By Melissa Dittmann Tracey, REALTOR® Magazine
At REALTOR® Magazine online this month, you’ll find a list of the top 10 worst showing offenses your home sellers can make. The list was culled from the most common responses of more than 50 buyer agents who shared what they’ve witnessed in touring homes with their clients.
But kitty litter boxes and dirty dishes in the sink aside, some buyer agents say they’ve seen much worse when touring homes with their clients. Here are some of the “Hall of Fame” of worst showing offenses. Be sure to chime in below with the worst offenses you’ve witnessed too!
Hide the ‘Body Bag’ Before the Showing
“The worst thing I ever witnessed during a showing was seeing a full body bag on the floor of the master bedroom closet. I was showing a home to a couple and their 10-year-old daughter. The wife opened the master bedroom closet and screamed when she saw a full body bag. Upon further inspection by myself and the husband, we discovered the body bag was packed with clothing for storage purposes. Still, it was extremely creepy. Needless to say, they did not purchase that home. Now I jokingly warn all my sellers to put away the body bags before the house goes on the market.”
–Shannon Register, broker-owner of Register Real Estate Advisors, Spring, Texas
By Melissa Dittmann Tracey, REALTOR® Magazine
When selling a home, you don’t want buyers to step foot in a room and suddenly feel cramped. They will quickly start questioning whether they’ll be able to fit their belongings in there and whether the home is too small.
What can you do to open up some of the tight spaces in your listings?
1. Remove furniture. Rooms packed overly full of furniture will not allow buyers to visualize their things in the space. Keep the furniture basics in each room, and then haul away the extras to a storage unit or somewhere else in the home that could use more furniture. Make sure the furniture is fit to the size of the room. For example, that canopy bed may be commanding too much attention in the master bedroom, making the room feel cramped and even blocking the walkway through the room.
2. Declutter. This is an obvious way to make a space feel bigger. It can have one of the biggest impacts to the perception of a room’s size. Have your sellers go through their closets and box up about a third of it. They can take the load to a storage unit or put into bins to store elsewhere in the home. When buyers open up a closet, you want them to see the spaciousness, not it filled top-to-bottom with your sellers’ belongings.
3. Find secret storage spots: Ottomans that can double-up as storage units too can help your sellers clear away clutter in a hurry. These can be useful particularly for sellers with children who need a quick place to throw toys and clothes prior to a showing.
4. Lighten the color. Dark colors on the wall can make a room feel more closed-in, whereas lighter tones on the wall can open it up. Cream colors and soft tones of greens and blues can help open up a space. Monochromatic color schemes, which is using colors all from the same color family, can go a long way in creating flow in a home and making a space appear larger too.
By Melissa Dittmann Tracey, REALTOR Magazine
More studies are showing the power of green on boosting sales prices. In the most recent study, University of California researchers found that green-certified, single-family homes sold for $34,800 more — or 9 percent more — than comparable non-green certified homes.
Researchers analyzed 1.6 million home sales from 2007 to 2012 to determine if “green” really helped homes net more at times of resale.
The researchers called the findings the “Prius effect,” since the California cities that had the highest sales prices of green homes also were in places that had the highest sales of electric vehicles.
“We observed a phenomenon we’ve termed the ‘Prius effect’ — a positive correlation between the value of green home labels and environmental ideology, as measured by the rate of hybrid registrations,” co-author Nils Kok, visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, told USA Today. Such residents may view green homes as “a point of pride or status symbol,” Kok added.
Previous studies that focused on home sales in Seattle and Portland, Ore., also found that “green” homes sell for higher dollar–as well as stay on the market a fewer number of days. Continue reading »
By Melissa Dittmann Tracey, REALTOR® Magazine
Certain dated design features in a home can really make some home buyers cringe. Could your listing have one of them?
A recent article at AOL Real Estate spotlights a few pet peeves of home buyers when touring homes today. Among the items making their list:
1. Popcorn ceilings: The speckled ceilings can attract dirt and be impossible to paint. Plus, if the home was built prior to 1980, the ceiling may contain asbestos and need to be tested by an inspector. Fix it: Unfortunately, there’s no quick fix for removing popcorn ceilings; it can get messy. It’ll have to be scraped off and the ceiling then will need to be repaired. Plus, you’ll want to have it tested for asbestos before scraping. Home owners will likely want to consider hiring a professional to do this.
2. Carpeting everywhere: Many home buyers today have a fondness for hardwoods over wall-to-wall carpeting. Carpeting can show spots and dirt, which can serve as a quick turn-off to potential buyers who prefer the more polished look of hardwoods. Fix it: Have the carpet professionally cleaned if your seller can’t afford to swap out the carpet for hardwoods. Make sure the carpet is spot-free and looking new. If sellers are willing to spend some money, they might consider installing hardwoods on just the first floor or in just the dining room (pre-finished laminate can cost less). This allows the home to be marketed as having hardwoods, which could possibly draw in more potential buyers who won’t consider a home without.
By Melissa Dittmann Tracey, REALTOR® Magazine
Both real estate agents and home sellers see the value in simple home improvement projects, saying they believe small renovations can go a long way in helping a home sell faster and for more money, according to a recent Realtor.com survey.
