Home Staging Tip Using Cookbooks To Create Kitchen Themes

There are many creative and colorful ways to use cookbooks right out of your own home library to stage your kitchen. I would like to show you how you can “kick it up a notch” and actually create a theme around the cookbook you choose. Let me illustrate and explain two examples for you to model.

As one kitchen example for the counter space you can display a pasta cookbook and carry the theme along with decorative oil bottles or a bottle of olive oil with a more traditional Italian packaging. You may also chose to include a pasta dish towel, and a pasta bowl filled with faux tomatoes, onions, garlic and dried pasta.

A more professional and polished look will use the pasta theme throughout the kitchen area. For the bar area you will need to set out bowls of tri-colored corkscrew pasta and add a faux red tomato in the center. These colors really pop against countertops. To refine this setting, I would add a colorful placemat under each bowl to complete the look.

As a bonus tip for you: if you have a small kitchen you wish to showcase for the real estate market in order to create the illusion of more space you can move the refrigerator out and decorate that area.

For another kitchen example, you can use a dessert cookbook and create a combination coffee and baking theme. For wall decoration the use of prints and art that have different types of coffee themes like latte and espresso will beautifully decorate the area and further carry your theme.

For the counter space display a glass canister filled with biscotti and a large metal mixing bowl filled with baking tools such as a rolling pin, wooden mixing spoons, a spatula and boxes of cookies.

Another or alternative counter display idea could be to create a coffee tray using espresso cups and saucers, a French press filled with coffee beans, a jar of coffee condiments like vanilla, cinnamon, and chocolate, and two wrapped biscotti, all placed on top of a dish towel. A couple of loose ivy leaves will add beautiful color. On both display ideas use a basket of greenery to fill space to add more texture and color.

These are not expensive or difficult counterscapes to create, but the theme makes it a lot more fun and interesting. There are plenty of cookbooks with possible themes available…enjoy the creative process.

Copyright (c) 2009 Alice Chan

Home Staging To Sell Your Home For More

There are two ways to increase your homes sale price (1) improve the property and/or (2) increase competition amongst buyer by increasing the number of interested parties. Home staging plays a key role in both strategies. See how to sell your home for more.

Home staging is often regarded as one of the few tools Melbourne home sellers have at their disposal to increase the sale price of their property.

Fundamentally, there are only two ways to increase the value of your property during a house auction campaign, being:

1. Prospective buyers attach greater value to the propertys worth due to its appeal or some kind of feature in other words home staging

OR

2. Larger numbers of people attend opens and the auction. That is, greater buyer demand

So lets look at each of these in turn and consider how, as a home seller, you might achieve them.

Home Staging to Increase Appeal

How do you make a property more appealing?

Start by thinking about what Melbourne buyer markets are likely to be drawn to your property. Often a good way to do this is to think of your own demographic profile when you purchased the property. Note, 90% of the time the purchaser of a property is demographically similar to the home seller when they originally purchased it.

Once youve done that make sure your home staging plan is directed at satisfying that market. For example, you should stage your home with furniture that reflects the tastes and styles of the market youre appealing to.

The more you can tailor the home staging to fit a specific buyer group within the Melbourne home buyer market, the higher your sales price will be.

Stimulate Buyer Demand with Home staging

To stimulate buyer demand, you need to attract larger numbers of prospective buyers from a broader geographic and demographic base. So how do you do that?

Put simply, you need to spend more on marketing and presentation.

That is, a bigger campaign, reaching more people thats designed to drum up interest in your property. Be it through database marketing, press ads, online promotion, and letter dropping the neighborhood whatever steps you might take. Perhaps even promote the property to broader Melbourne suburbs.

Once youve cast your broader net, you then net to ensure the property youre putting to market ticks buyers boxes.

Ensure the property you present to market is accessible and has broad appeal. That is, the home is staged using neutral colors, popular furniture, tidy gardens and a spick and span look.

Avoid styles or colors that are idiosyncratic or out of vogue. Remember the idea is to be as inclusive and as accessible as possible better numbers at auction, mean better home sales results.

