Month: June 2019

If you are considering selling your home, you know you need to have it looking its best before prospective buyers come calling. Sure, the furniture and knick-knacks they see during the open house don”t come with the property. But these impressions matter, and can tilt the scales between a sale and no sale in an exceedingly tough seller”s market.
Recently, sellers and realtors have increasingly contracted the services of a professional home stager to prepare their homes for viewing. A home stager is a professional with design training that will prepare the home for sale. More than a specialized home decorator, home stagers have in-depth knowledge about buyer demographics and how to appeal to serious buyers. They are trained in how to highlight your home”s assets, while minimizing flaws or potential value detractors.
You may be thinking, “Why should I take on the added expense of a third party stager? Can”t I or my realtor spruce up my home sufficiently?” In the case of the latter, many realtors lack the time or training in how to successfully stage a home. In the case of the former, homeowners can benefit from the objective perspective a stager brings to the table. Many homeowners are unable to view their spaces without bias, while a stager can enter the situation from the perspective of a prospective buyer, and make changes accordingly.
Opening their homes to strangers can be unnerving for some people. Many home stagers will arrange to have your belongings placed in safe, self secure storage during the selling process to ensure none of your valuables are damaged or stolen during the selling process.
The value of a home stager is supported by the numbers. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) found that home staging typically costs between 1-3% of the home”s total asking price, while a staged home generates a return of 8-10%. A Home Gain Survey of more than 2,000 Realtors found that home staging provides an average of 568% return on investment.
Staged homes also sell faster, and less time on the market means a higher return for the seller. The NAR found that homes that stayed on the market for less than four weeks sold for 1% above their asking price, versus 10% below their asking price in homes on the market for 24 weeks.
With record numbers of homes on the market, every effort to separate your home from the pack may be beneficial to you. With such fierce competition from sellers, buyers are extremely particular about which home they settle on. With a professional home stager, you can relax knowing a trained professional is making your house look its absolute best, decreasing your stress level and resulting in a higher sale value.

When youre staging a home to sell, you will probably come across many minor or major repairs that need immediate attention such as a leaky faucet, loose door hinges or holes in walls. Wall patching can be considered one of the most common home repairs. Home owners are notorious for hanging wall art and in turn creating holes. Moving furniture will also damage your walls. Whatever the reason, it is a must do-it-yourself repair anyone can do with the right steps. The following home staging tips will help you patch a hole in any room of your home.

What you will need:
– You will need the following items to begin your hole patching job: drywall, drywall screws, spackle, putty knife, drywall tape, water, texture spray, rough/fine sandpaper, studs, touch up paint, gloves and painters clothes.

Step 1
Locate the hole(s) or dent. By using a knife or narrow saw blade, cut the drywall around the damaged area until you have a close to perfect square. If the hole isnt big enough to expose some stud for patch support, you may need to use the stud you bought to build with the existing studs for patch support.

Step 2
Cut a piece of the spare drywall as close to the size of the square opening as possible. Use a knife or saw to gently remove any pieces around the edges a little at a time until you have a perfect fit.
Step 3
Press drywall into place and secure it with the drywall screws into the studs. Be sure that the screws are no more than half an inch from the crack between the wall and the patch.

Step 4
After you have installed the patch, youll need to patch the cracks and blend the wall together. Using some rough grit sandpaper, sand the wall around the patch to remove the texture, if there is any.

Step 5
Using your putty knife or scraper, spread a little putty around the patch, filling in the crack. Before it dries, spackle a thin coat that covers the wall and patch (this should also cover the screws).

Step 6
Next, cut a long piece of drywall tape and soak it in water for a few seconds. Then, using your fingers pinch the tape and slide it through to remove excess water. Align a piece of the tape along the four cracks, being sure that it covers a little of the wall and a little of the patch, while at the same time covering the screw (this is why the screw shouldn’t be too far from the crack). If you did this before the paper dried it should stick to the spackle. Make sure the drywall tape is all the way against the wall so that there are no bubbles. After it has dried, you may spread a couple more thin coats of spackle to cover the drywall tape.

Step 7
After the drywall tape has been covered with the thin layers of spackle and has dried completely (best over night), use the fine grit sand paper and sand the spackle until the patch and the wall blend smoothly. Do this cautiously so you dont overdo it.

Step 8
Use a damp cloth and carefully remove any sanded powder from the wall and allow it to dry.

Step 9
Following the directions on your spray can of texture (match that of your walls) then spray, allow it to dry completely over the course described on the directions before painting.

Step 10
Now the wall is ready for paint. If the paint matched the color of your repair, then you know you did the job properly and there will be no sign of a repair job. Apply a couple coats and let dry.

Presto! You just patched a hole in the wall. With the easy do-it-yourself tips above, patching a hole will be no problem. Make sure you tackle the small repairs your home will need before you begin your creative home staging task. The end result will surely be a masterpiece!

Find out other helpful tips in this handy article. The real estate agent that you hire has to be one that knows their way around technology. If you are ready to hire a real estate agent, make sure you research all about them on the internet first. Then, choose three of your top picks and interview them. In course of conducting your interviews, things to note are how much commission they will be charging you, how long the contract with the real estate agent will last as well as your standard items of concern, which will include your home pricing, and your net proceeds from the sale of the home. The advertising and staging techniques, and showing instructions should also be reviewed with you. During this process, you should have an idea about what your next move will be if the home goes under contract to quickly.

Once you have hired your real estate agent, the next big day will be picture day. In order to be ready for market, your home should be in pristine condition. When a buyer is shopping for a home, they are looking at pictures on the internet. Ultimately, they will be comparing apples to apples and yours needs to be the shiniest or you will sit on the market.et.

If your home is vacant, staging it can certainly warm up the heart of a buyer. A home with a bit of furniture in key rooms will give the buyers an idea of what might fit in the home. Rooms to address are the main living area, bedroom and kitchen. Items can be either rented by you or provided by a home staging company. Many of these have a warehouse full of furniture and accessories. The stagers can really bring a vacant home to life.

The prospective home buyer should not feel like they are moving through a maze as they walk through your home. Move furniture around to open up obvious pathways and make sure areas are all well lit, either naturally or by small uplights placed strategically, If you have to move a bed around to make a bedroom more spacious, then do it. Unblock windows, closet doors and access points so the buyer gets a good feel from their tour.

Just because you live in a neighborhood with a bunch of kids, and you’re pretty sure whoever buys your house will have kids, doesn’t mean you don’t have to pack up all the excessive toys. Toys in a room take up a tremendous amount of space and cause the room to be very cluttered looking. Pack the excess items up when your kids aren’t home. Box them up and label them well. You can drag them back out once you move to your new home. This goes for toys inside the house, the garage and all over the yard. Most of them your kids probably haven’t touched in a long time anyway.

Show and sell is an old saying in real estate. Each real estate agent showing your home hopes that their client will find favor with it. The real estate agents are to give the sellers feed back once they finish showing all their homes for a day. View the feedback as a source of criteria that can enable you to better sell your home, not as though the real estate agent is being cruel with their comments.