Archive for April, 2008
Fabulous Friday Finds- West Hartford Dog Park Dog Walk, Sunday April 27 at 1:00PM
Libby told me this is Fabulous and I have to post it.
I’ve talked about the West Hartford Dog Park committee before. They are moving faster than a dog on the scent of bacon!
The group will be hosting several dog walks to promote the idea of a dog park in the community. The first official walk with be this Sunday, April 27, starting at 1:00PM. Please meet at 7 Arapahoe which is located just off LaSalle Road in West Hartford Center, across from the Post Office.
Dogs will be leashed. Also, please remember to bring water and waste cleanup bags for your pooch! It should be a great time.
If you can’t make it this Sunday, don’t despair, there will be other walks…
Saturday, May 3 at 1:00PM – Elizabeth Park (meet at the Pond/restaurant)
Sunday, May 11 at 8:30AM – West Hartford Center (at Walk for Lupus/Blue Back Square)
Tuesday, May 20 at 6:00PM – Elizabeth Park (meet at the Pond/restaurant)
How Difficult Will It Be to Resell Your House?
There are a many buyers out there right now. As a buyer, one of the things you want to keep in mind is that, someday, you’ll be selling the house you’re now contemplating buying. You want to make a smart investment and end up with a house that suits your needs, but you also want to be able to sell it down the road.
So, what are some of the things that may make a home harder to sell? In no particular order…
1. Corner lots. They typically have a lot of side yard and limited backyard. People like backyard privacy. You may also have A LOT of sidewalk to shovel in the winter.
2. No true backyard. See above.
3. No bathroom on either the first or second floor. If the agent is telling you that you can easily put a half bath in a closet, corner, etc. bring in a professional to give you an unbiased opinion. Will a normal sized person be able to fit in the proposed space or just a 5-year old?
4. No garage. Most people don’t park their cars in them, but they’re great for storing extra junk.
5. Shared driveway. People don’t like the fact that they are sharing land with someone else.
6. House style doesn’t fit in with the neighborhood. For example, don’t be the only contemporary in a neighborhood of colonials and capes.
7. Tear down surrounded by original homes. Don’t be the nicest home in the neighborhood.
8. Awkward additions that don’t flow well with the floorplan. Additionally, if they don’t fit in with the external architectural style of the house.
9. Near a fire station. Great for safety, lousy for late night wake-ups.
10. No basement. Not very common in this area, so when it does occur, it makes it even more difficult to sell.
11. Seeing the highway, hearing the highway. If you can’t hear it inside, that might be okay, but how loud is it when you’re outside sitting on the patio? Also, major roadways in a town that aren’t a highway, but carry a majority of the traffic will have the same issue.
12. Near a school. Some people love this because they can just walk their kids. Others hate it because of the increased traffic and noise.
13. Mixed zoning use. Is the house located right near factories? Car lots? Malls? People like uniformity when it comes to location of their home.
14. Neighbors with ecclectic personalities, carried to the outside of their home. A bright orange house. Yard ornaments and statues out the wahzoo. You know what I mean.
If your house has one or some of these characteristics, are you doomed? Will you never be able to resell? NO! There is always a buyer for a house. You just have to find them. Your house may stay on the market a little longer and you may have to price it more aggressively, but it will resell.
If you do find that you have a few of these strikes against your home, make the most out of what you have and tout those features!
And if you’re feeling down, my house is on a corner lot, 10 feet from my neighbor’s house, with no garage, located on the same block as an elementary school. Cheer up! 
What is this Room?
If you had to hazard a guess at what this room is supposed to be, what would you say? It’s located to the left of the stairway in a center hall colonial…
This room is a Dining Room, living an alternate life as a Billiard Room.
And when I listed this home in the West End of Hartford last summer, this room was very confusing to buyers.
At the open house I hosted, about 70 people came through and I would say a little less than half of them realized that this was the formal dining room for the home. I had to keep telling everyone that it was the dining room, even though it had the telltale built-in corner cabinet and the butler’s pantry was located directly off of it. (There was also a very large flat screen TV on the wall opposite the front windows)
This was my first major experience with the theory that buyers are very unimaginative. Most need to be shown the intended purpose for a room because they will not make the leap themselves.
As a seller, what does this mean for you? You’ll want to strongly consider staging your rooms for their intended purpose, if at all possible. If you don’t, you’re giving buyers a reason to consider another home over yours because they will think your home is lacking something, which it really is not.
I know this sounds odd, but it’s true. I can’t tell you how many homes I’ve shown to buyers where I have to tell them what a room is supposed to be because it’s being used for something else.
So no more dining rooms used as office space, formal living rooms used as kids play rooms, and (full) bedrooms used as closets.
It might seem like a difficult change, but it will hopefully only be for a short timeframe.
What did we end up doing with the Billiard Room/Dining Room? Well, we left it the way it was because of our inability to find a storage place for the pool table. But I did put a sign up on it that said “This is the Dining Room” to help frame people’s mindsets. The house ended up selling in 8 days.
Did the house sell because of my little sign? Of course not! But it did remove a mental barrier for buyers.
Happy staging!