6 rules of curb appeal

How to beat out competition when selling your home

By Paul Bianchina, Friday, March 16, 2012.

Inman News®

Curb appeal image via Shutterstock.

It's that time of year again, when I take a moment to talk to all of you who are thinking of putting your home on the market this spring. If real estate's favorite old adage is "location, location, location," then it's got to be followed closely by, "You get only one chance to make a first impression."
You can't change your home's location, but you can certainly do everything within your power to make that first impression a strong one, so let's go over the basics of that all-important must-have for a successful sale: curb appeal.

Start with a step back
You've seen the outside of your house so many times that you don't really see it anymore. So now's the time to look at it with new eyes, from the perspective of a prospective buyer. And if you can't do it objectively, get a friend, a neighbor or your real estate agent to do it for you.

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Home seller pitfalls to avoid

Do your home's features justify your asking price?

By Dian Hymer, Monday, March 19, 2012.

Inman News®

Six years after the market peaked in 2006 and prices started to decline, many sellers are still in denial about the current market value of their homes. It's difficult for most sellers to accept the reality of today's home-sale market, whether they bought at or near the peak and will lose money selling today, or bought decades ago but are still stuck at 2006 prices. An Oakland, Calif., homeowner recently remarked that she was aware that home prices had dropped quite a bit over the last five years. But she felt that her home hadn't lost any value.
It's hard for homeowners to divorce themselves emotionally from a home they've enjoyed. But this is what sellers need to do so that they can make rational decisions about a list price that will actually result in a sale.
This decision should be based on listings that have sold in your area that could be considered somewhat comparable to your home. Some sellers go to open houses to evaluate the competition. If you're still emotionally wrapped up in your home, the exercise can be futile. You return home feeling that the other homes aren't as good as yours.

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Bethesda’s Brookmont neighborhood is a ‘Kayaker’s Camelot’

By Amy Reinink,

When Chris and Elliot Weintrob met in the late 1980s, they were living in a group house in Bethesda’s Brookmont neighborhood, where Elliot, then a competitive kayaker, was training for the 1992 Olympics.
The neighborhood, little more than an extended cul-de-sac off MacArthur Boulevard, has two walking paths to the C&O Canal, and sits minutes away from a world-class whitewater slalom course, which made it a draw for dozens of young kayakers and their coaches in the 1970s and 1980s.

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Expectations rising for housing market's spring season

By Julie Schmit, USA TODAY

The spring home-selling season could be the strongest in years and may foreshadow which markets will lead a battered housing industry in an anemic recovery, economists say.

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  By Amy Sancetta, AP
  New homes for sale in Pepper Pike, Ohio, near Cleveland.

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By Amy Sancetta, AP

New homes for sale in Pepper Pike, Ohio, near Cleveland.

 "This spring will be the litmus test for housing demand," says Steven Ricchiuto, chief economist for Mizuho Securities USA.

The spring season typically runs March through June but may have started early this year because of unseasonably warm weather.

While last year was dismal for existing home sales, this year is looking better. Existing home sales in February were up 9% from the same time a year ago, as was the Pending Home Sale Index, which reflects signed contracts leading to sales, says the National Association of Realtors.

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5 things homebuyers hate

Mood of the Market

BY TARA-NICHOLLE NELSON, MONDAY, MARCH 5, 2012.

Inman News®

Last month I put a post up on my real estate blog distilling a few lessons from my own experience about things sellers do that turn buyers off, and vice versa. I was a little concerned that the article might cause some backlash among buyers and sellers -- protesting that the described behaviors were less harmful than I'd suggested.

The outcome was exactly the opposite: The topic struck such a chord that nearly 100,000 people read the article, and almost 200 chimed in with their own entertaining (and somewhat worrying) anecdotes about house hunting and home selling.

Some themes emerged, which I thought were "share-worthy" for those who are desperately seeking to uplevel their homebuying or selling game. Straight from the horses' mouths, here are five things homebuyers hate; next week we'll turn to things sellers can't stand.

Warped house image via Shutterstock.

1. Images that lie

Stretching photos to make rooms appear much larger than they actually are would be banned by listing services, if buyers had anything to do with it. And if your home is pristine and staged during the photo shoot (which it should be), it should still be pristine and staged when buyers come to see it in person.

Taking a photo of just one corner of a room that is shaped strangely or stuffed full of personal items is another way to confuse and irritate buyers, who hate nothing more than to feel like they were misled and tricked into wasting their time to see a place that is nothing like the photos.

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Adrian Higgins

Columnist

Clearing out the garden for a spring that’s already here

View Photo Gallery —  Whether your garden is a few potted plants in your apartment or a whole field in your backyard, we want to see how your garden grows!

By Adrian Higgins,

We are still a week away from the equinoctial start of spring, which is a bit of a joke if you look about the garden: Spring has been quietly raging for weeks. The hellebores are in full flight, the rhubarb has begun to sprout and the early daffodils are hoofing it off the stage. Spring doesn’t so much start as gather momentum. Plants are primed to react to a strengthening sun, warming soil and longer days, phenomena that came early after winter had cut and run.

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Paint choices: A color story told with bravado

View Photo Gallery —  Color comes alive in Michael and Margie Golden’s Alexandria home, where vivid reds, yellows and bluish greens adorn the walls.

By Jura Koncius,

It was Annie Oakley and Gen. George Custer who finally helped nail the right paint color choices for Michael and Margie Golden’s Alexandria home. The American icons are subjects of two Andy Warhol screen prints in the Goldens’ home. Oakley’s and Custer’s vivid reds, yellows and bluish greens inspired the Goldens and their color consultant, Jean Molesworth Kee, to go bold for the walls.

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