Stavrosgroup

How to Spruce Up Your Garden Before Selling

In 2020 alone, Americans purchased more than 5.6 million existing homes. Considering the unusual circumstances and rocky start of 2020’s real estate market, the uptick in home sales came as a bit of a surprise. As of mid-2021, we’ve seen a huge surge in home buying across the country, and sellers are enjoying significantly higher sale prices. If you are thinking of selling your home to capitalize on the hot market, it’s a good idea to make some repairs and improvements to get top dollar offers.

For some, that means bringing in professionals for a big renovation. For many others, that means a less-intrusive combination of smaller interior and exterior projects that you can likely handle at least partially by yourself. One of the easiest and best ways to boost your home’s value is landscaping, which increases curb appeal as the first thing prospective buyers see. The best thing is a garden update is relatively cheap, and you can do it yourself with a bit of elbow grease!

So, are you interested in gardening tips and tricks you can use before selling your home? Keep reading for our top picks to get your home’s exterior and landscaping in selling shape.

1. Deep Cleaning

From built-up grime, to dirt and mud, to scruff from kids and pets, your home’s exterior can easily become a mess. Just think: when was the last time you cleaned your exterior walls?

In a pinch, a garden hose with good water pressure will do for knocking dust and grass clippings off walls and pavers.

But if you really want a thorough clean, a power washer is the ticket. The super-pressured stream of water works wonders to peel away the layers of dirt and grime that accumulate over years of use.

Pay special attention to your walkways, since you might spot broken paver stones or cracked bricks that you can then replace.

2. Update Based on Your Environment

One of many benefits to owning a home is that it’s up to you what to grow outside. Many ecologists recommend installing plant species that are native to your region, which helps your landscaping thrive and helps you save on irrigation in dry climates. If you’re moving from the rainy Northwest or East Coast to the arid Southwest, planting the flora that you’re used to seeing may not work out very well.

The best course of action is to update your planters and garden with region-friendly plants, such as common drought-resistant plants for the Southwest. Not only does this ensure that you won’t waste time, money and water, but it also means your home’s exterior will make sense in the context of the local environment.

3. Trim Your Trees and Shrubs

A big one on the list of gardening tips before selling a home, and for home gardening in general, is taking care of trees and shrubs. An unhealthy tree or large plant, with dead or damaged limbs, can drag down your home’s curb appeal and turn off potential buyers.

Beyond that, poorly trimmed shrubs and trees can make the plants unhealthy as they spend extra effort to maintain parts that would be better served pruned.

On the flipside, neatly trimmed trees and shrubs send the message that you’re a conscientious homeowner, which bodes well for the rest of their tour through your home for sale.

4. Ditch the Ornaments

Personal style is all well and good, but it’s not recommended when the time comes to sell your home to someone else. As pleasant as they can be, not everyone loves wind chimes. Certainly not everyone loves garden gnomes or the magic-looking orbs sold at Home Depot and Amazon.

Point is, when you are prepping your home to hit the market, it’s highly recommended that you minimize the decor, especially things that may appeal to only certain tastes. For the best results, you want your listing to appeal to the widest swath of prospective, qualified and likely homebuyers. So, pack up the gnomes until you’ve moved on to your next adventure!

5. Embrace the Mulch

Whether you’re a beginner gardener or a talented green thumb, mulch is your friend. Mulch serves to trap in moisture after you water your plants, it prevents weeds and other things you didn’t ask for from growing, and it makes sections of your landscape look nice and neat wherever plants aren’t growing.

Mulch is cheap, easy to place, and gives your garden a clean and ordered look that will appeal to almost every buyer. Embrace the mulch!

6. Simplify

Some homeowners love a complex garden, filled with numerous assorted plant species that often require tender, individualized care. Trouble is, not everyone knows how to take care of plants, or wants to learn for that matter.

