Curb Appeal and First Impressions

You only get one chance to make a great First Impression. Welcome to our #KTQuickTips blog, where we give you our tips and advice on buying and selling real estate. We are your favorite Milton Real Estate Agents, Ariel & Adrian of The Kormendy Trott Team! Today’s review is all about Curb Appeal, First Impressions and how you can kick it up a notch. Have you ever waked or drove by a house and thought “Wow! That house is nice,” OR “Oh, that house needs some work.”?  That is known as curb appeal.  Coming from first-hand experience of showing houses to buyers and being able to hear their candid comments as they approach the front door, we’ve put together a list of three things you can do to ensure your first impression is a good one. DRIVEWAY The first thing you can do is get your driveway sealed. You can get this done for a pretty low cost of about $100 – $200. You can also have a company come in and they’ll even repair the cracks and the divots in the driveway to make it look new again. LIGHTS Second thing you can do is to replace those ugly builder’s light fixtures. Let’s face it, builders use bottom-grade, cheap fixtures and they show their age quickly. Replace them or, at an absolutely bare minimum, clean them up and replace the light bulbs so they look new again. PAINTING Builders also use cheap paints. After a few seasons your front door and garage door start to look weathered. Paint the garage and front doors to give a great first impression. GARDENS Simply cutting new edges around all of your gardens and dropping in some mulch makes a HUGE difference.  Do this and pull any weeds at the same time to ensure visitors fall in love at first sight. We’ve got lots of other episodes you can watch if you subscribe to our YouTube channel, but you can check out this one below!

Bidding Wars

“But I don’t want to get into a bidding war.”  Does this sound familiar? If you have this concern, you’re not alone. And it’s the reason for this article! Most people associate “bidding wars” with spending more than the market would say a home is worth. Often, the thought of this is enough to prevent somebody from putting an offer on a home when there’s already a competing offer. It’s important to know that just because there’s more than one offer doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to overspend. Before ruling out the idea of submitting an offer, have your Realtor do their due diligence to inform you of what the actual value of the home is (which can often be very different than the listed price). Then compare that to your budget and put your best foot forward. You never know what other people are going to be offering.  In fact, the home may end up selling for less than the asking price still. We’ve been in situations where the original offer backs out when they find out that another offer is coming!  Sometimes quick action will scare other buyers off, giving you a leg up in the negotiations. At the end of the day, don’t let a potential bidding war get in the way of you owning your dream home. Be sure to check out episode #2 of KT Quick Tips (located below) for more on this topic and subscribe to our Youtube channel for 200 quick tips along with more content coming regularly.    

April’s Monthly Checklist

It’s April and that means the sun is out, it’s warming up, snow is melting and it’s the perfect time to tackle a few more things on your Home Maintenance Checklist!  Here is what we suggest doing around the house in April GREEN GRASS To ensure that you set yourself up to have one of the nicest lawns around, make sure that you’re keeping off of it during the thaw of Spring. The grass has been in a dormant state for the last 6 months; between that, excessive rain and melting snow, the grass is very sensitive.  Walking on the grass this time of year will easily damage the roots, making it a tough start to the season for your lawn.  Also, keep an eye on your dog who may have a tenancy to dig!  The grass will come up in chunks right now, avoid letting pets on the grass until things dry up. WINDOW WELLS Over the course of the fall and winter, leaves, blowing debris and garbage may have found its way into your window wells, restricting drainage.  Take a walk around your house and clean out your window wells before we get more rain. OVENS All too often we show houses to clients and find that the oven has NEVER been cleaned.  This often neglected task will ensure that your oven isn’t smoking you out and, when it comes time to sell your house, picky buyers who see a clean oven will assume the homeowner has gone the extra mile to maintain the property.  A filthy oven often results in buyers accounting for having to replace the appliance –no need to give them reasons to negotiate! And there you have it. Clean out your oven, check your window wells and don’t walk on that lawn. It’s pretty simple.