Tips for Standing Out When Selling in a Crowded Market

A day ago CNBC.com reported that the Fall housing market will shift to a buyer’s market. Good news for those searching for a home to purchase but not quite what a potential seller of a home wants to hear. According to the website, fewer consumers believe now is a good time to purchase a home.

The site reports that appraisals have gotten more stringent and potential buyers are more cautious and are willing to take their time when it comes to purchasing a home.

These factors are contributing to  an increasingly crowded housing market. There is more competition sellers have to face. If you are planning to sell your home in the near future, here are seven tips to follow to help stand out in the crowded market.

Just like the game show title, “The Price Is Right”, price your home out of the market and it will be bypassed by potential buyers. Pricing becomes crucial in a crowded market. It is a fine line for those selling their home who want to get top dollar but want to sell fast. Pricing your home slightly lower (approximately 2% lower) than comps in your area will make your home stand out above similar listed homes in your neighborhood. The slightly lower price will be inciting to buyers when there is an abundance competition.

Always have your home’s “game face” on. If someone comes knocking at your door unexpectedly and wants to see your home, they should be welcomed into a show-ready home. It is always good to deep clean and de-clutter before you list your home. Remember, to always maintain a tidy house throughout your listing. Sellers need to be able to showcase their home at a drop of a hat.

Remember the saying “try to see it through someone else’s eyes”? This also holds true when it comes

to selling your home. Homeowners get used to the clutter or how their home looks after they have lived there for a long time. The cramped closet or clutter in the corner becomes a part of your home that you really do not notice anymore. Walk into your home looking at it from a buyer’s point of view. What should be fixed or de-cluttered? You want to put extra emphasis on features that buyers would like to have in their home.

Now days many buyers look through photos via their Realtor or the internet. The same floorplan can look very different when presented in a photo. It is crucially important to have professional photographs done of your home. A professional photographer knows how to stage and photograph a home to give it an edge over the other homes listed for sale in your neighborhood.

Again the age old saying “keep your friends close and your enemies closer” can come in handy when you and a good many of your neighbors are selling your home at the same time. Do not look at your neighbors as competition, rather look at them as teammates. Get together and work on selling you neighborhood as a great place to live. A great way to do this would be to hold a joint open house.
Highlight your homes best assets. If you renovated or made any upgrades, show them off. Make sure your home’s listing features a list of upgrades or renovations that sets your home apart from the other listings.

Last and most importantly work with a Realtor. Choose a Realtor who has a lot of inside knowledge on your neighborhood. A Realtor is trained to look at real estate trends to determine how best to sell your home and give it a leg up on the competition.

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Architectural Styles When Building Your Custom Home

When building a fully custom home, the sky’s the limit as to what type of features, customizations, materials, and new home design you would like to use.  One of the options that home buyers forget they have is the exterior and interior architectural style that is available to them when designing the facade and different rooms of the home. Architectural style can truly define the way a home looks and feels both on the outside and the inside. The outside look is more obvious, such as the French and Spanish architecture you see on the many homes and townhomes in the French Quarter.  The interior architecture can be more subtle and less well known to other people and even your builder.  If you have your heart set on a specific architecture or floorplan layout based on an architectural style, don’t hesitate to let us know during the floorplan design of your custom home.

Several architectural styles are well-defined and easy to recognize and are listed below:

Mediterranean
Just like it sounds, this type of home makes use of exterior spaces in order to soak up the feel of the Mediterranean (or in this case, the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Pontchartrain in the Greater New Orleans Area).  These types of floorplans will have extensive verandas, courtyards, patios, sun rooms, or covered screened porches. The exterior finish typically includes plaster or stucco with low slope or flat roofs.  Interior details include decorative tile and exposed wood beams.

Southern
In order to compensate for the extreme heat of southern climates, southern architecture emphasizes

protecting the exterior of the home with wide covered porches around the entire home, long overhangs, functional shutters, covered verandas, elevated, open living spaces and sometimes decorative columns in the front.

Modern
Introduced during the ’50’s and 60’s, modern architecture becomes more simplistic with less ornamental design.  Horizontal windows, plain fireplace surround – basically ranch-style homes with low roof lines.  However, this simplicity is offset by high-quality material finishes, such as stone, wood flooring, and marble.

Cottages
Just like they sound, cottages are designed to be smaller, lower maintenance homes with incredible use of square footage space.  The term cottage brings to mind a cramped, small home with a lower mortgage, but builders have been quite innovative in building cottages with excellent use of space in the floorplan. Built-in window seats and shelving utilize empty walls to create more space for “stuff.” A spacious front porch also adds to the size of a cottage home.

At Ron Lee Homes, we have built numerous styles of architecture and have many different floorplan styles from which to choose.  You can bring us your ideas and pictures, and we can design the style of home that you want.  Call 985-626-7619 or E-mail Info@RonLeeHomes to make an appointment to create your floorplan design today!

