Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Easy Steps To Improve Your Yard For A Spring Sell
Fall is a great time to do a little extra work on landscaping in order to have a great product to show for the spring home selling season. Many people think fall is not a good time to plant, aerate, and transplant, but fall is a great time to get a jump on the spring gardening season. In the fall many trees, shrubs and perennials are at greatly reduced prices. Although some of the inventory may not be like it is in the spring, 50% off plants is often too hard to pass up. The trick is to plant before Oct 15 - depending on the weather. Plants need to be in the ground before the first hard freeze, so keep an eye on the weather. Once planted, they will work on root growth all winter and come out of dormancy in the spring strong and healthy. Blooming sometimes in the first year. This is desirable especially if you want to try to put your home on the market in the spring. Another area of the yard to do some fall prep is the lawn. Have a company come out and aerate the lawn. The core cultivation should be 1-3” deep and 2” apart in all directions for best results. Ask the contractor what their machines are set for. After the aeration, broadcast (with a broadcast spreader rather than a drop spreader) natural amendments to ensure a good boost to the soil under the turf. Many stores have varieties that are all in one, I prefer the organic, soil boosting types, which include nitrogen, beneficial microorganisms, and some acidify source to work on our alkaline soils. Harlequin Gardens in Boulder is a great source for all natural products that I have seen produce fantastic results. Go the natural way if you can, I have seen over the years better results with natural products. Bulbs, if you want to put your house on the market in spring, plant bulbs in the fall. Planting bulbs is easy, cheap and produce a great show, and in the spring a treat to see if you remember where and what you planted the fall previous. In addition, bulbs blooming in the spring are mostly what is blooming in early spring. Add tulips in hot colors to perk up an entrance. Add crocus along a walkway. Dark purple, orange and white tulips make for an interesting color combination. If you feel a little shy, you can always buy prearranged packs as well. Always plant in clumps of odd numbers or naturalize the bulbs in a larger area. To naturalize, just sprinkle the bulbs around and plant them where they fall. Try not to plant in a systematic row, or line, or pattern. It may look to contrived. Many online bulb companies sell bulbs at cheaper prices as well as sometimes more variety. Nurseries also have blubs this time of year. Spring blooming shrubs and perennials are also a great addition to the landscape. Fall is a great time to remove that half dead shrub near the garage and replace it with something that will be showing off spring blooms right about the time of your first open house. Contact me for a yard review and we can talk about what should be done now to spruce up your landscaping for spring. This was a guest post by one of our partners Kristin Wachtel of Integrated Landscape Design. Check out her website or give her a call at 303-478-4248. Labels: Home Staging
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Home Staging and the First Time Home Buyer
 I came across a recent article on Realtor.org called " How to Woo First-Time Buyers." Some lines in particular caught my attention from a home staging perspective: * "First-time home buyers can be tough to catch because they are wary of overpaying and skeptical about buying homes in need of improvement." * "A survey for Coldwell Banker last year found that 81 percent of first-time buyers said move-in conditions were very important. Only 7 percent were willing to consider fixer-uppers that they could buy cheaply." * "New paint, decluttering, and removing odors are very important, but don’t urge too many expensive modifications." was listed as one of the suggestions on how to lure a first-time buyer. Current Government incentives hopefully have placed more first-time buyers in the market, which may help your odds of selling your home. Don't rest on increased numbers of buyers, though, when you devise your selling strategy. As the article above points out, first-time buyers have unique perspectives that must be accounted for otherwise you may lose them as prospects. Obviously we are biased about staging as a key piece of the home sale process for any type of buyer but here is our reasoning for why working with a professional home staging company such as Design Matters Home is essential to creating a positive experience for a first-time buyer. First-time home buyers have an even harder time visualizing themselves in an empty house as they have not yet gone through the purchasing experience before. Your home needs to tell its story even better to first-time buyers than buyers who have been through the home buying process before. In particular you need to demonstrate furniture placement in the rooms of the house. Many first-time buyers may be replacing collegiate furniture or buying furniture for the first time. Chances are good that they may not have had to work with an open floor plan before in an apt. or smaller condo. If you have an open floor plan, help the prospective first-time buyers see how large rooms can be divided by furniture groupings or how they can "float" furnishings off the walls. Also, remember that vacant rooms tend to show smaller and can be confusing for buyers because they offer no perspective on how furniture sizes would relate to the space.  