Choosing the Right Realtor® is always the most important part of getting your home ready for market.  After that, this two part series will give you a head start on the competition. 

5 Tips to Prepare Your Home for Sale

Article From BuyAndSell.HouseLogic.com

By: G. M. Filisko
Published: February 10, 2010

Working to get your home ship-shape for showings will increase its value and shorten your sales time.

Many buyers today want move-in-ready homes and will quickly eliminate an otherwise great home by focusing on a few visible flaws. Unless your home shines, you may endure showing after showing and open house after open house-and end up with a lower sales price. Before the first prospect walks through your door, consider some smart options for casting your home in its best light.

1. Have a home inspection

Be proactive by arranging for a pre-sale home inspection. For $250 to $400, an inspector will warn you about troubles that could make potential buyers balk. Make repairs before putting your home on the market. In some states, you may have to disclose what the inspection turns up.

2. Get replacement estimates

If your home inspection uncovers necessary repairs you can't fund, get estimates for the work. The figures will help buyers determine if they can afford the home and the repairs. Also hunt down warranties, guarantees, and user manuals for your furnace, washer and dryer, dishwasher, and any other items you expect to remain with the house.

3. Make minor repairs

Not every repair costs a bundle. Fix as many small problems-sticky doors, torn screens, cracked caulking, dripping faucets-as you can. These may seem trivial, but they'll give buyers the impression your house isn't well maintained.

4. Clear the clutter

Clear your kitchen counters of just about everything. Clean your closets by packing up little-used items like out-of-season clothes and old toys. Install closet organizers to maximize space. Put at least one-third of your furniture in storage, especially large pieces, such as entertainment centers and big televisions. Pack up family photos, knickknacks, and wall hangings to depersonalize your home. Store the items you've packed offsite or in boxes neatly arranged in your garage or basement.

5. Do a thorough cleaning

A clean house makes a strong first impression that your home has been well cared for. If you can afford it, consider hiring a cleaning service.

If not, wash windows and leave them open to air out your rooms. Clean carpeting and drapes to eliminate cooking odors, smoke, and pet smells. Wash light fixtures and baseboards, mop and wax floors, and give your stove and refrigerator a thorough once-over.

Pay attention to details, too. Wash fingerprints from light switch plates, clean inside the cabinets, and polish doorknobs. Don't forget to clean your garage, too.

 G.M. Filisko is an attorney and award-winning writer who has found happiness in a Chicago brownstone with the best curb appeal on the block. A frequent contributor to many national publications including Bankrate.com, REALTOR® Magazine, and the American Bar Association Journal, she specializes in real estate, business, personal finance, and legal topics.

This is a great, down to earth article about appeal AND safety when it comes to holiday lighting.  Enjoy.  -John

Outdoor Lighting for Curb Appeal and Safety

Article From HouseLogic.com

By: Dave Toht
Published: March 18, 2010

Well-planned outdoor lighting improves curb appeal, safety, and security for your home.

Think about it: Most of your guests (and if your home is on the market, many would-be buyers) see your home only in the evening, when its best features may be lost in the shadows. Well-executed outdoor lighting enhances architectural detail and plays up landscape features, casting your home in the best possible light and adding an abundance of curb appeal.

Outdoor lighting also adds value. Judith Patriski, an appraiser and owner of Quad Realty Co. near Cleveland, estimates that for upper-bracket homes, an investment in outdoor lighting can yield a 50% return. "When you pull into a driveway and see a gorgeous home, you're going to pay more for it," says Patriski.

And she emphasizes that it's not only about aesthetics: "In all price ranges, lighting for security is important"--both to protect against intruders and falls. Here are the elements of successful outdoor lighting.

Mimicking moonlight

Much of the success of exterior lighting hinges on its design. Hang around lighting designers long enough and you'll hear a lot of talk about "moonlight effect." That's a naturalistic look that features light no more intense than that of a full moon, but still strong enough to make beautiful shadows and intense highlights.

Other techniques outdoor lighting designers use:

          •Highlight trees: Whether illumined from below or given presence by a light mounted in the tree itself, trees make stunning features.

          •Use uplights: Uplighting is dramatic because we expect light to shine downward. Used in moderation, it's a great way to highlight architectural and landscaping features.

          •Have a focus: The entryway is often center stage, a way of saying, "Welcome, this way in."

          •Combine beauty and function: For example, adding lighting to plantings along a pathway breaks up the "runway" look of too many lights strung alongside a walk.

          •Vary the fixtures: While the workhorses are spots and floods, designers turn to a wide range of fixtures, area lights, step lights, and bollards or post lights.

