5 Ways to Prep Your Home for an Open House

Preparing your home for an open house can be a little like getting ready for a blind date. You don’t know what you may be facing but it is important to look your best. Open houses can often be stressful for homeowners because they know that strangers will be tromping through the door evaluating every last detail. You know the home needs to be as clean as possible but here are a few other things to keep in mind as you prepare.



Depersonalize as much as you can: You don’t want strangers seeing all your personal stuff and that’s reason enough to put photos, awards and sentimental objects elsewhere but there’s another reason as well. All that stuff is distracting and your potential home buyer could spend more time looking at what is in the home than actually seeing their lives taking place there. Your goal is to have your home appear as a blank slate, just waiting for a new buyer to make their mark. Pets should be out of the home not just for the day but ideally for a few days in order to allow any lingering odors to dissipate.

Don’t shove it all in the closet: You’ve got clutter, you need to get it out of sight, at least temporarily. The first instinct might be to move it all out to the garage, put it up in the attic, stack it in the basement, or fill up the closets. But remember your potential buyer probably has a fair amount of clutter too. They will be looking at all those storage spaces and the more available room they see, the more it will look like your home has all the space they need. Ask relatives or friends if you can temporarily store some items with them. You can also rent a storage space. The important thing is to make your home appear spacious and inviting.

Warm it up: The old trick of baking bread or cookies works to appeal to clients because it makes the home feel warm and lived in. Scented candles can work a similar magic. Fresh flowers or plants are also a nice touch and one that stagers often use. Another trick from stagers is to use colorful pillows and softly draped throws to provide a bit of color in bedrooms and living spaces. The home needs to be depersonalized but it still needs to look lived in and so a stack of plates left on the counter, fruit in the fruit bowl, towels in the bathroom, all go toward showing that the home is a great place to live.

Keep it bright: Light sells homes. Windows should be freshly cleaned on both the inside and the outside for maximum sunlight potential. Also go around and check to make sure all your light bulbs are working and that they are bright enough to really show off the rooms to their best advantage. Open all curtains and shades and take down any heavy curtains that might block some of the light streaming in.

Make a day of it: You know you shouldn’t be hovering around your open house but instead of going down to the local coffee shop and waiting until it’s over, reward yourself with a real mini vacation. Even the happiest of moves are stressful, so defuse some of that by taking yourself and your family out for a little reward. Put some distance between you and the home by going on a small day trip. Then later you can reconnect with your Realtor after he or she has had time to gather up all the impressions about the home.

Remember, you may not get an offer on the first day but an open house can lead to future showings and an eventual sale.

A House That Looks Good Will Sell

By Al Heavens

A house should have curb appeal, they say, but what exactly does that mean?

What it means is that, if a buyer drives past a house at 5 or 10 m.p.h., the front of the place should be alluring enough for that buyer to stop the car. If the seller has done the job properly, the buyer should then get out of the car and write down the real estate agent's name and number.
 

You can achieve curb appeal - which the National Association of Realtors says sells 49 percent of all houses - whether you have a city townhouse with no front yard or a suburban house with trees and a lawn.

 

One facet of curb appeal you may not be able to control is the condition of your neighbors' houses and yards. If they all look nice, then the buyer will become as intrigued with the neighborhood as with your house. If the other yards are filled with kids' toys, and the buyer has children, that means potential playmates.
 

If the other yards are filled with rubbish and junk cars, good luck to you.

From my personal curb-appeal file, here's how to handle prettying up city and suburban (or semi-suburban) houses for sale:
 

The yardless townhouse: It is 1987, the real estate market is beginning to deflate, and there is a surplus of townhouses for sale downtown. There is the added disadvantage of living near a public-housing project with the accompanying perception of high crime.
 

The advantages: Close-knit neighborhood with nice, well-done townhouses, a school around the corner, a turn-of-the-century social club being renovated as apartments, children playing in the street serve as a deterrent to criminals, no abandoned cars, and lots of street trees.
 

In this case, I touched up the blue paint on the trim and on the front door, and added shutters to the living room window.
 

I bolted a flower box to that window ledge and a half-barrel on the side of the two marble steps up to the front door and filled both - and a small area around the tree in front of the house - with impatiens.

I made sure the steps were washed and bleached white.
 

On open-house days, I rewarded the children with ice cream if they kept the noise down to a roar and sat on someone else's steps for two hours.
 

Results: The ultimate buyer was at the first open house, even though the house was on the market for five months and two real estate brokerages.
 

Lessons learned: Give all the kids ice cream. I missed one, who erroneously, and loudly, reported that someone had stolen her bike during an open house.
 

