Windermere Real Estate Blog

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A little goes a long way: a top ten list for making the most of your home improvement Posted: 28 Jul 2011 03:51 PM PDT This weekend I spent the greater part of Saturday taking care of the ongoing household to do list and the transformation made a huge impact. There certainly is more to do, as is the nature of home improvement, but having a finite list of things to accomplish and making time to enjoy them made all the hard work worth it! Here is my top ten list of how to make the most of your time when tackling home-improvement projects. 1. Imagine your perfect place. Your home should reflect your personality, the way you spend your time, and fit your needs. If you want a place to entertain, to relax and meditate, to create art, nurture your children, or display your collections, you will want to consider your priorities. Once you have explored the possibilities the next step is to prioritize your to-do list in order to make the most impact. 2. Make a list. Some home project lists could go on and on (and on), so it’s a good idea to write out a list and discuss the details with the members of your household so you know where to start and who is responsible for what. 3. Prioritize. Once you know what needs to be done it’s time to prioritize the list. If there is something timely (like getting gutters before the fall) keep that in mind when prioritizing, but also think about those projects that will bring you the most joy in daily life. 4. Do one project that really makes a difference. I recently finished sprucing up the living and dining rooms with new curtains and new furniture for storage and display. These are the rooms I spend the most time in at home, so the difference is palpable to how I view my home. Now we are ready for a big dinner party which is one of the most important things in our household. From this experience, I realized that small changes and some cleanup can make a huge difference. 5. Keep it reasonable. Make sure your list is reasonable. The goal isn’t to get everything done in one weekend, which typically isn’t feasible anyway. Rather, you want the time you invest in your home to be enjoyable and give you the sense of satisfaction (and motivation to do more). 6. Gather your tools. Nothing will derail a project like not having the right tools. Once you know what you are going to accomplish make sure all your supplies are ready. You’ll be far more efficient if you hit the hardware store, fabric store, gas station, etc. prior to getting started. 7. Work together. Some projects are two-people projects. If you share your household, enlist other members to share the work. Some projects need two people to lift, spot, hand tools, push, pull, etc. If you live alone, have a work party by inviting a friend over to help. You can return the favor if they ever need help with a household project. 8. Enjoy the process. Blast music, take breaks, and step back to reflect on your household improvement. If you need to dedicate a weekend to doing your chores, you may as well still enjoy it! 9. Get the list done. If you’ve taken the time to make your list reasonable you shouldn’t have any trouble completing it. Doing so will reaffirm your sense of accomplishment, so when you look at what was done, you won’t be thinking about what you have to do next. 10. Bask in your success. Focus on the improvement, enjoy your space, and most importantly, use it! If you made your bedroom a sanctuary, light a candle and relax with a good book. If you reconfigured your kitchen for more efficient use, have your own Iron Chef moment and cook a huge meal. Just remember, all your planning and hard work should be enjoyed. What are your tips for making the most out of your home?

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Make the Most of the Home You Have Posted: 01 Sep 2011 11:29 AM PDT If you have been in your home for a while you may be restless for change. The great part about having a home of your own is you can make improvements and give your home a chance to evolve over time. You just need to help your home live up to its potential!  Here is a top ten list of improvements that will help you make the most of your home. Find your home’s purpose. Each home is as unique as its owners, so in order to fully utilize your home, consider how you view your home’s purpose. Some people like to entertain, others find it a calm space in the frenzy of daily life; some nurture their families and others nurture their creativity. Your home’s purpose can be any combination of these and more, but it helps to consider the function of your space in order to ultimately find its purpose. Assemble a list. A list always helps me figure out where to start or prioritize what is the most important project. Think about what you want to change in your home, inspirations, and preferences. . Make an “inspiration board”. An “inspiration board” is a great way to visualize your home’s decor. You can create a board online with a tool like Pinterest to organize ideas you love or you can do it the old fashioned way with a board, magazine cutouts, color swatches, and fabric samples. Doing this will allow you to see all the elements you like in one place so that you can then tie it all together into a room you love. Create a collection. If you have items that you like to collect, think about how to transform that collection into something you can display. If you don’t already have a collection of loved objects think about what this collection would be for you. You can center a room design around your travel souvenirs, old camera collection, figurines, unique plates, or familial objects. Adding to this collection over time can be a great way to keep your spaces new  while maintaining a personal feel to your decor. Choose a new palate. Shake up your sensibilities and think of a color that will compliment your room while making a statement. It’s easy to fall into the white/beige standby to keep our rooms neutral, but sometimes a color that provides a contrast to your décor will make the room pop. Repurpose an old piece of furniture. Instead of replacing your furniture give it a facelift. You can have a sofa or chairs reupholstered or make use of a slip cover. Also, Painting and staining can add new life to your wood pieces. Rearrange. Moving furniture around is another easy way to reinvent your space. Try placing your sofa on an angle to open up your entertaining room or move your lamps to improve lighting. You can also think about moving a piece of furniture into a room to give it new life, like using a unique dresser for a credenza or a chair as a side table. Make a room of your own. Find some space in your home that is uniquely yours, whether this is the corner of the guest room or an office of your own. It can be very rewarding to have a space that you can organize to fit your personal needs without the worries of others intruding Find an inspirational object. Have you ever fallen in love with an object that inspired you to want to completely redo a room to accommodate it? Designing a room around an inspiring object can be a great way to create a space that truly embodies your design sensibility. Find design motivation. Home design evolves over time and can be sustained by finding items that inspire you. Read magazines and books that inspire your interests in architecture, design, art, etc. Or find stores and flea markets that sell pieces that influence your aesthetic. Or bring a camera with you when you’re doing your favorite activities and bring back memories or inspirations. Most of all have fun! What inspires your home design? By Tara Sharp

