Recent Blog Posts by Suzanne Dingley

HOW TO STAGE YOUR HOME FOR SALE

When you're getting ready to sell your home, you want to make sure it looks as good as possible for potential buyers. Here are some tips to get your ready to sell.When you're getting ready to sell your home, you want to make sure it looks as good as possible for potential buyers. Here are some house selling tips to get you ready to sell your house.

Before You List, Must-do Showing Tips

Staging pro Sharon Brown with Homescapes by Design in Roseville, Minn., offers her clients a checklist before they list their home for sale. The point of the checklist is to make sure the home is show-ready before the for-sale sign goes up and the first potential buyer walks through the door, and even before photos are snapped for the MLS. The following are the changes Brown most recommends to her ...

Recovery Tips For Storm-Battered Homeowners

Before you begin clean up, take inventory with a camera so you have documentation for any insurance or other damage claims. Try to be ready for the impact of seeing many of your personal items, furniture and your home disturbed or destroyed by the storm and flooding. These tips from Lowe's Home Improvement Stores will help you get busy with the clean-up and started on the way to returning to your ...

UPDATING TO SELL

As a professional Home Stager and Realtor, I frequently meet with homeowners who are considering selling – a little too late. Often homeowners decide to prepare their homes for sale by painting and updating, before inviting me in. Colors and styles change. The days of all-white, very neutral homes are gone. Light fixtures can make an otherwise great home show very dated. Shiny brass fixtures ...

STARTING YOUR SPRING GARDEN

It's not too early to being planning your spring garden...see below

10 Inexpensive Ways to Wow Buyers

Now is the time for home owners contemplating a spring sale to spruce up their properties in anticipation of what Mike Larson of Weiss Research calls a potentially vibrant home-selling season. "If you have been beating your head against a wall, this is going to feel a lot better,” he says.Here are 10 cheap ways to make a property more attractive to shoppers: Improve first impressions. Touch ...

How To Prepare Your House For Sale

Disassociate yourself from your home. Make the mental decision to "let go" of your emotions and focus on the fact that soon this house will belong to someone else. Look toward the future. De-personalize. Pack up those personal photographs and family heirlooms. You don't want buyers to be distracted by personal artifacts. You want them to imagine their own photos on the walls. You want buyers to ...

NEW YORK'S GREAT APPLIANCE SWAP-OUT

Have you looked at your household appliances recently and thought to yourself "I'd love to replace those..."  Well, you won't have to wait too long to receive the appliance equivalent of "cash for clunkers" - this might be known as "Dollars for Dishwashers"! New York residents will begin to receive stimulus funded rebates for various energy efficient appliances for purchases starting on February ...

DOLLAR VS DAYS

After you've taken step one to decide to sell your home, step two is usually setting your asking price, striving for a balance between generating offers and receiving top dollar.  Your chosen representative will perform a Competitive Market Analysis to produce an estimate of your home's "fair market value," or that price that educated buyers will pay based on listings and sales of homes similar ...

TOP 5 RENOVATIONS THAT PAY

If you are thinking of getting your home ready for sale, you may want to consider some remodeling ideas that will add market value to your home. You want to be sure you are spending your money wisely and not making improvement that do not add value. Watch this video for some good tips.