Top 10 Tips For Selling Your Home in Winter

Selling your home is challenging enough without all the added dreariness of winter. If you're living in an area that even resembles Omaha at this time, you know why winter is not the ideal time to put your house on the market. However, there are steps you can take to brighten your home and make the showing pleasant and enjoyable for buyers. I read this great article on About.com with tips to selling your house in winter, their top 10 tips are:

1. Clear a path - Make sure your walkways are constantly clear and clean from snow. Footprints on fresh snow will turn into ice, so make sure to scrape the walk. It's important to have a path from the street to your house as well so visitors don't have to crawl over a snow mound. It it's snowing or raining, make sure to put out a mat by the front door or a vase to hold wet umbrellas.
2. Let in the light - Open the blinds, shutters and drapes in every window (unless there is an undesirable scene outside, such as a close building or dilapidated fence). Use the lighting in your house, especially in darker rooms with few windows. Turn off the TV!
3. Turn on the heat - Pump up the thermostat. It's better to heat the house a degree or two warmer than usual and then set the temperature at normal. This prevents the heat from kicking on when the buyer is present, because some HVAC systems can be loud. If the temperature is comfortable, people will be likely to linger longer, and if you have a fireplace use it! It will add warmth to the house.
4. Create a mood - One of best things about winter is cuddling up inside under a warm blanket with your loved ones, so take advantage of that emotion people will be feeling at this time. Make your living room romantic with two champagne glasses near a champagne bucket on the coffee table. Toss afghans over the sofa or chair arm. Turn your bathroom into a spa. Set up vases with winter flowers, or try dressing your dining room table for a dinner for two.
5. Turn on the music - Something soothing to set the mood for those walking through your house. Jazz or classical are good choices.
6. Ease up on the scents - Many people are irritated or sensitive to certain scents and candles, so avoid perfuming the house up too much. Try baking winter cookies or sweets instead, but make sure you leave some out for your guests! Don't tease them with the smell and disappoint them when there is nothing.
7. Make it visually pleasing - Staging is important no matter what time of the year you're selling so make sure to follow the basic rules. Two important rules are to declutter the house and clean it up! Dust, wash, wax, vacuum, sweep, mop, polish - anything you notice, buyers definitely will.
8. Serve winter foods - Try setting out some hot soup, chili or stew, and make sure you leave a place for the disposal of paper bowls and plastic spoons. Hot apple cider or cocoa make great beverages, too. Whatever you serve, keep it clean and try to make it complex - you want buyers to stay for a while and eat while they notice elements they might have otherwise missed.
9. Provide specific information - Attach a printed card to items and in rooms that provide further information the buyer might miss or might not know. If your stairs are steep, place a card on the railing letting them know. Have an antique chandelier? Set out a card with its age and other important details.
10. User timers and technology to your advantage - Have outdoor lamps on motion sensor for when when a buyer approaches, and put indoor lamps or a crock pot on a timer so they will be ready when the buyer arrives.

** Check out the original article: Selling in Winter - Top 10 Tips to Home Selling in Winter

Cheapest Decorating Tip with Biggest Impact

Paint is the best way to decorate on a budget. Let's continue painting, but move to the walls. But let's go a step beyond just painting the walls. Let's paint wall designs!

My husband and I just completed painting our basement family room. It had a been a dark green flat paint, and it made the basement feel like a dungeon. We chose a lighter eggshell paint and wow! What a difference. But I decided to take it a step further and paint some designs. I will post pictures in an upcoming post. But for now, let's take a look at some of the possibilities.

Tools needed: A level, tape measure, pencil and blue painter's tape... and a calculator if you're not very good with math. The rest is up to your imagination. Take a look at some of these colorful ideas.

Happy Painting!