Home Staging Making The Crucial First Impression

Have you ever fallen in love at first site? When you’re selling your home, that’s the emotion you’re trying to produce among potential buyers. Okay, they won’t want to marry it, but they certainly are considering spending a long time with it. You may think that putting all that effort into making that first initial impression isn’t worth it — but it is.

What is Home Staging?

Staging involves making a house look as appealing as possible, giving it that “wow” factor to help it sell more quickly for higher prices. Many staging experts are quick to point out the difference between staging and preparation. Preparation involves the actual process of cleaning, repairing and doing the work to get the house in best condition possible. Staging involves putting it on show, giving it the best look. This process focuses on making that first crucial impression — causing the homebuyer to immediately think, “Now, I could definitely live here!” Techniques include removing items that remind of the current owner’s presence while making the decor inviting and attractive to a wide number of potential buyers.

Home staging is truly an art, many would contend. Knowing how to accentuate the features of a house while deemphasizing “problem” areas takes a carefully trained eye. This need for a trained eye has given to the rise of professional staging. Whether they are providing New York or Kansas City home staging, professional stagers tout their ability to bring great returns by helping you sell your house quickly and more profitably.

Getting Started – from Outside to Inside

Potential homebuyers’ first experience with your house will be when they pull up in their car. Your landscaping and exterior will be a major part in forming that first impression. The Home Staging Channel notes that creating a great exterior involves everything from the mailbox to plants to walkways to the front door. Getting your yard in shape, sprucing up your entryway, your use of flowers, shrubs, and plant life can all greatly affect the first moments as they experience your house.

Potential homebuyers will be envisioning how their family will be putting your house to use. Probably one of the first rooms they will see is the living room. According to the Home Staging Institute, “[W]hen buyers walk through the living room or family room area, they will want to envision these two activities – spending time as a family and entertaining guests.” The same goes with each room, showing them the possibilities for them if they decide to make your house their house.

Entice The Client’s Eyes To Buy Your House Through Home Staging

If you have really made up your mind on selling your house, make sure it looks good! You should check out every aspect to see what needs repairs and other works. However, if you are so confident your house can bring in the big bucks quickly, you may decide to sell it as it is. In this case, just double your efforts in advertising your house so that those interested will take a look at your house first. If you ignore the demands for even minor renovations, your house may not get sold.

To guarantee that nothing in your house will turn off potential buyers, you need to employ the services of someone working in a home staging business. This person has the qualifications to provide you valuable insights on what should be done to clinch the sale. Of course, this will cost and you may just decide on doing all the repairs and renovations on your own. However, unless you are an expert yourself, you may just create more work for yourself. This will be disastrous since you will only be driving away your potential buyers with all those drawbacks you inflict on your house.

You should not expect people involved in the home staging business to just take a few glances at your house and come up with a prescription on what should be done. They are professionals that see their job as an art that requires perfection. You can tell them apart from an interior designer. They do not get inside the house and redo everything including the decorations that you have. Instead, they will just improve your house and make it presentable enough to catch the interest of people who are searching for a home to buy.

These experts will not require you to have expensive decorations in your house. That is why you don’t have to save a large sum of money to pay them. Instead, they may even ask you to keep some of your pricey decors away from the buyers’ view. Such things, including most of the heavy furniture, will take away the buyers’ eyes from the more important details of the house. They are there for the house and not the furniture and decors after all.

If you decide not to use the services of someone working in the home staging business, you do have the option of simply trusting the real estate agent. This may get you a cut in your expenses but you also lessen the chances of your home being sold earlier. A real estate agent can only talk his way into convincing a potential buyer to purchase. However, they run out of excuses once the client finds out that there are many things that need to be repaired. People buying homes are more prudent now. They don’t always believe in everything that the agent says; they wait until they see the house.

Having the help of home staging business people, you can be better assured that a possible buyer’s visit to your home will turn out to be fruitful. They won’t just take care of the home’s interiors. They can redo the outside too, from the sidewalk, to the lawn, to the backyard. Businesses rely so much on promotion and packaging to sell their products. It’s the same with selling your home; you need to package it in a way that ensures it will sell.

