An article I read today that I just HAD to post!
Could this be yet another sign of housing market on the mend?
http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/blog/2013/04/navy-federal-feeds-the-bubble-with-no.html?page=all
So you want to sell your house, eh? Well apart from hiring yourself a knowledgeable Realtor who knows your market, it’s time to start thinking about ways to get that marketing edge!
One of the first things you need to do is clear out that clutter!! Show off the space in your home by boxing up the junk and minimizing furniture. With more open space, you have more room to assess any repairs to walls and baseboards, you can reach those dusty corners that you couldn’t before, and you have easier access for painting.
But where to put all that stuff?? Well, fortunately for us here in the Northern Virginia area we have several companies around offering rental storage units — many of which are only short distances away from our neighborhoods. We are also fortunate to have companies who bring the storage units to our front door. These front-door-service units are great because it saves you the hassle of having to haul all those things to a remote location. You can keep the unit at your door for a period of days, which means you can take your time loading in your items, and when it’s full, the company will pick it up and take it too their climate-controlled facilities. After you’ve moved into your new home, they’ll deliver your unit there for you, too! Talk about convenient!
So don’t sell yourself short by hiding the square footage in your home. Temporary storage is a great option and with several of these delivered-to-your-front-door units around, there’s practically no excuse for a cluttered house on the market. They might cost a bit more than regular storage units, but its well worth it in the long run. Do yourself a favor and get rid of that clutter!’
They seem to be everywhere in Northern Virginia!! And maybe it’s just me but are they more concentrated in the Loudoun County area??
The sound of their wings flapping around indoors makes me skiddish with fear!
So what ARE these nasty things? Thought you knew it all? Well, did you know…..
Stink bugs belong to scientific order Hemiptera, whose members ” known as ; ” genuine error ;.
These include between 50,000 to 80,000 species of assassin bugs, planthoppers, leafhoppers, cicadas, aphids,and shield bugs. These errors have two characteristics in common: the piercing and sucking mouth parts and wings which are membranous and clear at the tips, but hard on the base.
Here are some facts and information about errors, along with tips on how to successfully eliminate these invasive pests from a garden, inside and outside the home.
Stink bugs are within a super family of insects called Pentatomoidea within the order of Hemiptera.
These errors as well as a shield for their errors form a shield known. The brown colored stink bugs are the most commonly seen insects. I am an agricultural pest, they eat the vegetation and ruin the crops completely.
Facts about Stink Bugs
Stink bugs also have another species is called Brochymena arborea which are bugs that look like a form of tree bark and this a camouflage effect to protect the species from predators. This shield-shaped bombs feed primarily on a wide range of fruit and vegetables, but there are some guys that are also useful because they attack other insects and eat the larvae of beetles and larvae of pests are farmers,.
Adult bugs goes into hibernation during the winter seasons but during the springtime they come out of hibernation. To survive this error to the harsh winter sleep and are known to survive up to a year in warm climates.
Tips on How to Get Rid of Stink Bugs
Start the treatment process outside by using chemical repellants such as horticultural oil, cyfluthrin, permethrin, cypermethrin or tralomethrin to spray around entryways, windows, crawl spaces, cracks, and crevices around the house. But before you protect these repellents, gloves and breathing mask, the possibility of inhalation Repellent.
Use a vacuum to clean up these bugs instead of crushing them as they will release their foul odor.
Empty the contents and discard the vacuum bag as far away as possible from home as a waste container or container.
Close up any open cracks and crevices inside and outside the home using caulk seal.
This prevents to reach the error-shaped shields interior of the house.
Remove weeds and foliage near the home as this is where the bugs usually host.
Scatter kaolin near and around the house or spray a mixture of kaolin solution. These stinker bugs will be unable to reproduce and feed on any plants or crops.
Consult a professional pest control certificate to be able to determine the best ways to protect and secure your home from future attacks by these invasive Stinkers are.
Getting rid of stink bugs
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In this last installment of the three-part series to preventing your swimming pool from drowning out your potential buyers (click here to see Part 1 or Part 2), I’ll talk about ways you and your real estate agent can minimize the apprehension some buyers may have to buying your home with a swimming pool and ways to increase the foot traffic of potential buyers to your home.
Let’s start with minimizing a buyer’s apprehension about the swimming pool.
The first thing that comes to the mind of those who have never owned a pool before is the safety factor. It’s a serious matter, to be sure, and a very valid concern, so start with looking at ways to improve, highlight and emphasize the safety features of your swimming pool. The second thing that usually comes to mind about swimming-pool ownership are the operating expenses involved. Presenting an estimated cost for running your pool can help buyers get a better idea of what to expect. Who knows, they may be pleasantly surprised! Lastly, I hear a lot of non-pool owners imagine or assume that it takes a lot of hard work to maintain a swimming pool. Outlining the steps needed to keep the pool clear would be very helpful to potential buyers. So now you know the main concerns, here are some tips that you and your real estate agent can follow to help make your pool a feature rather than a fear:
Addressing swimming pool safety concerns:
Addressing swimming pool operating expense concerns:
Addressing swimming pool maintenance concerns:
Once you gather all the information that a buyer would ask about owning a swimming pool, work with your real estate agent to present the information in an appealing brochure (no need to get fancy if you don’t want to). Have your agent emphasize the positives to owning a pool, i.e., if you live in a a neighborhood with no community pool, having a mini-vacation at the end of the day in the comfort of your own home, and emphasizing family time together by the pool. With the proper marketing your swimming pool could end up being a showcase feature!
