Ready Your Residence The Best It Can Be By Staging And Energy Improvements
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With the housing market groaning under its own weight these days, potential home sellers need every advantage they can get. One way that a family can help move their home faster is with a practice called home staging. The logic behind home staging is simple: try to make your home look as special as possible when people view it and you will have an increased chance of selling it.
Some tips on how to stage your home properly include simple things like picking up after yourself and taking out the garbage. But there are hundreds of other things that you can do to make your house more memorable.
Try baking a batch of cookies about 30 minutes before you show your home. The inviting and pleasant smell can make people remember your home over others they might have seen.
If you have pets, try to either board them at a shelter or groomer, or at the very least, have a neighbour watch them for an hour to have the home pet-free. You never know when you?ll show the house to someone who might be allergic or someone who simply doesn?t like pets.
The same can be said for a baby or kids. While you can?t board your children, see if a friend can watch them while you?re showing your house. You don?t need little Johnny creating a mess or baby Sue crying at the top of her lungs when you?re trying to show your place.
Vacuum everywhere. There probably isn?t a bigger turn off when viewing a home than dirt. Although logic would suggest that the first thing you do when you move into a new home is clean every last inch, the sight of a dirty floor or carpet can lower people?s opinions of your home.
If you have rooms that are bare, spend a few dollars on basic decorations or plants to give a room a warm, inviting look. The same goes for other rooms in your house. Stay away from clutter and dark, cool colours. Try to focus on warmth. You don?t want the people viewing your property to ever want to leave.
As you can see, the idea of readying your home for viewing makes perfect sense. Take away these added touches and the home becomes just a lifeless house. But integrate these basic steps into your house-showing routine, and you can expect to sell sooner rather than later.
In addition, insuring that your home is energy efficient is a plut to selling it. With oil prices spiking to record highs in recent months, the home building industry is beginning to feel some repercussions. In a recent survey done by the American Institute of Architects, the number one request by prospective home owners is that their new home be as energy-efficient as possible.
The survey asked members of the AIA to list what people were asking for in a new home compared to requests from previous years. According to their findings, 54 percent said that they wanted a way to help manage their energy in their home. That is a significant jump from last year, when only 38 percent of respondents gave that answer. Maybe most telling is that not a single member who filled out the survey said that demands for that kind of system have dropped.
These energy management systems can be broken down into two different categories: high-tech and low-tech. The popular high-tech systems essentially employ ?smart-house? technology and use a series of computers and sensors to help manage and monitor the house?s energy usage. The various computer systems can tell residents if there is a leak that heat is escaping from somewhere in the home, it can automatically turn the thermostat down if the house is empty and alert residents if a window is left open in a room that?s empty.
But it?s not just high-tech solutions that are growing in demand. Low-tech, basic changes to house building and design are growing in popularity, as well. Simple changes such as an increase in insulation (an increase of 45 percent from last year) and water heaters that don?t use a tank so they don?t lose any heat during storage have become common. Requests for double-pane windows are up as well as appliances that qualify as energy efficient.
The AIA survey showed that people are also willing to put their money where their mouth is. Results showed that the average home builder would be willing to pony up an additional $5,000 dollars to help make their home more energy efficient.
Some jurisdictions give discounts or tax credits to home builders that meet energy conservation guidelines, so that can act as encouragement to incorporate these bits and pieces into a new home.
With heating oil and natural gas prices still at or near record highs, the trend of building more energy efficient homes looks to be here to stay. People are finally beginning to realize a few more dollars up front can save you thousands over the next few decades when it comes to energy conservation.
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