Articles Tagged "Landscaping"
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5 Tips to Ensure Your Home's Showing Is a Success
The purpose of showing your home is to hook a buyer. You want the buyers to come through your house and be impressed - so impressed in fact, that they're ready to make an offer! You'll have one chance to make a great first impression on the potential buyers, so make sure to follow these five helpful tips to really make it count!
- Focus on the outside. Make sure that you don't neglect the outside of your home. Curb appeal can make or break the odds of someone even bothering to get out of the car to come in. If they pull up and see a home with a lawn that obviously needs edging and has an unkempt flower bed, they're going to wonder what else hasn't been cared for properly. You want the outside of your home to be spotless. Clean the siding, the windows, and the doors. Make sure there are no dirt smudges, no cobwebs and that anything that needs painting has been spiffed up.
- Take yourself out of the house. That means that you want to take out all the personal stuff. Remove the family photos from the wall or tables. You want the home to look neutral so that the potential buyers can look at your house and picture it as themselves living there. Everything should be as neutral as possible in terms of personal items.
- Remove all the extra clutter you see at first glance. If you look around, it'll amaze you at how much stuff you've accumulated over the years. Some of it might very well be important, but that doesn't mean that your potential buyers should see it. When you have a lot of clutter, it shrinks the living space of the house. It makes it look and feel cramped and smaller. Many homeowners get something called house blindness. They've lived in the home for so long with the same clutter that they don't even really see it anymore. But a stranger will always notice. So clean out your house and make the space as big as possible.
- If you have a pet, no one that walks through your house should be able to notice it exists. That means no cat litter box, no dog to jump on anyone, no food sitting around in a dish. Your home should not have any pet odors. Having a clean house that's odor free is a big selling point. You don't want to lose a possible deal just because they can smell your pet's presence or your pet makes a bad impression.
- Stage your home! You can hire a professional or you can do it yourself. Stage your living areas in a way that shows off your home. You can rent furniture to make your home furnishings look good if you don't use a stager. Someone who knows how to stage a house knows how to play up the best features of your home and knows what to bring in or get rid of to make the entire house appeal to a buyer.
First impressions are HUGE when showing you home to potential buyers, but by following the simple tips above you will be well on your way to making a great impression and, hopefully, receiving multiple offers! (And if you are at all anxious about this important step, just reach out to a trusted real estate agent in your area who can help guide you through this process!)
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5 Places for Landscaping Supplies Around Long Island
With the temperatures finally getting warm consistently, there's no better time to plan a project in your yard or garden. You may want to add some plants, install a pond, add a retaining wall, or make another type of improvement. To get the supplies you'll need and some help and advice, stop by a landscaping supply business around Long Island.
Our real estate agents recommend visiting the following destinations to find the landscaping supplies you need.
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Get Your Outdoor Space Ready for Summer Entertaining
As we approach the warmest time of the year, adjust your outdoor space to match the summer. Your outdoor space is more valuable during summer, and you need to get it ready in anticipation of entertaining your friends and family. Hosting a festive outdoor party filled with fun and laughter involves more than moving your indoor party to your patio. Our real estate agents recommend these tips to get your outdoor space ready for summer entertaining.
- Up the Ambience by Adding Outdoor Lighting
Most outdoor events begin in the evening and transition into the night. Therefore, it's important to have adequate lighting. Create some ambiance by adding outdoor lighting like garden stake lights to light up pathways. Backyard uplighting or pool lighting will light up the night and add a beautiful aesthetic. You can choose to add the tiki torches, a summer classic, or the battery-operated candles. Light some citronella candles around the seating area to keep bugs away.
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Sellers: Tips for a Lush Lawn This Summer
A lush lawn can be a real booster when it comes to your home's selling price, as our real estate agents will tell you. That's good news, but attaining a beautiful lawn requires some work and commitment. Here are some tips that will guide you toward creating the lawn of your dreams.
