investment

How to Create a Bidding War through Home Staging

February 13, 2017 by Naomi

Despite the name, bidding wars aren’t a bad thing when selling your property. A bidding war is when two potential buyers keep upping their purchase price because they both want the property. Instead of settling for lower price, another potential purchaser could keep increasing their price until the other potential buyer drops out of the purchasing game. While it is impossible to predict what properties will have bidding wars when they are on the market there are a few steps that you as a home stager can take to ensure your client will sell their property for the highest price possible.

Staging for the market is a key step in home staging and can dramatically influence how much attention the property has on the market. If the property is in a family orientated area there is no point staging the property as if a bachelor is your target market. Taking key steps in researching the current market climate, researching the area the property is in and staging the property appropriately is of utmost importance in ensuring the property will receive the attention it deserves on the market.

It is of utmost importance that you as the stager do not over-stage the property you are working on. Over-staging will deter buyers and will also result in a price drop on the property due to a lack of interest. It is your job to allow potential buyers to pay their maximum price for the property. It is for this reason that having a clear target market is of utmost importance. Having a clear image in your mind of who the purchaser will be allows you as the home stager to ensure the property is staged for them. Knowing who the potential buyers are and what their possible purchase price range is will allow you to give your client the best possible chance at staging a property that will have two people fighting over who wants to purchase the property more.

Staging the property so countless potential buyers can see themselves living in the property is a great way to ensure multiple potential buyers. Do this by using neutral tones and avoid overusing any style trends. While you don’t want the property to stay on the market for years it is important to stage the property as if it will still look this year in years to come…is there anything that will go out of fashion? If so, get rid of it. Potential buyers have to be able to see themselves living in the property, not seeing it as if it is staged to look good for this current season.

How to Furnish Your Rental Property to Ensure a Return on Investment

October 31, 2016 by Naomi

Due to the increase of house prices in Australia and the increase in price in well…everything else many young adults are opting to purchase their first property as a rental property and use the money they get back to save for a property to live in. Many home owners are also jumping on the bandwagon of rental properties and purchasing properties to rent out. This has changed the face of the real estate market and also means that in order to find tenants for your property you must present the property in its best light.

Finding a high quality tenant can be difficult, especially with so many properties being rented out. It is for this reason that you must give your property its best fighting chance but there are a few things you must decide before you put your property on the market.

When you are deciding who your target market for the property is you must determine how you are going to furnish the property for preview. If your target market is a young family how are you going display that a child can live in the property? You don’t necessarily have to furnish the property with children’s accessories but you could put a single bed in one of the bedrooms. Chances are a young family would have furniture to put in the property so they might not need your furniture. Alternatively, if your target market is students than the price of the property will more or less have to drop. While students may be a quick way to find tenants they certainly cannot pay the same rates as someone will a full time job. Students also may not have furniture to put in the property and therefore may need to use your furniture.

Are you going to rent the property as a furnished property, partly furnished or empty property? We all know that you have to display the property when it is furnished but will this influence how much you furnish the property? How you furnish the property for preview will influence what sort of tenants you attract so you must consider what style you are going to furnish your property in.

Next, what colour are you going to paint the property? While white is seen as a staple neutral colour are you concerned about smudges being highly visible? Opt for an off white or cream toned colour for your rental property, this will ensure your property still has a clean, professional and neutral colour tone without the space feeling sterile.

If you renting the property as an empty or partly furnished property what paint are you going to use? Chances are your tenants won’t care about the paintwork as much as you do and with tenants moving in and out of properties are you worried about the paintwork getting damaged?

When renting your property it is of utmost importance to have put your property forward in its best light to ensure that you are getting back everything that you want rather than having the property making no money and in turn costing you money.

Agent or No Agent? with Damon Sellis

August 6, 2016 by Naomi

There are some people out there that believe they can market their own property, put up a sign, create an advertisement on an independent website and sell their own home. To the seasoned property seller, this could very well be a viable option, especially if they have sold in the past and understand the rigours of selling a property. But it can also go the other direction.

It can be very time consuming and be an inconvenience to sell your own property, as well as a huge responsibility. If you are serious about selling, it’s not just a matter of putting up a ‘For sale’ sign with a phone number at the front of the property. There are websites available where you enter all the details of your property and sell without an agent. Usually what occurs is you respond directly to any enquiries you receive from potential buyers and you then show any interested parties through the property yourself. Many ‘independent websites’ now will have access to realestate.com.au and domain.com.au so your home will still appear on these property search engines, even if on a lesser scale. If you prefer to have the control, and feel confident in doing this, then not using an agent may be for you. It should be noted that some agents will see this as an opportunity and contact you asking for access to the property to establish a relationship and gauge whether you may want to list the property with them.

If not using an agent is due to a financial choice, another cost that may surprise is the cost of advertising. Marketing on popular webpages and in newspapers is not be underestimated. Most agencies will get discounts on advertising packages due to the large scale nature of their companies, whereas an individual will be paying at a higher rate. The same thing applies to professional photography and ad copy writing, where paid professionals have the skills, tools and equipment to best sell your home and this may require the efforts of a little photoshopping to highlight certain features and some clever text to first grab the attention of potential buyers.

