Playing It Safe When Your Los Angeles Home Is On The Market
May 19, 2010
It’s important to play it safe when your Los Angeles home is on the market.
You will have all manner of people- real estate agents, potential buyers and looky-loos- trooping through your house during open houses and showings. While I like to assume the best about people, I also think its important to play it safe.
Here’s 5 tips for safety while your home is on the market:
- Lock up or hide all prescription medications. They are usually expensive, easy to sell on the street and are a prime target for thieves.
- Lock up or hide personal papers or bills. Don’t leave your social security number or account numbers in plain sight for identity thieves. Its no one’s business how much you owe or how much money you have in your checking account.
- Lock up or hide jewelry, cash or collectibles. That signed baseball, silver Tiffany dinner bell, or diamond tennis bracelet are very enticing to someone with sticky fingers.
- Don’t leave extra keys in plain sight. Its an open invitation to a thief to come back later and help themselves when no one is around.
- Lock up or hide any firearms or weapons you may own. Hiding them in a drawer next to the bed or in your sock drawer is not good enough. Lock them in a safe or remove them from the house.
Yes, your listing agent will take every precaution to make sure your home and possessions are safe and secure, but they can’t be everywhere at once. Often theft teams will use one person to engage the real estate agent, while other members of the team case the house.
Follow these tips and play it safe when your Los Angeles home is on the market.
Los Angeles Home Staging Works |A $225K Condo & $7M Luxury Home
May 18, 2010
I’m here to tell you, home staging works no matter your price point!
Here’s 2 homes we staged in the past 2 months:
Listed at $225,000, this Pasadena Affordable Housing condo (64 Mar Vista #115) sat on the market for almost 3 years before staging. We staged it in March and it’s now about to close escrow, 60 days later! We’ve destaged this unit and staged another to help with a faster sale on that one too.
Pasadena home staging works for a faster sale!
We staged this Beverly Hills luxury home, listed for $6.9 M in April. They received an offer after the first week on the market! I’m going to repeat myself: $6.9 M with an offer in the first week.
Beverly Hills Luxury Home Staging works for a faster sale
The Pasadena condo was vacant and unoccupied. The Beverly Hills luxury home was occupied – the home owner was living in the home after we staged it . It doesn’t matter. If you are thinking of putting your Los Angeles, Pasadena, Arcadia or San Marino home on the market, and you want it to sell quickly, hire a professional home stager. Home staging works for a faster sale, no matter your price point!
Important Facts To Help Sell Your Los Angeles Home
May 17, 2010
Here’s some important facts to help sell your Los Angeles home.
This weekend I went to a real estate conference (RainCamp) at Loyola Marymount University and I learned the following:
- 87% home buyers are using Internet to search for homes
- 94% of 24-44 year olds are using Internet in their home buying process
- 37% of home buyers found their home on the Internet
How can you use these home buying statistics to help sell your home in Los Angeles?
- List your home with an internet and social media savvy real estate agent.
- Have your home professionally staged so it looks great in person and in on-line photos. Professional staging allows you to make your best first impression on the internet.
- Have your home professionally photographed after its staged. Some listing agents include professional photography as part of their marketing because they recognize the difference it makes. Point & shoot photos from a snappy pix camera won’t create a compelling desire to see your home
- Make sure your listing agent posts 10-20 photos of your home on the MLS (each MLS limits the number of photos allowed, so number of photos may be different)
A Great Remodeling Resource For Home Stagers, Real Estate Agents & Flippers
May 12, 2010
If you are a home stager, real estate agent, remodeler or flipper, and you don’t know about Van Dyke’s Restorers you should.
Its available as a print catalog or an online catalog here.
Why is this such a valuable resource for Los Angeles home stagers, real estate agents and remodelers? They have pretty much everything you could possibly need to handle missing parts and pieces for a vintage or older home.
Home stagers and listing agents are often asked to repair or replace missing cabinet and drawer pulls, switch plates or light fixtures from the older homes they stage or list.
Here’s just a small sampling of what they offer.
Their prices are very reasonable. Check VanDyke’s Restorers for your home staging, remodeling, real estate restoration or flipping needs.
Occupied Home Staging A Luxury Los Angeles Living Room
April 12, 2010
I wanted to demonstrate, with before and after pictures, how a Los Angeles living room of an occupied home in Hancock Park, is transformed by home staging.
In this particular instance, the home owners were art collectors and had very eclectic taste in furnishings. This was great for the way they live in the home, but not so great when selling the home. There was too much art and furniture and it overwhelmed the beautiful architectural details of the home.
We removed and replaced the sofa, chairs, cocktail table and side tables. We moved the piano from the back room into the living room where there was plenty of space. Some of the art was either repurposed or put into storage.
