Getting Your Home Ready for a Showing

When it comes to home showings, it's best to have an agent present the house. They'll present the house from a sales perspective and know the right things to say. It's also preferable for you to be away from the home during the showing or open house. This will make potential buyers feel more at ease and allow them to take a more thorough look around without feeling rushed or intrusive.

Here are a few tips to make your home inviting and appeal to the largest number of potential buyers.

• Clean or paint the front door to make a sharp first impression
• Remove family pictures to make it easier for buyers to imagine living in the home
• Organize closets and consider moving unnecessary items to a temporary storage unit to make storage areas appear larger
• Clear as many objects from shelves as possible and remove some of the furniture
• In the bathroom consolidate cosmetics to an organized container you can keep out of sight
• Have carpets professionally cleaned for a fresh look and smell, especially if you have pets
• Remove any unsightly wood scraps and building materials from the yard
• Power-wash your driveway, decks and porches to remove moss and buildup

Requests to see your home can come at any time. If you're serious about selling, you and your house must be prepared whenever buyers have time to come by. Make sure you do these 5 things everyday before you leave the house:

• Rinse dirty dishes and put in dishwasher (people may look inside)
• Make the beds
• Make sure no laundry is lying around
• Pick up toys and clutter that may accumulate on stairs or walkways
• Open blinds and curtains and leave a few lights on to make the space feel brighter

Preparing your home for sale and keeping it in peak condition will help buyers picture themselves living in your home and may result in higher offers.

11 Ways to Easily Boost Your Curb Appeal in a Weekend

If you're selling your home soon, ensure that prospective buyers will want to come inside by sprucing up the exterior before they drive by. And surprisingly, it doesn't have to be a time-consuming ordeal. Here are some easy improvements you can make to boost your home's curb appeal - all in just one weekend.

1. Paint or stain your front door. You probably won't even have to take it off the hinges. Installing a metal kick plate is another inexpensive way to freshen your entrance - it will cover years of wear.

2. Polish door hardware. Consider replacing the hardware if it's really worn or flaking. Don't forget the doorbell and lighting fixtures.

3. Replace worn welcome mats. A new welcome mat in a cheery complementary color can boost the front entrance welcome factor.

4. Install outdoor lighting. Consider solar garden lights to line a walkway, or a bright new porch light. This will make your home look more inviting in the evening when most buyers have the time to drive by.

5. Kill mold and mildew. Use a pressure washer to easily blast the siding, roof, deck and driveway clean.

6. Mow the lawn. Trim around flowerbeds and other stationary objects. Make sure your lawnmower's blades are sharp for a clean cut.

7. Get rid of weeds. Replace them with blooming flowers and add new bark or gravel for a fresh look.

8. Trim shrubs and tree branches. Cutting overgrown shrubs can open up your home's exterior. Be sure branches aren't creeping onto the roof. Show off appealing architectural elements by trimming around columns and windows.

9. Add a hanging flower basket. Install a stylish but discreet hook on your front porch and add an inexpensive hanging plant.

10. Clean gutters. If the downspout is badly damaged, consider replacing it with a decorative rain chain, which allows water to run down ornamental funnels into the ground drain.

11. Clean windows. Use an industrial cleaner to make your windows sparkle from across the street. Don't forget to wash the screens.

You don't get a second chance to make a first impression. Spending just one weekend to prepare your house for the market can pay off big in a big way. A great first impression can mean the difference between a quick sale versus having your home sit on the market for months.

Warm Up an Empty House for Faster Sale

If you're selling a house you've already moved out of, chances are it's looking a bit neglected and cold. While sparsely-furnished rooms look bigger and help potential buyers imagine how their own possessions will look in the house, completely empty ones feel lifeless, without the warm and friendly ambience of a house that's obviously lived-in. It can be hard for buyers to fire up the imagination and visualize themselves living in a house that doesn't have that lived-in feeling.

If you're willing to spend a few thousand or more - and if you're selling a home for several hundred thousand dollars, consider hiring a staging company. They'll provide furniture and accessories that are in keeping with the look and feel of the property. However, if you don't have the money to spend, it can be just as effective to do the "staging" yourself. If you're selling an empty house, you have a variety of options for putting some life into the place and making it more attractive to potential buyers.

• Make sure the house is thoroughly clean before adding your staging equipment. Don't forget the garage and any large storage spaces such as basements or attics.
• Rent some furniture. It doesn't need to be expensive; you can typically rent several items for just a few hundred dollars. A few items in the most commonly-used rooms such as bedrooms and the living room will help give the house a more lived-in, comfortable feeling.
• Add vases of flowers or low-maintenance potted plants (such as ferns, spider plants, or snake plants, which require only infrequent watering and low to medium levels of light) to kitchens, bathrooms, and dining areas.
• Unoccupied houses quickly start to smell stale no matter how clean they are, so use room fresheners to keep the air smelling clean.
• Give out-dated or scratched walls a fresh coat of paint to liven them up. Neutral colors are best, so that you don't run the risk of turning off potential buyers who have strong color preferences.
• Consider adding some inexpensive window treatments - curtains, blinds or shades need not cost a lot of money to increase the appeal of an unoccupied property. They'll help make the place look more appealing from the outside as well as the inside.
• Keep up the curb appeal. Make sure that circulars and other mail doesn't pile up in the mail box, and consider hiring a temporary yard worker to keep the lawns mowed and the grounds tidy. If the property looks unattractive on the outside, it's a sure bet that you'll get fewer buyers through the front door.

Granted, all of these things will cost money. But it's better to spend a few dollars, or even a few hundred, to make sure that the property isn't sitting vacant for months on end. A vacant house can fall into disrepair surprisingly quickly, and is more likely to get vandalized. The longer the house is on the market, the lower your chances are of selling at a good price, so it's much better to spend a little extra money on getting the house sold quickly. In addition, many estate agents believe that staging is effective for both occupied and vacant properties. In a slow market, it's a great way to help ensure a quick sale, and in a strong market, it can even increase the sale price of the property.

