The Art Of Home

Staging and decorating is more than just painting.

A good stager will be able to walk into your home and present a guided tour for a prospective buyer. Anyone can tell you an orange living room with purple shag carpet is not an asset or that taupes and neutrals work best while using accessories for colour enhancement.

Warm inviting colours along with textures and materials like wood and suede will envelope you into the comfort of a room. As a juxtaposition steel and sharp angles are cold and modern and can work as a contrast.

I have been chatting with a client that is a few weeks away from listing a house they are flipping. They were not sure if they should furnish the home when they were ready. To me it was an obvious answer. Walking into an empty house is stark and takes thousands of your price, I've seen it first hand.

The home needs to tell a story. Who are you planning on selling to? What is their story? Paint their picture with the brush of luxury. Stainless steel appliances, wood floors, micro suede all speak to a higher level of living.

If you are not sure on what to do or you think that red walls and green carpet is sweet, call a professional stager.


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Angry?

Your eyes begin to pulse as you read further into the statement. Like a scimitar, words cut through your heart as if paper. With unabashed anger you stand up and throw the paper on the floor and begin to stomp on it. It is not enough, you need more. Grabbing the plant seems insane but you can't help yourself. Still your anger is unabated. The chandelier?

Sound familiar? Have you seen the commercials?


You want to buy a house and you still have one to sell. Most people would put in a conditional offer. This condition would state that your offer is under the condition of selling your home with in a time frame (30-60 days) and should include a bump clause that states that if any other offers come in during this time frame you would have the right to either firm up or walk away from the deal (usually allowing 48 hours to make your decision). Seems pretty straight forward, right?

As a home buyer you want nothing more than to breeze through a purchase (including the sale of your home as part of your conditional offer). It would seem local realtors don't want you to do that. They are angry. They feel deserving of your hard earned money. They are even willing to use coercion to get it.

Think coercion is to strong a word? Here is the definition from Dictionary.com:

Main Entry: co·er·cion
Pronunciation: kO-'&r-zh&n, -sh&n
Function: noun
: the use of express or implied threats of violence or reprisal (as discharge from employment) or other intimidating behavior that puts a person in immediate fear of the consequences in order to compel that person to act against his or her will; also : the defense that one acted under coercion —see also DEFENSE, DURESS —compare UNDUE INFLUENCE.

As I wrote about in a previous post, local agents are using intimidation in the offer process. For you to get that house they are forcing you to have to list with an agent. Imagine the feeling of violation when you find out in order to buy your dream home you will be forced to spend thousands of dollars wastefully on a service you don't want or need.

I found another one of those helpful realtor commercials I have posted about.


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THE Moving Day Decision

This time we got smart. This time we used a mover.

How many times in your life can you go to the well? How many times can you buy beer and pizza and expect your friends to brake their backs AND your dishes?

When Yvette and I decided on moving one of the "have to" items in the budget was a mover. Not only were we not interested in carrying everything we owned but we were also not interested in being indebted to our friends to help them when their turn comes up.

We opted to use AMJ Campbell. When I first met the guys from AMJ Campbell I heard the sales pitch. It was one that made sense to me. Their movers were not just guys picked up at the temp place in the morning. They were all employees and worked at moving people full time. They were experienced and professional.

Move day came and I was ready to see if these guys met up to the high standards I expected. They were a few minutes late, not that I minded. The 4 guys jumped out of the rig and each introduced themselves to me with a hand shake. First came the runners to protect the floors. Next was the walk through to get the "lay of the land". On our way up from the basement they did not want to waste a trip so they each lugged a box with them, not bad.

They went through the home quickly loading my life into the truck by just after noon. The one thing that stuck out from the morning was when my in-laws showed up. As my father-in-law says his customary "how ya doin" to the guys the response was always followed by a "sir". These guys were hardworking and polite in every instance.

All in all it was about 10 hours and ran us $1,900 for the move. Cheap if you ask me. I guess I could have hired guys like these to do it for less.


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