Purple Tops Color Trends for Home Interiors

Planning to reinvigorate your living space with a bold new hue in 2011? Benjamin Moore sees a shade of purple in your future. In fact, the company’s color trend forecasters have crowned purple the top hue of the coming year. Whether your taste runs to rich wine (Vintage Wine 2116-20) or luscious fuchsia (Royal Flush 2076-20), you’re sure to find an inspiring tone in Benjamin Moore’s 2011 palette. For more about the company’s color predictions, plus tons of decorating ideas, pick up a free copy of Envision Color 2011 at your local Benjamin Moore retailer.   --Kara Lashley - New England Home

Don't be afraid of purple. Purples range from orchids, lavenders, aubergines, and grapes to heliotrope, magenta, amethyst, violet and magenta. Values from pale tints to the dark purples of the sky at dusk. There's even talk of kitchen appliances in shades of eggplant in our future.  If you like following trends or have always wanted to justify using purple in your home....now is the time. But beware of using any strong or bright shades if you plan to put your home on the market. Those pictured here are too bright or dark to be used as wall colors. Choose a subtle muted or "neutralized" intensity in a light to medium shade.

You have only ONE CHANCE to be New To The Market

Home sellers often resort to staging their homes only after a long unproductive stint on the market. They see it as a last resort and a step they were not willing to consider when they first listed their house. "We'll wait and see if it sells. I'm not going to spend money on trying to sell this house if I don't need to".

The problem with this approach is that the first few weeks your home is on the market is a window of saleability that you can never recapture unless you take your house off the market and allow an extended period of time to elapse before re-listing.

The longer your home sits on the market, the more likely you are to have to lower your price and make concessions to the buyer.

Read that sentence over about three times.

Remember there are two variables you have control over. Price and presentation. If your house is priced right AND presents well you have the best possible chance of selling in the first weeks, even days of listing.

So let's look at price first. You interviewed 3 realtors and they all gave you a price they felt your house should list for based on the comps in your area and the current market. The 3 quotes differed by several thousand dollars. Do you pick the realtor suggesting the highest asking price because you think he is the only one that truly recognizes the greatness of your home and you'd much rather sell for $450,000 than $415,000?  Do you pick the realtor with the biggest dollar signs because even though you bought the house 5 years ago at $375,000 you did paint a few walls and did some routine maintenance that you think should net you a profit of $75,000?

I'm suggesting to you that when a house is priced wrong from the get-go, you will give up something you cannot recoup. That golden position called "New To The Market".

An acquaintance who sold her house 3 years ago had an agent that grossly overpriced her home. There  were no good comps in the area. The homeowner had over-improved her house for the area she was in. Her upgrades were not in line with other area homes in terms of the interior finishes. She sold her house 9 months after listing it for $450,000 after lowering her price by $139,000. The people who bought the house had looked at it during the very first open house but felt it was overpriced at the time. When the price came to where it should have been....they bought it. In that eight months the homeowner had to endure multiple life disrupting open houses and showings; leave most of her furnishings behind; and pay two mortgages since she had already bought another home. The toll in stress and financial loss was enormous. She has no doubt that if it had been priced right at the get-go, her house would have sold immediately. But she was flattered by the higher "appraisal" this realtor provided and was too clueless (her admission) to know that it was unrealistic.  

Now let's talk about the other controllable factor. Presentation. It's a proven fact that staging will increase a home's saleability. But the majority of homeowners don't even consider it and those that do often do so as a last resort after their home has languished on the market for extended periods of time when that golden window of being New To The Market has long passed and the blush is off the rose. I'm not saying that you shouldn't try staging as a last resort but I am saying that the absolute best time to stage is before your home ever gets listed. Before one potential buyer walks through your front door. If your home is priced right and is presenting well, you have a priceless edge on your competition and the best possible chance of making a quick sale that is at or very close to your asking price.

Penny Wise and Pound Foolish

When I was a kid, I had heard grown ups say it more than once and I remember asking my mother what it meant.
After explaining that 'pound' was a denomination of money in England she said that "Penny wise and pound foolish means that someone is reluctant to spend a small amount of money on something that would result in them either saving or not losing a large sum of money."

