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Tips to Save Energy Today

This is government site is an excellent source of energy saving tips:  QUICK LINK.  You can use this for all kinds of fast, easy, low-cost energy savings for your home.

Winter Tip for Selling Your Home

If you have your home on the market for sale, here are a few tips to help you attract a buyer:

1. Shovel the front porch, sidewalk and driveway when it snows.  Most people use the garage entry to their home and they forget about the front entry.  By keeping the walkway clear, potential buyers will be paying attention to your beautiful facade and won't have to be worried about snow and ice.  If you have already relocated and are far away from the house, hire a neighbor or a friend to keep the walkways clear (and pick up newspapers!).
2. Have an area inside the front door where buyers can remove their shoes, maybe even have a pair sitting there.  This will keep snow and dirt from being tracked in, and, it will show the buyer that you take care of your flooring by removing your shoes.
3. If you have space heaters in the house, remove them from sight.  They will say to the buyer, "This house is drafty and the heating bills are high."
4. If you have a deck or a patio, remove snow and ice from them so the buyer can experience the "nice weather" space.
5. And, it's always a good idea to have a "comfort" smell in the air.  Winter brings memories of warm bread baking, coming home to mom's chocolate chip cookies, and hot chocolate. 

To Auction or Not To Auction

Q.  My cousin decided to use an auctioneer to sell their home.  They were somewhat successful.  How do I know if this would be a good idea for my family when we sell our home?  I heard I will save money by paying no commission.

A.  The first thing you need to do is find out what the fees of the auction house are.  Auctioneers work off of commission just like real estate companies.  In many cases, the commission fee is much higher than what a real estate broker would charge you.  It would be a good idea to interview a couple of auction houses and and couple of realtors, compare the fees, decide what services are important to you, then make a decision of who to use.  Another thing to take into consideration is that selling a home is an emotional thing - the process of auction bidding can be painful for home owners, especially ones who have been in their home for a length of time.

The Law of Attraction - Home Edition

I was in my backyard gardening this past July when our neighbor, Rosemary, called me over to the fence.  "Anita, I want you to move closer to my grand kids.  Can you help me sell my house?"  I said Ithought I could and we scheduled a time to get together.  A few days later we were sitting at her dining room table going over the paperwork and I was explaining the timeframe that our contract together would be, which was 3 months.

She looked at me and said, "Anita, you won't need that long.  You're going to sell this house in 3 days.  And, it is going to close on July 31st."  Mind you that by now it was already July 7th.

I could tell that she was intently serious.  "Yes, that is possible," I agreed with her, liking her postive mind-set.

Well, we didn't sell the home in 3 days, we sold it in 4 days, AND it closed on July 31st!

I got to thinking about what was different with Rosemary, and other clients whose homes sell quickly, and some of our clients whose homes don't sell quickly.  There was a common denominator:  the ones whose homes sold fast had positive, intentional, specific thoughts about the successful sale of their home.  They did not even entertain thoughts, regardless of what the media, friends and family told them about the real estate market.  In fact, they happily did repairs and updates to their homes to prepare them for sale, knowing the work would help in attracting the buyer.

Since then we have been sharing Rosemary's story with other clients.  What I've found is if the client is open to this thought process (or even if they are not!) they get exactly what they think about.

Similar to Rosemary's experience, a young couple, Mike and Melissa, were relocating to California - he had to be there for work on August 20, and she was going to follow within a week.  Per my request, they worked on keeping the Law of Attraction in their thoughts, visioning who the new buyers were and that they were already on their way to their home and would appear in the next week.  The home went on the market August 2nd, the new buyer appeared the next week, they closed on August 24th.

Simply put, it works.  More to come on this fun process!

GREAT idea tO plug thOse hOles!

So you like to hang a lot of "stuff" on your walls, which means lots of holes to patch either when you put the home on the  market to sell, or when you re-arrange the "stuff" on the walls.  Here is an easy remedy for patching those little holes:

1. Get a small tub of sheetrock mud
2. Scoop some out and place it in a small container
3. Add some of the same color paint as the wall
4. Use a small puddy knife to apply to the hole
5. Smooth and let dry
6. Wa-laa!  No applying, sanding, painting!