Now, if your garden is already beautiful and well-kept, there’s no need to make big changes before listing your home for sale. But if you are planning to spend money to refresh your home’s exterior before hitting the market, it’s a good idea not to go too wild. Keep it simple enough for buyers of all kinds — gardening-inclined and otherwise — to feel comfortable with the space.

If you know you’ll sell this year, work on a simplified garden plan that reduces the total plant species to a less imposing number. If possible, use plants that come with similar care requirements. You can use that as a selling point when it’s time to list, as it means a lot less work for the future owner.

7. Good Fences Makes for Happy Buyers

Fences aren’t technically part of your garden, but as a visual backdrop they are a key piece of the exterior puzzle, like a frame for a painting or photograph. Much like a shoddy, beat-up frame will detract from even the most elegant image, a rough fence will distract from the garden.

Before you get serious about selling your house, give the fences some attention. If possible, give them a fresh coat of paint or stain, and consider making repairs if sections of your fence are in worse shape.

8. De-Kid the Garden Area

This one depends on your community and potential buyer pool. If your home is located in a hot area of town where buyers may be younger and enticed by walking distance to nightlife and bars, then your potential buyer pool may be less enticed by a swing set or other play equipment on the lawn. Since you’re moving anyways, consider packing up the play set and moving it to temporary storage along with your other non-essential items.

If your home is in an area that appeals to young families, then the reverse is true. You can even consider making a play set optionally included in the sale, if you’d rather not break it down and move it with you.

9. Tidy Up

With landscaping, trees and shrubbery comes leaves, leaves and more leaves. Depending on the season, you may have more or less detritus littering your landscape, but inevitably there’s some on the ground at any time of year.

Before you start to host showings at your listing, head outside with a rake and tidy up all the plant refuse in your yard, plus any tools or unsightly items left over from landscaping, painting, etc. Just like the inside of your home, the outside should look neat and cared for before buyers have a look.

Gardening Tips and Tricks for Selling Your Home

Preparing your home for sale can be a big undertaking, but only getting your interior shape is not enough. Your home’s exterior is the first thing buyers will see, and there is added emphasis these days on outdoor living space. That’s why we compiled these gardening tips to help your home attract more interest and sell for the highest possible price.

At the Stavros Group, we’ve helped countless Orange County homeowners to sell for top dollar, and we have a broad professional network of trusted vendors who we utilize to take the heavy listing of home prep off your hands. It’s all part of our proven plan to help sell your Laguna Beach, Orange County or Newport Beach home without leaving money on the table. If you are considering selling your home, get in touch to start the no-pressure conversation and discuss your options.

10 Ways to Stage Your Home for the Feng Shui Buyer

In any real estate market, Orange County included, selling a home quickly and effectively comes down to two things. First, the home must be priced to sell. Second, the home must motivate buyers to submit an offer.

Pricing your home largely comes down to a comparison of other recently sold listings in the area. Sites like Zillow even provide an estimation of value with just a simple search. Of course, the best Orange County listing agents will consider many additional layers of strategy on top of that ballpark market analysis. They might even net you an extra 5 or 10 or 15% (a great achievement), but in most cases the estimated range is still within the same ballpark.

The second factor, motivating buyers, is less clear-cut. How do you maximize your home’s appeal? How do you cater to the type of buyers who are actively looking in your neighborhood? Who are they, anyways, and what do they like? Add to this the unfortunate fact that not everyone has a designer’s touch.

Well, that’s where we come in. At the Stavros Group, we have decades of experience in preparing and staging homes to squeeze out every possible penny from your transaction. We work with expert design professionals to handle all the logistics and minimize your stress throughout the process.

Today, we’re diving into some concepts that we consider when preparing a Orange County home for sale. In particular, these 10 basic staging tips reflect the Feng Shui principles that so many home buyers enjoy. Read on for 10 Feng Shui home staging tips!

