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A common question I get asked is “Should we decorate for the holidays while our home is on the market?”

My answer is always “Yes, within reason!”

Here are a few simple rules to follow:

• If you live in a condo or small home, make sure your decorations are small in scale, too. Consider a table-top tree instead of a full-size one.

• Even in a large home, try to keep decorations to a minimum.

• Resist the urge to decorate every room in the house.  Try to stick to one or two rooms. You want buyers to look at your home, not your holiday trimmings.

• You never want photos taken of your home while holiday decorations are up.   Just like a yard full of snow, it tells buyers how long your home has been on the market.

• Try to avoid the extra clutter which is common during the holidays. Buyers won’t appreciate that you’ve turned the dining room into a gift wrapping station.

• Holiday baking can create some wonderful smells, but to really impress buyers, put out a plate of treats for them.

• Resist the temptation to have holiday music playing during showings. Not everyone enjoys it.

Keep in mind that buyers don’t want to be looking during the holidays, but some are forced to. It may be tempting to take your home off the market for a few weeks, but you may be missing out on these very serious buyers. With the inventory reduced, your home will stand out even more.

Enjoy the holidays, keep your home in good showing condition, and your biggest wish may come true!

How does making an inquiry on your Credit Report effect your credit score???

Image via Wikipedia

When a consumer pulls their own credit report, it is considered a “consumer disclosure” request and therefore their credit scores will not be impacted by the pull.  However, anytime a creditor accesses a consumer’s credit report it posts a credit inquiry. The credit report keeps a record of who pulled the credit report and on what date.  The credit bureaus are required to keep a complete list of all inquiries into a credit report for, in most cases, 24 months.  According to credit scoring research, consumers who are actively shopping for credit are higher credit risks than consumers who are not.  Since there is a correlation between shopping for credit and being a higher credit risk, an inquiry will, in some cases, lower a consumer’s credit score.

FICO scoring models have logic built into them that addresses “rate” shopping for auto and mortgage lending.  The models are smart enough to discriminate between comparison-shopping for the best interest rate and trying to open many credit accounts in a short period.

While the actual number of points that an inquiry is worth is a closely guarded secret, it is safe to say that only consumers who are “excessively” shopping for credit are seriously damaging their scores.  Consumers should shop and apply for credit only when they need it and, optimally, only after getting their credit and scores in good order.

This is a great topic for discussion, so please leave your comments and questions below.  Hopefully, this can be a learning experience for us all!

When selling, it would be great to update your home, and make it more desirable to buyers. But, in reality, most sellers have no budget or a very small one to work with. The good news is that there is still hope.

There are many things homeowners can do to prepare their home for the market and improve the chances for a successful sale:

1. Cleaning your home is probably the most important task you can take on for no money. Dirt, dust and bad odors are the biggest turnoffs for buyers. So, roll up your sleeves and make your home sparkle!
2. Move or remove! Two very important words, which will help make your home look more spacious. Move furniture away from walls. Placing furniture around the perimeters of a room make it appear smaller. The ability to see more walls will actually create more visual space. Remove all furniture which does not add function or beauty. It is not necessary for every space to be filled.
3. De-personalize and de-clutter! It’s very important for buyers to see your home, not your stuff.
4. Painting is a very low-cost way of brightening up your home, making it appear more clean and modern. Even if you only do an accent wall, it will create drama, and perhaps draw the eyes of buyers away from dated flooring. A freshly painted front door will really add to the curb appeal.
5. Get creative! Appliances can be painted, tubs and showers re-glazed, at a much lower cost than replacement. New lampshades can modernize old lamps for a fraction of the cost of a new lamp. Bring old wood back to life with a treatment of wood oil. Brass fireplace doors can easily be painted with heat-resistant paint. Bathroom mirrors can be updated by framing them with molding you have painted or stained. Heavy drapes can be replaced with inexpensive sheer panels. The options are endless. Home improvement magazines or TV shows are a great source for other low-cost ideas.