Now here’s the after picture:
A Persian rug was brought in to tie the room together and to make a connection with the red walls of the dining room (off camera) right across the entry hall from the living room. Red and orange silk throw pillows coordinate nicely with the rug and the yellow walls. The furniture is less of an eclectic mish-mash, and while elegant, it is very fresh and current. The furniture layout invites you into the room, and draws attention to one of the main architectural features of the home, the fireplace. The mantle accessories were minimized, as were the fireplace tools.
Some tips for staging a living room:
- Less is more, if your furniture is filling the room. Start by removing all furniture and art from the room and adding back pieces one by one until you have just enough, but not too much
- Look at your living room with fresh eyes. Try a new furniture arrangement that accentuates architectural features, like the fireplace, and creates a focal point for the room.
- Try using one larger piece of art instead of several smaller ones on each wall
- Mirrors are a great staging tool, which hung in the right place, can bring more light into a room or a dark corner. Make sure the mirror has a pleasing reflection, and not the back side of a piece of furniture or a blank wall.
- Flowers and plants (either fresh or realistic silk) can add a splash of color and a touch of life to a room. Don’t let fresh flowers wilt (no flowers is better than dead flowers) or let the water get brackish. Make sure silk plants are dusted regularly.
“Sold On Staging” Article in Pasadena Star News
March 27, 2010
The Pasadena Star News published a featured article today (3/27) in the Home & Garden section about the importance of hiring a professional homes stager.
Michelle Mills, the reporter I spoke to writes:
Minch understands how real estate marketing works and how home shoppers think. With that in mind, she counsels her home-selling clients to identify changes that can make a house more appealing to a home buyer, and how to get those changes done in a cost effective manner.
Click here for a PDF to learn more about hiring an expert home stager to market a picture perfect home page one and page 2.
Prepping Your House For A Faster Sale
March 14, 2010
Here’s an article about preparing your house for sale. It was written by syndicated columnist Ellen James Martin and will appear in newspapers across the country. This Miami Herald article just popped up in my Google alerts:
If you live in the Los Angeles, Pasadena, San Marino or Arcadia area, you may need a Los Angeles home stager to help prepare your home for sale. Give us a call at (626)441-8975. We know what makes homes sell!
Eleven Expert Tips To Make Small Rooms Feel Larger
March 8, 2010
As a professional home stager in Pasadena and Los Angeles, one of my primary jobs is to make smaller homes feel larger, or at least, feel as large as they really are.
Here’s a list of my tips for making a small home feel larger. You can use these tips whether you are staging your home to sell or if you are planning to stay, but just need some help dealing with smaller rooms. These tips will work with either vacant or occupied homes:
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Pare down what you need to have in a smaller room to the essentials. Do you really need a chair in your bedroom, or can you sit on the bed to put your shoes on?
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Clutter makes a room feel smaller. Lots of smaller items, like your Hummel collection or your bowling trophies displayed on every horizontal surface, eat up visual space. Only display 3-5 items at a time. Store the rest and rotate them out of storage throughout the year. Not only will the room feel larger, but each item displayed will stand out more.
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Use fewer pieces of furniture. Its better to have one larger dresser than 2 smaller ones.
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Use appropriately sized furniture. Having a large sectional in a small family room will highlight how small the room is.
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Cooler colors recede, so painting a room a pale blue, green or gray will make it feel larger.
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Show more hardwood. The larger the expanse of hardwood, the larger the room will look. See how the room looks without an area rug.
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Try using one larger area rug instead of several smaller rugs.
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Use fewer patterns on upholstery and bedding. For instance, use a solid color blanket or bedspread on a bed in a small bedroom to make the room feel larger.
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Strategically placed mirrors make a room feel larger.
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A well lit room feels larger.
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Minimize window treatments. The simpler the better. Shutters, blinds or simple drapes (no flounces, ruffles, strong patterns or complicated valences) take up less “visual space”.
These home staging tips work if you are staging to sell or just want to make the home you are living in feel larger.
If you need some help figuring out how to make your home feel larger, consider hiring us for a home staging consultation. You’ll get some expert home staging and interior design tips from the Real Estate Staging Association 2010 Professional Stager of the Year. Prices start at $250 for a verbal consultation or $350 for a comprehensive written consultation. Its the best “bang for your buck” and it’s a great investment in preparing your home for sale, or making your home more livable if you are planning to stay.
A Real Estate Agent Gets Real About Home Staging
February 26, 2010
Here’s another animated video about home staging. In this video the real estate agent talks to her client about the necessity of hiring a professional home stager. The homeowner is a do-it-yourself home stager, and the results are, well, interesting.
©Copyright 2010 Michelle Minch & Moving Mountains Design. All rights reserved. Copyright includes video, script and contents. Be original, don’t copy!
Pasadena Based Home Staging Business Gets Results!
February 21, 2010
This article recently appeared in the Pasadena Star News, on February 9, 2010. Very exciting!
Just click on the article to be taken to a PDF of the article.
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