By Melissa Dittmann Tracey, REALTOR® Magazine
From plants and area rugs to even children cribs, accessories are a great way to spruce up a home when staging it for sale.
A few weeks ago we asked you to tell us your favorite staging accessory, and you sent in several of your favorites. You can now view a few of your peers’ favorite staging accessories at REALTOR® Magazine online or in the magazine’s April issue.
Since then, we’ve collected more staging accessory ideas. Here are a few more favorites.
Fresh, Crisp Master Bed Treatments
“Home buyers want to see a neutral home that they can easily visualize moving into. Old family quilts, skimpy blankets, limp pillows, and wrinkly exposed sheets may be comfortable for everyday living but are turn-offs to buyers. Sometimes just covering a seller’s linens with a fresh, neutral comforter/coverlet/duvet and several fresh, plump pillows with coordinating shams and pillowcases can make a room feel like a four-star hotel, instead of a budget motel.” –Tracy Pulos, Prudential Fox & Roach REALTORS®, Wayne, Pa.
Pops of Greenery
“Floor plants or trees, especially palms, [are great staging accessories]. Plants and trees add so much life, movement, and reality to every room in a house. They can also fill up a space where sometimes nothing else will do. Sometimes all you need is a tree to round out a vignette of sorts, instead of staging an entire room, especially if cost is a factor.” –Angela Rehm, Staging Works
By Melissa Dittmann Tracey, REALTOR® Magazine
Home owners may write off solar panels as too costly (installation can cost upwards of $15,000), but a new study suggests that installing solar panels can pay off.
Researchers find that solar panels not only save money on electricity bills, but also provide a boost to home owners at resale, particularly when added to existing-homes, according to a new study by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Home owners not only are likely to recoup their investment from the installation but even stand to make more at resale, the study finds.
Researchers analyzed the sales of about 2,000 solar homes in California from 2000 through mid-2009 and compared the prices to those of 70,000 comparable homes that did not have solar panels.
On average, solar panels added about $5.50 per watt to a home’s resale value. In other words, a home with a typical 3.1-kilowatt solar system stands to make an extra $17,000 above the cost of a comparable, nonsolar home.
So today’s Earth Day, should we go celebrate by adding some solar panels?
By Melissa Dittmann Tracey, REALTOR® Magazine
The recession had sparked home owners to be more modest with designs of kitchens and bathrooms, but the improving economy is making home owners want more out of their house.
Residential architects are reporting that home owners’ preferences are tilting toward larger kitchens and bathrooms, and in some cases, home owners are saying they want even more than one kitchen and more bathrooms, according to the latest American Institute of Architects’ Home Design Trends Survey, which mostly focused on kitchens and bathrooms.
“We are not seeing the same level of demand for larger and additional kitchens and bathrooms as we saw during the peak of the housing market, but there has been a shift away from downsizing those rooms that has taken place over the last two years,” says AIA Chief Economist Kermit Baker.
That said, while home owners are beginning to show a preference for “more” and “larger” when it comes to kitchens and bathrooms, they still are mostly bypassing upscale products and favoring more sustainable and universal design features.
KITCHENS
As homes have gotten smaller so have kitchens, but now architects say the downsizing trend in the kitchen is coming to a halt. Nearly a quarter of architects say the size of kitchens nowadays are actually increasing.
As kitchens get bigger, special function areas are expected to continue to be popular, such as recycling centers, larger pantry spaces, recharging stations for electronic devices, and integration of kitchens with family living space (known as “great rooms”). Continue reading »
By Melissa Dittmann Tracey, REALTOR® Magazine
Little things can make a big difference in how much you ultimately sell a property for, according to a group of New York brokers who say just a few small, smart improvements to a home can increase the sales price by 5 to 10 percent.
They’ve calculated it down to a science. In a recent New York Times article, “To Sell an Apartment, No Detail Is Too Small,” brokers in New York City share how seemingly small defects in a home can drastically affect the home’s final sales price and how just a few small staging upgrades–like throw pillows–can actually increase the value.
Here are some examples of what these New York brokers have found that can impact a sales price. (Keep in mind these are based on New York rents so the prices reflected below are higher than many other markets.)
WHAT CAN DECREASE A PROPERTY’S VALUE
- Chipped plaster or broken bathroom tiles: Knock $500 to $5,000 off an offer
- Dirty rugs: Subtract $5,000
- Clutter: Subtract 5 to 15 percent from sales price
WHAT CAN INCREASE A PROPERTY’S VALUE
By Melissa Dittmann Tracey, REALTOR® Magazine
Real estate pro and designer Ayesha Sikandar with Better Homes and Gardens in San Mateo, Calif., wants to encourage buyers to get creative and see the potential in a foreclosed home or fixer upper. Sikander decided to transform a home herself to show how an abandoned foreclosure could have new life.
“I get very excited to see a home that has potential [transformed], and I try to visualize it and translate it to my clients,” Sikander says, who also owns and is the principal designer of an architecture and interior design company, MADDimensions Inc. in San Mateo, Calif.
Watch a slideshow of the transformation below.
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