Presale Inspections Can Give Sellers Advantage

By Dian Hymer
Distributed by Inman News
April 23, 2007

It's becoming more common for sellers to hire inspectors to inspect their property before it's put on the market. The reports are then made available to buyers to review before they make an offer.

From a seller's perspective, presale inspections accomplish two goals. One objective -- particularly in states such as California that have seller disclosure requirements -- is to make sure that property defects are disclosed to prospective buyers in a timely fashion. Sellers who order inspections often do so to ensure that defects they might not be aware of are disclosed before, not after, the sale closes.

However, presale inspection reports should not be viewed as a substitute for a seller's disclosure obligations. For example, if you are aware of a roof leak, you must disclose it, even if the inspector misses this defect.

Another benefit to sellers from presale inspections is that they tend to cut down on renegotiations that can occur after buyers complete their inspections. If the buyer is aware of a defect before an offer is made, it can be factored into the offer price. This way, the seller has a better idea of how much he is likely to net from the sale at the time the offer is accepted.

The more a buyer knows about the condition of a property before an offer is made, the better. If minimal information is available when the purchase contract is negotiated, and big surprises revealed are in the buyer's inspection reports, the transaction could collapse. In this case, the seller has to start over. And, the reports that were generated by the first buyers will probably need to be disclosed to future buyers.

Sellers who understand the wisdom of ordering presale inspection reports should use inspectors that are well known and respected in the local area. Your real estate agent should be able to recommend the best local inspectors to you.

Some sellers and listing agents mistakenly order reports from inspectors who are known for being less critical than others. This can defeat the seller's purpose and raise a suspicion in the buyer's mind if the inspector overlooks an important defect that the buyers uncover when their inspector examines the property.

The seller of a Crocker Highlands home in Oakland, Calif., recently hired a pest inspector who issued a benign report on the property. The inspector recommended no further inspections.

When the buyer's home inspector looked at the house, he saw evidence of dry rot under a bathroom. So, the buyers asked a second pest inspector to inspect the property.

The inspector recommended that test openings be done to determine if there was damage behind the finished walls. These further inspections revealed damage to the wood framing and a cost of more than $5,000 to repair it. So this particular presale inspection did little to mitigate further price negotiations.

HOUSE HUNTING TIP

Before you rely on an inspection report that was ordered by the sellers, make sure that the inspector who prepared the report is well respected for thoroughness and impartiality in the local marketplace. If this is not the case, plan on having another inspector look at the property. If the report is out of date, ask the inspector to update the report before you sign off on it.

Read the report carefully. Call the inspector yourself for answers to any questions you might have about the report or the property. Schedule a meeting with the inspector at the property to do a walkthrough of the property with you so that he can explain the report and answer any questions you might have.

THE CLOSING

It's never a good idea to forego inspections just to save money.

Top Renovation Mistakes

Renovating your home can be both fun and rewarding, but it can also be stressful. If you're not aware of the possible pitfalls and problems before you start, a home renovation can quickly turn into a nightmare. Luckily, as long as you know what to avoid you can make sure your renovation work is both attractive and valuable. With that in mind, here are some of the most common mistakes that people make when renovating.

Poor Financial Planning

Whether you're renovating your own home or working on a fixer for resale, it's important to be pessimistic when it comes to calculating how much your renovations are likely to cost. If you're contracting work out, plan to spend about 10% more than your bid for "surprises" that might come up during the work. For projects you're planning to do yourself, add 15-20% on top of your materials budget. You may not need to spend that much, but if unforeseen complications do arise, you'll be glad you put that money aside.

If you're financing your renovations through a loan, draw up a detailed budget before you begin approaching lenders. Stick to your budget whenever possible, and if you end up spending more than you planned in one area, try and compromise in others to reduce your costs.

Going Against the Norm

Particularly if you're renovating with the intent to sell the property afterwards (or even several years into the future), it's important to renovate with your potential buyers in mind. You might think you'd rather have a rec room than a garage in your home right now, but that decision could turn around and bite you in the future when you're trying to sell a home without a garage. Closing off open spaces is definitely something to be avoided. If you have an open-plan kitchen and dining room, walling those rooms off isn't a good idea, because open-plan areas are popular with buyers.

Avoid remodeling bedrooms and living rooms except in specific situations; these types of renovations add very little to the value of the property. Kitchen and bathroom renovations are the most lucrative in terms of adding resale value.

Upgrading over the Neighborhood's Value

It's important to make sure your improvements are in line with properties in your neighborhood. If you raise the value of your property too much, you may find it's difficult to find a buyer should you later decide to sell. To maximize your resale value, your renovations should not increase the property's value more than 15% over the average value of surrounding homes.

When you're planning your renovations, compare your property to others in your neighborhood. Find out where your home is lacking and make improvements in those areas. For example, if your home has three bedrooms and most surrounding properties have four or more, adding an extra bedroom will increase the desirability of your home when it comes time to sell. They don't add much in terms of value, however. A second bathroom is a great prospect for increasing the value of your home, and can be worth as much as twice what it costs to build.

Ignoring the Experts

If you're planning to make structural changes such as turning your kitchen and dining room into an open-plan area, or if you're going to be making changes to plumbing or electrical wiring, it's wise to enlist the help of an expert. Attempting to take on large projects by yourself can be disastrous. It's easy to mistakenly remove weight-bearing walls, or miss the signs that point to pest infestations or other problems that might cause trouble in the future. Hiring a contractor will increase the cost of your renovations, but a well-done renovation job might save you money in the future.