets in. Here’s a quick test: How long does it take for the fog to lift from your bathroom mirror? If the mist still hovers 20 minutes later, you probably need to upgrade your ventilation system. Read how in our Education section.

Your Upside in This Down Market

Finally, a trend that buoys home sales: listings are down more than 20%, according to Realtor.com, as reported in today's Wall St. Journal. And what's on the market isn't pretty. Not pretty at all. Foreclosures and distress sales clog the pipeline. Overpriced homes grow stale.  Potential sellers are reluctant to put their houses on the market.  It seems pointless.

But it's not.

Really good houses are scarce. Buyers are sniffing for reasonably priced properties, but they are turning up their noses at fixer-uppers.  Houses  that are polished, well presented and priced right immediately get attention.  Turn the Three P's to your advantage.

• Polished - It doesn't cost much to refresh your house.  Here's one way to concentrate your budget:  make sure surfaces that are supposed to shine are in perfect condition.  Wood floors are a huge draw; wash and polish them (old-fashioned hard waxing can do wonders, especially in high-traffic areas).  In the kitchen, double down on a single type of surface. Got granite counters?  Get specialty stone cleanser and polish and make that granite glow. Got stainless appliances? Use stainless cleaner and rub to reflection. In bathrooms, make sure the mirrors are spotless.
• Presentation - Stage first for the photos that will accompany your listing, and then rearrange your furniture to draw attention to selling points. Make sure that househunters can easily walk through your house -- remove furniture if you need to.
• Pricing - Dazzle won't distract from the wrong price.  Do your homework --rely on ForSaleByOwner.com's pricing tools --
• and price your house about 3% less than the going rate in your neighborhood. You'll attract the right kind of attention...and if your house is polished and presents well,  you'll be the happy exception in this sad market.

Image courtesy of Morguefile contributor cohdra.

 

 

5 Ways to Bag Your Staging

Oh, the loverly moment when a pretty new dress is folded into tissue and slides into a glossy shopping bag. It’s a little present you’ll get to open when you get home. And even though you know what’s inside, the bag represents a déjà vu of the instant you decided that dress was just what you wanted, just what you needed.

 

Shopping bags are full of promises. Elicit that moment of anticipation for potential buyers by using pretty bags to stage your home. 

• Center attention in an empty closet by positioning a row of three plain, colored medium sized bags with tissue blooming from their open tops, on a shelf.  
• Draw attention in a partially full closet to the amenities you want to highlight by cleaning out that section and placing a single colorful bag (again, with the tissue sprouting from it) on that shelf or hanging from a hook.  
• Make a vignette in the mudroom or back porch by hanging a a plain canvas bag from a coathook. Have a couple of intriguing accessories – a scarf? A pair of sunglasses? Trailing from the open bag…just as though you’d tossed the bag there as you arrived home from a fun trip.  
• Vases packed away? Cut off the top of a 2-liter pop bottle and arrange in it a grocery-store bouquet. Drop the impromptu vase into a brown paper bag that’s just a little taller than the bottle. Scrunch the bag around the bottle so the top edge of the bag flares out. Wrap some twine or a ribbon remnant around the bag about two inches below the top edge. Voila! A rustic paper-bag vase that’s environmentally friendly to boot!  
• Need to tidy your kitchen or bathroom cabinets of prescription bottles, spices and not-so-pretty evidence of everyday life? Collect sturdy small bags – the kind you get when you buy cosmetics – and use them to corral the small bottles and flotsam. You can quickly sweep all the bits in to the bag and put them in a cabinet or the medicine cabinet in advance of a showing.  

You'll find more great staging ideas in the ForSaleByOwner.com Education section.

 

Image courtesy of Morguefile contributor si grafix.

 

 

First Time for a Long Time

First-time buyers are of a different mind, according to a story just published in the Chicago Tribune (which, like ForSaleByOwner.com, is owned by Tribune Publishing).

Instead of getting a toehold in the market and figuring that their first house is only a steppingstone to the house they really want, today’s first-timers are taking advantage of low prices and even lower mortgage rates to buy with the intention of actually living in those houses for some time. Here’s what writer Leslie Mann says they want – and how you can take selling cues from stability-minded first-timers:

Kitchens with living space – Open floor plans are big with first-time buyers. Even if your house has a traditional floor plan, think of how you can stage it to show how the kitchen can be part of informal entertaining.

Hardwood floors and granite countertops – These surfaces continue to attract buyers. First-timers figure that plumbing and electrical fixtures are easier to swap out as they have money – and they’re right. If you have a limited budget for fixing up to sell, concentrate on the floors first – and then keep them glossy and shining in natural light. Get estimates for how much it would cost to have granite counters installed and include that as in your listing packet.

Space to grow - Show how third and fourth bedrooms can be used before kids come along. Ideas include: an exercise/yoga room; a home office; a hobby room; a luxurious guest bedroom with hotel-quality amenities.

No maintenance – First-timers have even less time than money. They don’t want to buy a to-do list along with your house. Fix everything – and make a list of each and every maintenance and improvement . Each  chore you’ve done is one more sales barrier eliminated.

Image courtesy of Morguefile contributor kevinrossel.

Stage Directed

Who gets called first when owners decide it’s time to sell?

