New Season | New Website Design

You may have noticed some changes around the site.   I decided it's time to revamp the blog design to make it cleaner and hopefully more user-friendly.  What's a better way to welcome a change in season than a cleaner site?  

I wanted to help my readers to navigate through the site easier, so I've gone the unconventional way.  The homepage is now separated from the main blog page, and features the most popular projects on the blog.  You'll be guided to each project's article by clicking on the corresponding picture.  This used to be stuck on the sidebar, crowding that area.  I would like to make the reading experience more pleasant for my readers, by translating the "less is more" mentality to my blog design as well.

Sorry to be throwing you a curve ball after you've gotten used to our site.  I hope this fresher and cleaner look makes the site more welcoming, and it's a change for the better.

Hang around and check out the changes!

Easy Steps to a Successful Listing and Selling of Your House

This week has been rather gloomy and wet, which means that unfortunately, we couldn't take little man and fur-baby to the park and field across the street after dinner.  I would love to have them both enjoy that convenience while we can, before we move into our rental house.  Did you miss last week's post?  I made a special little announcement!

If you had been following, thank you for your continuous support.  You must know that we're now in the midst of some intense packing!  Rewind several months back, how did we prepare for our listing and home showing?  This week, I'm sharing some easy steps for a successful listing and quick sale of your house.

All homeowners have a common goal when they list their houses for sale - GET IT SOLD AT THE BEST PRICE QUICKLY!  And potential buyers also have a common goal - to get the best bang for their buck for a house they love.  It's a compromise to find a common ground between these two goals.  But first, the seller needs to attract potential buyers to their house.  You want potential buyers coming to your house to feel welcome and wowed, leaving with a feeling that they can see themselves living in your house.  Just like how you would say when looking at model homes, "I can totally see myself living here!"  Here are some simple steps you can take to prepare for a listing.

CURB APPEAL

You've heard it enough times - First impression counts.  Potential buyers and visitors are critical from the point they drive onto your street and arrive at your front door. You want visitors coming to your house to have a pleasant feeling right from the get go, and that starts with your front yard.  During warmer months, ensure that your front lawn and garden are trimmed and neat, rid of weeds and garbage.  Put some HEALTHY greeneries (ie. not wilting) by your front door if you don't have a garden.  In the winter months, your driveway should be cleared of snow, and sidewalk and pathway to your house shovelled and salted.  This is also obviously for safety reasons.  Do you have flyers on your driveway or at your front door?  Get rid of those too.  A welcoming front yard signals to visitors that the homeowners take pride of ownership of the house.   

PURGE AND DECLUTTER!

This is possibly the most important thing to do if you don't do anything else on the list.  Declutter as much as possible to give the impression of spaciousness in the house.  Potential buyers are not visiting your house to see your possessions, they're there to see the house and imagine how they can live in it.  If they're distracted by all your collection of trinkets, buyers won't be able to see beyond them.  You don't want potential buyers to feel turned-off by all the stuff around the house and thinking your house doesn't have enough space.  If you don't have space for your stuff, how could they fit theirs?

STUFF - We'll start right at the entrance.  Lots of families love to display their shoes collection at the front door out of convenience.  That's great and all, but when you're showing your house, you want visitors to see the house right when they walk in, not your shoes.  No matter how neatly you put them on a nice shoe rack, they take away space in your foyer, and especially so if you have a narrow doorway.  The less distraction, the less critical the visitors would be.

Shelves, tabletops and counters should be as decluttered as possible. As much as you think that blender on your kitchen counter is an essential daily use item, potential buyers may not agree.  Try to keep your kitchen counter as clear as possible of small appliances and other knick knacks until your house is sold.  It may be a bit extreme, but take note that the state of your kitchen make or break a first impression.  A spacious countertop gives the illusion of a spacious kitchen, even if your kitchen is small.  Most cooks of the house would take a wide open countertop over one that's cluttered with no space to stretch.  It only add points in the visitors' mind, and every little bit helps to get your house sold!  The Mr. even hid our countertop microwave on Open House days!

REMOVE YOUR PERSONAL PHOTOS - Visitors don't need to know how the homeowners look like.  They want to imagine how they can live in your house.  Let your house do the talking, not how you looked in your photos.  To replace our personal photos, we simply printed stock photos from online sources and placed them on top of ours.  You don't need to hide your beautiful photo frames, unless you have too many of them out in the open.  Use the frames to enhance your decor, but not too over-powering that there's all to look at.  Limit them to 1 per shelf or 3 to a space.

FURNITURE - If you've been to builders' model homes, you would notice that they keep their furniture pieces to a minimal.  Each room should only have the basic pieces of furniture, especially if the room is on the smaller side.  If you can't walk into a room without hitting some furniture, then you should probably remove some non-essential pieces from the room.  Maximize traffic flow, as most viewers flow through the house as a group, you don't want a visiting family feeling squished in the room.  Visitors hate the feeling of overcrowding and stumbling in and out of rooms.  You may also want to move your furniture pieces around so that the path into the room is not blocked.  You can purge, donate, or put them in storage while your house is being listed.  The choice is yours, but remember your goal - you want people to love your house, and you want it sold ASAP at the highest price. 

