Best Language in a Flyer: Open Houses today

This "original" 3 BR, 2 BA home in Mill Valley at 5 Hillcrest, is still on the market for $1.46 million. (Maybe it's the enormous redwood that lists uneasily at the corner of the lot.) We're starting to collect examples of laudable marketing prose.

From the Sotheby's flyer: "There is so much untapped potential in this 1952 home. It is a perfect canvas for those wanting to remodel..." A perfect canvas: Great title for a novel.

Read More......

Six Ways To Spend Less To Make More At Resale

There you are on the sidelines, waiting out the real estate meltdown by not selling your house. Which, you cannot help but notice, could use a new coat of paint. Not to mention a kitchen facelift. You're not a Rockefeller, but minor upgrades would go a long way toward making the place more liveable.

But then you remember you live in uncertain times. With the economy in free fall, can you justify spending money—even a small amount of money—on a new deck? Yes, yes, yes.

Especially a small amount of money. As this story points out, the renovation projects that pay off most are often those that cost the least. The list of the six savviest ways to spend money on your house includes:



1. New siding (because the average homeowner will recoup up to 88.1 percent of the cost at resale; )
2. New wooden deck (get back as much of 85.4 percent at resale)
3. Kitchen makeover (recoup up to 83 percent)
4. New windows (as much as 81.2 percent)
5. Bathroom facelift (up to 78 percent)
6. Install crown molding (can cost as little as $100 a room, so how could it not be worth it?)

Read More......

Remember The Old Days, When Contractors Didn't Return Your Calls?

Now is a good time to remodel, the Los Angeles Times says, for five reasons that we have taken the liberty of paraphrasing:

1. With interest rates low, you can borrow against untapped equity at a lower cost than a year ago.

2. Houses age. When you need a new roof, you need a new roof.

3. Not a good time to sell, so make your current house comfortable enough to live in for a while.

4. New-home builders are now competing with remodeling contractors for your job so you can negotiate a lower price.

5. The contractor needs the work so badly that the crew may even show up on the date promised. (If this happens, please let us know. We'll want to take photos to show our grandchildren someday, after we have grandchildren.)

[Photo credit: Bat Phone courtesy of Bat Cave]

Read More......

You Can't Afford Not to Renovate

We all know that the best way to make more money on your house is to spend more on it by renovating with, say, an upscale kitchen remodel that costs $117,254. If you execute this maneuver properly, you can recoup $104,241 of that investment when you eventually sell the house. And in the meantime, you get to use all those shiny new appliances.

There is of course one little catch. The last thing you want to do is to spend money on things that potential homebuyers might think are, well, ugly. And let's face it, not all of us have the good taste to execute every detail of a renovation flawlessly. Luckily, however, the editors of Remodelista do.

Remodelista's pull-no-punches remodeling guide makes it easy to pick things other people will want to buy from you one day when you put the house on the market. They do it by:

"offering our opinionated (OK, bossy) ideas on the best faucets, the best sinks, the best bathroom hooks. Our combined experience includes a dozen remodels, so we’ve pooled our knowledge and compiled lists of our greatest hits. You’ll find our top ten picks in kitchen categories such as sinks, faucets, ranges, counter stools, and more."

Even better? They tell you where to to go to buy the stuff.

[Photo credit: PatrickandTiffany]

Read More......