Staying Warm Outside in the Fall Weather

It's getting cool here in Nebraska with night time lows dipping into the 30's.  It's great weather for doing just about anything....especially lighting your fireplace or sleeping with the windows open while snuggling under a stack of comforters.  That's the best!  But just because the weather is getting cooler doesn't mean you can't spend evenings outside.  You can still be warm and toasty.  

Fire bowls and chimineas are the way to go to stay warm in the brisk fall weather when you're working with a limited budget. There is quite a range of selections and prices for these options.  One could spend fifty dollars to several hundred dollars and stay well within your budget.  The selections are endless.  

Different finishes and designs are available.  You are only limited by your imagination.  You can find various fire bowls on line as well as local hardware stores, garden shops, and department stores.Fire bowls are the way to go to stay warm in the brisk fall weather when you're working with a limited budget. There is quite a range of selections and prices for these options.  One could spend fifty dollars to several hundred dollars and stay well within your budget.  The selections are endless.  Different finishes and designs are available as well.  You are only limited by your imagination.  You can find various fire bowls or chimineas on line as well as local hardware stores, garden shops, and department stores.

Available at 1.AmazingFirePits.com

So get out and enjoy this weather!  Bring out the hot dogs and marshmallows and gather around YOUR fire!  Happy fall, ya'll!

Getting Your Doorway Ready for Fall, Ya'll!

September.....It's already September!  Can you believe it?  School is back in session......no more kids playing out in the street late at night.  Each one is tucked in their beds preparing their sweet selves for the next school day.  The newspapers and television stations are all reporting on college football and touting how their team is the best. (Go Vols & Huskers....in that order!) The farmers will soon be harvesting their crops.  Pumpkins and mums will start showing up at the nurseries.  The morning air is cool and crisp.  Yes, autumn is in the air.  And with the arrival of autumn comes a wonderful opportunity to dress up your entry to your home.  It's another way of saying, "Welcome!"

You say, "Oh, it's so much work.  It takes so much time!".  Think about it this way.  If you start now to decorate your door for the fall, you won't have to take it down until after Thanksgiving!  Now, for some of you, that is good news!

 I can hardly wait for the seasons to change so that I can put out my next season's display.  Let me take a moment and give you some ideas to get you started on preparing a warm autumn entry to your home.

1.  Purchase or make an autumn wreath for your front door.  If you have a Hobby Lobby where you live, it's a great place to shop for a wreath.  Always keep proper perspective in mind.  A wreath too small doesn't say anything at all!  Size does matter, and in this case a larger wreath is always better than something that gets lost because it's too small.

 2.  Depending on where you live, corn stalks are becoming readily available at area nurseries & farms. (This was definitely a problem when we lived in Phoenix!)  In the mid-west you will find plenty.  Bind them together with some good, strong twine and secure them to a front post or doorway.  Add some Indian Corn tied to the middle of the corn stalks with husks still in tact. This will last all through the fall.

3.  Various colors of mums are popping up everywhere!  Even at WalMart!  Buy odd numbers of containers of various colors of mums and arrange them in groupings of odd numbers on either side of your front door.  I found small bales of hay at Hobby Lobby for $9.99 - 50% off.  I'm going to use them to arrange the mums in varied heights.  (I'll post pictures later.)

4. Pumpkins and gourds are also becoming plentiful.  Be careful.  If you set your pumpkins out too soon and the weather is still hot, you'll end up with rotten pumpkins by your front door!  I found that out the hard way when we lived in Phoenix.  That's not welcoming.  I don't usually carve mine until later because they seem to last longer that way.  Here's a little tip:  After you do clean out your pumpkin, use a cordless drill to drill out tiny holes all around the pumpkin.  Then put in a string of white Christmas lights and pop a light through each of the tiny holes.  Make sure you drill out a big enough hole in the bottom of the pumpkin so that the plug can come out without being seen.  Replace the lid to the pumpkin, plug in the lights and "Voila!"  You've got a beautifully lit pumpkin to give a warm glow to your autumn arrangement. Also, if you put a little piece of wood or cardboard underneath your pumpkin, instead of on the cement, it won’t rot as quickly.