1. Declutter or Move Out Entirely

One of the most important things you can do before staging your home is significantly decluttering and minimizing your possessions. If possible, we highly recommend moving out of the house. The less your presence is felt in the house, the easier it will be for prospective buyers to picture themselves living there. Not to mention it makes showings easier, with less involvement required from you, the seller.

If you can’t move out yet, we recommend renting a storage unit to store your things until you are able to move it into your new residence. One of the most essential Feng Shui tips to sell a house is to “depersonalize it.” Remove things like personal photos, certifications, awards, niche decor like religious or sports-related items, eccentric colors, and so on.

Neutralize your home for maximum appeal. That’s Feng Shui, and it’s good practice for real estate.

2. Take Care of Any Aesthetic Repairs and Updates

Next, you should plan to invest a little money in perfecting your home’s aesthetics. Don’t worry, we’re not talking about complete renovations, just small things that make a big difference.

For example, replace old cabinet hardware like drawer pulls and handles for a more modern look. You can also update light fixtures, doorknobs, and anything else that makes the home feel out-of-date.

Finally, make sure you take care of any superficial repairs, such as damaged trim, drywall, doors, weatherstripping, etc. The future buyer will know they’re in a home that’s cared-for and move-in ready.

3. Thoroughly Clean the House

The Feng Shui-minded buyer will be completely turned off if they walk into a dirty home. Wouldn’t you be too? So, after the decluttering process and updates are complete, make sure to spend adequate time and elbow grease and give your house a thorough, deep cleaning.

If you don’t have the time or abilities it takes to really dig in and do the job right, it’s very worthwhile to invest in a professional cleaning service. An ultra-clean home conveys a message of care, which buyers may presume extends to the rest of your tenure as homeowner. People want a home that has been well maintained, and bad smells or sights are a telltale sign of poor maintenance. Don’t let a simple lack of cleanliness scuttle your home sale!

4. Consider Hiring a Professional Home Stager

The numbers don’t lie. Staged homes sell as much as 87% faster than non-staged homes. Yes, it costs some extra cash, but it pays to present a beautiful, manicured space to prospective buyers.

To properly stage a home, it takes a designer’s eye and quality decor. If you have old, beat-up furniture, for example, staging your home won’t have the desired effect. You may love your old chair with well-worn indentations that perfectly conform to your shape, but that’s not doing anything for prospective buyers. Rule #1 of preparing a home for sale is putting yourself in the buyer’s shoes.

If you do have newer furniture and an keen eye for interior design, you may be able to save some dough and DIY the project. But for most folks, it’s often best to move out your things and let a professional home stager have their run of the place. Experience is key, and a full-time professional stager knows just how to appeal to the broadest range of buyers.

5. Perfect Your Curb Appeal

Whether it’s love at first sight or something less nice, first impressions matter. When a potential buyer pulls up to your home, their first impression is influenced by your home’s curb appeal, or what your home looks like from the street. Remember, the principles of good design and Feng Shui are just as important for your home’s exterior as the interior!

When they pull up to your home, buyers get the experience of coming home from work or activities, greeted by the view of your home’s facade and exterior space. What they see on the outside will inevitably color the way they see the rest, even in subtle and subconscious ways.

So, if your home’s exterior paint is fading or peeling, it’s time to add a new coat. If your yard is overgrown, it’s time for some yard care. Do everything you can to make the exterior of your home as inviting as possible. These simple cosmetic improvements are well worth the investment.

6. A Fresh Coat of Paint Goes a Long Way

Painting is one of the easiest steps in the home selling preparation process that will definitely boost your Feng Shui. First, a fresh coat of paint makes everything feel nicer, newer, crisp and clean. Take advantage of this relatively easy and inexpensive project to increase your home’s aesthetics.

With a steady hand, you can do it yourself. However, a professional painter will likely get more uniform results, and big spaces can take a good bit of time and effort. Consider whether you’d prefer to save time or money when making your decision.