          •Stick to warm light: A rainbow of colors are possible, but most designers avoid anything but warm white light, preferring to showcase the house and its landscape rather than create a light show.

          •Orchestrate: A timer, with confirmation from a photocell, brings the display to life as the sun sets. At midnight it shuts shut down everything but security lighting. Some homeowners even set the timer to light things up an hour or so before dawn.

Adding safety and security

Falls are the foremost cause of home injury, according to the Home Safety Council. Outdoors, stair and pathway lighting help eliminate such hazards.

Often safety and security can be combined. For example, motion-detecting security lighting mounted near the garage provides illumination when you get out of your car at night; the same function deters intruders. Motion detecting switches can also be applied to landscape lighting to illumine shadowy areas should anyone walk nearby.

Even the moonlight effect has a security function: Soft, overall landscape lighting eliminates dark areas that might hide an intruder, exposing any movement on your property. Overly bright lights actually have a negative effect, creating undesirable pockets of deep shadow.

Switching to LEDs

Once disparaged for their high cost and cold bluish glow, LEDs are now the light source of choice for lighting designers. "They've come down in price and now have that warm light people love in incandescent bulbs," says Paul Gosselin, owner of Night Scenes Landscape Lighting Professionals in Kingsland, Texas. "We haven't installed anything but LEDs for the last year."

Although LED fixtures remain twice as expensive as incandescents, installation is simpler because they use low-voltage wiring. "All in all, LEDs cost only about 25% more to install," Gosselin says. "And they'll save about 75% on your electricity bill."

Another advantage is long life. LEDs last at least 40,000 hours, or about 18 years of nighttime service. With that kind of longevity, "why should a fixture have only a two-year warranty?" asks Gosselin. He advises buying only fixtures with a 15-year warranty, proof that the fixture's housing is designed to live as long as the LED bulbs inside.

Innovations

The growing popularity of exterior lighting has led to innovative fixtures. Here are some bright new ideas:

          •Solar lighting: When first introduced, solar pathway lights produced a dull glow that rarely made it through the night. They do much better now that they are equipped with electricity-sipping LEDs, more efficient photovoltaic cells, and better batteries. Still, they have yet to measure up to hard-wired systems.

          •Hybrids: Porch lights now come equipped with LED lighting for all night use, and a motion sensor that clicks on an incandescent bulb to provide extra illumination as you approach the front door. Hybrids use about 5% of the power a solely incandescent fixture requires.

          •Barbecue light: Tired of grilling steaks by flash light? Now you can buy a gooseneck outdoor light, ideal for an outdoor kitchen.

Estimating the cost

Total outdoor lighting costs will vary according to the size of your home and the complexity of your lighting scheme. Expect to pay about $325 for each installed LED fixture. LEDs also require a transformer to step the power down from 120 volts to 12 volts, running about $400 installed.

A motion detector security light costs about $150 installed. Porch lights and sconces range from $100 to $250 installed, depending the fixture and whether running new cable is necessary.

Contractor-installed outdoor lighting for an average, two-story, 2,200 sq. ft. house might add up as follows:

          •7 fixtures to cover 100 feet of LED pathway lighting: $2,275

          •Transformer: $400

          •4 LED uplights to dramatize the front of the house: $1,300

          •2 LED area lights for plantings: $650

          •2 motion detector security lights: $300

Total cost: $4,925

Dave Toht has written or edited more than 60 books on home repair and remodeling, including titles for The Home Depot, Lowe's, Better Homes & Gardens, Sunset, and Reader's Digest. A former contractor, Dave was editor of Remodeling Ideas magazine and continues to contribute to numerous how-to publications.

At a recent Fall Kick off, the introduction and conclusion to the Remerica Hometown One Event "Playbook" read something like this.  I was asked to share it with you.

9/15/10 Remerica Hometown One  Plymouth, MI

__

Amnesia will help and other useful suggestions. 

A positive attitude sometimes requires drastic measures to maintain, or to "jump start".  Constantly, our ears and eyes are filled with sounds and visions of negativity.  The news and the conversations pivot upon negativity including; Jobs, home prices, economic data and despair.  How do we even function?  How can we even muster a positive thought?   The answer to this is simple.  There is ALWAYS more positive than negative happening at ALL times. 