Updating in properties that are attractive to first-time home buyers is really important. As the Realtor.org article says this type of home buyer probably is not going to buy a property that needs a lot of work. With that being said, as the article also states, don't go overboard on too many expensive modifications that will take your home out of the feasible price range of the first-time buyer or cause you to lose money on the sale. Here are a couple easy and inexpensive suggestions that would be appropriate: - Replace cabinet hardware, light fixtures, etc. w/current finishes (e.g., brushed nickel) - Remove wallpaper &/or any dated color schemes These properties must look current and on trend. Stage with more contemporary artwork, furniture lines, and accessories (e.g., no tablecloths on tables, but do use a faux "flat-screen plasma" TV hung on the wall (if feasible) in the living room). In houses with smaller bedrooms, we typically stage one as a nursery (with a cradle, which looks sweet & makes the room look big) when the property is in a family-oriented neighborhood. Showing a home office space is also helpful. Play up the master bathroom (especially if there's a soaking tub), making the space look as luxurious & spa-like as possible, as this is an amenity that can really appeal to many first-time home buying women. Design Matters Home has successfully staged many homes in the Boulder, Broomfield, and Longmont areas that provided first-time buyers with a positive experience rather than a confusing one. Our full inventory allows us to stage rooms in the manner described above and more. Call us at (303) 249-4661 to talk more about your situation and how we can help make sure your home is as attractive as possible to first-time buyers as well as any type of buyer. Labels: Home Staging
Friday, June 19, 2009
New Tools for House Hunters
I caught this good summary of new tools for house hunters in the June 16th 2009 issue of Realtor.org Daily Real Estate News. New technology continues to make it easier for shoppers to identify homes to buy. Here are some of the latest and greatest.
*There’s an iPhone app for that: Zillow.com released a free iPhone app that allows consumers to check out homes for sale. The GPS-powered app allows shoppers to drive by a home for sale and see price and other details like number of bedrooms and baths.
*Search for ROI: Web sites like Investorloft.com rank homes by the profits they produce and identify properties with big differences between listing price and estimated value. The site has listings in 20 states and will be in all 50 by early 2010.
*Search for falling prices: Trulia.com will let you look for price reductions. Enter a zip code and reduced listings will come up.
*Guided tours on YouTube: Coldwell Banker has partnered with YouTube to launch a homes-for-sale video channel.
*Project value for $9.95: Cyberhomes is offering a market report for slightly less than $10 that provides neighborhood price projections and 12- to 24-month price-change forecasts. It also identifies the number of distressed, foreclosed, and REO properties nearby.
Source: CNNMoney.com, Les Christie (06/15/2009) I would also add a couple more. Look for active and data oriented real estate agent blogs in your area. These can be excellent resources for micro level data to help you get an even better understanding of the market you are most interested in. There are a few in the Boulder Colorado area but two great examples are: The Silver FernZachary EppsAlso, if you are not yet using Twitter, you need to be especially if you are looking for a house. Savvy real estate agents are tweeting super current information and thoughts that can help you again learn more about the micro market you are interested in and get a jump start on others. If you are selling a house it is critical that you and your agent take all these technology and online resources seriously. Buyers are doing a very large amount of research online before they set foot in your home. They are weeding out the houses that do not grab their attention so make sure your house is in all the right places online and that it is shining in its online description and more importantly in its pictures. Design Matters Home can help you make sure your house is looking its best online through our home staging services. Call us today at (303)249-4661, use our contact form, or stop by our office at 820 Main Street, Suite 109, Louisville, Colorado 80027 Labels: Boulder Colorado, Home Staging, real estate, technology
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Re-cap of the Home Sale Strategy and Marketing Workshop