When choosing your paint, it’s critical to keep the color tones neutral to appeal to a wider audience of buyers. Replace any vibrant or loud colors that don’t hold mass appeal (even if you love them, it’s about your target buyers!). Make sure you touch up painted trim pieces as well to make them pop.

7. Keep Things Open

One of the most important Feng Shui tips to stage your home is to make it feel open and spacious. Prospective buyers want to feel the flow of the house from one room to the next. Don’t set up furniture in a cluttered fashion, such that it blocks pathways or cuts off this essential flow through the space.

Additionally, don’t back furniture all the way up against the walls. Though it may seem like it adds more space, having the furniture at least one foot off the wall will make the room feel more open and inviting. There’s no need to maximize an unnatural dead space in the middle of the room.

8. Incorporate Houseplants

One of the best things you can do when staging your home is fill it with lively green plantlife. The presence of indoor plants has been shown to make people feel better. Not only do plants aesthetically liven up a room, but they’ve also been linked to better focus, productivity, and moods.

9. Maximize Natural Light

Next, remember that lighting is ever-important. A dim or dark room feels closed-off, cold, and somewhat depressing. Therefore, to stage your home for maximum buyer interest, ensure that every area of your home has adequate lighting.

We recommend letting in as much natural light as possible from your windows and any glass doors. In rooms with limited natural light, try bright, warm light bulbs to liven up the vibe. If a room’s overhead lighting is poor, you can always use lamps to make up the difference.

10. Create an Amazing Buyer Experience

Finally, learning how to stage your home means assuming a buyer’s perspective for all their senses. As a buyer walks through your home, they aren’t just looking at it — they’re also smelling, touching and hearing.

Hopefully by now, you’ve cleaned up any odor-producing waste or spills as described in step three. This means making sure there are no pet smells or any other unpleasant odors lingering around. Many home sellers light a candle or bake cookies to enhance the homey feeling, but not everyone likes the same scents, so don’t go overboard.

To further stimulate the senses, soft music can be played in the background: jazz, classical, or other unintrusive styles are best.

Want More Advice on How to Sell and Stage Your Home?

Are you looking to sell your Orange County home? If so, it’s helpful to know what to expect and how to maximize your investment. Even moreso, it also helps if you have the best real estate listing agent in Orange County. At the Stavros Group, we are expert marketers with a proven track record of preparing OC real estate to net the best return.

Visit our seller’s page to start the no-pressure conversation and tell us more about your situation. We can help expertly price your home and work with you throughout the entire home selling process. Questions about Orange County real estate? Contact us today and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

Are Orange County Realtor Fees Worth It?

Orange County Realtor Fees

Are Orange County Realtor fees worth it? Well, it depends on the value and quality of your Orange County Realtor. But as a general rule of thumb in Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, and Corona Del Mar real estate, like in all things, you tend to get what you pay for.

—

It’s a new year, and the coastal Orange County real estate market is waking from its seasonal slumber. Dozens of homes, still warm from winter fires, are shedding their decorative holiday coats in favor of neutral staging decor. Neighborhoods soon will swell with eager buyers on the hunt for their dream homes. If you’ve been thinking about selling your Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, or Corona Del Mar home, now is a great time to get down from the fence and find an agent to list it on the market. But which agent should you choose, and how much should you pay them?

Across the country, the standard commission rate that a seller pays their listing broker for helping to sell their home tends to hover between 5 and 6%. According to data from the National Association of Realtors®, the average commission in 2019 was roughly 5.7%. Since real estate commissions are not officially regulated, it’s up to the seller and their agent to settle on a fair fee. Therefore, it’s important for sellers to know what they’re getting in return for the agent’s cut. So what does your commission get you?

Doing the Commission Splits

The first thing to understand about commissions when selling your coastal Orange County home is how that money is divvied up. Say you agree to pay your listing agent 6% of the selling price. That 6% does not go straight into your listing agent’s pocket. In fact, he or she will likely only receive a fraction of that amount, maybe around 25 to 40%. That’s because, as the seller, you are actually paying both the listing agent and the buyer’s agent. But wait, there’s more! Let’s explore how a standard real estate commission breaks down.

