2010-02-20

Our partnerships with Home Staging professionals bring a new level of service to the For Sale By Owner experience! We are excited to offer Home Staging to help you prepare your home for sale. It will also look great for the Virtual Tour and photography! Organizing skills of our Home Staging partners can also make it easier when it's time to move! Call today for more information.

2009-01-13

Take a look at a fun video (with great examples) explaining how to prep your home for sale:

http://www.howcast.com/videos/29934-How-To-Avoid-the-10-Biggest-Mistakes-Home-Sellers-Make

2008-12-22

An article on the FSBO Blog refers sellers to a new blog that chronicles the FSBO experience.

http://tinyurl.com/9elpj8

The article contains this excellent summary of what we're all about here at YourTourNow.com:

"If you do not want pay high Realtor commissions, then you need to put yourself out there for the world to see just as they would if you hire them. In a tough market like this, your home is not going to sell itself. You need to be creative, and willing to sacrifice some hard work and effort in order to make your home noticed by as many buyers as possible."

So, take a look at the FSBO Blog and the blog mentioned in the article. --JR

2008-10-27 3:45 P.M.

 Today I ran across this interesting (a little humorous) article from the Wall Street Journal. This link will take you to the article on Yahoo! Finance. Here is a taste:

As Real-Estate Prices Plummet, Online Critics Get Nastier; Pricey House, Juicy Target

"Simply laughable. Ugly exterior and priced with copious amounts of grandiosity."

"This is what happens when you are filthy rich. No one tells you, you have bad taste."

Selling your home could be bad for your ego. The above quotes are recent comments on real-estate blogs -- online journals that often post photos of new sales listings and allow readers to add their thoughts anonymously. Thanks to the housing crisis, real-estate blogs are blooming not only in number, but in nastiness, as thousands of strangers swap stinging critiques of high-end homes hitting the market...(More)

October 10, 2008
Open houses are time-consuming and don't always lead to a buyer, but do the other benefits make them worthwhile? Many practitioners say yes, citing these perks:

Click here to read the article on REALTOR.ORG.

Colin Clark's blog entry on trying something fresh, on Marketpath.com

Linked on 9-17-2008 at 1:50 PM at Don Pancho Mexican Restaurant, Kokomo IN - good food for cheap, and free internet access!

2008-09-15 8:27 PM

{Excerpted from "How to stage your home to sell fast" in the Dallas Morning News at www.dallasnews.com.,09:20 AM CDT on Friday, September 5, 2008.}

Looking to sell your home in a stagnant real-estate market? Here are some staging suggestions from Deborah Ehrlich-Layne of Staging Plus in Tampa, Fla., Handyman Matters and HGTV's The Stagers.

Eliminate countertop clutter. "You're selling the counter, not the stuff on it," Ms. Erlich says. A countertop covered with small appliances and utensils looks crowded, not spacious.

Pack up the too-personal. Don't leave toiletries on the counter. Stash family photos. Erasing your personal stuff gives buyers a chance to imagine that it's their house, not yours.

Be prepared for snoops. Prospective buyers pull open drawers, look in closets and peek behind the shower curtain.

Make sure things work. Dripping faucets, burned-out light bulbs and squeaking hinges detract from the home's appeal.

Think "white-glove clean." Mop, dust, vacuum, clean baseboards, wash windows. Make sure the house looks fresh and smells neutral.

Get rid of flamboyant colors and too-vivid wallpaper. "You want colors that everybody's everything goes with. And wallpaper will scare buyers like crazy," Ms. Erlich says.

Make sure the front door is clean and the hardware polished "for the best presentation possible." Power-wash walkways.

Sell the room, not the stuff. Store furniture that makes rooms feel crowded.

Show every room for the kind of room it is. Maybe you've turned your formal dining room into a home office. Get rid of the desk and computer, and bring back the dining table and chairs.