No, not an agent. Not an appraiser.

A stager.

That’s what Barb Schwarz, grand dame of home staging, told us this week as we’re researching a soon-to-be-released content package on staging bathrooms.

We always give Barb a ring because she pretty much invented staging, both in concept and term. For years, she struggled to get agents to take staging seriously. They tended to see it as a frilly afterthought. That, of course, was before the advent of staging-centric cable shows and the real estate crash.

Now, stagers are the first professionals that homeowners call, even before they decide whether to sell by owner or with an agent.

“ It used to be that Realtors were in the power position, but now the public is saying, ‘I read about staging, so let’s go to stagedhomes.com and let’s interview them and then after we get the house staged we’ll get hold of the Realtor,” she said. And suddenly, stagers are in a position to refer homeowners to agents…or not.

Funny what a difference three years can make.
 
Image courtesy of Morguefile contributor mantasmagorical .

Seed Sales Now on Your Patio, Porch or Deck

As summer blazes on, you are well aware of how your outdoor living space is working for you. Minor changes that make decks, patios and porches more comfortable and convenient can translate to big selling points next spring.

• Consider the 'sitting skyline.' The most important view from your deck, patio or porch is the one you see from your favorite chair.  
• Would a screen or trellis shield you from an unpretty view? Adding one is an easy weekend project.  
• Experiment with clusters of planters, tables and chairs to determine the layout that lets you enjoy plants close up.  
• Can you arrange late-season planters for a pretty view from adjacent windows? Doing so helps you envision arrangements that will draw buyers' eyes to the patio, deck or porch from overlooking windows.  
• If railings, steps or thresholds are becoming wobbly, fix them immediately.

Built-in planters especially appeal to buyers who want handicapped-accessible outdoor space.  

• Built-ins enable people with limited mobility to garden, even if they can't navigate a yard.
• The vision-impaired can easily enjoy a sensory garden planted in built-ins adjacent to seating areas.

Built-in planters can simplify staging your deck or patio.
• It’s easy and quick to swap in blooming annuals so that your deck is always decorated with buyer-pleasing bouquets.
• With seasonal plants in the built-ins , you can clear away freestanding pots and accessories, making your deck or patio open and uncluttered.
• There won't be any confusion about which planters and accessories are included in the sale. Built-ins always stay.

Image courtesy of Morguefile contributor jade.

Instant Green Screen

It's only June. Are you already sick of certain eyesores in your yard? Plant fast-growing shrubs now and start staging your yard for next spring's selling season.

Here are our Top Green Screens:

Butterfly Bush – With its long spires of tiny flowers, butterfly bush is reminiscent of lilac, without the fragrance…or the woody habit.

Forsythia – Fountains of blooms in early spring yellow followed by narrow-leafed foliage, this is a classic eyecatcher.

Juniper- Choose “Skyrocket” for a fast green screen.

Red twig dogwood – Perfect for year-round drama, with bright red twigs dominating the fall and winter landscape.

Willow Hybrid – If you need a hedge by the end of the summer, this is the shrub for you.

Roses – go for hardy, low-care bush and climbing roses. Be sure to plant them well away from pathways…or under windows, where they can deter burglars.

Rose image courtesy of Morguefile contributor alvimann.

How to Stage Your Laundry

Laundry and dishes: the detritus of everyday life that become daily pains in the patootie when your house is for sale.  If you’re selling a house, it’s less of a big deal to run laundry and the dishwasher daily so there’s no evidence that, you know, real people live and function in the house. 

If you live in a condo that doesn’t have an in-unit laundry room – as is common for smaller units, older buildings, and vacation developments – laundry is a real conundrum. 

We discovered the solution at the International Housewares Show held earlier this week in Chicago. Elaine Rising crossed a laundry hamper with a suitcase and came up with a rolling laundry center. If you’re selling a condo, this is how to stage your laundry. 

Elaine (that’s her in the photo, with the Rising Roller laundry cart) designed the Rising Roller based on her own experience. That explains why it has heavy-duty pockets on the side for jugs of detergent and the zip pocket on the inside of the lid that can hold change or a laundry swipe card. With all of the laundry supplies corralled in one tidy package, and a lid to keep your dirty laundry a secret – as we all hope you will –  househunters won’t be distracted by anything related to laundry when they look at your u nit. And that’s how to stage your laundry. Thanks, Elaine!

Most Bang for Your Buck

What minor improvements pay back biggest when you are preparing your house for market?

HomeGain has figured it out. 

• Cleaning and de-cluttering – Costs: $290; Average value added: $1,990  
• Lightening and brightening – Costs: $375; Average value added: $1,550  
• Home staging – Costs: $550; Average value added: $2,194  
• Landscaping – Costs: $540; Average value added: $1,932  
• Repairing electrical or plumbing – Costs: $535; Average value added: $1,505  

If your house needs even more work, these projects are more costly, but you will probably recoup the expense – while attracting an offer. 

• Updating electrical systems and/or plumbing 
• Updating the kitchen and bathrooms 
• Replacing or shampooing carpets 
• Painting interior walls 
• Repairing damaged floors 
• Painting the outside of the home

 

Image courtesy of Morguefile contributor duboix.