The home marketing and re-design seminar we held last Wednesday was a great night with a lot of information shared and great questions from the attendees. Everyone walked out with more knowledge about the Boulder housing market which I am happy to report is not as grim as you may think. Price points at $400k and below are the hot properties in the Boulder area. Houses between $600k and $1 million are a harder sale although Carrie Nash with WR Starkey said she has seen more jumbo loans come through in the past week. This is a good sign. Caryn Geiger of Coldwell Banker Residential says she has seen some investors re-entering the market at the lower priced properties. This is also a good sign. With low inventory, the real estate market is like a beauty contest. The properties that are listed are pristine. Trying to compete against them without taking steps to make your house as equally beautiful and better yet more beautiful is a big mistake. Home staging is a smart step to increase the chances of selling your home. There are great local companies in the Boulder area offering professional home staging services that will make your home shine. Most home staging companies like ours offer a range of staging services from guiding you on how to arrange your own furniture, to supplementing your furniture with outside inventory to fill in gaps and update styles, to completely staging vacant homes. Design Matters Home also offers other services that will give you peace of mind that your house remains in top condition if you have to move away from it while it is on the market. If you choose not to hire a professional, CLEAN and DE-CLUTTER. These two things give the property a larger ROI (return on investment) than anything else. You would think this these two steps would be no-brainers to people selling their home. Unfortunately we and real estate agents we work with continually see people not taking the marketing of their home seriously. This is an expensive mistake. In addition to cleaning and de-cluttering your home do what you can to repair and update as much as possible. I know it is not always practical to update and repair everything so work with your real estate agent to determine the best focus areas for your home. PLEASE don’t reduce the price, especially if it is what is known as a chicken price reduction (a gratuitous price reduction that is basically meaningless), before a t least talking with a staging professional. ROI on staging is over 100%. Your first price reduction will most certainly cost you a higher amount than the costs of staging. Once you take the step to reduce the price there is no ROI as you will not get that money back. This workshop was part of our monthly workshop series. We are working on a workshop about outdoor kitchens next. Check back on our website for updates. Re-caps of our past workshops along with other articles written by us, including another recent article on home staging and more of our thoughts on home marketing, can be found in the Design MattersHome Blog. You can also always send any questions to me at helly@designmattershome.com. If you are into Twitter you can follow me, and ask me questions there as well – http://www.twitter.com/askhelly.Labels: Boulder Colorado, Home Staging, real estate
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Home Sale Strategy and Marketing - A Free Design Matters Home Workshop
Design Matter Home is hosting a workshop tomorrow, Wednesday, April 29, 5:30pm, on home sale strategy and marketing. We are really excited about this workshop and think it will bring value to you whether you are looking to sell your home soon or just want to learn more about the best investments to make in updating you home for future sale. If you are in the Louisville Colorado area (Just east of Boulder) and have time tomorrow please attend our workshop. Light refreshments will be served. Perspectives will be from interior designer, Realtor, and mortgage provider. Topics will include - ROI on interior additions and updates, trends, home marketing via staging, competing against foreclosure pricing, Looking behind the Headlines - what you don't hear from the National Media, "Should I stay or should I go?", Declining inventory - what does it mean?, What are your odds of selling?, how the value of your home affects lending, how can I access my equity and should I?, and more. To RSVP go to http://event.pingg.com/HomeSaleStrategy Labels: Boulder Colorado, Home Staging, real estate
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Leave some furniture – I say no, hire a home stager!
I caught the following article in this week’s “Weekly Real Estate News” email we receive from REALTOR Magazine Online. I agree with a couple of the tips but want to propose a better solution that will bring you more value for your time and financial investment than the others suggested. My thoughts follow the article. 7 Tips to Avoid the Vacant Home Look - Daily Real Estate News-April 14, 2009 Selling a home that is vacant can be harder than selling a lived-in home, experts say. Here are some ideas from Pam and Dave Pettigrew, certified residential specialists with Prudential Rocky Mountain in Fort Collins, Colo., on what practitioners and sellers should consider to protect an empty property and get it sold.
·Give the house a lived-in look. Get a neighbor or family member to make the house look occupied by parking a car in the driveway, opening and closing the drapes and taking in any mail.
·Groom the yard. Use a lawn service during the summer to keep the grass cut and a snow removal service in the winter to scrape the walks and driveway.
·No outstanding nicks. Hide the effects of missing furniture. Paint and replace rugs so there are no faded spots or blemishes on the walls. Cover accent paint that alone looks odd.
·Leave some furniture. A few chairs, tables, lamps and beds (or empty mattress boxes with spreads) give buyers a sense of space.
·Keep the utilities on. Set the thermostat at a comfortable level during the winter and summer.
·Hire a maid. Make sure the home remains spotless.