This is what happens today when a seller takes a hard line on not wanting to spend a few hundred dollars to improve the saleability of their house with staging. A few hundred dollars invested in just the right improvements or changes can mean 5 to 10 thousand dollars more in a sellers pocket on closing day.

"I don't want to have to spend money on this house. I need to put all my money into buying my next house" said a woman I met at a business gathering. I happened to know that this woman had a home with dark paint and very dramatic ethnic themed wallpaper. "I love it" she said. "And someone else will come along that loves it too".

Well, hopefully. But she may wait significantly longer to find that buyer because dark and dramatic wallpaper will leave some buyers cold. Most buyers want light. Realtors agree that people will pay more for light. Two rooms of the same size and shape...one with lots of light and one that's dark, the light will always sell quicker. People see dark paint and wallpaper of almost any color as something that will have to be done over. They may not even be able to envision how the room would look if the walls were made lighter or the shrub was cut back from covering most of the window. They will move on to where they can already see the light. In the meantime, this lady will wait, having more open houses and more life disrupting private showings than the owner of the 'light' home. The issue of light is only one of many selling roadblocks that stagers can help you avoid. Many houses sit for months on the market before a seller decides to try staging. The house may then sell quickly but after sitting for months on the market, buyers will see a seller in a more disadvantaged selling position. They make lower offers than they would on a house that only just went on the market. Stalling to stage is rarely a good strategy.

"My realtor hasn't told me I need to stage my house. I'm sure if she felt it needed it, she'd say so".

This does seem counter-intuitive but consider this. Telling a homeowner their home needs staging might rub a homeowner the wrong way and the truth is....if you get $5000 more for your home after staging and your realtor is splitting a 6% commission on a $400,000 house , the difference in your realtor's pocket is just $150.
Do you really think that $150 is a strong incentive for a realtor to convince you to stage....especially if you resist?  It's only $150 for them but it's a difference of $5000 for you!  Many homeowners think staging is a function or a priority of the realtor. Much of the time, it is not. A homeowner needs to make his own decision about staging because he will ultimately reap the greater return. And it is rare to find a realtor that is willing to pay for or share the cost of staging, even if it may mean selling your house quicker. In  today's economy and with lower commisson percentages, sometimes as low as 4%, realtors do not 'invest' in selling homes as they once did.

Don't be penny wise and pound foolish. Give your home the advantage over un-staged homes in your neighborhood and price range and you'll sell your home if it is priced right. If you question whether it is priced right, visit comparable homes on the market and be realistic about how your home compares to theirs. Pretend you are a buyer and see your own home as objectively as possible in comparison to those who are competing for the same buyer you are.

East Coast Staging and Redisgn        Staging Consultations just $100         
978-358-8111
New England Coastal area from Cape Cod to Kennebunk

Staging is just another name for Pre-Sale Preparation

Home sellers often balk at the suggestion they could make their homes more appealing than their competition's by hiring a stager. It's not always because they think their home is perfectly wonderful just as it is (which is the number one reason that most home sellers dismiss staging) but rather because the term 'staging' seems too contrived. Too theatrical. Too artificial.

We sympathize with those that feel this way and understand their trepidation. It almost sounds as though their home will be made to look like a hollywood set and while some might not mind that at all, many feel it's an over-the-top and uneccesary step to take when they put their home on the market.

We invite sellers to see Home Staging for what it really is. Pre-Sale Preparation. Stagers make sure your home is ready to be shown as a product for sale. They have no personal attachment to the property and look at it as a potential buyer would. They identify roadblocks and suggest strategies to make them go away. A good stager will help you take care of all those little signs of deferred maintenance that you've become oblivious to by either creating a "punch list" for you to implement on your own or by getting the job done for you.

Should you paint your walls in YOUR best colors?

The following article is for people who have had their colors "done" professionally, are thinking about doing so, or think they know what their best colors are. It's also for people who are moving to a new home and will have the perfect opportunity to create a personalized color environment after they sell their succesfully STAGED home. It can also be found on my color blog at www.donnacognac.blogspot.com
Remember, colors for staging and colors for living are often very different and changing the color of some of the rooms in your home may be necessary to improve your chance of selling quickly and at the best price. The pay off is worth the effort if you have colors that will not sit well with some potential buyers. Buyers may also use the need to repaint odd colored or very taste specific colors as a bargaining tool to lower your price.

