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| Information You Can Use | Issue: July 2007 |
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1. Eye Candy Attraction = Curb Appeal You need to capture home buyers' attention with colorful packaging. Add color to your front door and plant colorful flowers. Hang refreshing green ferns in patios. 2. Cozy Coffee Rest Stop = Bond with Hom Create a refreshing stop for home shoppers with a tall iced drink or cup of coffee. Get home shoppers to spend more time to bond with your house as "their home." Serve cookies for the children who will talk about your home when they leave. 3. Music that Persuades = Connect with HomeDepending on your property and the target buyers' profile, play music that you know will make them feel at home. Slow music makes people walk slower so they take longer than the normal three to four minutes looking at a house. Music without words that your home shopper knows prompts them to "sing along in their heads" and makes them feel connected to the home. 4. Smell to Sell = Smells Like Home Connect to all your buyers' senses. During summer's high temperatures, use fresh lemon and lime essential oils to make your house feel like a cooling respite from the heat. Add the oils to water and spray on carpets or in the air. Run a lemon rind through the garbage disposal. The natural air cleaner won't scent the air for long, but it cleans up the stale air in a closed up house. Avoid commercial artificial sprays because many people have allergic reactions. Home shoppers won't by a home that makes them sneeze! 5. Turn Down the Temperature = Feels Like Home It's a strange fact: people like spaces cooler in the summer than they do in the winter. When you know buyers are on their way, lower the thermostat. The cooler your home feels, the happier your buyer feels. According to a report by the Christian Science Monitor, March 2006, staged homes sell for 7.4 percent more and in half the time. |
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Realtor Funnies: Is That Man Dead? In 2005, I was showing a property to a first-time home buyer in Oklahoma City. As we entered the home’s garage, we noticed a figure sitting inside a car. We approached with caution and lightly tapped on the window to announce our presence, but the man didn’t move. We knocked harder. Still, no movement. In our terror of finding what appeared to be a deceased man, we bolted out of the house and called 9-1-1. My client was totally freaked out, as was I. The police arrived shortly after, and went into the garage to investigate. Minutes later, they emerged laughing. The maintenance man had been snoozing on the job, and parked his car in the empty garage so his boss wouldn’t catch him. — Sheila A. Hoppis, broker/owner, Hoppis Real Estate, Oklahom |
@Realtor.org: Stage This Room: Challenge Could you walk into a room and, in two hours, working mainly with what’s there, make it more attractive to buyers? Taking a cue from “Iron Chef,” REALTOR® Magazine posed this test to three practitioners earlier this year. In the pages that follow, you’ll see just how our stagers rose to the challenge. In February we dispatched each one, along with a camera crew, two professional stagers (who provided only commentary), and some helping hands, to a Chicago-area home. The practitioners staged a home office, a bedroom, and a living room, respectively. Each had a $250 budget and one opportunity to see the room before the big day. |
What’s the value of staging? What does it cost to stage a house? How do you approach a room you want to stage? What tools do you need to stage a home? Should an entire house be staged? Stagers aim to clear clutter, arrange furniture to draws buyers into the room, and highlight the room’s best features. |
Look out for these potentially expensive flaws!Buying a house is serious business. Whether a recently-built estate or a modest fixer-upper, getting the lowdown on your potential home is of tantamount importance. A qualified home inspector is always your best bet for a thorough home evaluation, but it's a good idea to have a general understanding of what to look out for.
Homes of All Ages Read the full artice by clicking here. |
