Tag: real estate tips. lake homes

Do I Smell a Sale?

Posted on Staff

Article co-written by Dezirae McGee and intern E’vondrua Harvey

plate of herbs used for making your home smell inviting

As a recent study confirms, 80% of people decide whether they want to buy a home within seconds of stepping into it.

However, this isn’t always for aesthetic reasons, as many other factors can affect a buyer’s initial impression of a property.

One of those factors is how the home smells.

Believe it or not, scent can draw the line between making a sale and having potential buyers running in the other direction.

Why are good scents important?

Prospective buyers tend to perceive a place as displeasing or of less valuable if it does not look and smell fresh.

Just as you wouldn’t go into an interview for your dream job without showering that morning, you want your house to look and smell its freshest.

Essentially a listing walk-through is an interview between the house and its prospective buyers. If a home has an unpleasant smell, the agent may know immediately if it’s going to make the home harder to sell.

According to The Ultimate Guide to Using Ambient Scent to Sell Real Estate, humans can detect at least one trillion different scents.

We react positively to smells we find familiar, which means as buyers we take more stock in properties we identify with.

For example, if a couple walks into a prospective home and smells fresh pine, it may remind them of a peaceful hike through the forest, thus allowing them to perceive the space as peaceful.

Or the scent could trigger memories of Christmas trees, leading them to imagine what it’d be like to have Christmas there.

Making the home smell its best

To ensure a home smells its best, it’s important to explore the home for items that could cause foul odors. You can start by following these simple steps:

  1. Clean. Do not simply surface clean. You will need to replace air filters, check air vents, remove any traces of mold in sinks and tubs, and clean current appliances. Then you can maintain surface cleaning.
  2. Trash Removal. Remove any trash from the home. This includes bathroom trash, junk mail, old boxes, etc.
  3. Floors. Have the carpets and floors professionally cleaned. Depending on the condition of the carpet, it may be best to have it replaced.
  4. Pets & Smoke. Make sure that any traces of pets, such as hair, toys, and litter boxes, are contained or taken out of the house. Also, remove any ashtrays and replace linens that may have been tainted by cigarette smoke.

Be sure to give special attention to areas that can generate the most odor, such as bathrooms and kitchens.

What scents, and where?

After the home has been properly cleaned, the next step is to choose a fragrance to fill the space when potential buyers visit.

U.S. News and World Report recommends using simple scents such as vanilla, herbs, green tea or citrus. Other suitable scents include aloe vera, ivy, and lavender.

Even though the choice of scent is important, how you choose to disperse the scent is just as important.

It is best to use discrete methods to do this. Examples include potpourri, oil plugins, linen, reed diffusers or fresh plants.

Regardless of which smells you choose, remember masking bad scents isn’t going to fool anyone. Find the source of the odor, treat it, and then proceed with making the home smell to sell.

Sensory smells can make a person picture themselves living, working and most important, breathing in the home. Be sure the scents you choose can paint the picture you want it to.

Short on Existing-Home Options? 4 Reasons to Buy New

Posted on Nerdwallet (LHR Content Provider)

Buying a home in some markets is like being in a gladiator ring. Multiple rounds of showings and getting into — and losing — bidding wars can leave you feeling defeated.

If you’re growing weary of wading through an increasingly shrinking inventory of resales, there’s another possibility worth considering: buying new construction.

Although the pace of new construction has lagged demand in recent years, total housing starts are projected to increase by 6.1 percent in 2016 compared with 2015, says Stephen Melman, director of economic services for the National Association of Home Builders.

home under construction

Much of that gain is likely to come from the single-family sector, which is expected to grow 11.3 percent. Also, new single-family home sales are forecast to rise 13.6 percent this year to 571,000, Melman says.

Tired of sitting on the sidelines when it comes to buying a home? Here are four smart reasons to invest in new construction:

1. You get to customize your home

Not all of us are blessed with an interior designer’s touch.

With a new home, you pick from expert-selected features, floor plan, housing lot, community and more, so you don’t have to agonize over an extensive remodel to get the house of your dreams.

Margaret Garry and her husband, Stephen Hawkins, recently built a new home on Austin’s bustling east side.

They decided the upfront investment made more sense than spending excess time and money to constantly fix an older home, Garry says. To stay within budget, though, they avoided unnecessary upgrades that would have added thousands to their final price tag.

“When we tried to determine what options to include in our house, we started off by listing everything we wanted, and we came in about $20,000 over budget,” Garry says.

To save money, they ultimately pared down extras that they didn’t need, such as an optional living room fireplace and a utility sink in the laundry room.

2. You might get builder incentives

Believe it or not, there’s a bit of flexibility in the negotiation process with a builder.

Although some things won’t change, such as lot premiums or the price of adding certain designer upgrades, builders will sweeten the deal with money-saving incentives to close a sale, Melman says.

For instance, some builders offer to pay closing costs or loan fees, absorb financing points, or provide options or upgrades for free or reduced cost, he says.

If you don’t see incentives advertised, ask about them. Don’t assume that they’re not available.

3. You likely will get a builder warranty

Most new homes typically come with a builder warranty to cover common post-construction issues that the builder is responsible for correcting, so you don’t have to pay out of your pocket for those fixes, says Craig LeMessurier, senior director of corporate communications at KB Home, one of the nation’s largest homebuilders.

“Resales don’t come with a warranty,” says LeMessurier, whose company offers a 10-year building warranty on new homes.

When you talk to sales associates at new-home communities, ask what that builder’s warranty does and doesn’t cover so there are no surprises later, LeMessurier says.

4. You can finance through the builder — or any lender you choose

Some builders provide a one-stop shop for you to build and finance through them directly or via a preferred lender.

For instance, Garry and her husband chose the latter route because the affiliated lender offered them significant closing-cost assistance that other lenders couldn’t match.

A few things to keep in mind about new-construction financing: Some lenders offering new-home loans might also require higher down payments, an excellent credit score and consistent payment history.

Additionally, if you get outside financing, your lender will check your builder’s credit and background to assess its level of risk in case the builder bails on the contract.

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Deborah Kearns is a staff writer at NerdWallet, a personal finance website. Email:mailto:dkearns@nerdwallet.com?trk=nw-wire_553_249938_24742. Twitter: @debbie_kearns.

This article was written by NerdWallet and was originally published by Redfin.

NerdWallet is a Lake Homes Realty / LakeHomes.com content partner providing real estate news and commentary. Its content is produced independently of Lake Homes Realty and LakeHomes.com.