Real Estate Magazine

A Little About Bemus Point:

Bemus Point, or Bemus, as us locals know it, was founded in 1806 and boasts some of the most striking homes and views on Chautauqua Lake. The real estate and ambiance of Bemus Point, some of which is located on one of the “gold coasts” (Lakeside Drive) of Chautauqua Lake, is some of the most sought after shoreline around. Bemus is known for being a dynamic lakefront village of restaurants, shopping, nightlife, local entertainment, and four-season recreation all within walking distance to the lake and beach. Other local attractions, such as Chautauqua Institution, are within minutes by car or boat.

Bemus Bay Condominiums on Chautauqua Lake:

Early 2009 brought about some of the first completed sales of the Bemus Bay Condominiums on Chautauqua Lake constructed on Lakeview Avenue in Bemus Point, New York. This enormous lakefront condo project consisted of two buildings named Browning and Columbia each containing 20 units. These structures were named after hotels that existed on the site back in the early 1900s. Continue reading ‘2009 in Bemus Point, New York’ »

Clean
Buyers are not going to be impressed with a house that is filled with clutter. Get rid of all items you don’t need by having a yard sale. Make sure your home still looks lived in, but get rid of anything unnecessary. This way, buyers will be able to more easily see how their belongings would fit inside your space.

Depersonalize
You should remove all family photographs and heirlooms. You want the buyer to be picturing their items in your home-they don’t need to be distracted by yours. Also, take most knick-knacks off of the surfaces and most books off of your bookshelves. You don’t want the buyer to be wondering about what kind of people live here currently-that will just serve as a distraction to the wonderful features of your home. Continue reading ‘How to Stage Your Home to Sell’ »

Staging your home, so that its’ appeal to potential buyers is increased, is largely a matter of removing your own influence from the property, making it appear more spacious and ensuring that everything is in good condition. All parts of the home, inside and out, should be considered. The intention is to help buyers imagine themselves living in the house.

A great deal of this can be accomplished just by tidying up the clutter and mess that seems to accumulate in every home. As you will be moving anyway, you can get a head start on the packing by putting everything you won’t need immediately away into boxes. These can be stored in an attic or garage, at a friend’s house, or in a rented storage facility. This will take away the personal touches that make it feel like home to you, but which can be distracting for buyers, particularly if they do not share your tastes. It will also make the house look bigger, particularly if you clear out and tidy your closets and other storage areas, to make them appear more spacious. Keep surfaces as empty as possible, for example by putting any appliances in the kitchen away into the cupboards. An emptier room will look bigger. Continue reading ‘Home Staging to Ensure a Good Sale’ »

Unfortunately, in the middle of the economic downturn that we are currently living through, there are a lot of people who are having a difficult time just making their monthly mortgage payments on time. As a result of this very unfortunate situation, many of these people have been forced to list their homes on the “for sale” market. Probably every one of them, at one time or another, has been advised that if they really need to sell the property quickly, they must first properly prepare it. Preparing your home is not the same thing as staging the area. It is vitally important that people understand and realize the difference between these two words.

First of all many people confuse the meaning of the words designing and decorating. It is easy to remember the difference between the two of them if you reason out the process. Decorating is always the last thing any of us do in our homes. Designing is to create, decorating is to embellish. The same process applies to preparing a home for sale, compared to staging it. Continue reading ‘Preparing Verses Staging’ »

Home staging is often common sense, like repairing broken fittings, but also experience has shown that there are certain common ideas that can be applied to any house, and certain things that make a big difference in return for only a limited effort and expenditure.

These are some of the tips that feature regularly in newspaper and TV advice, and which either add to the perceived value of your property, or improve its saleability by appealing to more people. Continue reading ‘Selling Your House – Improving Value and Saleability’ »

As a Realtor in Calgary, I am always amazed how many times I go through a property for sale that looked as if a tornado had ripped through it. Selling a home is like marketing any other product on the market.

If it is presented poorly it will sell less than its potential. With the advent of the internet, it is even more critical to prepare your home for all online marketing. Did you know 8 out of 10 buyers start there search online! Buyers are viewing online photographs, virtual tours, & videos of home for sale. So home staging has never been more important. If your home does not show well online, you will have less or no buyers interested in your property. Continue reading ‘Simple & Easy Steps For Home Sellers to Get More Buyers & Money For Their Home’ »

Whatever your opinion is about global warming, you cannot ignore the fact that the cost of energy of every kind has gone up and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. It’s also not difficult to understand how these increases filter into every aspect of the home building business and into the costs of living for the homeowner, especially the cost of heating and cooling.

In reality when the entire building process is examined there is no point at which we can afford to not pay attention to methods and practices that save energy. The almost universal terminology for these practices is “going green”. As Kermit, the frog, sang: “it’s not easy being green.” Continue reading ‘The Green Building Code and Me’ »

How Eco-Friendly Are Condos in Arlington VA?

Arlington Virginia is one of the first counties in the country to develop its own certification of eco-friendly home building, called Arlington Green Home Choice. The program defines a green home as being a “healthy, comfortable, cost efficient home that reduces energy and water usage and protects the environment”. Components of a green home (as outlined by the Arlington Green Home Choice website) may include: Continue reading ‘Eco-Friendly Arlington VA Condos’ »

Kentucky residents Scott and Susan were working closely with their builder to create a new home which was to be not only beautiful and functional, but environmentally responsible as well. Scott and Susan did a great deal of research prior to the selection of their builder and were quite confident that they were all on the same page when it came to what they hoped to accomplish. From all that they had heard, Scott and Susan knew that much thought and planning goes into the creation of an environmentally friendly home. They were quite pleased to learn that there are a number of custom and mass market home builders who incorporate some energy efficiency into their designs as a matter of course.

In fact, many energy conservation techniques are becoming quite accepted, if not common practice. Even if they are sometimes only offered as a builder upgrade, energy efficient choices are at least offered as an option. Continue reading ‘Building an Energy Efficient Home is Easier Than One May Expect’ »