 5.  Try collecting some branches and use them in your flower pots this autumn.  I use them in my flower pots all year 'round WITH my flowers to give my pots some height.  Search around your yard for what is free - your plants!  Cut them & use them.

 6.  Do you have a wagon or a small cart?  Fill it with pumpkins, mums, gourds, corn......just about anything fall!  Here's a helpful hint:  Fill the bottom of your container with large pieces of cardboard or styrofoam to help fill up the bottom so that you don't need so many pumpkins. Look for old apple boxes or baskets to use as well.

7.  Ever thought of building a pumpkin tower in your planters?  If you do try this, make sure to use a dowel rod the height of the tower plus several inches and drive the dowel through the pumpkins and down into the dirt to secure the pumpkins.  More than one dowel is recommended.

8.  Find an autumn welcome mat for your front door. Many department stores and craft stores carry a wide variety of autumn door mats.







9.  Love this idea!  Find a mirror of the appropriate size, attach an autumn spray of sorts to the top of the mirror and hang that on your front door.  Shop at Goodwill and other thrift stores.  They are FULL of mirrors you could use.  I saw the perfect one this week and hesitated for one minute and someone else grabbed it!  I hate it when that happens!

10.  Hey!  Live on the edge!  Be a little crazy!  Use more than one wreath on your front door!

11.  Love this idea.  Use two empty (duh!!) coffee cans.  Soak and peel off any labels on the coffee can.  Hot glue some seasonal ribbon around the can and then fill the cans with autumn flowers & leaves.  Hot glue ribbons from the tops of the cans and suspend them from your door handle. It would be best if you drill small holes at the top of each can to thread the ribbon through and knot off.  Tip:  This is a great idea if you aren't able to attach a wreath to your door because of your storm door smashing the wreath.  You can suspend the cans from your storm door handle.  HOWEVER....there are ways to hang wreaths from a glass storm door.  I often use an extra large suction cup with hanger.  Works great!  Also, there are door magnets that attach to each other through the glass (one on either side of the glass door) that have hooks on them that will hold a wreath, provided it's not too heavy.  Too often those "over the door hangers" most people use don't position your wreath in the best place.  Most are too high.  Try one of the previous ideas mentioned instead.

OK.  There you go!  Start decorating!  And send me pictures of your finished product and I might post them on my blog.  Jen@HuskerDreamHomes.com

Deferred Maintenance

According to Wikipedia, DEFERRED MAINTENANCE is the practice of postponing maintenance activities such as repairs on both real property (i.e. infrastructure) and personal property (i.e. machinery) in order to save costs, meet budget funding levels, or realign available budget monies. The failure to perform needed repairs could lead to asset deterioration and ultimately asset impairment. Generally, a policy of continued deferred maintenance may result in higher costs, asset failure, and in some cases, health and safety implications.

As a Realtor, I see this all the time with properties that I'm getting ready to list. It's those list of things that "you've been meaning to get to, but never did." There are several problems with deferred maintenance.

First of all, deferred maintenance can end up costing you more money. Example, You've been "meaning to" clean the leaves out of the gutter. But each time it rains, and we've had a lot of rain lately, you watch from you window as the water spills over the gutters because the gutters are clogged with leaves. What seems like an innocent thing that you'll eventually get around to ends up being more expensive than you had expected. Now the eaves of your house are suffering from dry rot because of the water over flowing on to the eaves. Over time, that causes the wood to rot and become unstable. Not only it is unsightly, it's not safe. So instead of simply cleaning out your gutters, now you have to replace sections of your eaves.

Secondly, by deferring maintenance of your property, you don't get to enjoy the benefits of the repair. I've listed so many "I've been meaning to do that" homes where, for example, your kitchen vinyl floor is ripped and outdated. "Let's put in a beautiful new tile floor", you say. It looks outstanding! "Why didn't we do this before?" I hear it all the time. You don't get much of a chance to enjoy it. You say it wasn't in the budget? Well in order to sell your house, it has to be in the budget now.