Clipping Path Service Outsourcing From Metrodesk

To improve and enhance the look of items in pictures, many companies will try different methods to showcase their products in the best possible way. Utilizing clipping path services is one of those ways. Companies who perform clipping path services will use photo manipulation techniques to reduce shading, improve the look of the product in question, and really make the image “pop out” of the picture. This is very common in advertising and catalogs, where the background is further deemphasized in favor of the image in question.

Image masking is a photo manipulation technique that takes an image and places it on a chosen background, instead of the background the image’s picture was originally taken on. This technique is used for video titling and computer graphical user interface icons. Companies that wish to use these techniques for their business may not employ the graphic designers needed to make such things happen. Many imaging companies offer both of these services, but their prices aren’t always friendly to a company’s bottom line. Therefore, outsourcing clipping path services and image masking is becoming more attractive than before. Image manipulation services located in developing countries such as Bangladesh, India, and the Philippines are more than willing to do these imaging jobs for far less than domestic companies charge.

Why outsource these services overseas? Price is the overriding factor. Doing a clipping path service on a relatively easy task can cost as little as a dollar when outsourced; many domestic companies would balk at that price. Outsourcing these jobs saves money in the long term because money is not being eaten up by expensive imaging services. Image masking services are very popular to outsource. The knowledge base in these countries isn’t that much different than what would normally be found domestically; however, the ability to do these jobs for less gives them a comparative advantage.

The turnaround time is just as fast, too. Overseas imaging companies have workers available to finish jobs within the same day, or within a few hours if necessary for an additional cost. Businesses who don’t have the capability to do these image manipulations themselves would normally hire someone to do it; but the low prices offered by overseas firms make them far more affordable options in the long run. Companies with tight budgets will consider using these overseas firms for these clipping path and image masking services in order to save money.

How Can You Make Your House Giving The Impression A Million Dollar Home

There’s a lot of people, that happen to be unfortunate, while selling their houses. This takes place, because the major part of these people, dont want to invest some funds and time to stage their properties. This is why here we want to raise the issue of home staging and its particular importance for the quickest and beneficial home sale.
In spite of the fact that every person has his or her own necessities in addition to tastes, almost everyone still possesses a quite similar knowledge of comfort and luxury. For that reason, home staging tips, it would be not so difficult to follow some general things, applied to create a unique atmosphere within the exterior and interior of a house, which may be appreciated by many.
So, firstly it will be essential to make your home looking nice and trim. The existence of garbage or clutter is going to spoil the impression made by your house, while you will demonstrate it to your potential buyers. Secondly, the rooms in your home ought to be well-lit, to permit your possible buyers to view the furnishing of your home. And thirdly, the furnishing of the property as well as its style should provide the atmosphere of harmony and luxury, where your prospective buyers will be able to relax and enjoy their time, while residing at home.

You can attempt to build this sort of eye-catching atmosphere, utilizing your own personal knowledge of style and comfort with some general principles we’ve already mentioned above. Even so, if you wish to get the the greatest results, while making the home looking very expensive and even getting the highest price for its sale, it is going to be crucial to think about the advices of an specialist regarding how to stage a house to sell.
Presently the real estate home staging is definetly quite intricate issue that needs a particular approach and consideration of the quantity of significant points, that could be missed by non-professionals. Just to start staging a house we offer you to discover the decorating ideas proposed by Lise Desormeaux, that is called a successful Home Staging and Decorating Educator. Her home staging tips present a wonderful guide as for realtors as for homeowners, that are willing to transform their houses into the million dollar homes, which could be easily sold. These tips can be also helpful for those, who’re intending to embellish their abodes into the clutter-free and beautiful homes by not utilizing a decorator.
Go through the ideas of Lisa Desormeaux, positioned on www.lisedesormeaux.com, and you’ll be ready to save plenty of cash, discovering the powerful secrets of home staging.

Home Staging Can Help You Sell Your House Fast

What exactly is home staging and why would we want to do it. House staging is about making a mood or an illusion. Its not always logic that promps a home buyer to buy sometimes they buy based on emotions. It is about getting into the emotions of the buyer we have got to create that mood to be able to sell your house fast to the end buyer. Home staging can mean the difference between a sold home & an expired listing. Those that take some time to stage their home on average get 7 to 10 percent more for their homes & sell them in about a third of the time. Accurately executed staging leads the buyer’s eyes to the attractive qualities of the home and away from any flaws which all homes have.
Here i will discuss several tips that will help you with your home staging agenda.

