Show Off Your Best Room Makeover Photos

Have you turned a less-than-perfect room in one of your listings into a showpiece? REALTOR® magazine, in conjunction with our new Styled, Staged & Sold blog, is creating a slide show featuring some of the best room makeovers by real estate practitioners.

Send in your before and after room photos, along with the following information:

• Room featured in your makeover:
• What was wrong with the room:
• What you did to improve it:
• Name:
• Company:
• City/state:
• Your Web site:
• Please attach before and after photos. Also, please include a photo of yourself.

We’ll be selecting submissions to feature in an upcoming slide show at REALTOR® magazine online.

Please e-mail the above information to Melissa Tracey at REALTOR® Magazine: mtracey@realtors.org.

How Staging Revived a Dated Listing

By Martin R. Delossantos

Skilled staging is essential in this unpredictable market with so much property for sale. A buyer needs to see and feel your property.

In my real estate and staging experience, I’ve discovered that it is always simpler to stage a unit when it’s bare, which allows the unit to become a clean canvas. When cleverly decorated, it can de-emphasize the lack of good space planning or it can highlight prime features in new or older construction.

MY STAGING CHALLENGE

Last year one of my clients tried to sell his condo. It was on the market for nearly a year.  First, he tried to sell it on his own. Next, he used a non-local REALTOR® that was not familiar with the building. He was beyond frustrated so he finally pulled the listing. A top-producing real estate agent stepped in and asked for the listing. The REALTOR® then brought me in to resolve the interior dilemma.

Problem areas: The condo was dated in style. It shrieked 1980’s with mirrored walls, grey marble floors, large wall vents, white Formica cabinets in the bathrooms, and old white appliances in the kitchen. A gaudy Lucite ceiling fan hung in the dining area with warm purple, puffy valences. In the living room was a wooden, sea captain spindled stair case rail with carpeted stairs leading to the bedrooms upstairs. The fireplace was back-splashed in cemetery green marble.

The best features: The home’s top assets were the living room’s floor-to-ceiling windows, and its balcony with panoramic views of New York City and marina views. The kitchen also had gorgeous custom cherry cabinetry.

What I did:

• I removed the puffy valences to open the vista.
• I had the place painted white to modernize walls and bring in the marina since the mirrored walls reflected the light.
• The place was cleaned thoroughly.
• I placed real plants inside and on the balcony.
• I chose all modern furniture and artwork.
• Splashes of color finished the look.

The result: The unit sold in four months.

Take a look at the slide show of images to see more of the transformation.
Read more

Is This the Home of the Future?

By Melissa Dittmann Tracey

LAS VEGAS – How would you like to have a listing like this—an 8,816-square-foot energy efficient, technologically advanced show stopper? The 2009 New American Home, the latest in a 26-year series of demonstration homes, was unveiled here at the International Builder Show this week.

The contemporary-styled home displays energy efficient features, latest construction techniques, and new products and trends, from a calming rejuvenation room that overlooks the zero-edge pool to decorative water systems that capture rain water for reuse.

This home, on the market for $4.2 million, will be on display for the next 18 months.

The home is extremely energy efficient. The electric bill is estimated to be $467 per year and total utility costs for the home, which include electricity and natural gas usage, are estimated at $2,500 per year. Not bad for an 8,816 square foot home.

The home mixes natural gas-powered heating and cooling systems, bifacial solar panels, roof-top solar water heating, horizontal louvers for shading, 90-degree corner windows, and sliding pocket doors throughout that transform indoor spaces to outside. The home’s lighting, temperature, doors, and more can be controlled by an iPhone.

The home also features several dramatic outdoor spaces, from a basement-level subterranean courtyard showcasing a fountain spanning a wall with a fire burning underneath.

Watch the video below taken on a Flip video camera or peruse a slide show on the next page to see more images of all the details.

Read more

NextGen Home Mixes Smart Technology and Green

By Melissa Dittmann Tracey

LAS VEGAS – “It’s bigger, greener, stronger and smarter than any that have come before”—touts iShow, the makers of the NextGen “First to the Future” demonstration home model, which is open for tours at the International Builder Show this week.

Each year, iShow produces a NextGen home that offers a glimpse at the latest technology and upgrades to homes – not to mention, wish lists of many home owners, from the morning kitchen in the master bedroom to technology that makes managing a home easier than ever before. This year iShow teamed with the U.S. Department of Energy to create a home that is 95 percent more energy efficienct than a standard home today.

“First to the Future” specs:

• 5,200 square feet
• 5 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms and a powder room
• 3-car garage

Some more characteristics of the “First to the Future” home: Read more