By investing a little time to find the right agent for you and your property, signing an agreement opens you to so many more opportunities and the greater possibility of selling your property for more. The agent is working for you. As well as having built a vast array of relationships with current active buyers, established agencies will have access to a well-developed database and will find the target audience that you are looking for. The right buyer will be found in a shorter time frame if you know about their needs and what they are looking for. A database will provide you with quality buyers. Your nominated agent will organise all marketing including photography, videos and all the online and print advertising. Open homes and inspection times are scheduled to suit you around your lifestyle. You will also find by listing with an agent statistics show that your home will sell in a shorter time frame. Listing with an agent puts the responsibility on them, and you have to trust the fact that their expertise and knowledge enables them to handle the sales process easily and professionally.

You can decide on a private treaty sale with a set price or price guide, or they will set a marketing campaign leading up to auction where larger numbers of potential buyers will ensure your property sells for its greatest price possible. (One last point- agents work on commission. It is absolutely in their best interests to find you the best buyer for the highest price)

It’s no secret that I am a licensed real estate agent so of course I’m an advocate for selling with one.

Damon Sellis

Modern yet inviting!

February 28, 2016 by Naomi

The 2012 home built by Macquarie Designer Homes is a duel level home us functional and well thought out, being perfect for a growing family. The home is on a quiet street and sits on 309sqm of land. The home features a private alfresco area and a low maintenance garden.

The lower level allows for a modern lifestyle thanks to open plan living, dining areas and 2.9m ceilings. The natural lighting creates a seamless flow to outdoor living on a Merbau decking. A main feature in the home is the kitchen with a Caesarstone kitchen island beach and high quality appliances.

The master bedroom features a walk-in robe and ensuite, and sits on the ground floor. The ground floor also features access to the double garage, laundry and powder room. The second level is a great space for teenagers, featuring a second living area, family bathroom and two spacious bathrooms. A study nook is positioned to maximise space and create a family friendly home. Other great features of this family home is a security system, ample storage and four zone ducted air-conditioning.

This family friendly home is in prime location, between between Marketown, Beaumont Street and The Junction shops.

Pulver Street, Hamilton South styled by Silk Home — Styled by Silk Home

Property Observer

August 13, 2014 by Naomi

Staging your investment property for a great rental return on investment

Although property investment remains very active well into 2014, this does not mean each and every investor is guaranteed success. Once you have found or developed the perfect property, the next step may be to attract and rent it out to quality, reliable tenants as oppose to selling it straight away for a profit…. To read more click here

Investor Genius

August 13, 2014 by Naomi

An “Inside-er’s” Look: How To Increase The Value Of Your Property For Prospective Buyers

There are several times when you should actively try to increase the value of your property. While the obvious one is before putting it up for sale, increasing the value of your property to maximise rental yield; and prior to valuations when you are looking to unlock some equity are also great reasons to consider the following tips…. To read more click here

The Home Page

April 4, 2014 by Naomi

Top tips: renovating your investment property for profit

Renovating to make profit has quickly become an effective strategy to create wealth for many savvy property investors. However, people with all sorts of qualifications and jobs are now also successfully investing in properties to renovate and sell as a way to “get ahead” financially…. To read more, click here

Gather your Home Staging Statistics

April 29, 2013 by Naomi

A part of any professional home stagers job description is selling their services. Part of selling is showing how your services add value and create a win win situation for your clients.

The majority of clients enjoy hearing and analysing the statistics around home staging and its results or return on investments for vendors. There is a lot of literature on the internet that the great stats that are floating about to support the use of home staging and pre sale property styling, the Real Estate Staging Association (RESA) has a yearly publication as do a few other American and Canadian Associations.

However presenting off shore data to clients that has been derived from what they may consider to be a completely unrelated market often results in objections and questions about the transferability of the data.

The best way to counter this is to collect your own data. When you collect your own rigorous and consistent statistics based on local sales and your workmanship there can be little challenge to their relevancy.

What to collect? When collecting data for your personal statistics the more information you gather on each property the better. So create yourself an excel spreadsheet or similar and for each property aim to collect the following data as a good place to start.

Vendors price expectation prior to staging
Agents expectation of price prior to styling
Date on the market
Date of sale, make sure this is consistent, such as unconditional exchange.
Length of time on the market
Starting price
Any price reductions (these should be rare with a well staged and well priced property)
Sale price
Investment in staging infinitives
Investment in final styling and hire

Not all properties are going to have all of this data available, nor are all these categories going to apply to every property, however this will give you a create template to begin your data process.

By using a spreadsheet based product to collect the data you will ensure easy analysis of your stats at any stage.

Once you are under-way you can then start to reference these statistics in the selling stage of your consultations and quotes, for both agents and vendors. The more data you collect, the more power they will have.