Selling a Home 
There are currently 25 blog entries related to this category.
3 Home Staging Tips for the Spring Real Estate Selling Season
Monday, February 27th, 2012 at 1:49am. 591 Views, 0 Comments.
It is almost the start of the spring selling season in Minnesota. The art of staging a home - the visual preparation of a residence for sale in the real estate marketplace - could be the key to helping your home sell. Whether your househas been on the Twin Cities real estate market for a year or is just being put up for sale for the first time, now is a good time to do some home staging for when potential buyers come to call.
1. Do your research. Take some time to evaluate the staging of other homes, whether its through photographs online or by attending open houses. This is a great way to get ideas if you're not sure what a staged home should look like.
2. Clean, declutter and depersonalize. Staging is more than just making your house look good. It is about…
Celebrate Home Safety Month in June
Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011 at 5:26pm. 403 Views, 0 Comments.
During the month of June, the Home Safety Council celebrates Home Safety Month! The theme for this year’s Home Safety Month campaign is "Hands on Home Safety."
Home safety is of particular concern to people who are trying to sell a home. If a potential buyer is hurt on your property, instead of unloading a house you might gain a lawsuit!
The Home Safety Council (HSC) is an organization which encourages people to take easy steps toward making their homes safer for people and pets. For this year's Home Safety Month, HSC suggests simple hands-on steps to create a safer home environment from the five leading causes of home injury: falls, poisonings, fires and burns, choking or suffocation, and drowning. Many household accidents like these can be avoided with…
10 Fall Lawn and Landscaping Tips to Maintain Curb Appeal
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009 at 6:02pm. 440 Views, 0 Comments.
It's the end of September. Whether you are trying to sell your home or not, now is the time to perform autumn landscaping and lawn care duties. Though the sun is disappearing, there is still plenty to do, not only to prepare the yard for winter, but maintain the curn appeal of your home if you are trying to sell it.
1. Clean up fallen leaves and grass clippings. When a home is for sale, piles of leaves in the yard and landscaping offer potential buyers a poor first impression of the home.
2. While raking the leaves, kill 2 birds with 1 stone by also dethatching the lawn.
3. Remove the leaves so they don’t smother the grass over the winter.
4. Though you may be ready to stop mowing, cut the grass as late as possible so that it is shorter when it goes…
Early Spring Home Maintenance Checklist II
Monday, April 13th, 2009 at 10:40pm. 2143 Views, 0 Comments.
About a month ago, I wrote a post called Early Spring Home Maintenance Checklist. Well, this is going to be part two, or II, of that checklist. The first was spring home maintenance that could be taken care of, regardless of how bad the weather might get outside. It is Minnesota, after-all, and I don't need to tell you how unpredictable it is. Remember the snow storm on April 11, 2008? Ugh. This is a list of stuff you can probably start doing now that it seems to be really warming up outside (knock on wood). The spring selling season is really gearing up, so following these steps to make sure your home is in tip-top condition could make a big difference in its curb appeal.
- Check and maintain roof shingles
- Unclog and Secure Gutters and…
Early Spring Home Maintenance Checklist
Friday, March 13th, 2009 at 9:00am. 501 Views, 0 Comments.
Okay, maybe it’s a little early to be thinking spring, but we are nearly half-way through March already – warmer weather is bound to come soon! And with spring comes home maintenance, especially if you’re thinking of selling your home this summer.
So I’ve scoured the Internet to put together some home maintenance projects that will help you gear up for the home selling season. There will be another checklist coming later once it starts warming up out there, but these are things you should be able to do right now. Many of these steps will also help you get a head start on increasing your home’s curb appeal.
- Clean windows and repair screens
- Check life expectancy of appliances
- Lubricate door hinges and hardware
- Vacuum out-of-the-way…
Nearby Foreclosures Affect Your Home Sale
Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 at 6:07pm. 385 Views, 0 Comments.
Yesterday I wrote about how truer home appraisals are being requested by mortgage lenders before they will dispense a loan. Today I will write about how two major things right now are directly affecting your appraisal value: foreclosures and short sales.
For a few months, pending home sales in the Twin Cities have gone up and the excessive inventory of unsold homes has been slowly going down. However, the local real estate market, and markets in the nation at large, still faces some opposition. Growing unemployment, wilting wage growth, higher down-payment prerequisites, and stringent mortgage qualifications are all contributing to tumbling real estate prices. Furthermore, the increasing number of foreclosures sales and short-sales taking place are…
The Trend Towards Truer Appraisals of Home Values
Monday, November 17th, 2008 at 8:31pm. 369 Views, 0 Comments.
When it comes to pricing your home for the market, many factors are taken into account. One of these will be “comps”: the comparable sales of other properties in your areas. Used as benchmarks in home real estate appraisals, buyers and sellers never used to be concerned about “comps” when real estate values were on the upswing.
In this soft market, mortgage lenders recently have begun making these benchmarks a big deal. Because of the rapid decline in home values, instead of accepting sales of comparable properties that closed six to 12 months ago like in years past, lenders and mortgage investors now demand that appraisers include only the most recent comparable home sales, preferably using closings from the last 90 days to support their valuations.
Tips for Selling a Vacant Home
Thursday, October 9th, 2008 at 8:39pm. 561 Views, 1 Comments.
It is hard enough to sell a home in the current real estate market. There are special considerations which much undertaken when it comes to selling a vacant home in particular, though. The idea a home is sitting vacant is almost an immediate turn-off for potential buyers. Vacant houses are in the news a lot today, with reports of vandalism, thefts, and deferred maintenance. Additionally, a home that looks comfortable when it is furnished could look bare and flawed to potential home buyers when it’s empty. Not to worry, selling a vacant home isn't impossible. If you absolutely have to leave a home vacant before you sell it, try to follow these tips:
- First impressions are more important than ever. Vacant or not, a home for sale must absolutely…
10 Tips for First Time Sellers
Sunday, September 28th, 2008 at 7:16pm. 318 Views, 0 Comments.
Last week, I wrote a lot of content to help first time home buyers prepare to buy their first home. I provided information about “hidden costs” of owning your own home, budgeting tips for first time home buyers, and information on how people with bad credit can still purchase a home. But sellers are important, too. More to the point, what if you’re a first time home seller? With inexperience and a sluggish real estate market making headlines nationwide, I could understand why selling a home for the first time could seem daunting. Here are some tips especially for those who may be trying to sell a home for the first time.
Strange But True: Eat, Drink & Buy a House
Sunday, September 21st, 2008 at 2:40pm. 456 Views, 1 Comments.
I’ve been meaning to write this blog post for a while, as evidenced by my resource-article’s age of nearly one whole month! That’s okay, as I recall there was another “Strange But True” around that time as well. I didn’t want them to appear too closely to each other. So, without much more delay, I’ll get to this Strange But True real estate related story.
As evidenced recently by our Minneapolis and St. Paul market analyses, the number of homes on the Twin Cities real estate has been pretty high in comparison to how many closed sales have been occurring. Particularly, there have been an unusually high number of upper-bracket homes for sale out there. Homes are also spending a lot longer on the market on average before they finally sell. In this…
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