Preparing for an Open House

When selling your home, open houses can be particularly stressful.  Assuming the open house has been marketed well (another potential source of stress), you’re going to have a significant number of strangers wandering around, opening closets, and making judgments about your home.  To prepare, many people either try to fix every single potential flaw, spending days and a lot of money upgrading their home, or they are resigned to the fact that there’s just so much to do, a potential buyer is just going to have to love the place the way it is.

These tips may help you tame the seemingly never ending to-do list with some specific things to work on that can go a long way toward impressing home buyers.

Spruce up the Outdoors

This means mowing the lawn the day before, trimming hedges, and talking to your Realtor or Stager about potentially covering up any brown patches with turf or some form of decoration.  Especially important is making sure your house number is easily visible from the road.  You want to avoid a home viewer’s first impression of your home to be that it’s very hard to find.

Spend some time working with the front door.  It should look warm and welcoming, so make sure that any lights are functioning properly.  Even if you don’t intend to use those lights, buyers are notorious for walking around flipping switches.  Consider repainting the door if it’s starting to look drab.  A fresh coat of paint can make it look like a brand new door.

Declutter Closets

One thing many buyers look for in a home is good closet space.  Regardless of the size of your closets, packing them full of coats, clothes, and shoes does nothing but make them look cramped.  You can keep several items in each closet, but make sure there’s plenty of room to move things around, creating the illusion of excess space.

Scrub Surfaces

Nothing turns a potential home-buyer off as much as finding mold and grime.  The cleanliness of a house is often equated with its upkeeping, so finding just a little dirt can translate in a viewer’s mind as a home with substantial problems hidden away.  If you don’t want to take the time to ensure every tile and mirror is immaculate, consider hiring a cleaning service for a day.

Store Excess

While cleaning out your closets, store some furniture as well.  Most homes can get away with about half the furniture they currently have and still look comfortable.  You can rent a storage unit while the house is being shown while keeping the bare minimum necessary in your home.  Just like closet space, the more room to move around, the bigger the room looks.

Most importantly, try to distance yourself emotionally from your home.  People are going to find flaws with the house, in part because it’s a real house and not a made-up Barbie dreamland, and in part because they are considering several homes, and they’re trying to compare them objectively.  The more objective you can be about your home, the better you’ll be able to respond.  Consider letting a Realtor show the home while and your family goes to a double feature.

In short, presenting a home for a showing is a lot like going on a first date.  You want to dress to impress, stow any excess baggage, then prepare for some exciting offers.

Remodeling vs. Staging Benefits for Home Sellers

Home improvement and staging each room to look its best can both make a huge impact on the buyer pool interested in your home.  Staging tends to be inexpensive compared to a remodel, but in some cases, may not get you the highest possible offers.  Remodeling tends to drive the asking price of your home higher, but not always high enough to compensate for the cost of the remodel itself. 

So when should you stage and when should you remodel a home you’re going to sell?  Your real estate agent can certainly advise you on trends they see buyers demanding, and areas of your home to consider either remodeling or staging.  They are also a wealth of information regarding costs of remodeling and staging related to any potential increase in your net from a sale.

Living/Family Room

These rooms often don’t need to be remodeled.  Most likely, they are somewhat more crowded than necessary for a home showing, so it’s a good idea to store any excess furniture and put away clutter.  If there are materials like children’s toys that you’d like to have access to every day, store them in a box in a discreet location.  That way they can be retrieved and quickly put away as needed.  Assume  that potential home buyers are going to open every closet, so don’t kid yourself that stashing things out of sight is the same as de-cluttering.

Kitchen

Remodeling a kitchen can have a big impact.  However, it likely doesn’t need a complete re-do from top to bottom.  If your appliances are old or inefficient, it’s likely worthwhile to replace them.  Consider replacing the floor as well, especially if there are any warps or cracked tiles.  Redoing the cabinets can change the look of the room, but you don’t have to completely replace them.  Upgrading the doors, replacing handles, and/or repainting can upgrade your look just as well as a full replacement.

Bedrooms

This is another area that rarely needs remodeling.  Clever staging and thorough cleaning is normally sufficient to make all the bedrooms in your home look great to prospective buyers.  You may want to consider downsizing a bed.  If a king sized bed makes the room look like a tight fit, a queen may be a better fit.  However, the perfect staging techniques for your bedrooms can be discussed with your Realtor.

Attics

A common problem with attics is poor insulation.  This leads to heat seeping out of the house, costing you and future owners money.  Upgrading the insulation is something you can advertise, especially in today’s energy saving economy.  If you have an attic that you can easily reach and has proper floor and walls, you can transform even tiny spaces into attractive studies.  A desk and chair with some lighting and a bookshelf turns an empty space into an extra room.

Basements

There are markets for both finished and unfinished basements.  If you have an unfinished basement, talk to your Realtor to see whether finishing it would attract more buyers in your area.  Finishing a basement turns a storage space into at least one extra room, which can have incredible appeal, especially for smaller houses.

Every home is different, so before beginning any major remodeling project, talk to a Realtor to determine how to make the most impact with the smallest financial risk.

Suns Charities 88

A Network of Professionals Helping Arizona’s Children

In addition to becoming leaders in the world of Title Services, Fidelity National Title Agency continues to serve the children of Arizona with its philanthropic endeavors.  One of Fidelity National Title’s family members, Melissa Shapiro, has been working with other professionals in the area to create “Suns Charities 88,” an organization that raises funds for Arizona's children.

Suns Charities 88 was created to build professional relationships that could be used to help those who desperately need it.  In real estate, as in many other industries, professionals connect with new people daily.  Often, these people would love to participate in charitable efforts, but this network of connections is not used to effectively funnel these efforts where they are needed.

Melissa Shapiro and the Fidelity National Title Agency team are putting these connections to good use.  By targeting individuals who have succeeded in their business careers, Suns Charities 88 creates both a far reaching network and a system composed of people who have the drive and ability to sustain a large collaboration.

This group will primarily focus on fundraising for Phoenix Suns Charities, an organization that has been serving the children of Arizona since 1988, and that has granted over $13 million to those children during that time.

In addition to the philanthropic component of this group of professionals, Suns Charities 88 will provide professional development opportunities to all its participants.  Executives of the Phoenix Suns will present panels on the importance of teamwork, dedication, and leadership, and networking events will allow this collaboration to aid each participant’s business.

Fidelity National Title Agency is proud to be a founding member of this collaboration, and is confident that the results will benefit both the children of Arizona and the participants of this amazing networking group.  For more information, or to learn how to become part of this professional organization, contact Fidelity National Title Agency today, and check out this great article on the Phoenix Suns' website: http://www.nba.com/suns/suns-charities-wells-fargo-debut-networking-group