First off, your 6% commission goes to the listing agent’s side. Per your listing agreement, the listing agent denotes what amount of that 6% they will pay to the buyer’s agent for making the deal happen, usually around 2.5 to 3%. Of course, the buyer has their own costs to worry about, from appraisals to inspections to insurance and more. However, they don’t directly pay their agent to help find them a home. Instead, the buyer agent gets about half of that 6% from the listing agent when the transaction is closed.

What’s more, agents on both sides of the transaction pay a substantial portion of their earnings to their parent brokerage. From the 3% portions designated for the listing agent and the buyer’s agent, up to half of that may end up going to their brokers. So, instead of 6%, or even 3%, the agents might walk away with 1.5% apiece from the total sale price. While that’s not necessarily a meager sum, as homes routinely sell for hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars, it’s a far cry from the glaring 6% that turns the stomach of many prospective coastal Orange County home sellers.

Services Rendered

So your listing agent doesn’t necessarily get a big 6% payday out of your closing price. Even so, if you receive poor, inattentive service from your agent, then any amount will feel like too much. What should your agent do to earn their pay? And what expenses does a listing agent accrue in the process of selling your home? Most marketing practices involved in listing an Orange County home for sale do incur costs out of the listing agent’s pocket.

Successfully selling coastal Orange County real estate in this digital age requires a keen eye for web-based marketing. By 2017, up to 95% of buyers were using online search to find a home, and it’s only increasing. That means that professional media including photos, videos, social media and email marketing now play a critical role in improving your home’s visibility to the prospective buyers. Your listing agent should provide marketing multimedia which portrays your home in its best light, and your commission helps to pay for those professional services.

Of course, the “new school” of marketing hasn’t replaced the “old school.” Your coastal Orange County real estate agent should include print and mail marketing in their plan. Postcards, flyers and brochures all remain relevant marketing tactics to let the neighborhood know that your home is for sale. And each of those methods costs money for printing, postage, design, and so on.

Most of all, your agent’s commission pays for their time and expertise. Hosting open houses, managing marketing campaigns, coordinating vendors like staging and inspections—if done right, each of these aspects of selling a home takes considerable time and effort. A good agent will also spend the time to field your questions, devise a strategy for success, negotiate on your behalf, and ensure that you are comfortable and informed at every step.

You Get What You Pay For

As with any profession, there are good and bad apples among coastal Orange County Realtors. Just because John Q. Agent charges 6% doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll do a good job of selling your coastal Orange County home. However, from a purely mathematical perspective, an agent who provides a “discount” service is simply unable to provide the personal care and professional marketing required to make your sale a resounding success.

Choosing an agent based on a low fee, or choosing to sell on your own (known as FSBO, or “For Sale By Owner”), is much more likely to backfire than it is to save you any money. In 2017, FSBO sales accounted for 7% of homes sold nationwide. The average FSBO sale price was $200,000, compared to $265,500 for homes listed with an agent. While it’s not a perfect apples-to-apples comparison, the difference of over 32% is still quite jarring.

So here’s the big takeaway: when you’re thinking about selling your coastal Orange County home, there’s a number of criteria you should look for. “Lowest commission,” frankly, shouldn’t be that high on your list. You should choose your agent based on their competence and experience. Their honesty and reliability. Their track record. By how well their personality and schedule fit with your own.

A great coastal Orange County real estate agent is worth every penny. Lucky for you, we happen to know some of the best. We have dozens of happy client reviews, years of experience in your neighborhood, and a veteran team of dedicated admin and marketing staff. If you’re thinking about selling or buying a home in coastal Orange County, or if you just want to discuss the current coastal Orange County real estate market, get in touch to start a no-pressure conversation. We’re always happy to hear from you.