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Bathroom Remodeling – Available in All Project Sizes

Remodeling a guest bathroom or master bathroom can change the entire look and usage of the room.  It can also change the functionality of the bathroom itself as well as the resale value of the house  Bathroom remodeling is one of the most popular choices of renovation projects that homeowners choose.  Nationally, today’s average price to remodel a bathroom ranges from $5,000 – $15,000, and some people spend as much as $20,000 on a bathroom remodel to create an oasis or paradise right inside their own home.

Whatever price you are able or willing to pay to transform your bathroom into a fully restored new room, there are many considerations of materials and projects to consider when beginning your renovation project.  One of the big considerations is to repair and refinish vs. replace the fixtures in your bathroom.  Fixtures can include lighting fixtures, plumbing fixtures, and carpentry fixtures such as cabinets and countertops.  If you need to stay within a tight budget, you might consider replacing faucets and sinks and then stripping and refinishing cabinets vs. tearing out and replacing the entire cabinet.  If you have a more flexible budget, and you decide to tear out and replace; you may also want to consider changing the floorplan of the bathroom to expand it and add new appliances such as a massage shower or a spa bathtub.

Increasing or changing a floorplan may take more time because you are getting into structural integrity as well as plumbing and electrical new systems or reconfiguration, so you will want to make sure that you budget your money and time accordingly. If you decide to increase your floorplan, make sure you used an Experienced Contractor who can help you make great use of all of your space and also make your new bathroom remodel as inviting and useful as possible.

If you are somewhere in between “sky’s the limit” and a limited budget, you may decide to replace old tubs and showers, tear out and replace bathroom cabinetry, and create an entirely new lighting package.  Depending on the scope of the project, this may cost you somewhere in the “middle” range of an average bathroom budget, but you will be surprised how just doing those minimal “invasive” tear-outs will transform your bathroom into looking brand new.

Ron Lee Homes Remodeling has a terrific team that is excellent about making recommendations that will fit within your job scope and budget to make your bathroom remodel the perfect renovation for your life.  We listen to our clients’ needs and then try to “squeeze the budget” as much as possible to exceed your expectations.  Working with a builder also has its advantages as we know how to get “in and out” of your home as fast as possible with as minimal mess, noise, and hassle of living with a remodel while it is happening.  Contact Ron Lee Homes Remodeling today to get a quote on your project.  Call 985-626-7619 or E-mail Info@RonLeeHomes.com.

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Downsizing to Garden Homes

Ron Lee Homes in St. Tammany Parish builds many new homes for couples that are considered baby boomer “empty nesters.” What this means is that we build many garden homes that have less square footage and either minimal or no maintenance on lots that either have a landscaping contract in place or are so small and built out with their own amenities that they don’t require much yardwork at all.  Some of these decorative amenities that we build on our garden homes are private courtyards, storage buildings, detached garages, and even fountains.

Building new garden homes is an art because the floorplan requires an economy in efficiency – utilizing every square inch of a floorplan to maximize the home’s space and usability.  We have built many custom garden homes throughout the 20+ years we have been in business, so if you have an idea of a floorplan or simply need a recommendation, we can design or modify an existing floorplan to suit your home buying needs.

When downsizing from a much larger home to a smaller, less maintenance garden home, you have to know what to do with all of the “stuff” you have accumulated throughout your lifetime.  There are several avenues to take – some include being able to sell valuable pieces while others include handing down the personal items that have family value.  Whichever option you decide, you should follow the tips below when deciding on how to dispose of belongings that will not fit in your new space:

Value Your Valuables: For those items you are interested in selling, you will want to either hire an appraiser or use the Internet to find out what the “going rate” is for your pieces. An experienced appraiser that you trust will be able to give you incredible insight in a timely efficient manner while doing it yourself may take more time.

Appraiser Efficiency: If you do decide to use an appraiser, you will want to accommodate them as much as possible by getting everything ready in advance.  Many appraisers charge by the hour, so you don’t want them to have to go “digging” through your stuff to find the items you want appraised.  Make sure your items are on display (out of boxes) in good light and accessible.

Photo Documentation: Once the appraiser has given you a list to work with for a sale, you will want to take pictures of the items showing them at their best for online viewing of Internet sales.

Inherited Items: If you decide that you want to gift some of your belongings to your children immediately, then you can go ahead and disperse these items.  If there are items that are going to be handed down later, at the time of your appraisal would be a very good time to put in writing those items that are going to be given to specific family relatives.

Giveaways: If there are personal items or important items that you cannot bear to see sold, you may be able to post the pictures of these items to close friends or acquaintances to see if they would like to have them.  Giving your belongings a “good home” with someone you trust will give you much peace of mind.

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