Kates Home Staging Interior Design Blog for Rockland County NY & Bergen County NJ

Paint is a very inexpensive way to modernize a room.  Paint is a decorator's best kept secret.

By choosing more modern paint colors, a room can be transformed.

Here is a picture of a dining room before it was repainted.

Here is an after picture of the same room:

The new wall colors are also accented in the area rug.  Adding the chair rail gave this formal Dining Room a more sophisticated look.

Kate

Kate's Home Staging and Redesign serves Rockland County, New York and BergenCounty, New Jersey.  We offer Benjamin Moore and Sherwin Williams color consulations and home decorating services. Call Kate at 845-538-3623 to setup your design consultation.

Lately, interior design work has been keeping me quite busy.  A theme has been developing among the homeowners who call me in for their Interior Design Room Consultations.  Most homeowners are looking to simply their lives and create a more harmonious home environment while spending the least amount of money possible. The goal of the designs are to make the rooms more livable, but also to have them stand out.

Since budget is such a huge part of any interior design project (or any project for that matter) I wanted to share with you a website that really helps break down the cost of various projects - from replacing a lock, renovating a bathroom, to the addition of an entire attic bedroom (one of the top renovations in the 2009-10 Cost vs. Value Report just released).

http://www.costhelper.com/cost/home-garden/home-garden.html

Having a rough cost estimate before you arrive at your client's home is invaluable and will only make your company stand out among the competition. Good luck with your design projects!

Kate

Kate's Home Staging and Redesign specializes in home staging, interior design, home decorating, color consultations, window coverings, vendor discounts, and virtual shows for real estate.  We service the Rockland County and Orange County areas of New York, and the Bergen County and Passaic County areas of New Jersey.  For more info call Kate at 845-538-3623 or visit www.kateshomestaging.com.

The Remodeling Cost versus Value Report has been used as a guide for real estate and residential remodeling markets as it compares national and regional averages for 33 popular remodeling projects in eight U.S. cities.

The latest data shows the trend is still headed downward, last year's overall cost-value ratio was 67.3%, (down 2.7 points from the year before) this year's ratio is 63.8%, a larger 3.5-point drop. The drop in the number is not really a surprise considering the very volatile real estate year we just experienced, which was filled with foreclosures.

To view the article, click here: http://www.remodeling.hw.net/2009/costvsvalue/national.aspx

Exterior replacement projects seemed to rank the highest in this report and occupy 7 out of 10 of the highest spots. These results support the idea that curb appeal is king and that creating a first impression is very important for all potential buyers. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act tax credit may also have played a part in these external upgrades, let's face it a tax credit never hurts.

Here are some results of the 2009-10 Cost vs. Value Report:

• Entry Door Replacement (steel) has a 128.9% cost recouped.
• Attic Bedroom has a 83.1% cost recouped.
• Basement Remodel has a 75.4% cost recouped.
• Grand Entrance (fiberglass) has a 68.8% cost recouped.
• Roofing Replacement has a 66.6% cost recouped.
• Entry Door Replacement (fiberglass) has a 65.2% cost recouped.
• Backup Power Generator has a 58.9% cost recouped.

For a home to sell in today's real estate market, the home needs to be turnkey ready and this may be another factor for all the external replacement projects dominating the report.  An entry door replacement (steel) will cost under $1,200 but the cost/value ratio is 128.9%, this is a great investment no matter how you look at.  The front door of your home is one of the items a potential buyer can see from the street and is very important when you are selling your home.

So, did you spend your remodeling dollars wisely?

Kate

Kate's Home Staging and Redesign serves the Rockland County, Orange County, Bergen County, and Passaic County areas.  Kate is a member of the Passaic County of Realtors, Real Estate Staging Assocation, Orange County Chamber of Commerce.  For a home staging, interior design, or color consultation, please call Kate at 845-538-3623 or visit www.kateshomestaging.com for more information. A staged home can sell for up to 10% more money; my last staged home received an offer within 24 hours of being on the market!

