If you’ve ever scrolled through Instagram and suddenly felt inspired to reorganize your pantry or carve out a cozy reading nook, you’re not alone—and today’s homebuyers are feeling it, too. Social media is greatly shaping home design and staging.
Read the article…
Though the holidays are historically one of the slower seasons in real estate, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t any house-hunters out there looking to ring in the New Year in a new home. To strike the right note, make sure to show prospective buyers how your home can meet their holiday needs, without a lot of distracting decorations.
In the latest issue of Magnolia Journal, Joanna Gaines shares her five must-have elements for a functional and welcoming entryway: hooks for organization, mirrors to brighten the space, surfaces for convenience, catchall dishes for small items and ample storage. Gaines emphasizes that these essentials can be adapted to any space, from large foyers to small apartment entries, for style and practicality.
Read more…
Color, texture and patterns make for more playful backgrounds in unique, cozy spaces. In home staging, you can still embrace this hot trend, even without getting too wild.
Artificial plants can be a practical alternative to real ones, especially in spaces with limited sunlight or for people who travel frequently, according to interior designer Laetitia Laurent. Designer Erica McLain suggests using preserved or dried botanicals as a more authentic option and advises choosing faux plants that mimic natural imperfections and pairing them with natural elements, such as stones and raw woods.
Your home never gets a second chance to make a first impression with prospective homebuyers – and fall is the perfect season to make that first impression unforgettable. With autumn underway, enhance your home’s exterior with fall maintenance and seasonal staging!
Here are seven ways to boost curb appeal when selling a home this fall:
While the vibrant hues of foliage add beauty to the season, fall leaves can sometimes look messy when they accumulate in your yard. Regularly raking the leaves helps maintain a tidy appearance and prevents potential damage to your lawn.
With the arrival of shorter days, it’s essential to ensure your outdoor lighting is in top shape with updated bulbs. To take lighting to the next level, consider installing stylish sconces, a weather-resistant chandelier or lanterns to create a warm welcome that starts outside.
In warmer climates, lawn care is a year-round endeavor that entails cutting grass, trimming hedges, edging walkways, maintaining flowers and more. But in colder climates, fall is when lawn care tapers off as winter looms ahead.
That said, if your home is on the market this fall, make sure to maintain a sleek yard by keeping up with tasks like lawn mowing and leaf raking. The general rule of thumb is that you can water the grass until nighttime temperatures start to dip closer to freezing, making it necessary to turn off the irrigation system.
Fall mulching offers several benefits – including insulating your soil and plant roots, which in turn can reduce stress caused by low temperatures. Plus, adding a topical layer of mulch to beds during the fall can give a refreshed look to help with curb appeal.
Seasonal decorating is a great way to impress potential buyers and create an inviting atmosphere. To spruce up the space, hang a wreath in rich autumn colors on the front door, add a fresh welcome mat, and consider implementing seasonally-specific items like pumpkins and gourds.
Flowers are another great addition to a home’s exterior, even during fall. Enhance your front porch with flowerpots or window boxes filled with fall favorites – like low-maintenance mums – in shades of orange, yellow, pink, purple and red.
Transform your front porch, patio or deck into a cozy retreat where buyers can picture themselves enjoying the season while watching the leaves fall. Stage the space with simple outdoor furniture and add a few decorative items, like weather-proof pillows.
With cooler temperatures making outdoor work more comfortable, it’s an ideal time to tackle tasks that benefit the structure’s exterior. Touch up any peeling paint on the outside of the home – and if a full paint job is needed, consider doing it before it gets too cold out. Other beneficial tasks include power washing the exterior, cleaning or replacing house numbers and polishing door hardware. These updates can help show potential buyers that your home is especially well-cared-for.
Ready to sell your home this fall? I’ll be happy to help; contact me today!
Should you stage your home before selling it? The answer is generally yes. Home staging is your chance to make buyers fall in love with your space by highlighting its best features – without a full remodel.
First impressions matter, and staging is a powerful tool that can make your property stand out. Here are four compelling reasons to consider staging your home before listing it for sale.
Home staging entails decluttering and depersonalizing, as well as rearranging furniture and décor to best compliment the space. Some people choose to upgrade furnishings, while others may hire a professional home stager who can bring in their own items.
Doing these things can instantly give the space a renovated feel, even if it isn’t newly built. This simple approach helps showcase the potential of each room and can make your home more appealing to buyers. To take it up a notch, people often repaint their walls, opting for light and neutral colors, and invest in better lighting to increase brightness throughout the home.