- Improve the soil
Lawns need good soil to look healthy. Be sure that your soil's pH (the measure of the acidity or basicity of the soil) is right for the kind of grass you want to grow. Soil test kits can yield the pH, and you can use amendments to fix it. You may need to till the soil if it is exceptionally hard, and perhaps adding some good quality soil.
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Don't Skip This Step When Adding Plants to Landscaping
Our real estate agents can tell you that no matter how green-thumbed you are, the success of your garden still depends on a higher power. Before you design your garden, buy seeds, or get into the weeds with a new vegetable patch or flower bed, it's important to consult one of the top arbiters of horticultural success: the sun. Just like choosing plants for your climate zone, you also have to pick the right spot for your garden. This means determining how much sun exposure your garden will get, especially in areas where tall buildings and trees cast shifting patterns of shade. The method you'll use to choose the best area for your plants is called sun mapping.
Why Map Sun Exposure in Your Garden?
Solar energy is fuel for plants, but this doesn't mean that all plants require the same amount of sun exposure. Some plants need full sun, which means 6-8 hours of direct sunlight a day. Plants labeled as part sun and part shade require 3-6 of sunlight each day, while those labeled as shade need 3 hours or less of sunlight a day. A sun map can give a clear picture of where and when the sun hits throughout the day. This can help you plan the landscape around your home and determine the best area for certain crops. Tracking sun exposure and shade patterns on clear days during different months of the growing season will give you a guideline for planting a healthy garden.
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Spring Makeover for Your Front Yard
Is it time for a spring makeover for your front yard? It is the "face" of your home, and to passersby, it is an indication of what the inside of your home looks like. An unkempt yard gives the impression of a home that is just as messy and disordered, while a well-maintained one builds the expectation of an orderly, tidy home.
Along with spring cleaning your home, consider doing a spring makeover for your front yard. The weather is perfect for it, and so are the bright, uplifting plants and flowers that come with the season. The following guide will take you through how to do your makeover:
- Take stock of what you need
When you get started, you want to keep going without stopping to get supplies. You can do that by taking stock of what you need and getting everything before starting. Start from one corner of your yard and work toward the other, working from the top down. Start with the exterior walls of the front of your house and decide what you would like to do here: Would you like to plant climbing plants or vines, and would you like them to be flowered or not? Perhaps the exterior walls could do with a fresh coat of paint.
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Sellers: Edge Your Landscaping Like a Pro
Warmer weather is here, and we're entering the height of landscaping season. We're also in the midst of the biggest real estate season of the year, and our REALTORS® have learned that those two things go hand in hand.
Now is the time to get your landscaping in shape, especially if you're selling your house. When you're getting ready to sell, you need every advantage you can get, and preparing your landscape is just as important as staging the inside of your home. For anyone out there who's listing their Long Island home this season, use these tips to edge your landscaping like a pro!
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Long Island: How to Find Your Inner Green Thumb
With the weather warming up, it's a great time to experiment with gardening. Not sure you have a green thumb? Don't worry, it's easier than you think! Even some of our real estate agents who have never gardened before are excited to start this new hobby. Here are some of the best tips to help you get started.
- Decide What You Want to Grow
First, it's helpful to think about what you want to grow. Do you want a full vegetable garden with a variety of foods? Would you prefer to plant some pretty flowers? Or maybe a small herb garden is more your speed.
Don't over-think it! There's no right or wrong answer to this question and, remember, you can always change your mind next year.
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Do These 5 Things Before You Get New Landscaping
Spring has sprung, and many homeowners will soon be updating their landscaping to make the most of it. Our real estate agents at Laffey Real Estate are all about curb appeal, and there are few things that can refresh a home's exterior like all-new landscaping.
Apart from that, landscaping gives you the opportunity for more fun around the home. Whether you are planting a tree or setting up a garden, there's nothing else quite like watching things grow. And getting ready for a new outdoor adventure isn't all that hard.
In just a few steps, you can have your home ready for fresh landscaping. Here's how you do it all the right way.
