Deborah Ward – Page 38

How to Stage Your Home to Sell

October 27, 2021 By Deborah Ward

Stage your home if you want to sell it faster and for more money. Ask any Realtor and they will tell you that staged homes do sell faster and for more money than homes that aren’t staged. If you want to sell your home, stage it. Here are some tips.

First and always, declutter and repair! Take the time to pack up now, and put the majority of your belongings into storage. Keep only what you need to live for a few weeks. Then make a rule, for every one thing you bring into your home, one thing has to leave. Less is more. Take the furniture you have left after thinning it out, and group them to make the space look larger. Put sofas and chairs into cozy conversational groups. Place furniture so that there is a definite traffic flow. Use furniture pieces in different places in your home. Put an armchair in the bedroom to make a cozy sitting area or use your dining room table, without the extra leaves, under a window as a writing desk or library table. Think out of the box to sell your home.

Make that junk room into a room with a purpose. Use that unused furniture to make it into an office. Make each room have a purpose to add value to your home. Odd rooms or unused space that makes no sense will make buyers look elsewhere.

Make sure rooms are well lit, either naturally or with lamps. This also makes them look larger and more inviting. Paint. Freshen up rooms with paint. A small room can look larger if you paint it the same color as an adjacent room. Choose colors that are neutral and inviting. Neutral doesn’t have to mean white; it could be tan or light blue. Look for calming colors.

You should hang things on the wall, but not photos. Depersonalize as much as possible, but also place paintings or art in places that are not “usual” to get them noticed. Place things on tables in living areas to make them inviting as well. Use a “group in three” rule. Odd numbers when accessorizing are preferable, but don’t line them up, vary scale and group in a triangle or some other shape. Group by color, shape, texture or some other unifying element. Use the beauty of nature in it as well. Raid your yard for flowers or foliage to bring in some natural beauty. Staging your home is not really an option when selling your home.

Ask your Realtor for some guidance, and then get ready to sell your home!

St. Pete Real Estate | Check Out Coffee Pot Bayou

October 27, 2021 By Deborah Ward

If you are looking for real estate in St. Pete, you might want to check out the area called Coffee Pot Bayou. It’s a great location in Pinellas County, with amazing views and access to St. Pete.

Coffee Pot Bayou is an exclusive community just north of St. Pete. It is located between downtown St. Pete, historic Old Northeast, and Snell Isle. It is walking distance to beautiful parks and recreation in downtown St. Pete, and has plenty of waterfront properties. The top of Coffee Pot Bayou has a park with boat ramp access which is owned and operated by the City of St. Petersburg.

If you love the water and its native inhabitants, Coffee Pot Bayou has what you are looking for. The area is a common place to find all kinds of shore birds, from Great Egrets to Roseate Spoonbills, Brown Pelican, Tricolored Herons, Snowy Egrets, Cattle Egrets, Black-crowned Night-Herons, Great Blue Herons, Double-crested Cormorants and Anhingas. If you aren’t a bird watcher, there’s a wide variety of fish for watching and catching. Or just wait and look for the colonies of manatees. Want to see even more? Hop onto a boat and take a short ride out to the Gulf to see even more wildlife.
If you’re thinking of living in the area, Coffee Pot Bayou has the real estate for you. The area has different styles of homes and price ranges. Whether you’re looking for a year round home, or a vacation home from the cold northern winters, you can find it in Coffee Pot Bayou. With St. Pete so close, city life can be had, with a vibrant downtown, shops, restaurants, boating, fishing, golf, and beach living.

Coffee Pot Bayou offers Florida living at its best. Call a Realtor today to find the best fit for your needs.

Belleair FL Luxury Real Estate – A Little Gem of a Neighborhood

October 27, 2021 By Deborah Ward

If you are looking for luxury real estate in sunny Florida, Belleair is just the place for you. With the majority of the homes in town going for in excess of $1 million, luxury is definitely to be found.

Belleair is known to be a relaxed and peaceful place. With its share of celebrity residents, it has a small town feel with nearby big city amenities. It is one of the last areas that is a strictly residential beach community in Pinellas County. Established in 1950, it is located on a barrier island. Belleair has the best to offer in luxurious waterfront living for families, retirees or those looking for a comfortable vacation home.

Amenities in the town include 4,500 feet of white sandy beaches, three resident-only beach parking areas, a public boat ramp at the 7th Street Park Boat Ramp and the Municipal Marina, eleven public parks including Morgan Park, Bayside Park, and Crossman Park, and two City maintained tennis courts and a basketball court. There is also world class shopping, dining and entertainment only minutes away in Tampa.

Homes have appointments like pools, spas, multiple bedrooms, high end chef’s kitchens, bonus rooms, high end baths, wood, limestone and marble flooring, granite countertops in kitchens and baths alike, spacious screened lanais, acres of spectacularly maintained grounds, fireplaces, formal dining and living rooms, amazing entertaining spaces and more. Some homes have pool houses and other outbuildings for the privacy of guests or other hobbies. Depending on your budget, the sky’s the limit. Some estates are asking $17 million or more. This is luxury real estate!