According to Home Gain's latest survey of 1,000 Realtors (November 2009), home staging has a 586% return on investment.  Home staging was listed as the second home improvement item that Realtors recommend for home sellers.In other words, if a home sellers spends $300 - $400 on professional home staging, their home will sell for $1,500 - $2,000 more.  Cleaning and de-cluttering was at the top of the Home Gain survey, to take a look at the survey please click here: http://blog.homegain.com/home-improvement/homegain-2009-top-12-home-improvements-survey-results/

The Home Gain survey results are fantastic.  In 2007, the Home Gain home staging return on investment results were 343%, so it appears home staging's value has almost doubled in the past two years.

In this economy there are three things that sell a home:

1.   Price - This is set by your Realtor

2.   Location - unfortunately there is little you can do about your location.

3.   Presentation - This is where your professional home stager comes in.

Why take the risk with your most valuable possession?  For a quicker sale and to make more money, call in a professional home stager today.  A home that has been professionally staged will sell for up to 10% more money, and all you really need to invest is a few hundred dollar for a professional home staging consultation and a few hours of "hands-on" staging.  An expert home stager has been specifically trained on what home improvements will attract the largest potential buyer audience.  Home staging is much more than home decorating and interior design, it is a calculated marketing plan to sell your home quickly by focusing buyer's attention to your home's architectural details.

Kate

Kate's Home Staging and Redesignserves the Rockland County and Orange County areas of New York, Passaic County of New Jersey.  Kate is a member of the Passaic County of Realtors, Orange County Chamber of Commerce, Real Estate Staging Associations, American Society of Home Stagers and Redesigners. For more information please visit www.kateshomestaging.com or call 845-538-3623.

If you are planning on selling your home, I am sure you want to make sure you receive top dollar for your home and draw the most amount of potential buyer traffic to your front door. For years, this was your cherished home, you have built memories here, made repairs, celebrated holidays and birthdays and really love your home.

If you price your home too high, you may risk not attracting any potential buyers those critical first 30 days your home is on the market.  If you price your home too low, a buyer may think there is something wrong with your home and why are you trying to offload it for such a "cheap" price.

Here are a few tips to ensure you home's asking price is spot on for your neighborhood and the current real estate market:

1.)  Contact a local Realtor for a complementary CMA, which is a Comparative Market Analysis.  A CMA is a report prepared by a Realtor which compares what homes in your area are currently listed and competing with your home. The Realtor will also obtain data on comparable properties on the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) and may also compare it to properties that have already sold.

2.)  Visit your local county court house and check in with the Tax Assessor.  This will tell you what your home is currently valued at.  The tax assessor will most likely over estimate your home for tax purposes.  While you are at the court house, you can research how much similiar homes in your area were assessed for.  I would also see if I could find out how many homes recently sold in my area while I was at the local county court house, you may be only an office away from this information.

3.)  Use the Internet.  Use sites like Trulia and Zillow to see what homes are currently for sale in your area.  You need to see what homes similiar to yours are selling for.  I would also suggest you look at homes that are not selling and try to understand why.  Are there any similarities between these unsold homes and my home? If the answer if yes, you may need to do some work before you place your home on the market.

4.)  Drive By Homes in Your Neighborhood that Are For Sale.  Do these houses have great external curb appeal?  Do these yards have that "wow factor?" Does the front door really stand out and draw you in from the street?"  If your competition has made the extra effort preparing their home for sale, it is a good idea that you do also.

5.)  Go to Open Houses in your Neighborhood.  This is a great idea to see how your competition is preparing their homes for sale.  Internet pictures are very important but you really need to walk through an entire home to get a "feel" of the home.  Does the home make me "feel" relaxed or anxious? When selling a home it is very important to create at least one area of the home that is seen as a calm place to relax.  A home that does not have this will not sell.

