Planning on Selling Your Home? Learn How to Make it Look Great in Photos!

Selling a home is a big deal. It can be very stressful especially if it has to sit on the market for awhile. In order to keep that from happening we found this article on how to make your home look great in pictures. We hope it helps!

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From the article:

A house hunter???s first view of your property is often online, and if the photos accompanying your home???s listing don???t impress, you probably won???t get a second chance to lure in that potential buyer ??? meaning your real estate photos are valuable assets when it comes to selling your home. The following tips can help your home put its best foot forward on picture day.

Check out agents??? listings. Before diving into photo-day planning, it???s important to be sure your real estate agent is prepared to deliver quality listing photos. Study a potential agent???s listings to get a feel for the quality of the photography. Here are a few questions you may want to ask about how the agent handles photos:

– Do you have a professional photographer on staff?
– If you take the photos yourself, what equipment do you use ??? professional camera and tripod or just a cellphone?
– Will the agent or photographer bring in additional lighting if needed?
– How much time is typically allotted for the photo shoot?
– What can I do to make my home look its best in photos?

Remove counter clutter. Gleaming, clutter-free counters will make your kitchen look more spacious. Put away everything, then clean counters well. It???s fine to leave out one or two small appliances, such as the toaster and coffee maker, but stash anything extra, as well as small appliances that have seen better days.

Hide toiletries and freshen bathrooms. Aside from a fresh bar of soap at the sink, the bathroom should be completely free of toiletries ??? too many products crowding the sink and shower suggest that there???s not enough storage space. Pull open the shower curtain, clean the mirror, put the toilet seats down and turn on the lights. Remove old towels and put out fresh, fluffy white towels if you have them. If not, just leave the towel racks bare.

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Looking for more home selling ideas? Checkout this article about home selling ideas that could be of interest to you.
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Read the entire article here: https://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/83682567/list/selling-how-to-make-your-house-look-great-in-photos

Putting Your House on the Market and Wondering if You Should Replace Lighting Fixtures? Find Out Here!

112184936_1d350ed4bd_oPutting your home on the market can be stressful. Not knowing what you should focus on around your home can almost be as stressful. If you’re wondering if you should replace the light fixtures in your home you should read this article originally published in the New York Times and then decide. Hope it helps!

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From the article:

Q. Should I replace my outdated ceiling light fixtures before listing my home for sale?

A. ???When preparing a new listing for marketing, one of the first things I look at is the light fixtures,??? said Rado Varchola, a senior vice president at Nest Seekers International real estate in Manhattan. ???In most cases, it could have a negative impact if the fixtures are dated.???

Ideally, ceiling-mounted fixtures should have a clean, streamlined look, Mr. Varchola said, so buyers do not focus on the wrong things. Dusty fixtures, track lighting and ceiling fans are all generally undesirable, he said, because they reflect choices from earlier decades.

In newly constructed apartment buildings, the main living spaces often do not have electrical wiring for ceiling fixtures.

???They usually only put them in the kitchens and the bathrooms,??? Mr. Varchola said, ???not the bedrooms and living rooms.???

Either way, he added, it???s not the best place to make a big design statement.

Ceiling fixtures can be an asset if you choose ones that are simple and unobtrusive, said Tori Golub, a New York interior designer.

???Ceiling fixtures are great for changing the atmosphere of your space,??? she said. ???But they should be sort of innocuous, blend in with the surroundings and not scream of any particular style.???

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Looking to improve the look of your home but don’t have a lot of time? Checkout this article with information on how to improve home on weekends for busy homeowners that could be of interest to you.
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Read the entire article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/03/garden/should-i-replace-outdated-ceiling-lighting-fixtures.html?ref=realestate&_r=1&

Looking to Sell a Home? Checkout These Ideas!

Houses-NewZealandIf you are trying to sell your home it can be difficult to know how to set your house apart from the other houses on the market. We found this article with 15 different marketing ideas that we hope will help.

From the article:

Website Design

  • Think of your marketing plan as a solar system and your website as the sun, the panelists suggested. Your marketing efforts around the Web, including social media, email campaigns, and other venues, should all direct shoppers back to a well-planned site.
  • Don’t offer site visitors the whole story, since that allows them to make a decision without you ever having the chance to contact them. Instead, hold some information back, such as pricing, and experiment with different calls to action to harvest email addresses or phone numbers to enable your sales team to follow-up with prospects.
  • For the same reason that most builders wouldn’t trust your average freelance writer to hang drywall, panelists suggested hiring professional writers to write website content; builders should also have their writers create content for blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn, email blasts, and other outlets.
  • Make sure your online ads are staying in front of prospective buyers by placing cookies on their computer when they visit your site. Those cookies will then track the next few sites they visit???which are likely to be sites they visit often and place your ads on those sites when they visit them again.
  • Incorporate a form into your website to garner information on what shoppers are looking for in a home. (How many beds and baths? Do they want a formal living room?) Then email them floor plans that fit their criteria.

Branding

  • According to a study of new-home buyers, five years after Lennar customers purchased a home, they couldn’t identify who their builder was, but they know what kind of car they drive, one panelist pointed out, emphasizing that builders need to look to other industries for good examples of how to stay visible to customers to better establish a brand reputation.
  • Decide what message you want your brand to be most associated with, and then ensure that message is conveyed at every interaction a customer has with your company.
  • Rather than fight the reality that people use model homes for decorating ideas, embrace it by redecorating one room in your model each month to keep people coming back while establishing your brand as a leader in design. Send out an email blast with a photo of a corner of the room, and then make people come into the model to see the rest.
  • Don’t underestimate the power of philanthropy.

Video

  • With the value of using video today, we as builders should do something cool, one panelist noted, adding that last year, 456.6 million content videos were watched and 105.4 billion video ads were viewed. Viewers spent 2.5 times more time watching personally relevant short form videos compared with other videos.

Targeting

  • Tap into professional organizations such as young professionals groups, medical professional organizations, and teachers associations by offering a networking lunch at your model homes and collecting business cards for a raffle. These are people who have a career and a paycheck, making odds better that they will be in a position to buy, one panelist noted.

Working with Realtors

  • Stay top of mind with local Realtors by sending sales teams to the Realtor offices to be a part of their weekly meetings.
  • Since Realtors are an excellent source of qualified leads, treat them as a customer and educate them on how you build and the value your homes offer.
  • Don’t waste money targeting all Realtors, since 90% of the business comes from 10% of the Realtors, one participant noted.
  • Consider hosting a monthly lunch group for the top Realtors in your area at your model homes to give them a chance to become familiar with your product and learn about any new communities or floor plans you offer.

If we can be of any help please contact us today!

To view the entire article click here: http://www.builderonline.com/marketing/15-marketing-ideas-for-new-home-sales.aspx