Please welcome guest contributor to TeamFisher.com, Rachel Vanderveen, a Calgary real estate blogger and home stager who is writing an eight-part series of home staging advice for our blog. This is part four in that series. Rachel’s previous home staging posts can be found here.

Cleaning and de-cluttering your home has probably left you a bit breathless, but this week I’m going to ask you to go a few steps further. As your home begins to take shape, and you’re starting to see surfaces you haven’t seen in years, I want to focus your attention on some of the small stuff.

I always tell my clients that you have five seconds to make an impression. Saskatoon home buyersusually know if they’re going to love your house or hate it within the first five seconds of viewing your home, so it would make sense that you spend a fair amount of time on curb appeal, and make sure that your exterior sets the stage for the Saskatoon real estate gem that you have hidden within.

So let’s talk curb appeal. If it’s winter, your walkways should be perfectly shoveled, salted, and absolutely clear of ice and debris, not just to make it easy for home buyers to access your front door, but also for the practicality of not wanting to have a lawsuit on your hands should someone slip and fall. If parking is such that people need to walk over a hump of snow in order to get to your driveway, shovel a pathway through the hump so they can walk without immersing their feet in a pile of snow.

If it’s summer your lawn should be cut, trim, whipper snippered, and utterly manicured to perfection. Maybe this is a personal preference, but I’ve always liked lawns that are mowed on a 45° angle. It shows that the homeowner takes pride in his or her home. Your garden should be completely weeded, and planted---if you’re the type that gardens---if you’re not, than your soil should be wet, turned, deep black, and fresh-looking. Try to avoid the soil that is flat and cracking and baking in the sun.

Sorry, but garden gnomes, colourful windmills, personal name plates (Jones’ Residence), and any other type of garden décor are going to have to go. Keep it simple, simple, simple. Use neutral colours in everything you have laid out. If you feel like your garden is naked without all the decoration, you can go out to Superstore or Walmart and pick up those solar lights that you can use to mark out the walkway to your doorstep, or outline the shape of your garden. Those make evening showings warm and inviting!

Now here’s the hard part: your yard needs to look like this for every single showing. You can’t miss one, not even one. I’m not trying to make your life difficult; I do have a very good reason for being so demanding. You see, Saskatoon real estate agents will be opening your door to buyers who have been scouring the Saskatoon MLS® for weeks or more; you never know which one is going to be the one that loves your home and wants to write an offer. To make it easier on my clients, I tell them that every showing that comes through your house is your potential buyer, and every showing after that is the buyers that could take your home into multiple offers and bid your asking price up, rather than down.  The good news is that once you’ve whipped it into shape, it isn’t as hard to maintain!

Now let’s get down to the finer details of the look of the front door. Potential buyers will be standing on your stoop for a moment (in most cases) while they wait for their Realtor® to locate the lockbox and open the door. They will be taking stock of what they see around them, and I have often found that, that moment of looking at a seller’s exterior is usually a pretty clear indicator of what is to come on the inside. So for that reason, make sure your mail box is clean and polished. If it is rusted, tarnished or dirty in any way at all, spray paint it back to a perfect colour, or replace it with a brand new one. Your outdoor light fixture should also be cleaned to a high-shine. Again, if it’s not sparkling, spray paint it or replace it totally. I like to see a wreath on doors. No matter what the season, a wreath creates a great focal point, and gives off a come-hither-type of feel. Make sure that it is seasonally appropriate and extremely neutral and understated. Colours should be whites, golds, beiges, deep greens, blacks, or browns.

Your door handle should be in optimal working order; there’s nothing worse than having the buyer’s agent struggling to get the door open. The knob should be polished and firmly screwed into the door, not wiggly or rattling. Most people don’t notice how dirty their front door gets with scuffs and marks. Attack it with a Mr. Clean magic eraser and if you can’t get it totally clean, then paint the whole thing top to bottom. Don’t do touch-ups here. Broad day-light will often expose a fix like that.

The siding right around your front door has a tendency to collect dust, debris and spider webs. If you go and look at it right now, you’ll likely notice that there is a fair amount of dirt hiding in the corners. Power-wash the exterior of your home from the front driveway right up to the front stoop so that everything that the average buyer sees will be totally clean.

Yes, I’ve given you more to add to your to-do list, but again, believe me, it all pays off when the offer comes in! Good luck, and I’ll see you back here next week as we go further into creating a Saskatoon real estate listing that sells!

Until Next Time…

Blessings

Rachel Vanderveen is a Calgary Realtor specializing in Calgary condos, South East Calgary Real Estate, home staging and Calgary Real Estate Investment, and Auburn Bay Realty.  But more importantly she is a mother to four adorable children, a lover of Auburn Bay Real Estate, and an avid writer of Calgary Real Estate Blogs. For more information on Calgary Home Buyers, or searching mlslistings.ca, visit her website here.