So what’s a good trick to gaining more traffic to your home with a swimming pool? Pictures, pictures and more pictures. Nothing is more inviting than seeing a crystal clear swimming pool on a hot, sunny day. And if all else fails and buyers are still fine that owning a swimming pool is for them, have your real estate agent note in the multiple-listing-service description that it IS possible to fill that pool. A lot of landscaping or land developers are ready to give away fill-dirt rather than having to pay dumping fees to get rid of it.
If you’ve read Part 1 yesterday, you want to know what you and your real estate agent can do to make your home more appealing to the group of potential buyers who may be intimidated by owning a house with a pool. This is the second installment of a three-part series on ways to keep your swimming pool from drowning out your potential buyers.
First, your real estate agent should have already gone through your home and pointed out ways to make it sparkle like a showcase model home. If not, read some of my older posts for ideas. Once that’s done, don’t forget the front-facing curb appeal and exterior landscaping.
Now, start beautifying that swimming pool!! (Hopefully, you followed your real estate agent’s advice a planned your home sale around Spring time. Read here to find out why.)
Now that you’ve made the swimming pool area feel welcoming and inviting, read part three tomorrow on what to do to minimize fears buyers may have on buying a home with a swimming pool, and ways your agent can get more foot traffic to your home.
(This is the second installment of a three-part series on how to keep your swimming pool from drowning out your potential buyers when selling your home. Read part 3 – tomorrow)
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If you own a pool and your home is on the market, chances are that you’ve already eliminated a good portion of potential buyers.
Why?
Well, not everyone sees owning a swimming pool as a good thing. First and foremost, it can be a liability. Without the proper safety measures in place, in addition to those required by your county, that pool can put one’s safety at risk. Such a liability also means more home owners insurance is needed (some insurance companies won’t even accept pools with diving boards!). And people who have never owned a swimming pool before may also see it as an high-maintenance expense: water, chemicals, heating, etc.
So what can you, as a home seller with an installed pool, do to keep from drowning out your potential buyers?
First, don’t worry. There is bound to be someone out there who has the same desire as you to own a pool — if there weren’t, there wouldn’t be companies that sell swimming pools! Secondly, with the help of your real estate agent, market the positives and minimize the negatives.
(This is the first installment of a three-part series on how to keep your swimming pool from drowning out your potential buyers when selling your home. Read part 2 – tomorrow)
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I know the rain is beneficial, but sometimes it’s gloominess is no fun and can damper the look of any home.
Plant some cheerful flowers in containers and place them near your front door, or in garden patches in the landscape of your yard. It will make your home look friendly and inviting — even on the most gloomiest of days!
You’ve got it all at your fingertips. Computers, smart phones, the iPads, and of course, the internet which is chock-full of resources on all sorts of topics. You’re surrounded by technology that brings an unimaginable amount of data in an instant.
So who needs a Realtor when you have sites like Zillow or Homes.com for all your research when you go to price your home to sell or when you go to buy your next home?
It’s true, there is a wealth of information out there — some good, some bad, but think about this one question:
Well, it’s probably safe to say that the average person isn’t buying or selling a house every month, let alone every year or every couple of years. That being said, it’s definitely not IMpossible to buy or sell a house without a Realtor, but why would you want to do such a thing? I mean we’re talking about transactions involving huge sums of money and in most jurisdictions, there are also a lot of legal aspects to consider.
Look at it this way: I play golf every so often. I love the game. Whenever I feel like it, I can go to the internet and find several articles that offer golf tips or advice — sometimes from pros who have worked with golf celebrities. All this information at the click of a few buttons, but would that prepare me for a tournament against the likes of Tiger Woods? I highly doubt it.
You see, just like everything we do in life, practice makes perfect. Repetition makes us better at what we do, and the same rule applies to buying and selling real estate. It’s highly likely that a good Realtor has bought or sold several houses in a year. They’re dealing with all aspects of real estate on a daily basis. They’re constantly keeping up-to-date with the ever-changing laws in the jurisdictions they serve. They’re forming long-lasting relationships with business entities that are part of real estate transactions. The bottom line is that their repetitious activities make them the experts when it comes to real estate.
There are plenty of sites that can be very informative and can provide a lot of insight when buying or selling a home, but please, please, please, leave the real work to the experts. Hire a Realtor!
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been around for a long, long time and it sounds like they’re about to get what some may think they deserve — the pink slip. But what’s to take their place? Are we asking the banks to take charge? That’s a very real possibility and I guess we’ll just have to wait to see how it all plays out.
http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/banking-financial-institutions/143445-administration-housing-plan-no-more-fannie-freddie?page=4
Happy 2011!!
It’s been a crazy year again, and I didn’t even get a chance to blog these past couple of years!
Hopefully, with me new wireless devices, it will be easier for me to post more often!
So, are there any 2011 real ester resolutions out there? Any home projects planned? If so, I hope my posts can provide insights and inspiration for you!
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