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The One-Wall Wonder Posted: 04 Oct 2011 02:34 PM PDT What is it about an accent wall that makes people refer to it as a “wonder wall”? An accent wall is an emphasized wall in a room that has been designed to attract attention from adjacent walls. The simplest (and cheapest) option to go about an accent wall is by means of paint, though some may opt for wallpaper or tile. Homes with accent walls add a surprise element to a room and define an area of space that deserves attention. Choosing the right wall Experts say that the first wall you see upon entering a room is typically the accent wall. In many cases, the wall will have a fireplace or a built-in bookshelf, or something that suggests it is the focal point of the room. In this case, you want to accent that wall by emphasizing the central point with a background color. Choosing the right wall color Color accent walls can add depth and dimension to a room, and make a room seem bigger, warmer, or brighter. If a room is large, consider using warm colors to make the room appear more welcoming, or if the space is smaller, a lighter color can make a room look more spacious. You can visually enlarge or shrink a room by choosing the right color for your room. Light reflections Remember to think about how lighting affects the color of a wall. The color you choose may change depending on light sources that reflect on walls. For example, incandescent lights will have a different influence in comparison to natural lighting against walls. Different light sources can affect color choices, so don’t forget to experiment with lighting against colored walls. Tinting the ceiling Typically, wonder-walls function independently the ceiling, as they usually remain white. However, by adding a few drops of the wall color paint to a can of ceiling paint, you are able to slightlytint a ceiling. This subtle color scheme can make for a perfect ceiling finish to compliment an accent wall. How to do it yourself Painting an accent wall is an easy home improvement or do-it-yourself project. All that is needed is a short list of low-cost products, including: Painter’s tape Paint (with primer) Tarp Roller and brush Putty and scraper Sandpaper The directions are simple: tape off the desired wall, spread tarp across the floor, fill any holes or cracks on the wall, sand and smooth out the surface, then paint the accent wall using zigzag strokes. Painting an accent wall is a great DIY project for anyone to tackle over a weekend, or even a few hours. What is your take on the one-wall wonder? Is an accent wall an overstatement, an understatement, or a room well-balanced? By Gina Kim Gina Kim is on the marketing team at Windermere Services. She graduated from Seattle University with a degree in Strategic Communications and has experience in journalism and non-profit organizations. She enjoys reading blogs, playing the drums, trying new cuisines, and making homemade greeting cards.

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Buyer Incentives

Today I read a blog post on Trulia.com.  It was entitled “4 Buyer Incentives that Sell Homes.”  I was rather displeased with this article.  As the title suggests they have four different incentives that Sellers can offer to Buyers to get their home sold.  The four that were suggested are:

• Interest rate buy-down
• Closing cost credit
• HOA dues credit
• Buyer Broker incentives

I personally don’t use or recommend any of these incentives to my sellers.  These incentives are just inflating the price of the home to get pay for them.  Hence the buyer is buying these incentives for themselves.  Lets look at an example:

If the seller is offering an interest rate buy down they are in essence paying the bank to lower your mortgage (kind of like legally bribing the bank).  They may be offering one point (equal to one percent of the home) which will lower the interest rate maybe about 0.5 percent (this is an estimate, contact a mortgage broker to get current rates).  So lets do the math.

Lets assume that rates are 5 percent.  

$200,000 home offering 1 point making the interest rate 4.5%

Assuming no down payment a 30 year mortgage would create a principal and interest of $1,013.37 

If we use that point money ($2,000) to lower the price of the home here is what we get:

$198,000 at 5% for 30 years would be 1,062.97 

That is only a 49 dollar difference.  Would you pay $2,000 to save $49 a month?  That is what the buyer in this scenario is doing.  

Lets take a look at another suggestion from the Trulia Blog.

Paying the Buyer’s Agent an incentive.  To put it a different way, the seller is paying someone that is working against them more  than they are paying their own agent.  First of all I don’t see why a seller would want to do this.  Secondly, if the buyer’s agent is a REALTOR(r) then they might be violating the Code of Ethics by steering their client to this home over another.  This is a very sticky slope.  To top it all off, in this scenario the buyer receives no benefit from this incentive.  