Should you paint your walls in YOUR best colors? The answer to that question is yes, no, maybe, and it depends. Your personal color palette is one that illuminates your skin, hair, and eyes when worn in close proximity to your face and body. The bounce or reflection of these colors will have a syncronistic relationship with your color design that is mutually beneficial to both you and your attire.

Now does that hold true for your decor as well? To a degree yes. You may want to consider using your personal palette as a guide for choosing wall colors in your home. Surely you'll look fabulous when the backdrop you stand in is showing you in the most positive light. Right? But what if your palette is one that is psychologically warm in temperature and you are decorating a south facing room in a hot place like Florida? The result of using a warm wall color would be to make inhabitants 'feel' psychologically warmer in a part of the country where keeping home interiors feeling cool is a better strategy. If your personal color palette happened to be decidely cool in temperature, using it to decorate your home in Alaska would make your home's interior 'feel' colder.

My opinion is that one should use colors to create the energy they want in that room and to have that as their first priority. They can consult their personal palette to look for options that will help create that energy. Doing so may require you to ignore your personal best colors or to either neutralize or clarify the hues that are in your palette. If someone wants to create a room with high energy and they want to use green for example, they could choose a green tone from their palette and look for paint chips that repeat that hue but in a softer intensity or lighter value. Remember that high intensity colors are psychologically energizing and are not the best choices for bedrooms or rooms designed for relaxation.

Eye colors and skin colors are wonderful for the walls of bedrooms and bathrooms. A custom body color charting consultation with a color analysis professional would provide you with the swatches you'd need to match paint chips at the store. These specific hues would repeat and flatter your coloring in those intimate environments. Skin tones are neutrals and can be taken to a lighter or darker value to provide a bit of contrast to your skin. Blue, gray, green, and light brown eyes are great starting points for choosing wall colors in these rooms. Those with very dark brown eyes might prefer to use their skin tone since dark colors make rooms feel closed and small.

Neutrals are extremely practical wall colors. Any of the neutral tones in our personal palettes can be used as a guide for flattering wall colors that lend themselves to a wide range of colored home accessories. Neutrals have the additional advantage of being very 'livable' for a very long time. Colored walls can get old fast. Unless you like to repaint fairly often, it's safer to use neutrals or near-neutrals on the walls and use more pronounced colors in room accessories, window treatements, wall decor, pillows and such. Things that can be changed out to give a room a whole new look to reflect changing seasons or when you're just ready for a new look.

Strong colored walls are more successful in rooms that we don't spend as much time in. Dining rooms or bathrooms for example. Red dining rooms have been popular in recent years. This was a perfect place to use red. Not only is the dining room less used, red is also an appetite stimulant. BUT a psychologically 'cool' version of red like magenta, watermelon or raspberry would not work as well as a warmer red like brick, clay, poppy, or tomato in a dining room. So those with cooler personal palettes should avoid their reds for dining rooms.







For north facing, basement or windowless rooms....I'm a advocate of using yellow in any room that does not receive sun light. That's not to say that I wouldn't use yellow in a room that did have sunlight. Can you ever really have too much sunshine in your life??? Choose slightly to very muted shades with some warmth and avoid lemony tones of yellow. Think butter, maize, straw, and gold.







Anyone with an interior wall color question is invited to ask me in the comment section of my blog page or through Facebook.

So You Want to Sell Your Own House

We think you’re pretty smart if you’ve decided to be a FSBO (prounced fizbo). FSBO is the real estate industry’s acronym for FOR SALE BY OWNER and realtor’s will often do their best to convince you it would be fool-hardy to even attempt to sell your house on your own. But we say what have you got to lose by at least trying? You can always call in a real estate agent if you are not successful. But we want to make sure you are successful. You’ll not only have the satisfaction of selling your own home, it is very likely you’ll come away with a lot more money in your pocket. A woman in Melrose just sold her own staged home after holding a single open house. Not only did she sell fast but for only $3000 less than her asking price which was by the way $20,000 more than a real estate agent had suggested she list her house for. Do we have your attention yet?