So, don’t get discouraged when you realize there is little or no money for fixing up your home. Maybe, your home won’t be the best on the market, but with a little hard work and imagination, you can make your home the best it can be!

One of the terms we professional stagers use often is “neutralize.” It means to stage the home in a way which will appeal to the greatest number of buyers. One of the easiest ways to do this is to eliminate themed rooms and collections.

Themed rooms are easy to recognize. A few of the more popular themes are Sports, Beach, Tuscany, Zen and Wildlife. Done in moderation, there is nothing wrong with these themes or styles. This is directed towards those who get a little carried away. Every piece of furniture, all the artwork, and all the accessories, have been chosen around the theme. The drawback to this excess is that buyers find it very difficult to imagine their own belongings in the room.

I have a friend whose family room has a “cowboy” theme. I think it is safe to assume that most buyers do not have spurs, pistols, and saddles in their homes, and would have a hard time getting past this theme and imagining their own furnishings there. This doesn’t mean you have to get a whole new room. The trick is to edit. For example, my friend could remove the aforementioned items, but a leather sofa and paintings with cowboys as the subject is perfectly acceptable.

There is only one exception to the themed room rule, and that is children’s bedrooms. It applies mostly to the shared living spaces in the home. I usually link themed rooms with collections, because quite often I will find collections spread throughout a themed room. But, sometimes they are off by themselves, or a collection becomes the theme. Almost all homeowners have some kind of collection. Whether it is a common one like books or framed photos, or something more unusual like Victorian birdcages or bobble-head dolls, these collections can be very distracting to buyers. The best bet is to pack these collections up, making them safe and sound, and more importantly, out of sight!

The bottom line is your home will sell faster, and you can create whatever theme, or collect whatever you want, in your new home that much sooner.

Make your home Picture Perfect

A large majority of today’s buyers start their home search on the internet.  What does that mean to you? It means the first impression buyers get of your home could be photos posted online. And, they need to be pretty darn good to make your home stand out.

Would it be safe to say that if the home looks good in person, it will also look good in photos? There are a few things to remember to make the photos of your home the best they can be.

So, if you have a small room, edit the amount of furniture, and make sure what is in there is the proper scale. A large sectional sofa in a small family room is going to eat up even more space in a photo. And, an overly large room will appear even bigger if there is too much empty space.

A pop of color is crucial in photos. They have a tendency to wash out color, so the room you thought was colorful enough, may not photograph that way. The solution can be as simple as adding some colorful throw pillows on a couch, or a vibrant piece of art on the wall.

Light says cheery and dark says dreary! Natural light can cast an appealing glow on your home, so take advantage of it. Open those curtains and blinds, but the best time of day to have your home photographed is early morning or in the evening. The sun is lower, and your photos will be softer with less contrast.

Clutter is even more apparent in photos. It’s hard for buyers to concentrate on the home, when there are hairdryers on the bathroom counters, a collection of remote controls on the coffee table, or a dining room table stacked high with the family’s belongings.

People and pets in photos are a no-no. It may be that Grandpa hasn’t left his recliner in ten years, but his presence in the photo will be too distracting. And kitty needs to be moved off the bed, just long enough for photos to be taken. Be sure to watch out for reflections, too.  Many an unsuspecting agent or homeowner has been caught in a mirror!

Whether your agent takes the photos or a professional photographer is brought in, it is your responsibility to have the home in camera-ready condition. And, since these photos will either entice buyers to see your home or cause them to put your home in the “definitely not” pile, be sure you get to see the photos before they are posted. There are websites dedicated to bad MLS photos, and you wouldn’t want your home to wind up there. It’s the responsibility of you and your agent to make sure your home looks perfect in pictures.

When you put your home on the market, you are selling more than the physical structure.  Think of it as selling a lifestyle.  This is why preparing your home is so important.  As buyers walk through your home, they are trying to imagine themselves living there.  A savvy seller will help them along the way!

Here are some suggestions to get you started:

One of the ways is to set the dining room table.  The china doesn’t come with the house, so why would you do it?  Because buyers want to believe that if they buy your home they will finally be able to have those fabulous dinner parties they’ve been dreaming about.  You are not trying to deceive buyers; you are just providing a visual to stimulate their imagination.

