LAS VEGAS HOMEOWNERS IMPROVE STAGING THROUGH DIY SHORTCUTS
You’re eager to get your home sold quickly with a minimum of fuss. You’ve been over the comparables with your REALTOR®, and the listing looks and reads great. It’s getting close to showing time—and although you know that your Las Vegas property is a great buy that any new owner would be proud to call home, you also know that this spring there is a lot of competition out there. Producing a quick turnaround is about the marketing—which your agent is handling adroitly—but it’s also about presentation. That’s “staging”—an area you can do something about! According to the Room Solutions website, properly staging a home has been shown to reduce time to the market by a factor of 5. Those comparison stats are notoriously hard to prove, but when a home has been stuck in the listings for months, undergoes professional staging, then sells in a fraction of the time, it is pretty convincing. But whether or not you decide to engage a full-on professional Las Vegas staging service, there are plenty of small scales DIY home improvements that take 30 minutes or less—but which make a big staging difference. • Reinvigorate the bathroom and other tiled areas by doing some grout cleaning. That grout between tiles may have been pristine when you first moved in, but years of use will take a toll. Use plain water and a stiff brush (they’re easy to find at any home center) to get rid of build-up and residue. Stubborn areas may need a spray bottle with a 50% solution of white vinegar: spray, leave it on for 5 minutes or so, then brush off and rinse. It makes a difference when you bring the grout back to its original uniform tone. • Many a Las Vegas kitchen is burdened by an outmoded, timeworn backsplash. Replacing it may sound like a major project, but it is often possible to make quick work of it using one of the new peel-and-stick backsplash products. Instead of tearing up your kitchen and taking days to assemble a replacement, look into peel-and-stick tiling. These products come in many colors and styles—with installation processes that can have the entire project done in very short order. • Touchup. Repainting whole rooms is not something that can be accomplished in minutes, but some rooms don’t need all that. Taking care of small but unsightly wall dings and scuffs will bolster first impressions—and often, just a few minor touchups can do the trick. If you don’t have the original paint style notes, some stores have computerized color-matching systems that recreate sample hues. Wood trim scuffs and stains can often be banished with colored felt pens or crayon color packs; more obscure tones may require a color matching kit. In any case, the time requirement is minor compared with the resulting subliminal improvement. • Stain kitchen cabinets. If yours is one of Las Vegas’s older home with original kitchen cabinets that remain dull no matter what you do, you can still avoid the time and expense of completely replacing them. Instead, renew the existing stain job or switch to a new tone that complements the kitchen. Staging a Las Vegas home is an important adjunct to the overall marketing effort your REALTOR provides. If you are looking for some energetic help in that department, I’m here to answer your phone call!
CORRECTING THE DISCONNECT IN CREDIT SCORES
It may not be the first factor you look at when you begin planning to buy a Las Vegas house, but unless you are in the rare position of being able to make an all-cash purchase, sooner or later your credit score will become a prominent factor. That’s why this month’s get-together in Washington held some information that could ultimately become pretty important for both Las Vegas home buyers and sellers. The meeting was held at the National Association of Realtors headquarters, with participants that included HUD Secretary Julian Castro, credit score industry representatives from FICO and Vantage Score, and other experts in research, government, and real estate. This might seem to be the kind of gathering (“Symposium,” in this case) that is usually more productive of eyes glazing over than much else, but for Las Vegas home buyers and sellers, this one was different. The subject was “Credit Access”—how companies determine the credit scores that guide lenders’ decisions on who will and won’t be offered home loans. The consensus was (and is) that current credit score formulas could stand some improvement. Secretary Castro’s Keynote set the table. He said that there is a recognized need to find new ways to construct credit scores that are more sensitive to “getting at” the bottom line responsibility potential borrowers have shown in their lives; credit scores that will predict how they will pay down their mortgages. “There’s been a disconnect there,” he said. Given that this is the single reason that credit scores exist at all, that seems like quite a statement to make, particularly with the credit scoring companies right there in the room. No eye-glazing going on, I suspect. Now it’s true that FICO and Vantage Score have already been fine-tuning some of their methods. Local buyers may have already have seen their Las Vegas credit scores improving when non-recurring problems (like tardy medical bill payments) were de-emphasized. But on a wider scale, there was considerable discussion about the need to adapt to lifestyle shifts that are taking place. The way Americans live their lives—particularly the way they use technology—has changed and will continue changing. Blanket shifts in lifestyles make some behaviors different predictive value than they used to have: for instance, many millennial and minority consumers “don’t use credit in the same way households did in the past.” A representative from Moody’s Analytics pointed out that most conventional loans are currently made to borrowers with credit scores about 740—which is 20 points higher than was the case during the housing boom. In today’s tougher economy, that makes it likely that some Las Vegas credit scores would benefit if HUD can follow through on its efforts “to improve credit access to Americans” without adding to lender risk. It’s in everyone’s interest that credit ratings be accurate predictors of repayment patterns. With interest rates continuing to be at bargain basement levels, it couldn’t be more important, because it also continues to be a fantastic time to be in Las Vegas’s real estate market—and to give me a call!
HOME FOR SALE TIP 3 CS TO DEMOLISH WEATHER DOLDRUMS
You’ve decided that right now is the perfect time to put up your Las Vegas home for sale; you’re charged with energy and determination; you’re ready to get going—and then…suddenly, the spring weather turns foul. It’s an all-too-common frustration, from mud season sieges in Northeastern Maine to kite-busting windstorms in the far Southwest, the kind of perfection “spring days” brings to mind isn’t always there when you want it to be. Some days (even some weeks) are like that—often, when you’re trying to ready your Las Vegas home for sale. Sometimes Mother Nature just doesn’t cooperate. You’re stuck indoors. Rather than sitting and stewing over all the time lost from perfecting the garden or touching up those few exterior blemishes that need a spot of paint or two, this is one situation that’s easily reversed. In fact, there is such a lot that can be accomplished indoors, with a little mental jujitsu, you should even be able to talk yourself into considering a bad weather break as an opportunity. There are dozens of indoor activities you can attend to. Here are 3 C’s for examples: Clutter! Let’s face it, for a home for sale, there’s too much stuff, everywhere. No, all that dust-catching memorabilia doesn’t serve to create a more charming, homey atmosphere. It creates the sense that this home for sale belongs to someone else. The goal is to display a dwelling primed and waiting for the buyer’s décor ideas to take hold—and clutter in the form of personal possessions just obscures the issue. Box it, store it—or even prepare it for later eBay sale. Just do get it out of sight! Clean! There’s the degree of ‘clean’ that we live in every day, and that’s perfectly fine for busy households and regular family life. Then there’s the kind of ‘clean’ that can help to turn a home for sale into a home that’s under contract. Deep cleaning is an art—and it may even take a professional to accomplish. In most cases, it just takes a little more time and determination than day-to-day housework can achieve. A stormy day is perfect for a serious rented-rug-cleaner session or some toothbrush-aided baseboard scrubbing. Granted, foul weather is not conducive to any heroic window washing…for that, wait ‘till the skies clear. Clear! The furniture arrangement that’s evolved over time may be a layout that makes daily Las Vegas living comfortable and convenient is frequently not the layout most conducive to moving home for sale as quickly as possible. Less is often more because it opens sight lines and gives the feeling of roominess. Clearing rooms of redundant tables, chairs—even sofas—is an indoor activity with results that become instantly gratifying. Spates of unpredictable Las Vegas weather don’t prove much of an impediment to preparing a Las Vegas home for sale. If you’re close to making that decision, I hope you’ll consider giving me a call to discuss marketing directions. The weather’s perfect!
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