Thirdly, if you go into a contract on your house to sell, 9 times out of 10, the Buyer will hire a professional home inspector to inspect your property - from the attic to the basement - everything from electrical, plumbing, structural, roof, etc. (not cosmetic). Now the Buyer is requesting a long list of repairs to be made and they want you to hire a licensed plumber or a licensed electrician to make some of those repairs. Cha-ching! $$$$$ That gets very expensive. Why not take care of them before this happens. Maybe you will have to hire a plumber, etc. or maybe you could have fixed them yourself if you're a handy person. Also, by having a long list of repairs, the Buyers start to become uncomfortable with the idea of buying your home because it would appear you haven't taken care of it.

Don't put off for tomorrow what can be done today. Something as easy as cleaning out the bathroom fan can cause your fan to run more efficiently and keep the fan from burning out....not to mention it looks so much better and more sanitary! Start making your list today. Walk your property and write down the things that "you've been meaning to get to" and get started. Check them off one by one. Not only will YOU feel better, but when it's time to sell your house, you'll be ready!

7 Gardening Mistakes to Avoid

Whether you're improving curb appeal to sell your house; you're planting a garden in your new home, or you're just an avid gardener, HouseLogic.com published a list of 7 Common Gardening Mistaking to Avoid that are vital for any garden lover to read. Evade wasting your time and money by paying special attention to these factors:

Mistake 1 - Too many changes, too soon
The excitement of buying a new home, plus a stretch of warm spring weather, often creates a passion for yard work. But don’t just do something, stand there!
- Try this instead: Live with your land for a year. Observe sunlight, pH of the soil, grass activity, etc. to get a better idea of what type of land you'll be dealing with.

Mistake 2 - Too much togetherness
Trees and shrubs that look properly spaced when you plant will crowd each other and compete for water, sun, and nutrients a few years down the road.
- Try this instead: Before digging, read spacing instructions. Give trees plenty of space and stagger bushes/plants in two rows. This may look sparse, but in a few years the shrubbery will fill out.

Mistake 3 - Planting without a plan
Planting new garden beds without a long-term landscape plan is like pouring a house foundation without blueprints. Your haste results in a waste of time, money, and muscles.
- Try this instead: Draw a sketch of your yard - what's there now and what you might add later, such as a patio, shed or pool. Go online and look around landscaping sites that help you pick plants and design beds.

Mistake 4 - Neglecting the root of it all
Even the hardiest plants need a little help putting down roots in new locations. Sprinkling the foliage doesn’t nourish the roots, the plant’s nerve center. You must deliver water to the root ball below the ground, or your plants will be stunted and short-lived.
- Try this instead: Place the hose at the base of new plants and let the water trickle out for 20 to 30 minutes, twice a week (more in heat), for 4 to 12 weeks. Or snake a soaker hose through your beds, which will slowly deliver water to the roots.

Mistake 5 - Forgetting the sun
Too many gardeners pick plants based only on looks, not the growing conditions plants require and the conditions that exist.
- Try this instead: Observe the spot where you'll plant and estimate the amount of daily sun during the season. To translate that into growing language: full sun is 6 hours a day or more, partial sun/shade is 3 to 5 hours and full shade is less than three hours.

Mistake 6 - Over-watering
An automatic irrigation system is a luxury, and auto-watering can bring disease, root rot, and a premature death to plants; it also wastes water. Many gardeners set watering timers for 15 to 20 minutes each morning, which wets the surface but doesn’t soak deeply enough to nourish.
- Try this instead: Water for 40-60 minutes only two to three times a week. A deeper soak helps lawns develop deeper roots.