You really need to take the above steps before you list your home for sale, this way you will have the correct pricing for your home.  Good luck with your home sale.

-Kate

Kate is a certified home stager that servers the Rockland County, Orange County, Passaic County, and Bergen County Areas.  If you are planning on selling your home, we offer a home staging consultation which starts at only $199 and includes a written, personalized Action Plan. We also offer Digital Services to sell your home faster, we will stage your home with our accessories, re-take your digital pictures, adjust your pictures to ensure they will show correctly online, and then load them into our Virtual Show.  Our Virtual Shows are a Free Special to all our home staging clients.  We also are a semi-custom Window Coverings reseller (roman shades, draped, valances, cornices, bamboo shades, woven wood blinds, faux wood blinds, etc.).  Contact us for more information at 845-538-3623 or visit http://www.kateshomestaging.com

Homes for sale that have 20 or more pictures on the Internet get the most traffic from potential buyers. Virtual shows are also very attractive to potential buyers. The Internet is how we attract the buyers into your home in today's technology driven market.

It is extremely important the you prepare your home before you take your MLS pictures that will get posted on the Internet for everyone to see.  The home with the best Internet pictures will most likely get the most buyer traffic to its' front door.

Here is a quick list of what you should do:

1.   Clean each room. Get rid of any clutter and make sure all the counters sparkle and look fanstastic.

2.   Bathroom.  Please close the toilet lids and put in fresh towels.  Put your personal items and toothbrushes away please. Absolutely no medications on the sink.

3.   Outside your home.  Pick up all your yard debris and remove the cars from your driveway, this will make the picture look even better.

4.    Bring in some fresh flowers for your tables.  I always love fresh flowers, besides the smell they also look great in pictures.

5.   Garbage cans.  Please remove them from the room prior to taking your picture, a potential buyer does not want to see your over-flowing kitchen garbage can or your bathroom garbage.

6.   Lighting.  Take pictures with your lights turned on and off and with your blinds opened and closed.  This way you can post the pictures that look the best online.

Preparing your home before you take your MLS pictures is very important since over 85% of potential home buyers are starting their home searches on the Internet.  We cannot ignore the importance of technology when marketing your homes today!

Also, do not forget to crop those digital pictures after you take them.  If the picture is very dark, please use the photo light adjustment feature and lighten those photos up. You can also try the "auto-adjust" feature to see if this helps your pictures. If a potential buyer cannot see what the picture actually is, they may more on the the next online listing that has clear, bright pictures.

If you need help with this process please contact a local Realtor or home stager for help.  Remember, if a potential buyer does not like how your pictures look on the Internet chances are they will not come to your house to look at it. 

Remember, if you are planning on selling your home also make sure you leave your light on during the evening hours and that your house number is clearly marked.  A potential buyer may try to drive buy your home after work to take a look at your external curb appeal!  This is why it is important to keep those yards clean and neat.

Good luck with your Home Sale.

-Kate

Contact Kate today to see how a home staging consultation can help sell your home, for more information please visit http://www.kateshomestaging.com or call 845-538-3623.

Kate's Home Staging and Redesign serves the Rockland County and Orange County area of New York, Bergen County and Passaic County of New Jersey. Kate is an affiliate member of the Passaic County of Realtors and hosted the affilitiate mixer tonight at the Greenhouse Cafe in Wayne (Thank you everyone for coming and showing your support, I really appreciate it and enjoyed getting to know all of you more!)  Kate's Home Staging and Redesign is now offering Full Digital Styling Services to sell your home quickly. In other words, we will bring in the accessories, we will stage your home, we will re-take all the digital pictures, and then we will load these pictures into a virtual show to help sell your home.  The virtual show is being offered to all our clients FREE of CHARGE to help SELL your home. 