1.Depersonalize and de-clutter your house. The buyer wants to visualize themselves & their family occupying the home & not feel like they’re a guest in someone else’s house. Remove all magnets and other objects from your fridge. Remove family photographs from all walls & shelves.
2.Clean and remove any odors from your home. Clean the home like it has never been cleaned, walls, windows, & baseboards. Smoke and pet odors happens to be the worst. Air out the home daily and have carpets cleaned for that fresh home smell. A house buyer will associate cleanliness with a well taken care of home.
3.Hire a handyman to take care of all the little repair odds and ends. Caulking bathrooms, kitchens and windows. Fix loose and broken flooring, tile, door knobs,hinges, most of which could be a deterrent to a potential buyer.
4.Create the illusion of more space. Remove any knickknacks & extra pieces of furniture to enlarge the rooms. Let the sunshine in, washing windows and increase the wattage on light bulbs could make a small space seem much larger. Add some fresh white paint, this will open space and again get rid of any unwanted smells.
5.Add some freshness to the house. Add a crisp plate of fruit on the kitchen table. Bring in some fresh plants and flowers. Have most of the outside greenery trimmed, overgrown shrubs and grass cut and some general landscaping will add more instant interest to your house.

Selling your own home could be difficult so when attempting to sell you should present your property in the perfect light. You have to make the home more attractive than the numerous other homes in the present market. Bottom line staging the home will help you sell your own home fast, sell your house quickly, and get a whole lot closer to your required asking price. Remember, give your home a buyers eye view. Clean up & enlarge the space to give the illusion, more for the money. Remove the untidiness & add added light. Brighter rooms turn on buyers; nobody wants to be a cave occupier so consequently nobody really wants to buy a cave.

Tips On Selling Your Investment Property

Lets face it, even if you own a great investment property with $75,000
in equity, that equity wont pay the billsits not in your bank accountbottom line, you cant eat equity. So to realize your profit, you need to sell the real estate.

The following tips could help sell your investment property quickly. 1) Keep the price fair. Sure, you want to make the most it. But unless youre in a rapidly appreciating market, your business is better off if you offer a competitive price. Its always better to make a fast nickel, than a slow dime. 2) Virtual tours – More than two thirds of buyers research potential real estate purchases online now. 3) Landscaping – Creating curb appeal can fetch up to 15% more. Hint: many flower businesses and nurseries offer free advice to help turn a yard into a sensory delight for buyers. 4) Indoor decorations – Add some plants, which reduce air-conditioning costs by up to 25%. Plants also look great and keep the home beautiful, created a caring, lived in feeling. 5) In-ground sprinkler systems – (for upper and middle class neighborhoods only). Again, you’re investing in real estate. While sprinklers are pricey, they help encourage a sale in mid to high end homes, and can
boost your profit considerably, bringing you closer to making money from home. 6) Create more space – By painting walls a pale color, gives the illusion of additional space. 7) Check what’s underfoot – Make sure the floors are like new. You can buy used carpet from model homes but has not been worn. Hint: A rug with horizontal stripes can make a narrow hallway feel
wider. 8) Paint – Youre investing in real estate. Youre investing in yourself. Its the best way to make money from home. So add the odd warm shades such as yellow, red, and orange to the real estate to throw off a cozy feeling. Hint: the aroma of fresh paint gives off a new home feeling. 9) Clean storage spaces thoroughly – Clutters bad. It’s just good business sense. 10) Staging – Create a homely atmosphere by renting furniture and/or hire a decorating professional to do it for you. Staged houses sell more quickly and for a higher price

3 BONUS Tips: Follow the 3-D’s in your real estate business when selling a property: 1. declutter; 2. Depersonalize – remove personal items so buyers can picture themselves in the real estate; 3. Deep clean using a professional cleaning service.