If you are looking for a place to live with a great small town with all the luxuries of more exclusive zip codes, Belleair is the place you should be looking.

Who Will Buy Your Home?

October 27, 2021 By Deborah Ward

Who will buy your home? Why is that important? Well, you want to make your home as appealing to your target market as possible. Now you have to stage it to sell. So, figure out who will buy your home.

How to figure that out depends on a few different variables. Things like your location and your price. Location is the biggest factor. Where is your home located? Is it in a city? A suburb? An up and coming neighborhood? An aging out neighborhood? Waterfront? Look around your neighborhood. Who do you see the most? Here’s how it all factors out. In the city you will probably be selling to young singles. In a suburb to families. In an up and coming neighborhood it could be either or young marrieds. In an aging out neighborhood either older couples, or young families. Waterfront to more affluent couples or families or boat lovers. Once you think it through, then you stage it appropriately. Singles or young marrieds, stage for things like entertaining space. For families, stage it to show how a family could use the space or to enhance the space for a growing family. For affluence, stage it to emphasize the high end upgrades. How you market your home matters.

The other consideration is the price you are asking for your home. Obviously you should price it appropriately for its market value. That said, if you want to market your home to get a particular kind of buyer, price it to attract them. If you want an affluent buyer, make sure you have the updates necessary, then price it in a bracket they will see. If you want singles, young families or first time buyers, then price it accordingly. Again, do so within the market value of the home, but if bumping it up just slightly to get a higher end buyer, or down to make it affordable for a young family, married couple or single, you can do that.

You can help determine who buys your home, just by thinking it through and staging it to appeal to that demographic and market your home correctly.

Does Your Realtor Speak Your Language? Hire The Irish Realtor

October 27, 2021 By Deborah Ward

Language. It’s more than just the English, Spanish or French you speak. It’s the ability to have effective communication with those around you. Does your Realtor speak your “language?” Deb, the Irish Realtor does. She has effective communication.

Have you seen the commercial with the dad in the backyard talking about something, and asks his daughter via text something and she answers “idk” and he says “what does IDK mean?” and the neighbor behind him says “I don’t know” explaining that IDK is an acronym for I don’t know. The main character totally missed the point and says something along the lines of “well I’m not so stupid after all.” Communication is about language. Have you missed the point of another person’s answer or conversation because you IDK? Now picture yourself trying to talk with a Realtor about your most important purchase… your home. Not having good communication here would be detrimental to your whole life. Does your Realtor speak your language?

If you are a twenty or thirty something hip to the newest internet slang, constantly tweet, facebook, tumble and pin things, wouldn’t you want to do business with someone hip to that as well? Now turn it around. Your Realtor has years of experience dealing with everything real estate: title issues, the newest home updates, appraisal acronyms and the like. What happens if he or she can’t make you understand those terms? Getting to a place where all understand is paramount. Your Realtor must be someone who can communicate the real estate language to you and make sure you each understand it so you will have all the knowledge you need to buy or sell a home.

Part of that is also being able to actually reach the other. How do you communicate the best? Email? Text? Do you even check your voicemail? Does your Realtor? Make sure that each of you know and respect the communication preference of the other.

Deb, the Irish Realtor, strives to be a great communicator. She really understands the ins and outs of communication. Her lilting Irish brogue has softened over the years, but she knows that even accents as lovely as an Irish brogue can make communication misunderstandings possible. So start out on the right foot by saying to Deb, or your Realtor “you can best reach me by_” and then ask LOTS of clarifying questions as you go!

Are You Buying a Family Home?

October 27, 2021 By Deborah Ward

Are you buying a family home? Great! So how do you decide what home you should buy? That depends on where you are in your life. Much like what size home you need, what kind of home will depend on the questions that you should ask yourself, and also share with your Realtor.

When you are buying a family home consider what kind of home you need. Well, where are you in life? How big is your family? Do you plan on having more kids? Are your children older and moving out for college or on their own? The answers to these questions will help you decide if you need more space or less. It might mean you need a single family home, or maybe a condo or small town home or duplex. Here are some considerations too: does one of your family members play a loud instrument? A multifamily type home may not be a good idea. Your lifestyle helps determine the type of home you need.

Do you have elderly parents? Is it possible they will move in with you? You might want to look for a home with two master bedrooms, or a home with an in-law suite. This may also determine house type too. With elderly people in the mix, will you want a home with multiple floors, or a ranch style with no steps? Would a larger condo fit the bill so you can have a life with little maintenance and enough space for your whole family?

What you need when buying a family home should be determined by where your family needs will take you in the foreseeable future. Be realistic about it. If you have high school aged children, will they be leaving to live at college? Is it likely they will be moving back home after college? Will your parents need supervised living that you will provide in your home? Don’t go into your home search with rose colored glasses on, be very realistic. Ask the hard questions and answer them honestly.

So what kind of home do you need? Work with your Realtor and find out.

The Deb Ward Team