I truly believe that if you can price the home right, the gimmicks and incentives will not matter.  If you cant price your home right, the gimmicks wont help.  

Be Careful When Using Online Calculator

Those little online widgets can be very helpful when making the decision to buy or rent, or to determine what your payment on a home might be.  But be careful.  Those calculators are little programs that log what numbers you put in.  This information is used to figure out if you can actually afford the home you are looking at.  This information might even be used to send you targeted emails that seem to speak to you personally.

Not all websites track this kind of information.  However, the websites that do are virtually indistinguishable from the websites that don’t.  So if you are debating on whether to use one remember that what you do online is not always private.  The best option is to call an agent or mortgage broker who can do the calculations offline and keep your information private.

20 things to get your home ready for a showing.

1. Mow the yard (if it is winter, shovel the snow)
2. Sweep the entry
3. Vacuum
4. Do the dishes (or at lease put them in the dishwasher where they cant be seen, or smelled)
5. Make the beds
6. Keep the house cool if it is in the summer, or warm if it is in the winter
7. Only have the bare essentials on the kitchen counter
8. Do not have anything (except flowers) on the kitchen table
9. Put flowers on the kitchen table (even in winter)
10. You can have music playing, but don’t make it too loud that people cant talk over the music
11. Remove any fixtures that you don’t want to go with the sale
12. Lock you animals up 
13. Make the home smell nice, but don’t go overboard like your trying to hide something (a drop of vanilla extract on a light bulb makes it smell like you are making cookies)
14. Open all the blinds / curtains
15. Close the toilet lid
16. Close the shower curtain
17. Put away clean laundry
18. Clean dirty laundry
19. Pack collections and nicknacks away
20. Leave.  You hired your agent to sell you home, let you agent do their job

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Building Better Communities, One Home Sale at a Time Posted: 20 Jul 2011 10:18 AM PDT We couldn’t be more excited to share with you the progress of our Building Better Communities campaign! Yesterday we met with kids and community members from the High Point neighborhood to design their dream park and playground on a site that serves low-income, multi-cultural families. In partnership with the High Point Open Space Association and Neighborhood House, the Windermere Foundation will build a park on September 23rd. We plan to get our hands dirty with more than 125 of our Puget Sound brokers serving as build captains and volunteers. The Windermere Foundation has been active in our communities for more than 22 years, but this year we decided we could do more: building parks and recreational facilities in communities with a lot of kids, but not a lot of resources. Here are some of the projects that we have been working on with our communities: Portland offices partnered with the Trailblazer’s Boys and Girls club in renovating space for afterschool and summer programs The Oregon Cronin & Caplan group have completed a home and continued community development at Bridge meadows, a multi-generational housing program for adoptive families of foster children Windermere offices on the Eastside are supporting multiple scholarship and community programs that help youth achieve their academic goals. This year Windermere offices are raising funds to support fifteen annual scholarships and the Fourth of July Lake Sammamish Community fireworks show. Spokane offices came together to clean up and improve a county park, to make it safer and more accessible for families Offices in Waimea and Kona, Hawaii are planning to renovate five acres of land into youth soccer fields And more to come! If you would like to get involved, donate, recommend a project, or learn more about what is happening in your area go to www.windermereandyou.org.

Log sided home overlooking a trout pond just reduced its price by $25,000

More information on this property is at www.465LarchLane.com 

We don’t live in the desert.  However, if the fire season’s of years past have told us anything, it’s that it can get dry here.  Here are some great tips to keep your yard looking good during the hot summer months from “This Old House”.

http://ebm.cheetahmail.com/c/tag/hBOFDmOBCY-h1B8cNlzAAAAAA5n/doc.html?RAF_TRACK

Now that you got your yard green you want to know some awesome grilling tips, how to not get sunburned, and other outdoor projects.
Visit Lifehackers Top 10 Outdoor Tips for a more Pleasant Summer.   http://lifehacker.com/5808533/top-10-outdoor-tips-for-a-more-pleasant-summer?tag=lifehacker-top-10

If you don’t have a lot of space for a lawn let alone a garden then you need to check out the following link form Lifehacker.
http://lifehacker.com/5811295/make-a-lego+style-customizable-garden-out-of-cinder-blocks?tag=diy
You can have a garden in a minimal amount of space while reliving your lego filled youth.

Print Advertising Contest

Contest time!!!  Have you seen my print advertising?  Let me know where you have seen my PRINT advertising and enter to win a patriotic Scentsy full size warmer ($30.00 value).  Comment below, email me, or comment on my Facebook Page with where you have seen my print advertising and what was advertised.  Winner will be chosen at random by a third party.

Scentsy warmer courtesy of Kristyn.  Visit her website here.