By doing even half of these tips, your chances of selling your investment real estate is far greater and quite possibly, will be more profitable.

by Mary Wozny

Stage Your Frisco Texas Home to Attract Interested Buyers

The Texas real estate climate weathered the recession well and population centers like the Dallas-Forth Worth Metroplex are drawing more and more relocation traffic. Buyers are increasingly attracted to bedroom communities like Frisco, a community of 100,000 lying just 25 miles north of Dallas. Named one of the nation’s fastest growing suburbs by Forbes in 2007, single family homes are selling well in Frisco, putting extra responsibility on existing owners to showcase their properties to maximum advantage.

When listing a home for sale, divorce yourself from the emotional attachment you feel toward the house and everything in it. While most listing agents will agree that a furnished home sells better than an empty one, those same agents will also tell you that almost every home has too much clutter and too much furniture.

** Things to Do Before Staging a Home **

Staging a home, even one in which the sellers are living while it is being shown, is a matter of creating illusions to stimulate the imagination. Before you even consider the elements of that illusion:

– Clean thoroughly. No one wants to buy your dirt.

– Declutter. Don’t leave “mail mountain” on the hall credenza or let hubby’s “gimme cap” collection remain in plain sight.

– Depersonalize. For as much as they mean to you, family photographs and cherished “treasures” should be removed. You want buyers to see the home, not be distracted by your interests and eccentricities.

– Repaint areas that show accumulated dirt, like door frames and cabinets. Paint is cheap and can hide a multitude of sins!

– Make minor repairs. It may not bother you that one of the shower handles is broken. It will bother a prospective buyer.

Only when these kinds of problems have been addressed are you ready to consider staging the home.

** Start Staging from the Outside and Work In **

The absolute worst case scenario is to have an agent pull up at the curb only to have the buyer say, on first glance, “No thanks.” Curb appeal is important. Make sure that:

– The yard is free of clutter, the edges trimmed, and the grass mowed.
– The shrubs and trees are neat.
– Any faded paint has been freshened up.
– Items like listing rain gutters or crooked mailboxes have been repaired.
– Flags or signs pointing to school or sports affiliations are taken down.
– The house numbers are clearly visible.

Plant flowers or strategically position blooming plants in pots. Bright colors immediately attract the eye and create a welcoming feel.

** Rent a Storage Unit **

Dramatically reduce the amount of furniture in the home, removing or rearranging those pieces that block lines of sight or impair free movement from room to room..

The basic idea is to include only those pieces that clearly illustrate the purpose of any given room. If, for instance, you have a bed in the living room, buyers will be left scratching their heads. You may have a perfectly good reason for the bed to be there, but people looking at your home will neither know or care what that reason may be

Group remaining furniture in appealing vignettes and stage them with accessories. For instance, you might drape a satin throw over the back of a chaise lounge. Buyers are attracted to luxurious fabrics. Use unique elements sparingly and only to highlight a feature of the room, for instance an interesting piece of sculpture might draw the eye to the handcrafted wooden mantle piece.

** Use Room Appropriate Accessories **

Remember, you’ve taken out your own clutter and memorabilia. Don’t replace it with “cutesy” kitsch that’s just as bad. Think about what accessories add to a room according to the function of the room. For instance:

– Put out scented soaps in bathrooms that add a nice fragrance to the air.

– Arrange bowls of fruit in the kitchen beside a stack of cookbooks.

– Instead of framed photos, place candles in brass candlesticks on the piano.

Keep these displays simple and avoid the urge to over-do. The rule is, no clutter.

** Don’t Neglect the Backyard **

If you go to the trouble to work on your home’s curb appeal, don’t forget to stage the backyard. If you have a deck, make sure you have deck furniture. If there’s a pool, it should sparkle. Use flowers in pots or even consider setting the table to hint at how lovely evening meals would be in the setting. Remember, your goal is sparking the imagination of the potential buyer.

As a community, Frisco, Texas will sell itself. Residents enjoy an active local life and a strong, well-tended economy fostered by the Frisco Economic Development Corporation. There is currently a strong buyer’s market for relocating to North Texas and existing owners need only present their properties well to command good sale prices.

article submitted on behalf of author Darrell Self.