·Check the homeowner’s policy. Understand the coverage when the home is vacant.
Source: Coloradoan, Pam and Dave Pettigrew (04/12/09)
Let me start with the two tips I agree with: check the homeowner’s policy and keep the utilities on. Definitely do these steps. In the winter you do not want prospective buyers shivering and in the summer you do not want prospective buyers sweating. In fact if it is a hot day and they come into the comfort of your home that is a nice first step to a positive impression. It is also very important to check your homeowner’s policy so you are aware of the coverage when the house is vacant. This is a place where you don’t want any surprises because you did not do 10 minutes of homework. Now for all the others I offer a much more effective solution – hire a good home stager. Yes I am obviously biased toward this view since I am indeed in the business of staging homes but here is why I think a home stager will provide you with a better AND more cost effective solution than the ones shared above.  If you are just leaving some random furniture in your home chances are the pieces left behind will not be your best items. In addition to that a piecemeal approach to leaving items will show as clutter to the prospective buyers and will deter from their experience rather than giving them a sense of space.  A good home stager will use current and high quality furniture and furnishings appropriate for the most likely buyers of your home to truly bring out the best qualities of the house and give the possible buyers a sense of space. Random furniture left behind will not help buyers visualize themselves in the home but a properly staged home will. Yes, touching up paint and higher use areas is a good idea. Don't just do it willy-nilly though. A home stager with interior design experience can help make sure your time and effort in doing this yields the best results possible. They can also coordinate the contractors to help with these activities if you choose to or are not able to do them yourself.  A good staging company will also help coordinate services to keep the house clean while it is on the market and give it all the right touches to keep its vibrancy and soul that attracted you to it when you bought it yourself. I think this is a more marketable approach than just giving your house the “lived in look.” Remember a key part to selling a house - If you try to sell your home you probably will fail. New buyers do not want to buy your home; they want to buy your house to make it their home. At Design Matters Home we call this Home-House-Home and use it to frame our home staging solutions and the value we bring to the home sale process. The home staging company will also keep a presence at the home as they have a vested interest in the safety of their items. They can complement the activities of your neighbors to keep the house safe.  Staging is a smart investment. It will greatly increase your chances of a quick sale for more money. Yes it is another cost of selling a home but the costs are almost always lower than your first price reduction. Especially in this market or in any market for that matter why not do all you can to make your house stand out from the others? Campbell’s still does a lot of marketing to sell their virtually ubiquitous cans of soup, why not do the same for your house? We believe that a quick sale for as much money as possible requires three key components of a well coordinated home marketing strategy: - The owner must truly be motivated to sell their property
- The real estate agent must be tapping all their traditional and online resources to bring potential buyers to the house
- A professional home stager, like Design Matters Home, must be used to make the house stand out from others by highlighting its unique qualities
Don’t treat the marketing of your home as a painful afterthought. Buyers in this market of lower than normal inventories have the ability to be even more picky than ever. I have even heard the market compared to a beauty contest. Take the smart steps to make your house shine and stand out from the rest! Our next workshop is coming up on Wednesday, April 29th, 5:30pm at the Design Matters Home office. It is called - "Home Sale Strategy and Marketing - A Design Matters Home Perspective." Get the complete picture on the best time and way to market your property for sale from the interior design, real estate, and mortgage perspective. Light refreshments will be served. For more information and to RSVP go to http://event.pingg.com/HomeSaleStrategy.Labels: Home Staging
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Meet the Artist - Michael Giese
Michael is a local artist who is trained in art and graphic design. His medium of choice is acrylic on masonite, which allows for active working of the paint to reach the desired texture. Many of his pieces are oriented in the vertical format for a unique display that allows for several works to be hung together. Michael also has sculptural pieces including several versions of the American flag. His style is inspired by Vincent Van Gough in depth, color, contrast, atmosphere, texture, and originality. His creations are often bight and decorative. Michael is a member of the Louisville Art Association. He has had exhibitions in Denver, Boulder, and Louisville and won several awards for his art. You can find some of his pieces in Design Matters home stages is Boulder County and look for him on the local art scene web site www.artworknetwork.com. We love displaying the wonderful work of local artists in our home staging and in our office. If you are an artist in the Boulder, Broomfield, Longmont, North Metro Denver area and would like to learn more about our local artist program send Helly an email at helly@designmattershome.com.Labels: Home Staging, local artists