Home sellers may not need as much convincing as previously thought on the reasons why you should spruce up your property before the for-sale sign goes up, according to a survey of 450 REALTORS® and more than 1,600 home owners.
But as sellers realize the importance of home improvement projects to improve a home sale, are they targeting the right projects to attract home buyers?
Apparently so, according to the survey.
Sellers and agents agree on the top three areas of a home that sellers should focus their most time and budget on with home improvement projects. Those are: Continue reading »
By Melissa Dittmann Tracey, REALTOR® Magazine
When it comes to taking care of a home or remodeling, home owners can make some unwise decisions. ServiceMagic, a Web site that features a network of nationwide service professionals–including in home improvement–has an article “8 Things You Should Never Do to Your Home.” Here are a few common home owner mistakes that made its list:
1. Going overboard with remodeling. It’s easy to quickly let a budget go out the window when remodeling. For example, the ServiceMagic article calls “bump-outs” a waste of money; these are when you extend a wall by a few feet, such as to accommodate a bay window. However, the cost per square foot is so high that you might as well opt for a more sizable addition that can be done at a lower cost per square foot. Bottom-line: If you want to make a return on your investment, you want to keep your remodeling updates within the costs of your neighborhood and compared to similarly sized homes. (Also, see Cost vs. Value report to gauge average returns on investment on remodeling projects.)
2. Being in denial about your pet’s odor. Big or small, your pets smell and they probably shed too. Pets attach their smell to everything and guests who enter your home will immediately pick up on it. Experts recommend to have your carpets and furniture professionally cleaned every six months, and open the windows and vacuum frequently to help rid your home of any lingering pet odors.
A recent article at The Street lists 10 common home projects that drain home owners’ budgets and offer little return on investment, in citing findings from Remodeling Magazine’s annual Cost vs. Value survey. Do you agree with some of the projects that showed up on its list? Are these home projects a waste of money for home owners to tackle when it comes to boosting their resale value?
1. Pools: A $25,000-$50,000 investment and that doesn’t include the yearly maintenance costs and repairs that will undoubtedly be needed down the road.
2. Outdoor kitchens: Steel grills and gourmet pizza ovens outside can be nice in year-round warm climates but in cooler weather climates, many people would prefer the warmth of an indoor kitchen.
3. Garage addition: The cost of adding a garage spot could be about $58,000, but it only adds about $33,000 extra to your home’s value. You’d be better off replacing the garage door–which offers up to a 70 percent return on your investment at resale.
4. Backup power generator: A $15,000 expense can be extreme for the main reason to “prevent $30 in groceries from spoiling the next time a transformer blows,” The Street notes.
Kitchens are blending more into the rest of home interiors. A recent blog post from Home Design Find highlights some of the recent trends popping up in more kitchens this year:
1. Unmatched cabinets: Cabinet colors and materials are being mixed, such as darker colors for the base cabinets and lighter colors being used for upper cabinets to “provide a sense of openness,” according to the blog.
2. Downsized kitchen islands: While bigger used to be better with kitchen islands, more home owners are finding they can make do with a smaller kitchen island that doesn’t take up as much space.
By Melissa Dittmann Tracey, REALTOR Magazine
More Americans are showing their love for the great outdoors with their homes, seeking more outdoor living spaces at home that can blend in with their indoor spaces too, according to the American Institute of Architects Home Design Trends Survey for the first quarter of 2012. AIA surveyed nationwide architects to discover home preferences. The first quarter survey focused on home layout and the use of interior and exterior space.
“In the last few years, outdoor living spaces have become the new ‘great room’ in terms of must-have items for home owners,” says Kermit Baker, AIA’s chief economist. Continue reading »
By Melissa Dittmann Tracey, REALTOR® Magazine
We’ve been hearing a lot about the downsizing trend taking hold in new homes, and that the square footage of homes is shrinking. But if you look at the latest housing stats from the Census Bureau, you might be scratching your head on that theory.
New-home sizes are actually increasing, an unexpected find that at first had a lot of people in the housing industry a little stumped. Home buyers are asking for smaller homes, not larger homes, according to field reports from those in the real estate industry. So what gives?
First off, let’s keep this in perspective: New-home sizes only grew by 88 square feet last year. But this marked the first year in four years that the average square foot of homes has grown, according to Census data. Homes in 2011 were 2,480 square feet compared to 2,392 square feet in 2010.
“Why was this happening when most people want smaller homes, want to downsize?” Rose Quint, assistant vice president for survey research at the National Association of Home Builders, told MSNBC.com. “This is exactly so counterintuitive to what we know is happening on the ground.”
The latest stats show that new-homes actually seem to be getting supersized, not downsized: Nearly 40 percent of new single-family homes in 2011 had four or more bedrooms, 28 percent had three or more bathrooms, and 54 percent of new homes were two stories or taller.
But housing analysts say there are several possible reasons for the disconnect in what home buyers are increasingly saying they want nowadays — which is small homes — and the bigger home size numbers.
Recent Comments