Please welcome guest contributor to TeamFisher.com, Rachel Vanderveen, a Calgary real estate blogger and home stager who is writing an eight-part series of home staging advice for our blog. This is part three in that series. Rachel’s previous home staging posts can be found here.

So now we’ve cleaned our home, and met and hired a Saskatoon real estate agent who is committed to helping us achieve a top-dollar sale. Our agent is sending a stager, but we want to get the most out of our stager’s time by having our home in the best shape we can before (s)he arrives.

So the next thing to attack is de-cluttering. What is clutter? My handy-dandy little Encarta dictionary defines it as a “messy collection of objects.” Well, this week, I’m going to redefine that word for you. Well maybe not redefine, but definitely sharpen the meaning for the purposes of our discussion.

Clutter, for our purposes, shall be defined as anything that you do not absolutely need to use in the next three months. If you think about it, that is a lot of stuff! For example, depending on the time of year, that could mean 3 seasons of your clothes, and your children’s clothes. That being said, why don’t we dive straight into your closets? Closet space is a biggie when it comes to selling real estate. Women Shoppers are always looking for more closet space, and when those Saskatoon real estate buyers come traipsing through your humble abode, they want to see lots of it. How can we make our closets look two-thirds bigger than they are? That’s easy! Remove two-thirds of the stuff! Box it, pack it up, and move it out. Let’s face it; you’re going to have to do it anyways, right? I mean, you areplanning on moving house, right? So why not do it now rather than later.

So, Rachel, what am I supposed to do with all of my family’s seasonal clothes? Well, I personally am a big fan of those giant Rubbermaid bins from Walmart, but you don’t have to be so fancy. You can get old boxes from your local grocer. Once you’ve got them all packed up, well, you’ve got to get rid of them! Before I tell you where to put them, I’m going to tell you where not to put them. Do not stack them up in your basement and do notstack them in your garage! I know you’re not going to make me tell you not to stack them anywhere else in the house, that should be a given. Yes, that’s right, your boxes are going to have to go somewhere off site. Now, as I see it, that leaves you with two options:

1) You can find a loving friend or family member who has a basement or garage in home that is not going to be listed anytime soon, and stack them in there.

2) You can enlist the help of a storage unit.

But Rachel, I can’t do either of those things. Okay, fine. If you really can’t do either of those things, the n as a last option you can store the boxes in either the basement or the garage, but if you do so, try to stack them up as high (and as safe) as you can. The reason for this is that we want to be able to see floor space in those areas. Basements---especially unfinished basements---have their value caught up mostly in the amount of visible space. The bigger you can make it look, the more perceived value it has. The best way to make something look bigger is to remove as many unnecessary contents as possible. The garage is another place where space is a big issue. If it’s a double, it needs to look like a comfortable  double; if it’s a single, it needs to look like there is room to spare. So if you muststore your extras in the basement or the garage, try to build shelving and get it up off the floor.

Now let’s move back to closets. Once everything is removed that won’t be used for the next three months, the biggest thing I want you to focus on is floor space. If you do nothing else in your closets and pantries, just make sure that the floor space is totally clear. Having the floor clear, again, makes the space appear larger.

After everything is removed from your storage areas, you have to organize it in an appealing way. After years of staging homes for sale, I have found the easiest way to describe the type of organizing you need to do is to say to the homeowner: “It should look like someone with OCD lives here. Think Julia Roberts in Sleeping With the Enemy.” So what does that look like? Well, I’d love to see everything arranged from largest to smallest, with the English label facing out…and…if you have time, colour-block it all. I know it sounds nuts, but let me tell you why it’s so important to make it all look like this. When you’re showing your home to potential buyers who have been looking all of the Saskatoon real estate listingsin your area, your home will be the stand out. They see the almost obsessive cleanliness and associate a value to that. They will assume that you are the type of person who set a monthly clock to check your furnace and clean your ducts. They’ll know that if the roof leaked, you were up there in hours to have it looked at and instantly repaired. And they’ll be certain that a person as obsessively clean and organized as yourself, would never stand for mold growth anywhere. Feeling confident that the home you choose has been kept up to high standards has a value that is almost incalculable.

I often say to my staging clients, that when you think of the work you’ll have to do on your home to get it ready for the Saskatoon real estate market, imagine writing yourself a paycheck for about $200/hour. I have found that is roughly how much staging can increase your price, give or take. I can attest to the fact that staging your own home can seem like a  daunting task, but when you picture the income that  you can earn from putting in the time to make it sparkle, it’s a lot more appealing! So roll up your sleeves!

Until Next Time…

Rachel

Rachel Vanderveen is a Calgary Real Estate agent specializing in Calgary condos, South Calgary Real Estate, home staging and Calgary Real Estate Investment.  But more importantly she is a mother to four adorable children, a lover of Auburn Bay Real Estate, and an avid writer of Calgary Real Estate Blogs. For more information on Calgary Home Buyers, or searching The Calgary MLS, visit her website here.  

