The Real Folsom Blog

Landscaping Tricks To Wow Buyers

In today's market, sellers have to work harder than ever to get buyers' attention and get them to check out their home. The lure of the often lower-priced foreclosures and short sales make it challenging for regular sellers to get their homes noticed. Here are a few easy and inexpensive ways to improve your home's curb appeal.

1. Add splashes of color. For example, put in a few purple salvia or lavender among your other front yard planting.

2. Size trees and shrubs to scale. The goal is to not have your plants blocking windows, doors, or any architectural features that you want prospective buyers to see. Also, if you have too many trees or shrubs, buyers may be concerned about yard maintenance.

3. Keep your lawn in perfect shape. Now this one will be particularly challenging this year in Folsom as we head into summer with only two days of watering allowed a week.

4. Let buyers hear the soothing sounds of water. A small fountain or water feature in the backyard will provide a pleasant sound and block street noise. Once again, with our water restrictions in Folsom, it would need to be a small fountain.

5. Use some decorative architectural elements. These can be inexpensive but effective. Think window boxes or wrought iron decorations (you can find them at local nurseries or home improvement stores).

There you go, just a few quick, inexpensive landscaping tips to wow buyers.

Color Me Salable--or Why You Should Pay Attention to Color When Selling Your Home

You've heard it before: paint your home in neutral colors (think light beige or off-white) to get your home sold. Sure the neutral color may not offend anyone but then again it may not do anything to actually help you sell your home. The right color in the right spot can trigger the kind of response in a buyer that will get them interested in buying your home. A warm color in a room will make the buyer feel the room is cozy. Whereas white makes the room invisible. Here, based on information from the Rohm and Haas Paint Quality Institute, is a rundown of some colors and people's response to them:
* Red--Increases energy and creates excitement. Best use: Dining rooms.
* Orange--Adds warmth and comfort. Best use: Living rooms and family rooms.
* Yellow--Increases positive thinking and brightens mood. Best use: Dark hallways, accent color in dining rooms, kitchens.
* Green--Calms and relaxes. Best use: Living rooms (light green), accent color in dining rooms, kitchens.
* Blue--Promotes feelings of security and tranquility. Best use: bedrooms.
* Purple--Boosts creativity (but many people dislike purple on walls). Best use: kids bedroom or play area.
There you have it--a snapshot of how colors can impact how buyers see your home. You can find more info on this topic at www.colormatters.comand www.adgusa.com.

Selling 101: Clear Out Before Buyers Arrive

This one may not seem like a biggie to a lot of people but I feel it's an issue worth discussing: whether sellers should leave their home during showings. More and more often, I'm finding, sellers aren't leaving their homes when I come by with buyers. Now maybe it's the cold weather that has us all nesting, but, please, if an agent calls and makes an appointment to show your home, go take a coffee break for a half hour or so. Because one of two things happens when sellers don't leave: 1) the buyers are uncomfortable and rush through the house not carefully evaluating the suitability of the house for their needs, or 2) the sellers start chatting up the buyers (as they trail us while promoting the home's feature) and they invariably wind up talking about topics unrelated to the home and distracting the buyers from the task at hand. Under either scenario, the home has not gotten the showing it probably deserves. So please, next time an agent calls to show your home, especially if they give you adequate notice, please, please go out for a bit so the buyers can see your home without distraction.

And stay warm, it's nippy out there!

Sprucing Home Doesn't Have To Cost Lots of $$$

While driving around Folsom this weekend and looking at homes for sale, some of the ones that are bank owned stuck out like a sore thumb. The lawns are dry tinder, the bushes and sometimes even the trees have died, and the weeds are waist high. The complete lack of curb appeal of these houses reminded me how little it actually takes to give a house great instant appeal to home buyers. Here are a few simple and very inexpensive ways you can improve your home's outer appearance when putting it up for sale: 1-trim bushes so they look neat and don't block windows thereby cutting light into your home; 2-buy a new doormat and a few pots with bright colorful flowers to line the walkway to the front door; 3-put a new doorknob on the front door and paint the door a color contrasting from the main body of the house; 4-edge the grass around walks and trees and pull up any weeds; 5-polish or even replace house numbers; 6-clean out the gutters; 7-put a seasonal wreath on your door. These are all simple, quick, and inexpensive ways to spruce your home's appearance. It's a strange thing with buyers--as much as they want to like a house when they are house hunting, at the same time they look very critically at each home to find things that are not working or that show signs of neglect. In their mind, a home showing neglect may mean a home that will have major repair issues down the road. So consider investing a little now to get a good return down the road when you sell.

Make it a great week! At least we are back to some tolerable temperatures...

Should You Offer Incentives to Buyers

Oh the good old days of 2003-2004 when all a homeowner had to do was list a home and buyers would start lining up for showings. In our current market tilting towards buyers, sellers and their agents need to be a bit more aggressive in their selling strategies. Pricing the home correctly is the pillar of a good marketing strategy but there are other tools to consider such as offering the buyers incentives to make you an offer. Here are a few examples of incentives offered by sellers:

• $$ towards buyers closing costs
• Pay down discount points to lower buyers mortgage rate
• Pay a few months of buyers new mortgage
• Offer a year’s worth of landscaping service
• Allowance for: Carpeting; Kitchen remodeling; New appliances
• Gift card to a home improvement store such as Lowes or Home Depot or OSH
• Credit at a local furniture store and/or interior design services
• Short cruise
• Year’s membership at the local health club
• Offer a buy-back guarantee—if buyers aren't happy in the home, seller will purchase back home in a year at a previously agreed upon price and if home in same condition

Now, as you can tell some of these are more practical, some more offbeat. In the end, the goal is to get the buyers attention and make your Folsom home stand out from the competition in this real estate market. Keep these marketing tools in mind when you get ready to put your house on the market. You may not need them at first but you want to be ready for a stepped up strategy if the time comes.

Staging 101

Happy Monday everyone! Even though the weather folks are predicting temps in the high 90s, this Folsom morning was gloriously cool and pleasant!

Let's talk staging today--an important consideration for any homeowner planning to sell within a few months. When referring to a house about to be put on the market, staging refers to the process of preparing your home for sale so that it looks its best when prospective buyers come through. The practice of staging is popular in the Bay area and a growing trend here. Why stage? Real simple: stats show staged homes sell faster and for more money and staging is an easy way to make your house stand out from the competition. A home can be staged whether it's vacant or occupied and investing small bucks in staging can net you a solid return. For an averaged-sized home, professional staging costs can run $500 to $1,000 and up. Typically, services include an initial evaluation and written report offering suggestions on how to prepare your home for sale, painting, accessories, and labor. Now, if you decide you don't want to go the professional route, the good news is a couple of hundred dollars can still go a long way to boosting your home's appeal to buyers. In the future  installments on the topic of staging, I'll share some low-cost tips that will help your home stand out.

Now, for those of you who aren't feeling too perky this Monday, here's a quote from the late Tom Wilson, an actor and comedian, that captures well those Monday blues:

"Mondays are the potholes on the road of life"