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Meet the Artist - Christine Humphreys
Christine Humphreys is a self taught wildlife and nature photographer, she has been capturing images for over 20 years. Driven by passion and love of the natural world and the adventure of exploration and discovery, she photographs the wonders of the smallest of animals, the expanses of the grandest landscapes and the alluring of fleeting wildlife. Chris has traveled extensively to photograph, and view wildlife, the environment, and animals in their natural habitat. Her travels and photographs include subjects in Alaska, Australia, Africa, Bonaire, Fiji, Dominica, British Colombia, Galapagos Islands, Turks and Caicos, Guadeloupe Island, Grand Cayman, Hawaii, California, Florida, and Colorado. She is also a certified scuba diver, experienced in underwater photography and video. Her underwater shots are as dynamic and breath taking as her land and sky subjects. Chris seeks to use her photography to educate and document protection of the environment. You can see her work in regional and national magazines, books, and calendars. Her photograph of a coyote was on the cover of Outdoor Life this year. She recently took amazing action photos of a skydiving event in Longmont that will be published soon. Check out her websites: www.wildimages.netwww.christinehumphreysphotography.comwww.petpawsphotography.net. We love displaying the wonderful work of local artists in our home staging and in our office. If you are an artist in the Boulder, Broomfield, Longmont, North Metro Denver area and would like to learn more about our local artist program send Helly an email at helly@designmattershome.com.Labels: Home Staging, local artists
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Meet the Artist - Jane Whittlesey
Jane is a classically trained fine artist who has mainly worked in oils for the last 15 years. She specializes in impressionist style canvases featuring still life, figures, animal portraits, and, Louisville, and Boulder County, and Colorado landmarks. Jane is a teacher and member of Plein Air Artists, American Impressionist Society, East Boulder Artist Alliance, Louisville Art Association, Art Students league of Denver.  The picture of the dog on the easel was a highlight of a recent home stage Design Matters Home performed on a large house with a large basement. Jane's picture and the staging arrangement helped perspective buyers visualize a great use of the basement space.
You can see her work at local art festivals and on her website http://www.janepaints.com/.
We love displaying the wonderful work of local artists in our home staging and in our office. If you are an artist in the Boulder, Broomfield, Longmont, North Metro Denver area and would like to learn more about our local artist program send Helly an email at helly@designmattershome.com Labels: Home Staging, local artists
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
What do I do with this space?
I recently had a meeting for a staging bid on a house that had been scraped, and re-built. The house has been on the market for a couple of months, and the feedback has been – “what do I do with these rooms?” This home has fabulous French doors that open onto a beautiful rounded patio. The doors could be opened in the summer for a great mountain cross breeze with the sliding glass door in the back. The French doors add charm and allow guests to overflow to the patio. This house would be great for entertaining due to its open layout in the living room, dining area, and kitchen, but still after months people wonder “what do I do with this space?” On the opposite side of the house is a wonderful family room with wood burning stove, office/den/or extra bedroom, and a full bath. These rooms create a separate, more cozy space for homeowners as a differential to the more public, open space of the living room, dining area, and kitchen. Still, the question is asked, “what do I do with this space?” Home Staging provides the answer to this question by enhancing the natural beauty of a home to potential buyers through the use of furniture, art, and accessories. You can put a sofa here, a table there, a TV here, and some art work there. Creating a visual of how the space can be used is powerful, and gets the creative juices flowing in a potential buyer’s mind. The idea of positive emotional attachment: this space feels warm, cozy, inviting, fun, and happy are emotions that we love, and these positive emotions are the keys to selling a home. Emotional attachment starts forming when the potential buyer thinks – hey, my sofa would look great in here too, or how about my grandmother’s table over there. These visualizations are much harder for potential buyers to make when they walk into an echoy, empty, and lifeless house. Labels: Home Staging
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Welcome to the Design Matters At Home Blog
Welcome to the Design Matters @ Home Blog. Once we get in the groove of entering content into this blog you will see our thoughts on the application of design matters at home through interior design and home staging. You will also see from time to time our thoughts on the interior design and home staging market in Boulder County Colorado where we are based. We think it will be exciting content to read and hope you feel the same. Labels: Design Matters, Home Staging, Interior Design
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