All homes, staged or not, are seen first on the internet. Buyers pour over internet photos in their desired price range and location then eliminate those they don’t consider a good or at least potential fits for their needs or taste. Your goal is to have photos that keep you out of buyer’s elimination pile because the more people that actually come to see your house, the better your chances of selling quickly.


So you say “We have a great house. We’ve loved it for 12 years. All our friends say our house will sell easily”. We can’t tell you how many times we’ve heard this. Understand this. Even if you do have a great house that is priced right for your area, it could languish on the market for months - even years if your home is not properly staged and photographed well. People are comfortable in their own homes. They learn to overlook things that might turn off potential buyers. They become oblivious to flaws, smells, and signs of deferred maintenance. Sellers often fail to see the need to neutralize their taste specific décor and color scheme. That’s what a good stager will do for you. They look at your home objectively with the purpose of identifying every potential road block to getting your house sold quickly and for the best price. FSBO’s should take full advantage of this service because the end result will likely mean more money in your pocket and less time on the market.




Here are our top 10 basic tips for ‘Selling Your Home’.




1. Hire a professional stager before you hit the market. Have all staging completed before photos are taken.
       http://www.eastcoaststagingandredesign.com/


2. Get yourself a good real estate lawyer.

3. Remove all window screens even in the summer. Wash all windows inside and out. Pull open blinds. Raise all shades. Every bit of natural light counts.


4. Have well lit and well framed photos taken for the internet. If you don’t have the equipment and skills to do this yourself, hire a pro or find a stager who offers this as part of their service. Be sure your stager approves any shots that will be used to market your home. Trust in their ability to notice things you wouldn’t.




5. Clear all but two electrical appliances from your kitchen counters.


6. Leave exterior lights on at night for people who will do drive-bys after dark.


7. When showing your home, be aware that buyers are less comfortable when the owner is standing right there. Tell buyers to feel free to open cabinets and closets…or better still, open them yourself so they can look in.


8. Limited closet space? Eliminate half of the clothes in your closets. Jammed closets scream “Not enough storage”.


9. Have soft music just barely noticeable somewhere in the background during showings.


10. Remove all pets, pet houses, and pet trappings from the home completely during showings.






Here are a couple of pictures we found on the internet. Would you be attracted to this house?

ECSR helps put Newburyport Mayors in Line

Ann and Donna - East Coast stagers- have designed a plan to improve the display of portraits of Newburyport's esteemed mayors on the City Hall chamber walls. The portraits dating from 1928 to present have no consistent theme in shapes, sizes, framing materials or style and needed to be grouped and displayed for a more balanced and aestheticly pleasing arrangement. Stay tuned for before and after photos.

"All My Friends Say My House Should Sell Fast"

You love your home. Your friends love your home (or say they do). Certainly people looking to buy a house will love your home. Right? Is that how you feel? Well join the club. It's a big club. Sellers are usually dumbfounded when they get no offers. But the answer is simple. It's one of two reasons keeping you from getting offers. The price is too high or it's not showing well.

Let's first talk about price. Who determined the price for your house? Was it you or your agent? If it was you, it is probably too high. Most homeowners are too biased to make realistic assesments of their home's value. If your realtor determined the price, that is no guarantee that it's not priced too high either. I once sold a house I had relied on my agent to price accurately for the market. I had no clue what it should sell for so I left it to the 'pro'. He declared my house "unique" for the area but after doing a market comparison he priced it at $589,000. It ultimately sold for $450,00 which I now believe was the right price. Unfortunately, it took just under a year and multilple price drops to get a buyer. I believe it would have sold very quickly had it been priced right in the first place. But I blindly took one agent's word without getting a few other opinions of my home's market value.

I strongly recommend doing your own market research and seeking at least three opinions of from people who are experienced and knowledgeable about the market in your immediate area. If your home is priced right and still sits on the market without offers, you need to consider reason #2. Stay tuned for my next post......'What do you mean it's not showing well? My house looks great'. http://www.eastcoaststagingandredesign.com/