Solve Design Issues On-the-Go with 4 iPhone Apps

By Erica Christoffer, Contributing Editor, REALTOR® Magazine

Help clients see the design potential in a living space instantly. Change the dining room color from lemon yellow to plum purple — before painting. Rearrange new furniture — before moving day. Get staging tips, watch design videos, and add curb appeal with these four iPhone apps.

Home Interior Layout Designer – Mark On Call

M.O.C. Interior Designer, LLC

$2.99

Customize the layout of a kitchen, living room, bedroom, bathroom, and more with the Home Interior Layout Designer app. Created by interior designer Mark Lewison, “Mark On Call,” and based on his book, “What Would You Do With This Room,” this app even lets you take pictures of actual décor and architectural finishes, such as carpet, flooring, rugs, etc., and add them as a “skin” to a surface in your virtual design plan. Use the pallet of colors, patters, fabrics, furnishings, wood, and stone options to explore the design potential of a room. The app also offers a measuring tool, design advice, sharing of designs between app users, and the ability to make a shopping list for all your customized home purchases.

HGTV’s Staging and Property

Scripps Networks, LLC

Free

This app offers the “best of” from HGTV, including real estate videos, pictures, tips, and advice. Watch clips of HGTV shows “Curb Appeal,” “Designed to Sell,” and more. Getting ready for an open house? Look up tips and tutorials on staging and design for better buyer appeal. And see before and after photo slideshows of room transformations. Read more

Picture It: Create a Character to Guide Your Design

By Mary Cook, Mary Cook & Associates

Now more than ever, model homes are key sales tools for developers. In the current housing market crisis, people are weighing every factor in their decision on buying a home.

Beyond the typical questions on the quality of the finishes, school districts, and mortgage rates, those who are looking to spend their life savings on a place are looking for deeper psychological reasons to sign on the dotted line.

Does this home speak to me? Can I imagine my lifestyle being a fit here?

That’s why my firm spends so much time getting to know the prospective audience for which we design model homes. We design for specific people, often taking the time to create fictitious characters such as “John the Wall Streeter,” who lets his girlfriend decorate his place. Read more

What does ‘Britain Got Talent’ Singer Susan Boyle Have to Do With Staging?

By Christine Rae

If you are one of the millions of YouTube watchers of the Susan Boyle video in “Britain Got Talent” show you will have witnessed the PERFECT metaphor for staging there ever was.

Treat yourself; watch it—even if you have seen it, go there again and experience the euphoria, then come back to this blog.

People will always pre-judge appearance. Apparently its human nature, so no matter how cute the house, how sweet the deal, people will write it off as a lost leader from the outset unless it projects at least the perception of success.

In real estate, business, the movies and singing you have to LOOK good first to generate value and interest then you have to back it up with sound believable facts.

FACT: 91 percent of people look at houses on the Internet first before contacting a real estate professional or house seller.

FACT: 91.3 percent of people surveyed by RISMedia said they believe staging to be a powerful tool when selling a property.

FACT: Buyers are busy, smart and circumspect; we know the majority base a decision to review property on location and price points; then after reviewing photos decide if the listing goes on their short list of 10.

FACT: More than 75 percent of those 91 percent will drive by the property BEFORE contacting an agent to view and half of them will do it after dark.

FACT: Drive by starts on the Internet.

FACT: Putting a property on the market without FULLY staging is a disservice to the owner and puts equity return in jeopardy. We are not talking partial or surface staging; we are talking a property that has been edited, cleaned, repaired, upgraded and then functionally showcased targeting the buyer most likely to purchase.

Function, flow, color and lighting are only some of the areas that often need to be corrected. For instance, color: if you know at least 40 percent of all the paint sold in the world is sold as a result of Read more