Tidbits and Advice Page Main Home Page

Always make a plan and a detailed list for your makeover. This list is what helps you determine if a makeover is financially feasible in a flip-sell. It helps keep you on task and stay within your budget. In fact, it is of utmost importance to make a working list for each room in the home and cross off items as you go along in your work.

Make sure you leave at least a 20% wiggle room factor for all and uncalculated cost factors that were not previously thought of or seen before the tear down phase of a flip-sell or remodeling job.

Listen to your Specialist. If you need advice from how to sell your home fast to refinishing your hardwood floors to design advice. PAY ATTENTION!! Nothing annoys contractors fast, when you ask for their opinion and advice, only to go against the advice, and then whine or complain that something didn’t work or look right or go accordingly. I cannot even begin to count how many folks ask us to help them in real estate investing/design and work advice only to be told ‘we are crazy’ to ‘not knowing what we are doing’ (after 10 years in business) as compare to the one asking for the advice in the first place. It’s like asking Donald Trump or Warren Buffett for advice and then ignoring their suggestions. If you want success, then study and ask folks who are successful at what they do, not your best friend, co-workers, or relatives who are not doing nor succeeding in that area of interest.

Before any remodel work is to start, be sure to secure and protect the home. For example, it makes no sense to work the interior of a home when the roof leaks or windows and doors cannot be properly secured to protect what work you did do. Nothing can quickly wipe out budgets, profits and hopes when interior work has been completed only to find that someone easily broke in and stole your equipment, new materials, etc. Or if you finish the inside only to have a major rainstorm pound a leaky roof leaving water stains on freshly painted ceilings and new drywall.

Fix the necessary items first! We cannot stress that enough to folks! It makes no sense whatsoever, to rework a room when the flooring or wall studs are damaged with past or present termite infestations. Fix plumbing, leaky roofs, and foundations first before enclosing walls, laying carpet, etc.

If you half-A**ed it, it will look half-A**ed. (excuse the French) For example, painting over wall paper. Leaving overspray on tile, countertops, etc. Using very cheap products especially in a home that is not in the cheap or standard level. If your house is a designer or custom level home, rehab the home with the appropriate designer or custom level materials, paint, carpeting, etc.

Remember a home is meant to be a home. There is nothing so irritating when we go into homes where they have drop ceilings that look like the drop ceilings one sees in office building. There are some folks who believe in this because they want quick access to changing things for the future. Yet, when you go to remodel a home—- you are usually remodeling with the intent to update a home in the first place. If you want quick access to something such as shutoff valve or electrical/cabling, make a spot in the sheetrock for a cutout and then frame out your cutout with small half round, quarter round, etc. Paint your frame the same color as the ceiling to make it invisible to the mind when not searching for it. When you come home, you usually want to relax and forget your day at the office —– not bring it home with you! Nothing will turn a potential buyer off as quickly as seeing dropped ceilings!

If you choose to wallpaper a home, choose the correct one for the correct area. In high moisture areas, use wallpaper that is more resistant to water damage. Make sure you primer or paint the area you intend to wallpaper so that it will be easier for you to remove in the future should you change your decor or have to move to another home. If you leave the wallpaper up for the next buyer when you remodel or flip-sell your home, be sure your wallpaper is not highly stylized to a specific theme. It is best to go with an abstract design that does not limit your next buyer.

The three most important things before you sell your home or flip it with the minimal amount of work. 1.—-CLEAN AND DE-CLUTTER IT!!!!!!!! 2. Fix all broken things around your home. 3. Work on curb appeal and having an open and inviting entrance.  Then, the cosmetics.

If you have a misfit home, than let it remain a misfit and play it up. Do not try to make your misfit home look like the rest of the plantation style homes on your block if your home is meant to be a craftsman or modern style home. Its like taking a man and trying to dress him up in women’s clothing and then trying to pass him off to a ladies tea party. It will not ever work. And your potential buyer will know it and run before even entering the front door.

If you are trying to sell your home and have no idea where to start on freshening it up for sale, then start with a few photos of your home’s exterior, landscaping and interior. Then, print the images out in large prints. Usually doing this will help you naturally figure out what things look wrong to you. Pictures do not lie—they are brutal and with digital quality—–details have never been more noticeable and blatantly hung up for exposure. If you still cannot see what needs reworking, then go to a realtor, interior designer, or landscaping artist for some pointers to make that image sell better to the potential buyer.

It is rare you can sell the inside of a home without the outside being sold first! To get a potential buyer in the door, you first have to spark their interest with the outside or curb appeal to the home. Once you have gotten them to take note and stop, getting them in the door for further inspection of your home will be a piece of cake (of course, don’t forget to make something edible or smell like baking at home when you do show the home).

DEPERSONALIZE your home! You are not selling your lifestyle nor your family. Get rid or hide Purple Dinosaurs and toys, personal photos, and thematic rooms (such as bright pink/green rooms for kids—–sports for Dad). No two families are ever alike. Because of the day and age we live in, most folks looking at potential homes will have trouble enough trying to envision their personal things in it without the distractions of your personal life. Key point here is be SUGGESTIVE of what is the room’s function.

When you make changes to a home and you only partially revamp a room such as a kitchen, keep in mind that new things will help freshen a room up, but make doubly sure that what is not replaced is still in good enough condition when pairing it with the new. Nothing makes us laugh harder when you see high end marble countertops placed on very dated 50-60s cabinets that have not been at least cleaned or the wood work re-stained with newer or similar coloring to the new countertop. Our favorite was the countertop being replaced but no new tile work on backsplash nor new cabinets or flooring.

Design mistake #1——I like natural wood work like most folks. Yet, nothing says total ineptitude than walking into a home and seeing oak floors, oak cabinets, oak countertops, and then if they pulled up the carpet or vinyl flooring they then try to match the flooring with engineered flooring of a similar wood species. You can really inundate folks with all that wood —–making your room’s purpose disappear altogether. However, just as bad are the folks who will use every variant species of wood known to mankind, blending them together, making a buyer think they are walking through a boreal forest! Key point—-MODERATION and never more than two species or style of woodwork in one room. In fact, the whole house!

KEEP IT SIMPLE, STUPID!

Pay attention to details. we cannot state this enough when it comes to your finished job or home. Even the most unobservant person will still unconsciously note the difference between homes when house hunting. The ones with the most kept details will win in the end.

Design mistake #2 ——- Use warm colors with warm colors or neutral colors. Cool colors with cool colors or neutrals. Never mix warm colors with cool colors unless you want uneasy home buyers.