I don't know about you, but going into a basement and smelling mold is one of those things that makes me jump into action.  Especially older homes that are not properly ventilated seem to present me with more challenges.  Over the years, I have found a few items that really seem to work wonders in the matter of a few days and do not require the home owners to tear down all their walls (unless there are actual signs on mold on the walls them you need to either call in a contractor or get some bleach ready and scrub your walls down).  If you see black mold on your walls and ceiling, you must call is someone -- some types of mold can be toxic to humans and animals.  My suggestions are for damp, musty basements that may also smell moldy.

1.  Buy a high capacity dehumidifier. Buy at least a 50 gallon capacity dehumidifier (this also depends on the size of your basement too) with the option of connecting a hose to the unit so you can drain it out the window.  The larger the capacity, the less you will end up emptying out the unit.  In a damp basement, you will be emptying out this unit at least daily.

2.  Go to your local Home Depot and pick up DampRid hanging bags.  You hang these bags around your basement and they collect the extra moisture from the air and collect it into the plastic bags below the pellets.  Once the bag is full, you can throw it out and put up a new one.  It will take about 2 months to fill up a bag.  Depending on the size of your basement and the degree of mold smell, you may want to use several of these bags and hangs them around.

3. Go to www.allergycontrol.comand under Mold Control, they sell an item called the Mold Zapper.  This item costs about $79.  You plug this unit in and it will stop mold spores from growing in the air.  I have used these units for years, the first fews days you plug the unit in, it will run a little warm as it is processing all the mold in the air.  After about three days, your air will smell so much more cleaner. These units last, I have one in my home for over 4 years now and leave it running all the time in my living room.

4. In the spring and fall, I always like a window fan set to pull the air out of the basement and another window open to create that cross-draft.  The window fan will cost about $20 and is a great way to flush fresh air through your home prior to any showing.

Now, you can start enjoying your basement or starting showing your home without any worries.

Some houses sell very quickly while others just sit on the market and really do not go anywhere.  There are three main things that need to be done to get potential buyers past your front door.

1.  Your online pictures.  I have to agree with this, since over 85% of buyers are looking online first before visiting a home.  If your online home picture are not impressive, most potential buyers will not physically go to see your home.  In the age of the Internet, online marketing is very important.  Once you have perfected your online pictures, make sure buyers can locate your listing everywhere.  There are even sites that allow you to list your home for free such as Zillow.

2.  Your home's price.  If you are priced too high in your neighborhood, your home is not going to sell and it definitely will not sell quickly.  Your online marketing and your home's price are the 2 most important things to get right when selling your home. This is something a qualified realtor can help you with.  To find a realtor in your area, you can go to realtor.com and take a look at the number of listings this realtor currently has.  This will help a home seller determine the realtor's experience in your neighborhood.

3.  Plain landscaping.  In this market, you need to have great curb appeal outside and draw potential buyers inside your home.  Please invest in some black or red mulch to make your flower beds pop and also make sure your house number is large enough and can be seem from the street.  A potential buyer will get frustrated if he/she cannot locate your home on a street because there is no number on it. 

These are the three items needed to attract a potential buyer into your home - the right price, the right online pictures, and great external curb appeal. 

Once the potential buyer has entered your home please make sure your home is clean and has been maintained appropriately. Also, add some color in the form of accent pillows in your living rooms and bedrooms.  This is another very inexpensive fix to make your home look great. Also, do not overlook any simple home maintenance repairs. A leaky faucet can be fixed with a 50 cents washer and should not be overlooked if you are planning to sell your home.  Please paint stained walls, shampoo stained carpets, and clean everything twice.  You really do not want to scare off a potential buyer with a quick fix that you could do on your own in an hour or less.

If you are planning on selling your home, it is probably the largest investment you have and you need to market it as such. Spending a $1,000 - $2,000 to prepare your home for sale will help you receive top dollar for your home and could also speed up the sale of your home.