The city house with front yard: It is June 2001, the real estate market is unstoppable, and there is a shortage of housing in the $150,000-to-$300,000 range.
 

The advantages: There's the shortage, of course. The semi-suburban neighborhood is beautiful, filled with trees, the azaleas are in bloom, the street is open again after a year of railroad-bridge replacement, and my neighbors are tired of my writing about them and would do anything to see me go.
 

The disadvantages: The beer distributorship at the corner produces a lot of trash. The street is a main route between two major city avenues.
 

The solution: Touch up the front of the house, including washing the mildew from the porch columns and rails. Put a new coat of paint on the porch floor, keep the hedges trimmed neatly, plant plenty of flowers, and use lots of dark mulch that you should water regularly.

Repaint the concrete bench under the dogwood. Replace and paint the stairs to the porch. Repair the sidewalk.
 

Make sure the lawn is mowed once a week and watered regularly. Dead-head the flowers. Pick up trash not only in front of your house but in front of your neighbors' houses.

Wash the windows.
 

Results: House is on the market for a weekend. Eighteen couples have appointments on day two, 50 groups appear at open house on day three. Seven offers, two at asking, five over.
 

Lessons learned: A lot of ugly houses sold over asking price last spring, but you can't assume that your ugly house will. Never take risks, but don't go overboard trying to pretty up.
 

Remember, at first contact, it is not how good the house feels but how good it looks.

But once you get them through the door, you better be real sure that what's inside looks as good as what's outside.

http://www.realtor.com/home-finance/real-estate/sellers/selling-house-with-curb-appeal.aspx?source=web 

10 Hottest Home Colors

By Anne Miller of realtor.com

 

Paint and judicious pops of color can be a relatively simple way to update, even modernize, a home inside and out. Whether you're customizing your new home, prepping one to sell, or just breathing new life into your beloved abode, we've rounded up some of the most happening hues for 2013. Accent colors offset by cooler grays and whites dominated interior design this year, while charcoal, gold and green were the trendy adornments for haute exteriors, according to experts.

Interior: Benjamin Moore's Stonington Gray

Few know color like Maria Killam, a certified color consultant and design expert who teaches seminars on color. Cooler grays with blue undertones, like this Benjamin Moore offering, have been on fire this year, she said.

Interior: White

Basics returned with a vengeance this year, Killam said. Although, she cautioned that even a shade as simple-seeming as this one doesn't work everywhere. "If you don't have enough light to pull it off, your walls end up looking gray and dingy," she said. "Just walk into any dark room and look up at the white painted ceiling and see how gray it looks.

Interior: Emerald

Pantone, the international purveyor of color taste, named 2013 the year of the emerald. The deep hues elicit adjectives like elegance and harmony. The color of the year -- Pantone 17-5641, to be exact -- appeared on runways, decor and design materials throughout the world, as well as refreshingly new interiors

Interior: Peacock

Darker than teal, it plays well with both white and gray neutrals and deep oranges bases. This color started creeping across the radar in January, according to ApartmentTherapy.com. The blog featured decor from the actual bird, on a pillow, to a sofa and a napkin set.

Interior: French gray

Like Paris fashion houses, paint companies set the year's trends with the palettes they choose. Farrow & Ball introduced a warm gray perfect for a homey bedroom.

Interior: Deep purple

Accent walls were the name of the game for two firms. Dullux paint's "Inspired Violet" is their deepest main color ever, according to Styleathome.com. Behr Paints chose Plum Orbit for a similar effect.
And if you're looking to splash your walls with next year's hottest color, purple is still sure to be your prize. Color authority Pantone says "Radiant Orchid" is the official color of 2014. With fuschia, purple and pink undertones, Radiant Orchid "reaches across the color wheel to intrigue the eye and spark the imagination," said Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute.

Interior: Chocolate

A rich brown can set off those bright colors and add depth and warmth to any room. As Interior Design magazine noted at the beginning of the year, the goal is "intense, but ... richer, and less acidic."

 

Exterior: Nature's green

Muted palates echoed the great outdoors, with a soft green that matched the landscape, designers told Sheknows.com.

Exterior: Gold

Designers and small painting firms reported that they saw an uptick in the popularity of soft golds for a rich-looking exterior option. Plus, gold never goes out of style.

 

Exterior: Charcoal

Killam sees a rising demand for the rich gray-black offshoot on the outside of homes. But she counseled homeowners to steer clear. Dark tends to be more dated on the outside. "As soon as the gray trend is over, your charcoal gray house will look just as dated as the dark brown exteriors look right now," she said.
In other words, be wary of any trend that has the potential for a short shelf life. Let the year's color choices inspire, but perhaps not dictate, the beauty of your home.