What do cluttered bathrooms bring to mind? A family rushing

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The FAIR HOUSING ACT
Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (Fair Housing Act) prohibits discrimination in the sale, rental and financing of dwellings based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin. Title VIII was ended in 1988 (effective March 12, 1989) by the Fair Housing Amendments Act, which:

• expanded the coverage of the Fair Housing Act to prohibit discrimination based on disability or on familial status (presence of child under age of 18, and pregnant women);
• established new administrative enforcement mechanisms with HUD attorneys bringing actions before administrative law judges on behalf of victims of housing discrimination;
• and revised and expanded Justice Department jurisdiction to bring suit on behalf of victims in Federal district courts.

Everyone with the Get Home Denver Team fully abide by, and support FAIR HOUSING laws.

Below, I’ve included an overview of (more…)

Let’s face it, we love our television sets. In my staging career, this has been proven to me numerous times. I come into a home to make recommendations to make it show better, and clients seem so willing to add or remove whatever I suggest. Except the TV, that is. And, whatever they sit on to watch TV.

In recent years, televisions have certainly become more streamlined. Flat panel styles are much less intrusive than the large screen projection ones, or “the big black boxes”, as we stagers like to call them. But, I would guess that only about 20% of the homes I visit have made the switch to flat panels. That leaves a whole lot of family rooms whose main feature is the overly-large TV. In homes where all the furniture is aimed at the TV, it may cause buyers to overlook the features which are a part of the home. Buyers should be directed to that fabulous fireplace, or the incredible floor to ceiling windows.

Another distraction for buyers is the number of TVs in some homes. I had clients who had a TV in every room, including the dining room. Fortunately, we worked out a compromise, and they removed all but two. And, the big black box that swallowed up most of their small living room? It was one they agreed to remove, and it opened up the space to reveal a very nice sized room, which buyers appreciated, and the home sold quickly.

It’s never easy to have your home on the market. But, taking the steps necessary to get it sold quickly, means the inconvenience won’t last long, and the sooner you and your TV can be together again!

This video is very informative and explains the reasons for real estate market corrections. It also gives an historical perspective of where we’ve been, and the inevitable result of any downturn. A big shout-out and Thank You to Ted Mackel and the Homebuysblog from Simi Valley, for finding this gem!

Explaining the market is much easier than Timing the market. Timing is a much harder thing to predict. We believe the Denver Real Estate market is at, or very near the bottom. Read some of our previous articles, or better yet subscribe to our feed. You will then always be on top of the important statistics that will help you make up your own mind.

We always love to hear what you think! What are your predictions for the Denver Market? If you are thinking of a home purchase, or sale, when do you think it will be the right time to pull the trigger? What factors do you look at when making this decision? Etc…..

How we choose to live in our homes is our business…right? WRONG! If you are selling your home, you may have to make some lifestyle adjustments. For instance, that pool table you have in your living room might make sense to you, but, to a buyer, it can just be confusing. If you have a room with a chandelier hanging down, you should probably have it furnished as a dining room, even if you have not been using it that way.

Quite often, we have rooms in our homes that have to do double duty, or even triple duty. The room that functions as an office, guest, and exercise room, is sending a message to buyers that there are not enough rooms in your home. It is best to choose one function, and move the other items out.

I went on a staging consultation one time, and the homeowners had a bookcase in front of the fireplace. I asked them why, and they said they never used the fireplace and it was the only place the bookcase would fit. You can imagine how confounded buyers would be. A large TV placed in front of a window because that is the only spot where glare is not a problem, is fine for you and your family. But, when your home is for sale, there should be nothing in front of the windows. When buyers open your coat closet, it is best for them to see coats, not boxes of cereal or rolls of paper towel. The fax machine you keep on your kitchen counter will only raise questions as to why it is there.

Take the time to put your home in order, an order that will make sense to buyers. A little inconvenience is a small price to pay for getting your home sold quickly.