Troy MI Real Estate

Gary Keller, one of the country’s top brokers and author of best-selling book “Shift:  How Top Real Estate Agents Tackle Tough Times” was on ABC’s “Good Morning America” last week.   Mr. Keller gave his opinion on how to increase your chances of selling in this market. Selling Your House in a Down Real Estate Market [...]

{ 1 comment }

Most Home Stagers agree, however, that Staging encompasses all 12 of these improvement projects, as a good Stager will advise if, and to what extent, these improvements should be undertaken to increase the marketability of the property. The article can be viewed here: http://blog.homegain.com/home-improvement/homegain-2009-top-12-home-improvements-survey-results/ I have already had an agent ask if $300 for Home [...]

{ 2 comments }

From my staging colleague Cindy Bryant, owner of Redesign, Etc. in Houston, TX: Helping home sellers achieve their goal. Offers will come faster. Marketing strategy. Effective selling technique. Selling a home for all it’s worth. Taking a tried and true approach. Always looking better than the competition. Get better appraisal values. Internet photos will show a must see [...]

{ 0 comments }

After owning a Home Staging business for over 5 years, I think I have heard every possible objection to hiring a Stager, from “I know what needs to be done” to “I don’t want someone touching my stuff”.  The biggest objection by far, however, is the cost.  In this economy, people just don’t have a [...]

{ 1 comment }

When potential buyers view a house for sale, they need to see rooms presented as they were intended.  The master bedroom shouldn’t be an exercise room, the bathroom shouldn’t be a pet station, the garage shouldn’t be a storage unit, and unless you have more than 3 bedrooms, resist the urge to make one an [...]

{ 1 comment }

A link to a “virtual home staging” site was sent to me recently, and naturally, I had to investigate.  Ahhh … the wonders of Photoshop.  The owners of this site will take uploaded photos of your vacant rooms and plug in furniture to make it appear furnished.  The “after” photos actually look pretty good, although [...]

{ 1 comment }

When we started selling homes in 2001, short sales were unheard of in Metro Detroit.  Foreclosures were rare in Oakland County.  But times have changed and this year we have had an enormous uptick in our short sale business. Short sales are taking place in every price range.  In the last 30 days we’ve helped [...]

{ 7 comments }

As I head to Florida for a much-needed vacation and annual Spring Training game (Go Tigers!!!), I leave you with an excellent Q & A reblogged with permission from my staging colleague Cindy Bryant of Redesign Etc, Inc. in Houston, TX.  Her post on Active Rain is spot-on and truly reflects the most common questions [...]

{ 0 comments }

We know that the three most important factors for a successful real estate sale are location, price and condition.  While the seller can make changes to the price and condition of a property to hasten a sale,  no one can amend the location. What happens when the location of the house itself is desirable, but [...]

{ 3 comments }

Last week Oakland County introduced a plan to help get some of the vacant foreclosed homes off the market in select Oakland County communities.  Their press release follows. I need to call the county and ask some questions.  The program seems very generous and should help sell some foreclosed homes.  I am not sure why [...]

{ 5 comments }

Today I received a call from a salesperson from California who wanted to sell me the latest and greatest real estate lead system.  She started off the call with, “Maureen, are you still selling real estate?” I was leaving an open house and headed to an appointment to meet a new listing client.  Yes, I [...]

{ 0 comments }