In my last blog, I mentioned how important it is to have your house number clearly marked on your home with a light on it at all times.  This is so any potential buyer can find your house if they decide to do a "drive by" of your property. If your house number is old and worn, you should consider replacing it.  Home Depot and Lowe's sell house numbers for a few dollars. These stores even sell inexpensive kits to make a custom house sign.

Or, you could go with a custom house sign.  I really like these because they clearly identify your home to the buyer and get their attention. A custom house sign would have your home's number and street listed on it.

Which one of these signs do you think a potential buyer would react to?

Original house number:

Custom House Sign:

Attention to details is what sells houses and it is the little things that buyers are drawn to.  A great house sign, well maintained lawn, nice urns with fresh flowers, no yard debris, and there is curb appeal.

The above custom sign was made by my husband on his custom woodworking equipment out of MDF.  Each sign takes him about 4 hours to complete. It came be painted any color to match the exterior of a home and makes a great house warming gift. This sign was hung on a home that was white with blue/gray trim around the windows.  The door handles were all brass, so the house sign incorporated the home's colors.  The sign also looks fantastic with black letters and white background, with some red accents in the scrolls. With colors, we need to keep it simple and never have more than three on a sign.

I am pretty sure no one will have trouble locating the above home.

In this competitive market, it is very important that a home be ready to be placed on the market.  Here are a few suggestions to ensure you have a fast home sale and get the highest dollar amount possible:

1.  Curb Appeal.  A potential buyer will make up his/her mind in the first 30 seconds if they want to buy your home.  This makes the outside of your home very important, so please have the grass cut, replace the front door mat, place new flowers on either side of the front door, paint the fence, and hose off the walk way.

2.  House Number.  Make sure a potential buyer can see the house number from the street.  If the house number is being blocked by a tree, either move the number or trim the tree.  Also, leave a light on your house number all the time.  If your home is being advertised, potential buyers may drive by before coming to an open house -- lets make sure they can locate your house.

3.  Clean.  Your home needs to be very, very clean.  You may want to consider hiring a cleaning service and have them focus on the kitchen and bathrooms.  The bathrooms should have all the toothbrushes put away, the garbage can needs to be placed away, the damp bath mat needs to go away, the shower doors need to shine. The kitchen counters need to be cleaned off, leave only the bare minimum of essentials, and never leave dirty dishes.  Also, clean off any stuff that is on top of your refrigerator.

4. Basic Repairs.  Please make sure any basic home repairs are fixed before an open house.  This can turn off a potential buyer, even if it is a very minor repair.  Remember our goal is to sell this home quickly and for the most money. You may want to consider freshening up some wall paint as well, but remember to keep the colors neutral (beige, sage green, off-white).

5. Smell.  Make sure the inside of your home smells clean and fresh.  If you have pets, please put them away somewhere in the home or see if a friend can take them for the afternoon of your open house.  Also, if you smoke, please try and start smoking outside when your house is on the market.  You should air our your home the morning (even the night before) of your open house.  I like to recommend the scent of citrus or vanilla for homes to my clients.  Please stay away from lavender, this makes people sleepy and we want them away during your open house.

6.  Lighting.  Please turn on every light in your house during an open house and open every blind.  We want the potential buyers to see what they are buying.  Please make sure all your lighting fixtures have the highest allowable light bulb installed.  You can also consider bringing in some additional desk and floor lighting.

7.  Family pictures.  I know you love your family, but all your family pictures need to be packed away.  Your family pictures will distract buyers from your home and we do not want this to happen.  Family photos can be replaced with generic art.

8.  De-clutter.  Remove all the clutter that you can before your open house.  I would suggest removing about 50% of what you have on your bookcases and your children's toys.  Also, no children's toys should be left on the living room floor, all toys need to go back to the bedrooms and can be placed in decorative chests.

9.  Digital Pictures.  Once all the above work is done have your Realtor or home stager take pictures of your home to be placed online so your can further market your home. This is critical today, since over 85% of buyers start their home search online. 

Good luck with your home sale!

-Kate