Don't let the "Momentum of Negativity" rule your life!  How?  You ask.   You start with Immediate Amnesia!  You must first have total amnesia to what HAS happened in the housing market..  What good is your memory to you?  The data is already recorded.  The lessons are already learned.  The Momentum of Negativity gets so bad, that any good news that is currently happening is brushed off as lies, bad science, bad statistics or hearsay.   That belief is unfortunate, as the good news is just as real as all the bad news that came before it, but believing the good news requires you to adapt and change your behavior to the new result!  It is natural to fight change, even if it is obviously for the better.

In recent history, there has never been a better time to embrace positive news!  Start by embracing a life of giving, building higher quality relationships throughout your business and personal life, practicing a "get by giving" life, or as it is called in a recent book on the subject, the ROR or "Return On Relationships".  Not just a "will you give me business if I give you business?" approach.

Building stronger connections with people, communication, taking the extra time to ask meaningful questions, that is at the heart of building better client relationships, better friendships, better family.  We must constantly improve our relationships.  In other words, we must constantly improve our Leadership. 

Leadership is the biggest difference in real estate brokerage, in most companies and organizations.  It is what makes one company a thriving firm while others .... Well, not so much.  Your Pledge:  Become even better leaders!  Care even more!  Deliver even more!  Sounds tough, but it all can become much easier once you realize that at the heart of it all is your ability to create a bond, to move someone, and that talent is within you right now!  There is no one who deserves it more than you!

-John

Some Positive News to Consider:  In and around Metro-Detroit and Michigan

*August 09 vs. August 2010.   Median Sales Price ALL MLS Up 10.9%   Wayne Co  up 30.2%  !!!  This follows a July increase of 14.1% compared to 2009 and a 41.5% Increase from June 09 vs June 2010!

*Sales:  Down ALL MLS 13.9%, Wayne Co down 20.7% **  Good news as August 2009 was a record sales month since 2005. 

*On Market Inventory:  August 2009:  47,753   August 2010:  38,.797

*Canton YTD 2009 vs 2010  sold units :  Up 10%

*Northville YTD 2009 vs 2010 Sold units:  Up 18%

*Livonia YTD 2009 vs 2010 Sold units:  Up 16%

 Average sale volume through the first 6 months of 2010 was up over 25.4% from 2009!

 More than 72,000 Michigan jobs have been announced since the start of 2010!   It's at least a start!

Believe it! 

You see, the news, and eventually the attitude of those around you is changing.  Are you????

Life After the Tax Credit:  Some thoughts from a Michigan Realtor® Round table

Remerica Hometown One, a Michigan based real estate company recently held a Realtor® round table to discuss life after the home buyer tax credit.  Here is a brief synopsis of the discussion:

Well, here we are almost 30 days after the end of the Home buyer Tax Credit, with the big questions being, how will the next 30 days go?  How will the summer real estate market be in Michigan's Metro Detroit and Ann Arbor Area?  The Hometown One round table came up with a few thoughts...

• - There may be a "mini correction" over the next 45 days, due to home buyers expediting their purchases to receive the tax credit, leaving a void of buyers for a brief time. This will only be a short vacuum followed by a slow, constant recovery: Kind of like watching a rusty clock move!
• - We may see an increase in inventory, but as we have discovered, many areas are seeing a lack of saleable listings, causing multiple offers, and a pent up demand from buyers. Whether this new inventory is from foreclosures or human controlled transactions, this inventory increase may pose very little negative impact and may be devoured by the current buyers in the market.
• - Appraisals are still a concern. There are adequate comparatives in most price ranges to prove a slight increase in value around Western Wayne and Oakland County, Washtenaw County, etc., yet the appraisal problem rears its head on an estimated 40% of current transactions. Why is there so much pressure to the down side when it's obvious there is some upside pressure? It's not that complicated, appraisers need to determine "market value" not "bank value"!
• - Jobs will still play a role in the real estate recovery in Michigan. The news is getting better on this front. It's about time! It was suggested that Michigan will be the recovery hero to the Country! Boy I hope that comes true!
• - Interest rates are the lowest in 50 years. Getting a home on a 4.5% fixed rate for 30 years compared to 6.5% of a year ago, gives you 3-5 home buyer tax "credits". These lower rates may do more to help the market stabilize than the tax credits. The funny thing is, rates were supposed to go up, but the European flock to safe harbor bonds has really been great for (at least) real estate!
• - Elections: As we head toward November, wow, who knows, but the Round table did think that the elections will at least have an effect on the psyche of today's home buyer and seller.

Well that's all from the most recent Remerica Hometown One Realtor Round table.  I know this is a basic "in the trenches" outlook, but that is where our clients and we live, in the real world. Our community is probably just like your community. "Street level" where we are going to solve our problems and challenges!  We would love to hear your thoughts.