GARAGE - If you use your garage as storage, rent an indepenent storage unit elsewhere and free up your garage.  Potential buyers need to ensure they can park their cars in your garage, or use it as storage space themselves.  Also, during showing appointments, never park a car on the driveway, as it signals that you don't have enough space to park it in your garage since it's full of stuff (and that goes to say that your house doesn't have enough space for your stuff).  Remember, potential buyers are always looking for space!

A LITTLE FACE LIFT

It's only until after you purge that you can finally see the years of dust collected behind furnitures, scuff marks on the walls, knicks on baseboards, etc.  It's time for some renewal and repair.  Most buyers want a MOVE-IN READY house, as most listings would emphasize if they are.  Deep clean your house from top to bottom.  Get rid of that huge and growing dust web that you've been ignoring, sparkle your shower stalls and bathtubs, DEEP CLEAN YOUR KITCHEN, etc.  If your walls and baseboards show signs of wear and age, give them a coat of new paint.  You may be able to ignore them, but potential buyers see these little things when they walk through your house.  Don't skimp on a fresh coat of paint if you have a room in barbie pink, neon yellow, or whatever sharp colours you might have customized - repaint in a neutral tone.  Neutral colours are more pleasing to the eyes, and allow the potential buyers to have a "ready to move in" feel about your house.  

MARKET YOUR HOUSE IN THE BEST LIGHT

Now that your house is ready to be on the market, check with your agent if you can take the photos for their marketing materials (eg. on the realtor's website, feature sheets, etc.).  We opted to take the photos ourselves, same ones that are on our gallery.  We knew the best angles of each room, and we were able to take advantage of taking photos throughout the day to get the best natural light for each room.  For example, our entrance faces east, so photos of the entrance were taken in the morning.  Our family room faces west, so photos for that room were taken in the late afternoon.  The same goes for the rest of the house.  You want to attract potential buyers browsing on realtors' websites by showcasing photos of your house under the best lighting.  Just like how interior design magazines always photograph beautiful rooms in broad daylight, never at night with artificial lighting.  If, however, you're not comfortable about taking on this task yourself, then of course enlist your agent to do so.

THE PRICING GAME

"SOLD ABOVE ASKING!" realtors' ads abound, but how often are they relevant?  Is "sold above asking" all that great if the house was priced below average market price of similar homes in the area?  Then that "sold above asking" gimmick is more likely just "sold below market".  Potential buyers are now very informative, doing their own research online to find out the going market prices of the homes in the area they're interested in.  It's more important to price the house around the comparables in the area, so it would not raise a flag with potential buyers and deter them from looking at your house any further.

INCORPORATE SOME WOW FACTORS

With your house now in public domain, hopefully it's getting some great marketing exposure.  Potential buyers browse numerous online listings and may schedule multiple viewing appointments a day.  How are they suppose to remember all the different houses? Just like a store front's window dressing, you want to wow your potential buyers with some lasting positive memories. When we had showing appointments, we set our dining table as if we were having a dinner party, as seen in this post.  It's the easiest extra step to do!  "Oh, that house with the set table in the dining room" would be all that was needed for a potential buyer to remember the flow of our house.  

BRING IN THE FRESHNESS

A basket of fresh fruits in the kitchen or a vase of fresh flowers in the living area makes your house more lived in and inviting.  We had a basket of lemons in the kitchen and a vase of flowers for showings.  Little touches like these let visitors know that you care to make a good impression of your house.  

How about some fresh air?  Open up the windows to air out the house before a showing appointment.  It helps get rid of trapped odours that you've grown nose-blind to.  You may also add a SUBTLE, FRESH and PLEASANT scent with plug-ins or diffuser oils.  The key is subtle, and not using it to mask any existing odours!  I had my wall plug-in oil diffuser turned to the lowest to ensure that only a light scent was released.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST...  MAINTAIN IT ALL!

The above tasks are not to be only done once and for all.  Ensuring your house is always in top-notch showing condition is key to a fast and successful sale!  These to-do's may seem like all the fuss about nothing and create so much inconvenience.  That's true, but you want to keep the time of being inconvenienced to a minimal.  You definitely don't want to have your property sitting idle for weeks, or worse, months.  Imagine if there're several houses on your street that are also for sale!  It happened to us, 2 out of the 2 times when we listed our house for sale.  Having a great layout definitely helped us in both of these cases, but making sure that our house showed to wow allowed us to sell in record time on our streets (sold 1st home in 2 days and sold current home in 11 days; only our builder's model home beat us to it, being sold in 8 days). 

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Throughout your listing process, keep in mind your goal as a seller - GET YOUR HOUSE SOLD AT THE BEST PRICE QUICKLY!  The longer your house sits idle on the market, the less buyers would be interested as it gives the impression of a problematic house.  Do all you can to attract potential buyers and wow them so you can get a quick sale.  Yup, it's just that simple!  And you know what?  Since you've already decluttered and purged before you listed your house, packing won't be too dreadful afterall!

