By Melissa Dittmann Tracey
Hint: This style of home is known as being narrow and rectangular with one and one-half stories, low-pitched gable or hipped roofs, and small covered porches at the entry. This home style was popular in the 1880s until the Great Depression.
By Erica Christoffer, Contributing Editor, REALTOR® Magazine
Alex Plessett & Denise Lehmann
Denise Lehmann and Alex Plessett are building their dream, quite literally.
The builder-REALTOR® pair are the masterminds behind the largest LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) designated green residential development in Philadelphia. In July, they broke ground on Sheldon Crossing, 20 units of high-end sustainable housing, and expect homes in Phase I to be available for purchase by the year’s end.
While Lehmann and Plessett both hope to see the success of their development come to fruition, they also have a message – that sustainability does not have to sacrifice quality, and that green is the future of real estate.
“REALTORS® are really just beginning to learn about sustainability issues and how important it is for their clients,” Plessett says. “They don’t all need to be experts, but it’s important to be able to talk to their buyers about green products, energy efficiency, and the benefits of living in a green home.
“It’s important for REALTORS® to jump on the bandwagon, because green is here – and it’s here to stay.”
By Barbara Ballinger, Architecture Coach columnist and guest blogger
Design glitches draw attention away from a home’s best features. Don’t let out-of-date fixtures and unappealing decor cost you a sale. While some buyers may actually appreciate “vintage” features, home and design experts say these 20 features almost always serve as a turnoff.
1. Dated and excessively bold or dark paint and tile colors, such as “Pepto Bismol” pink, avocado green, deep plum, or jet black. “Dark can be cool, but it has to be a color that’s popular today,” says sales associate Jennifer Ames, crs®, of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Chicago.
2. Lacquered or high-gloss painted walls that are expensive to repaint and show all defects. Likewise, faux- and sponge-painted walls can be so passe.
3. Painted trim that’s very dark-and costly to remove.
4. Wallpaper, which is a lot of work (and potentially expensive) to remove. Most disliked: Dated flowered or striped patterns. Continue reading »
By Melissa Dittmann Tracey
Determining which home to buy goes beyond the number of bedrooms, square footage, or even location, according to Azevedo & Associates, a real estate brokerage in Granite Bay, Calif. Instead, the real estate company is asking its buyers to weigh the emotional and psychological pull of a home.
The brokerage believes such responses are a major driver for home purchasing and developed the Houseonality Quiz to lead buyers through an exercise to tap into those psychological and emotional triggers of homeownership. Continue reading »
By Erik Fowler, Green trends expert
This is the fourth article in a series designed to help you make sense of the green landscape as a real estate professional. REALTOR® Magazine’s Styled, Staged & Sold blog and I are excited to be covering green home trends in America. In the previous article, I provided a quick guide to green home trends. Here, we’ll highlight green home ratings and certifications.
As we discussed in the last few articles, when discussing green homes it’s important to avoid generalizations or greenwashing, and stick to specifics. As real estate professionals, we should always insist on third-party sources of reliable and verifiable information wherever possible.
When people make “green” claims, we need to know exactly what they mean.
Below are the most widely recognized national green building and/or energy efficient programs nationwide. Keep in mind there are local and regional green building programs as well.
For instance, the Austin Green Building Program was not only one of the first programs in the country to develop a regional green building standard, but it is still considered to be one of the very best programs and models.
Commonalities Among Green Programs
All green building programs should ideally share some common attributes, namely:
- Third-party verification;
- Performance (points) and/or a prescriptive path designed to set green “targets” in several green categories;
- Documentation;
- A resource center for the builder and the consumer.
The point to note is that a standard is followed, documented, measured, and verified. We all know what happens when standards are “self enforced” with no accountability (think latest mortgage crisis).
Also, notice below the various categories of green, what each certification addresses, and recall that green homes do more than address just energy use. While very important, energy is not the only measure of green or sustainability in a home or building.
By Erica Christoffer, Contributing Editor, REALTOR® Magazine
Trey Rogers: The Yard Doctor
There is no better time than fall to get yards looking great, according to the “Yard Doctor” Trey Rogers, a professor of turfgrass management in the crop and soil sciences department at Michigan State University.
Here are 6 tips from Rogers to help you and your clients take advantage of the seasonal weather and vibrant colors to add dramatic curb appeal.
1. For home owners in the northern portion of the United States, fall is the single best time to fertilize a yard. During the first 10 days of September, lay a complete nitrogen and potassium combination fertilizer.
2. Fall is also the best time to reseed grass. If you have bare spots from the summer, put down a seed mix that matches the yard during the first 15 days of September. Yards with crabgrass will notice the patches turn purple with the first frost. It is important to thoroughly seed and water those areas. Continue reading »
By Erica Christoffer
Two professions greatly benefiting from the Internet’s ability to help connect people visually are interior designers and home stagers.
First, let’s clarify: Interior design and home staging are two very distinct industries. As Jennie Norris, president of the International Association of Home Staging Professionals, points out: “Staging is all about depersonalizing a house and decorating and interior design are about personalizing a house.”
When home stagers work with a seller, they are considering elements that appeal to a broad audience. “It’s not about the seller at all. It is about presenting a product to the market (the house) and ensuring it is appealing to the buyer,” says Norris.
Both trades use design theories to accomplish different goals. But they do share the common bond of visualizing what a home could be – something home owners have grown attuned to with online accessibility and the rise of reality television shows.
“The world, in some ways because of the Internet, has gotten smaller and smaller,” says staging expert Barb Schwarz. “People are very educated and will do their research. The public is pretty darn smart when it comes to selling their home.”
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