Staging your home can impact its sale price and can potentially benefit your return on investment. After all, when a home appears updated and well-cared for, buyers are likely to want it more.
According to the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) 2023 Profile of Home Staging report:
A crucial aspect of staging your home is decluttering. Clearing out excess items enhances the visual appeal and can make each room feel larger – a concept especially helpful in smaller dwellings.
Start by optimizing floor space. Then, clear unnecessary items from countertops and store away overly-personal items or mementos. Remember that overcrowded surface areas could distract potential buyers from important features throughout the home.
The same report from NAR found that 81% of buyers’ agents said staging made it easier for a buyer to visualize the property as their future home. Staging is essential for helping these prospective buyers to forge that emotional connection, making your home feel like the backdrop for their memorable moments.
To create this bond, keep decorations simple and neutral, allowing the space to feel like a blank canvas for their future rather than a reflection of your past. Scent – adjusted with things like air fresheners and incense – is another way to evoke emotion and make buyers feel right at home.
Staging is part of an effective home-selling strategy – and by thoughtfully curating your home’s appearance, you can leave a lasting impression on buyers and help your house go from “for sale” to “sold.”
Searching for a trusted professional to help you sell your home? Contact me today!
Here are six tips for enjoying a cozy home while it’s all happening:
Whether your home will be a hub of activity or a calm oasis, it’s a good idea to tidy up and end the year on a clean note. Start by storing past-season décor and clearing surfaces and countertops. Consider how many coats and shoes are taking up space in the entryway, too.
Then, give your home the deep clean it deserves. Dusting and vacuuming – as well as wiping down the bathrooms and kitchen – will set you up for peace of mind all season long.
After sprucing up your space, celebrate your efforts by cozying up to watch your favorite holiday film.
Year-end is a great time to refresh your rooms by swapping out your framed photos. A lot has probably happened during the year – and displaying your photos is a fun way to spark conversation and relive the moments. It’s an instant connection to your best memories and your favorite people or places.
Help the holiday season feel merry and bright by adjusting the brightness inside your home. According to a RE/MAX agent and interior design expert, lighting plays an important role in setting the tone for a space. And the shade of the lightbulbs themselves can impact the experience in a room.
“We can use light to control the way a space visually expands and contracts. Bright light helps a space feel larger and cleaner in some circumstances, whereas dim light makes the space recede, feel more intimate, and can also be used to hide things,” says Jeannie Do, a member of The International Group with RE/MAX Professionals in Lakewood, Colorado.
The lightbulb shades are typically listed on the packaging, described in ways like “natural daylight” or “warm white.” Do recommends shopping for bulbs between 3,000 and 4,000 Kelvin degrees for balanced lighting.
Have guests coming into town? Make sure a spare bedroom feels like home-away-from-home for your visitors.
First and foremost, remove your own items that ought to be stored elsewhere. Then, give the room a deep clean – it’s likely dusty if it’s not used as much as other rooms. Next, prepare the bed by washing the sheets, fluffing pillows, and keeping extra blankets close by for chilly nights. Don’t forget to leave clean towels, too, and replenish essentials like hand soap and shampoo in whatever bathroom guests will use.
For many people, eating is a major part of gatherings. This is especially true around the holidays, where customs and traditions – in the form of family recipes – are upheld or evolved with modern twists. Help make your dining area inviting and eye-catching by sprucing up the table.
Simple additions to elevate the space could be a runner, placemats, and decorative napkins. Get creative with a seasonal centerpiece – some opt for greenery, garland, tapered candles, flowers, or a mixture of multiple elements.
There’s no right or wrong when it comes to the timing of putting up holiday decorations. Whether it entails stringing up lights outdoors or decking the halls indoors, decorate your home with festive flair that brings joy to everyone.
In addition to holiday-specific items, create an ambient wintry atmosphere with plush blankets, fun throw pillows, and seasonally scented candles (think balsam fir or vanilla spice). Consider stocking up on holiday items like festive-flavored coffee and tea, hot cocoa (and marshmallows, of course), baking supplies, and any other goodies that bring warmth and happiness this season.
Searching for a new place to spend the holidays? Contact me today!
Leaves are falling. Temperatures are dropping. Daylight is dwindling. In other words, fall is officially here – and it’s a popular time for buying and selling homes.
According to the latest RE/MAX National Housing Report, August 2023 home sales in 50 U.S. metro markets rose 7.4% from July – and the number of homes for sale increased 2.7% from July. These trends offer promise for a bustling autumn selling season.