We wish you the best of luck on your listing!  Let us know how it went!

SHERINA SO (sherina.so@century21.ca)

 

Tablesetting for Special Events

Remember my post on this tablesetting for a special event?  I think I might've just tricked you that this post is about just that.  But read on, I've some news to share about that "special event"!

Looking around our house, I've accomplished journalizing most of our home projects to-date.  I've always wanted to start a blog for our home, to share design ideas and journalize all the projects the Mr. has beautifully finished with love.  I just never had time to clean the house and stage it, so that I have a nice setting for some show-ready photos on the blog...  until...

It was time to take the photos to list our house for sale.  Yes, you read that right - we sold the house, and we're moving...  

Let's pick up your jaw from the floor…. That "special event" was in fact our first Open House for the listing.

Let me guess what your first thought was...  "But you guys (referring to the hubby) put so much work into the house!"  

I can tell you, 99% of our friends had the same reaction, actually we'll make that 100%.  You know, we're picky, we wouldn't just pick up and move to a house that we don't love.  Although...  we're moving from this detached to a townhouse...  yup, downsizing. 

No bulging eyes please!  Wow, 2 shockers in a row!  I know!

Well, it's an end unit.  Still incomprehensible?  I don't blame you.  Again, 99% of the people we know wouldn't take this leap.  Everybody wants more space, who doesn't?  And we don't?

I think being a house of 3 (technically 4, if you include our little Miss Nosy) made it much easier with this decision.  As the Mr. put it, he's not attached to the house, and he was the one who did all the work.  Maybe the truth is, he was ready to move on.  Nope, not blaming it on him, because I was the instigator.  

So, "why??"  you would ask.  No, we're not bored with our current house, and not that we're done with the projects we've planned (just take a look at the Honey-Do List...  SO NOT DONE!).  We always thought we would be in this house for at least 10 years.  That's to say, we never intended to move again after just several yrs.   

What triggered our decision to sell?  It was all timing.  If I didn't drive past our new house's site everyday and was totally annoyed by the construction traffic, if I didn't get curious to check out that builder's website of how large the site is (to gauge length of construction time and traffic chaos), if I hadn't browsed through the floor plans of that site and fell in love with the features, if we didn't check with the sales office and found out the site was releasing a new phase in 2 days, if we didn't get the model that we wanted, if we didn't know we could possibly sell our current house at a "good" price and increase our homeowner equity (ie. lowering our mortgage) and other if's...  we wouldn't have made the decision to move.  

And to ensure that we got what we wanted, the Mr. was the first to line up at the site on the day of the opening (at 5a.m.!!).  Yes, it is crazy, but this is not nearly as crazy as some other sites around the city.  When the gate to the new release opened, it was a "you snooze, you lose" situation.  The Mr. sprinted into the sales office, quickly asked for the lots where the model we wanted will be built, and relayed that info to me as I walked in with little man behind the other sprinters, and boom...  right there, in less than a minute, we agreed to buy a house and were headed to sign the purchaser agreement.  I think we were still on cloud nine from the hype as we were signing the agreement.  The Mr. joked that he has never spent so much money in such little time.

I'll miss this scenic drive home.  Our house is at the end of this road.

No worries, I won't be shutting down the blog.  In fact, things will get more interesting as we share our design ideas for the new house.  The Mr. already has a bunch of projects lined up for himself, and he's getting the itch to start!

Whereas, I'm the more sentimental one, and will definitely miss the house...  for the memories that we've built living here.  I was showing little man the videos I took of him playing floor hockey and racing his walker/ car with daddy in our dining room, but he totally denied he ever took up that much space for himself.  Doesn't matter, I still have the evidence to show, and the memories for myself.  

Will also miss this unobstructed view from our master bedroom into the backyard, the forest beyond, and the skyline.  Even more so on a beautiful sunny day like when this photo was taken (turned watercolour using the waterlogue app).

Now, looking around our house, with most of the content boxed up, we just can't wait to move into our new home...  in 9 months (already delayed once due to the dreadful long winter, and hopefully not more).  Meanwhile, we'll be at a rental townhouse, which is all brand new and un-lived in (state of cleanliness!  Thanks to our agent!).  

As I mentioned above, we're downsizing from our current house, about 450 sq. ft. less of usable space.  Being in a smaller house doesn't mean that we can't live big.  We have plans to make our new townhouse just as comfortable as our current spacious detached house.  "Small space, big living" will be our new motto!

With still some rooms left undecorated in our current house, I will be sharing our design ideas for those in next month's "Would've/ Could've" series.  That is, if we would've stayed in our current house, we could've decorated the rooms as such.

Stay tuned, as I'll also be sharing some tips on how to prepare your property for a successful listing and selling later this week!

And I shall return to packing after I've procrastinated long enough writing this post =)