Small houses are cozy, big houses provide privacy

Are you comfortable with the size of your house? I am just wondering because I have listed a beautiful house on Lake Minnetonka, close to Wayzata, Minnesota and last weekend I showed it to a nice family. They were concerned because the house was a little bit smaller than the one they live in now. They weren’t sure if they would be comfortable with less space. I have dealt with so many buyers who think they know just how many square feet they want in their new house. They know that their present house is too small or too big. But sometimes they find the perfect house, that has the pool, the big deck, but it is much smaller or bigger than they predicted they wanted. They move in and discover the house to be cozy, if it’s smaller, or provides more privacy, if it’s bigger.

But then, I wonder if anyone ever moves into their house and declares, “this is not right. I want to return it for another size.”  

To Stage Or Not To Stage Your House, That Is The Question

If you are thinking of putting your house on the market you are probably thinking about how much time it will take to clean out the closets, get the carpet cleaned and clear out the garage. In this market you need to add something else to your list. With almost every house that has recently sold there was a difficult conversation initiated by the seller’s real estate agent.

The conversation probably went like this; the real estate agent says; “I can tell you have loved living in your house. It certainly is a great home. But any buyer needs to see it in a totally different way. Once we put the for sell sign up it no longer is your house. It now belongs to a future buyer. That buyer needs to be able to walk into your house and feel like it could be theirs at any given moment. If they walk in and see all these wonderful pictures of your family, they are going to think they are in your home, not theirs. They will feel like they are an uninvited guest in a strangers house. It is an uncomfortable feeling for them, to tell you the truth. They will walk in and then quickly walk out.  They will also compare your house to the one down the street which was professionally staged. In that house, the carpet was cleaned, some of the walls were painted, and the stagers brought in a few pieces of furniture, and many accent pieces to make the house look like a model home. People walk into that house and as soon as they are in the door, they say “WOW.”  Every room has been purged of clutter in that house. A storage unit was rented and many boxes containing their treasures are kept there. So, I have shown you all the many ways I am going to market your house, how many open houses we will have, how many days on average it will take to sell your house, and I strongly suggest you stage your house. Staging may shorten the time it is on the market, and it certaintly will help sell the house.”

The seller says; “Do we have to stage our house? You don’t understand, we have loved living here, just the way it was built, totally untouched, for the last twenty years!” The realtor says, “I think you just helped make my case. Buyers today want a house that has a more updated look than a house built twenty years ago without anything done to it. Painting, cleaning the carpets, decluttering and staging will certainly help.”  The seller says; “O.K.”

Virginia Lord

Virginia@VirginiaLord.com

Raising the Bar in Real Esate

612.799.1700

What is your favorite type of house?

My favorite type of house is a little house on Lake Minnetonka.

OK not that little, but something small and cozy. I adore little cabins with just a slice of lakefront.

That is one of the reasons I like visiting Big Island so much. I would love a little cabin on the Big Island, Lake Minnetonka. There, you feel like you are way up north, away from it all when you are actually right in the city. It’s the most convenient getaway I have found.

Besides that its so beautiful on the shores of Lake Minnetonka. The scenery is gorgeous.

I really do prefer a small cozy house to a big palatial mansion just because of the maintenance required. I would hate to have to clean and repair a 45 room house. Plus I love that cozy cabin feel. I love a fireplace and candlelight. It is hard to feel this cozy with 45 ft. ceilings.

What’s your favorite kind of house?

Virginia Lord

Raising the Bar in Real Estate

612.799.1700

Thursdays Listings

Well I was just going over my listings today and I have some great homes available in the western suburbs of the twin-cities. Here are a few examples:

Click here for a link to all of my featured listings!

Virginia Lord

Raising the Bar in Real Estate

612.799.1700

Tonka Trucks

Oh I’m having so much fun with this blog! Now I can share all of the real-estate knowledge I have with you, my readers. I hope you will learn more of why I love real-estate and Lake Minnetonka. There is so much rich history about the like that I love to learn about. A lot of great business started around Lake Minnetonka. Did you know that Tonka Toys started in Minnetonka?

In 1947, the first TONKA brand toy trucks were designed and manufactured by the Mound Metalcraft Company, a business then located in a small schoolhouse basement near Lake Minnetonka in Mound, Minnesota, that specialized in manufacturing garden tools. With a staff of just a half dozen people, Mound Metalcraft turned out a total of 37,000 metal trucks in two designs in its first year - a steam shovel and a crane.

(”TONKA” means “great” in Sioux.).

This is one of the first toys that tonka toys built. This is a great site dedicated to the love of tonka toys.

This is a brief history of tonka trucks from hasbro, the toy company who owns tonka trucks.

Just an interesting tidbit about Lake Minnetonka.

Did you ever own a Tonka truck? I never did but I think my brothers owned a few.

Virginia Lord

Raising the Bar in Real Estate

612.799.1700

Listen to me!

What do you do when you think your house is worth more than what the Realtor tells you? What should you do? The answer is, listen, discuss, and then realize the comparable solds your realtor has shown you will dictate how much your house will sell for. Most people in today’s market think their house is worth more than any other simular house in the area. The market statistics are always right. So listen to your realtor, please. They will inform you of a very acurate range within which your house will sell.  Besides, the buyer’s mortgage company will conduct an appraisal. If the property doesn’t appraise at least at the agreed upon price, there are a couple options for the buyers, one of which is to take a walk! You may as well listen to the Realtor to begin with.

So what have you learned so far about selling a house?

1. Stage it, and perhaps put some money into a few improvements.

2. Price it right. Don’t overprice in this market, or your house won’t sell.

Virginia Lord

Raising the Bar in Real Estate

612.799.1700

By Far, The Best Part Of My Profession…

Staging
One the biggest jobs I have to do deals with telling Sellers that there house is not yet in “Model Home” condition, which is what you need in this market to get the house sold. I tend to be a “glass half full” type of person, so when I go into a house and see little things that a buyer may object to, there is a part of me that says, “don’t sweat the small stuff, this house has so many good things about it, people will overlook the little things.” Then reason chimes in and says,”do you have any idea what a challenge it would be to sell this house if you don’t mention these things right now, out-loud, to these people in front of you? It’s better to tell the owners right now that their shag carpet has to go, instead of having to tell them anyway, six months from now when the house hasn’t sold, and 10 real estate agents have mentioned it during their buyer’s showing comments! Go ahead, blurt it out, right now, of course it hurts, but you have to tell them, now!” Even though it is difficult to tell sellers they need to make changes, it is certainly rewarding when doing so helps to sell the house. 

After the sellers make these changes their house usually sells very easily.  It always sells much sooner than if the seller had made no changes at all.  And that’s my favorite part, when someone sells their house.

We used to have a market where staging would improve the price of the house. We now have a market where staging is required just to improve the likelihood that the house will sell! I do think if an agent can convince the owners they have to invest some money and time to get their house into shape, it’s not that difficult to sell a house. And when the house sells, we all live happily everafter!!!

Here is a good article about staging.

Click here for a great article about some of the do’s and dont’s of staging!

Virginia Lord

Raising the Bar in Real Estate

612.799.1700

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is my first blog post! I am so excited to be able to share my passion for real estate with the world through my blog!