Are you ready to sell a home this fall? Help your house match the season with these timely staging tips:
Online listings photos are often the hook that make buyers want to tour a home in-person. And when those buyers pull up to the home, their first impression starts with curb appeal. Make sure it’s a good one. Keep the lawn and shrubbery tidy, edge the walkway, pluck any remaining weeds, and rake fallen leaves for a tidy appearance.
From there, create an inviting entrance to your home with fall-themed items, including vibrant potted mums, pumpkins, a refreshed welcome mat, and even an autumn-inspired wreath on the door.
Scent evokes an emotional response, which can help buyers form a positive impression of your house. And from picking pumpkins to baking treats to sipping coffee to enjoying cool days in nature, the activities of fall include many ambient aromas that remind people of home. Some favorites include:
• Pumpkin spice
• Balsam fir, pine, or spruce
• Vanilla
• Cinnamon
• Apple
To bring the scents of fall inside your home when it’s for sale, consider using fragrant pinecones in a basket as statement décor, and searching for your favorite fall scents in the form of a reed diffuser, oil diffuser, or candle.
If a buyer purchases a home now, chances are they’ll be settled in time for the winter. This means that through staging, you’re able to suggest a comfortable scene for the chilliest and shortest days of the year.
To stage for the fall season and present your home as a place of rest, make simple swaps with inviting materials in a calming color palette. Try switching up accent pillows and throw blankets in the living room and linens in the bedrooms. Chunky knit blankets and boucle-textured pillows continue to be popular choices.
There are other simple ways to stage for the season, too. Give prospective buyers a peek at the possibilities for holiday gatherings by setting the table with placemats, plates, and a centerpiece that align with a classic fall color palette, which consists of warm, earthy hues.
Not only do dried florals offer a rustic look when displayed inside a vase, but they also have a much longer lifespan than fresh florals. And if your home has a wood burning fireplace, re-stock it with traditional logs – or birch – to lighten up the space.
Don’t forget: Natural lighting is an essential element in making sure your home puts its best foot forward during tours and open house events. Open the shades and curtains to let in as much light as possible.
Looking to sell your home this fall? Contact me today!
With temps rising and flowers starting to bloom, it’s evident spring has sprung – and in the world of real estate, so has the busy spring selling season.
As the market continues to rebalance in many locales, today’s homebuyers are enjoying more options and sellers are putting extra thought into how they prepare their property. Staging – a key way to show a home to prospective buyers in the best possible light – is an integral component of increasing the appeal of and interest in a home.
However, staging doesn’t always involve overhauling existing furniture for a completely new look. Some sellers opt to clean and rearrange what that have on hand, and oftentimes marvel at how different a space can look with a few simple changes like decluttering.
In addition to consulting a qualified real estate agent, consider these three factors when staging a home to sell this spring.
The old adage says you never get a second chance to make a first impression. The same is true with a house for sale.
When prospective buyers arrive to tour a home or attend an open house, their initial impression is based largely on what they see on the outside. And after a long winter, the front yard can look a bit worse for wear. Focus on curb appeal and tidy up the exterior of the home.
Remove any lingering leaves, clean up flower beds of weeds or debris, and lay a fresh coat of mulch wherever it’s needed. It’s even time to break out the lawnmower and tame matted grass growth from the winter, while also making sure to trim walkway edges for clean lines.
Plus, it’s time to unearth and clean patio furniture, including chairs or decorations that live on the front porch. Create an inviting scene at the front of the house with chairs, a new welcome mat, and decorative planters filled with seasonal flowers.
Interior staging starts with curating a space that prospective buyers can envision themselves living in.
First and foremost, clear out the entryway by storing away winter-specific items like coats, boots, snow shovels, and more. While avoiding making it feel empty, it’s important to keep rooms minimal and airy by eliminating clutter, hiding away personal mementos like family photos, and overall pairing down on the amount of items on each surface.
A deep cleaning is essential, too. In addition to the standard washing of windows and surfaces and vacuuming of floors, don’t forget about dusting overlooked places like baseboards, ceiling fans and windowsills.
Spring is the season of nature coming back to life, so it makes sense that colors associated with spring are often bright and refreshing. When it comes to the interior of a home, however, many sellers still opt for a predominantly neutral palette regardless of the season.
Those considering repainting walls this spring may opt for lighter, neutral colors that brighten up the space – especially in smaller rooms. When it’s time for a showing, make sure to open all shades and curtains to maximize natural light.
Then, to add in pops of cheery color for a warm springtime welcome, try placing flowers in a vase as a table centerpiece or on the kitchen counter. Throw pillows and blankets are an easy way to transition the home’s appearance to match the season, too.
Ready to sell a home this spring? Contact me today!
Managing The Real Estate Details 