David Hutton is reporting some disappointing news about the Rivergreen Ecovillage, a "green" condominium development that had been proposed for Phase 2 of River Landing. The 65-unit condo complex was to be built at the corner of 19th Street and Avenue C in Riversdalebut the developer has announced the cancellation of the project after they failed to obtain adequate financing for it.

Check Dave's blog here.

Learn more about the Riversdale area here.

Visit our Saskatoon Neighbourhood Profilespages to learn more about what’s going on in our city’s neighbourhoods.

Norm Fisher
Royal LePage Vidorra  

Home sales across Canada declined nearly six percent compared to last February to finish the month at about the five-year average, according to a report issued today by the Canadian Real Estate Association(CREA).

February was the fourth consecutive month during which sales were on par with the five-year average. CREA continues to characterize the national housing market as balanced but warned that average price gains could recede following mortgage rule changes that will take effect later this week.

From the CREA report:

The national average price for homes sold in February 2011 rose 8.8 per cent year-over-year to $365,192. “The average price has been skewed higher nationally and in British Columbia recently by a record number of multi-million dollar sales in a couple of areas in Greater Vancouver,” said Gregory Klump, CREA’s Chief Economist.

“When you take Vancouver out of the equation, the year-over-year increase in the national average price drops to 3.4 per cent,” added Klump. “While that’s still stronger than in the past six months or so, national average price gains may recede after tighter mortgage regulations take effect in March.”

Read CREA’s full release here.

National MLS statistics for the month of February is here. A report from the Globe and Mail is here.

A report from the Financial Post is here.

I’m always happy to answer your Saskatoon real estate questions.  All of my contact info is here. Please feel free to call or email.

Our Saskatoon home search tool offers MLS® listings represented by all real estate brands, presented with more detail than you’ll find anywhere else. Check it out here.

Norm Fisher
Royal LePage Vidorra

City council has unanimously approved construction of a 71,000 square foot office building that will likely become the first private-sector development to get under way at Saskatoon’s River Landing. The five-storey office building, to be located at 475 2nd Avenue South across from the Remai Arts Centre, will include some retail space, a restaurant, a fitness centre, a “street-level patio” and a parkade that will accommodate forty-one vehicles. Construction will likely begin this summer.

Read the Star Phoenix story here. Read the minutes on this topic from Monday’s council meeting here.

Learn more about Saskatoon’s Central Business District here. Discover other great Saskatoon neighbourhoods here.

I’m always happy to answer your Saskatoon real estate questions.  All of my contact info is here. Please feel free to call or email.

Norm Fisher
Royal LePage Vidorra

The Saskatoon Region Association of REALTORS® (SRAR) released the residential real estate statistics for February of 2011today, accompanied by this release.

The February resale market remained strong with Saskatoon REALTORS® assisting 282 home buyers with the purchase of their next home. This number was up twenty percent from February of 2010 when 235 homes were sold. The $250,000 to $275,000 price range was the most active, indicating greater activity in the entry level and mid price range of homes. The average number of days to sell in the month of February was 41.

Home buyers had 1,046 homes to select from at the end of February, up from February 2010 when 866 homes were on the market. REALTORS® listed 545 homes in February, up seventeen percent from February of 2010 when 465 properties were listed for sale. Home buyers are enjoying improved inventory levels as 1,076 properties have been listed for sale to date this year, up twenty-five percent from 2010.

Home buyers had 1,046 homes to select from at the end of February, up from February 2010 when 866 homes were on the market. REALTORS® listed 545 homes in February, up seventeen percent from February of 2010 when 465 properties were listed for sale. Home buyers are enjoying improved inventory levels as 1,076 properties have been listed for sale to date this year, up twenty-five percent from 2010.

In areas surrounding Saskatoon, sales activity continued to improve with 63 homes selling, up sixty-six percent from February of 2010 when just 38 homes were sold. REALTORS® listed 177 properties in these areas in the month of February. That number is up two percent from February of 2010 when 173 properties were placed on the market. The average number of days to sell in areas around Saskatoon during the month of February was 58.

Optimism in the Saskatoon economy remains high. Evidence of this is seen on numerous fronts. Renters want to purchase, many current home owners are looking to move up and REALTORS® report significant interest from clients wanting to move here from out of province.

An important factor of a strong housing market is the activity experienced in new home sales. Saskatoon’s new home market remains strong with steady city lot sales taking place. Interest rates are favorable to purchase that next home and job creation in the Saskatoon area remains steady. The forecast for the remainder of 2011 is for listing and sales numbers to continue to balance and for resale prices to move up slightly due to demand.

I’m always happy to answer your Saskatoon real estate questions.  All of my contact info is here. Please feel free to call or email.

Norm Fisher
Royal LePage Vidorra