Mistake 7 - Budget blunders
Unfortunately, many home owners don’t include landscaping in their construction budget. They end up with a beautiful new family room, screened porch, or solarium, and a few lonely azaleas planted around the foundation as an afterthought.
- Try this instead: Allocate 10% to 20% of your construction budget to the landscape.


Make sure to check out HouseLogic.com! A great resource to "help you increase and protect the value of your home by helping you make confident decisions."

What Does A Red Door Really Mean?

I've always wanted a red door on my house.  In our previous home in Phoenix, the homeowners association didn't allow me to paint my door red.  But now that I am back in Omaha, that no longer applies.

So, exactly what does it mean to have a red door? I decided to research it and here is what I found.

BEFORE

First it is a big feng shui thing, although I don't know much about feng shui. In early America, a red door was a sign of "welcome." When people had to travel by horse and buggy, they had to stop often. If they came upon a house with a red door, that usually meant they would be able to spend the night. There is even rumor that a red front door was used in the underground railroad as a sign for the slaves traveling north that that house was a safe house.

AFTER

In old Catholicism the door of a church was painted red to represent the blood of Christ and other Martyrs and once you passed thru the doors, the ground (church floor) was holy ground. I read that in Scotland when you paid off your mortgage you painted your door red. Unfortunately, that's not true in my case.

Most interesting red door story: Albert Einstein started this tradition because he could not recognize his own home. So he painted his door red. Then his home stood out and he could find his home. Guess he wasn't that smart.

Considering selling your home? If it goes with your colors, consider painting your front door red. Your house will stand out from all the other houses on your street and with your Buyers. "Oh, I really liked the one with the RED door!" See what I mean?

Staging Your Home to Sell in a Competitive Market

The phrase, "Staging Your Home" has become a hot phrase in the real estate market. In this ever increasingly competitive market - whether it be Omaha or anywhere in the nation - staging has almost become a necessary step in getting your home ready to sell.

What do I mean by staging? Staging is a process where someone with an eye for interior design comes into your home, either brings in items to your home to enhance your home or uses items you already have in a different way. Often I will walk into a home and the first thing I will do is to start rearranging the furniture to give that particular room an illusion of warmth and roominess. Taking items from other rooms in the house, they will be brought to the room you're focusing on and be re-purposed in a way perhaps you'd never thought of and yet it will give that room the "pop" it needs to look put together.

Why staging? Often when a buyer is looking for their next home, their real estate agent will show them sometimes ten homes in one day. You want your home to be the one they remember, because trust me, after looking at 10 homes, you start to get them all confused. You want them to think, "I liked that house that......had the amazing living room....or the cozy kitchen with all that counter space...or....you fill in the blank. It works! It really does!

Lastly, the idea is to spend as little money as possible to stage a home. Often, as a real estate agent, I will shop for my sellers at Goodwill....yes, Goodwill... to find items for their home for the purpose of staging. Another GREAT place to shop is Habitat for Humanity's ReStore. It is filled with everything from doors to windows to appliances to lamps to lighting to......use your imagination......and at a fraction of the cost. Example: I just had a seller completely replace their worn out vinyl flooring in the kitchen for beautiful new tile floors purchased at the ReStore. I've also been shopping for a light fixture for the dining room of another home I'll be listing. I found one for $20 at the Restore. All I need to do is to spray paint it brushed nickel and add some small lamp shades and we have a dining room light for a fraction of the cost.

Landmark Group is sponsoring Landmark Group's Race 2 Re:Cycle to benefit Habitat for Humanity. (Check out the website and sign up to be a part of this awesome event at www.omaharace2recycle.com ). Shopping at the ReStore is another way to benefit Habitat for Humanity while fulfilling a need you might have for your own home....whether it is for your own home improvement or for getting your home ready to sell.

Staging is a service we can offer you, as a seller, if you list your home with Landmark Group. We have proven results. So consider staging AND the Landmark Group when you get ready to sell your home.

"You only get one chance to make a good first impression."

Jennifer Murdoch
Realtor
Landmark Group