Winter presents its own unique set of challenges. It is not the ideal time to put your home on the market, but since we live in a market where it gets cold and rains or snows, there are some tips to keep in mind so that the season doesn’t get in the way of the sale. Follow these steps so you can brighten your home and make the showing pleasant and enjoyable for your potential buyers.

1) Clear a Path

•Continually shovel a path through the snow, especially if it’s still falling.

•Footprints on freshly fallen snow will turn to ice if the temperature is low enough, so shovel the walk.

•Sprinkle a layer of sand over the sidewalk and steps to ensure your buyers’ stable footing.

•Remember to open a path from the street to the sidewalk so visitors aren’t forced to crawl over snowdrifts.

•If it’s raining, put a rubber mat by the front door or a container to hold wet umbrellas.

2) Let in the Light

•Pull up the blinds, open the shutters, push back the drapes on every window.

•Turn on every light in the house, including appliance lights and closet lights.

•Brighten dark rooms with few windows by placing spotlights on the floor behind furniture.

•Turn off TV.

3) Turn on the Heat

•Pump up that thermostat. It’s better to heat the house a degree or two warmer than usual and then set the temperature at normal. This prevents the heat from kicking on when the buyer is present, because some HVAC systems are loud.

•You want the temperature inside to be comfortable and to give the buyer more of a reason to linger, especially on a cold day.

•Light the fireplace, but open the damper, place a grate in front of it and don’t leave it unattended for very long. You don’t want your house to catch fire!

4) Create a Mood

•Make your living room appear romantic by placing two champagne glasses near a champagne bucket on the coffee table.

•Toss afghans or throws across the arms of your sofa.

•Turn your bathroom into a spa:

1.Hang plush robes.

2.Roll up wash cloths, tie with a ribbon and place in a basket on the counter.

3.Set up a grouping of soaps, lotions and shampoo.

•Place vases filled with winter flowers around the house.

•Set a breakfast tray on the bed containing a coffee cup, saucer, napkin, rolled-up newspaper.

•Dress your dining room table for a dinner for two.

5) Turn on the Music

•Turn on soft music.

•Jazz or classical is soothing.

•Don’t turn on a commercial radio station – cable stations offer a wide variety of music without interruptions.

6) Ease Up on the Scents

•Many people are allergic to certain scents and deodorizers, so don’t spray the air or use plug-in air fresheners.

•Don’t burn candles or spray perfume in the bedroom for the same reason.

•If you’re going to bake cookies or simmer spices such as cinnamon in water on the stove, put out munchies so buyers aren’t disappointed.

7) Make it Visually Pleasing

•Display photographs showcasing your summer flower gardens and lush green lawns.

•Keep blinds partially closed that otherwise show undesirable outdoor scenery such as a dilapidated fence or a nearby structure that obstructs views.

•Make Your House Sparkle:

1.Wash windows

2.Clean out cobwebs.

3.If necessary, re-caulk tubs, showers and sinks.

4.Polish chrome faucets and mirrors.

5.Clean out the refrigerator.

6.Vacuum daily. If your carpeting is plush, vacuum in one direction.

7.Wash and wax floors.

8.Dust furniture, ceiling fan blades and light fixtures.

9.Bleach dingy grout.

10.Empty trash and recycling bins.

Serve Winter Foods

•Don’t serve muffins or any other kind of food that can be popped into the mouth because you want buyers to stay for a while and notice elements they might otherwise miss.

•Hot soups such as tortilla, potato or squash are delicious on a cold day.

•Chili or stew is a great alternative to soup, but leave a receptacle for disposal of the paper bowls and spoons.

•Hot apple cider or cups of cocoa make great beverage choices.

9) Provide Specific Information

•Attach printed cards to items and in rooms that provide further information the buyer might miss or might not know. You have so little time to make an impression.

•If you have an antique chandelier in your dining room, put a card on it that discloses its age and other important details.

•If you have removed the washer and dryer from the laundry room, attach a card to the wall describing the room.

•If your basement stairs are steep, attach a card to the railing that cautions buyers to watch their step.

•Take care when placing a card that says: “Not included in the sale.” That will make a buyer want it, but you can play that later to your advantage.

10) Use Timers and Technology to Your Advantage

•Plug indoor lamps into a timer to automatically turn on at times buyers will be present.

•Consider using motion sensors that will light up in the evening when a buyer approaches your doorstep.

•Set your crock-pot on a timer to warm up soup at designated time.

If all of this seems a little much, you can always work with a Forty West Certified Realtor who can not only help you get your home ‘show ready’ but they will also make sure you price your home right, market it aggressively and ultimately negotiate the most favorable terms. This unique, strategic partnership with Forty West and a select list of Realtors will also save you 1.5% on the listing fee when you purchase a new Forty West home, which could put thousands of dollars back in your pocket.

This article was recently featured in US News & World Report and aside from the owner of Forty West Builders being quoted, it offers some excellent considerations to take in account when deciding “new or used”.

As written in US News & World Report by Luke Mullins on August 19, 2010:

9 Reasons to Choose a New Home Over a Resale
Newly built properties can offer fewer hassles, higher efficiency, and increased customization

As the mortgage crisis continues to inundate the market with distressed properties, today’s house hunter has no shortage of cheap, foreclosed homes to pick through. But despite all those deals in the previously-owned home market, consumers shouldn’t overlook the potential benefits of buying a new home. “New homes usually sell higher per square foot then resale homes,” says Jack McCabe of McCabe Research & Consulting. “But their selling points, I think, are pretty strong.” To help consumers better understand the advantages of new home buying, U.S. News spoke with a handful of experts and compiled a list of 9 reasons to choose a new home over a resale:

1. Customization: Many home builders allow buyers to participate in the process of designing their property, which helps create a living space specifically tailored to the consumer’s tastes. New home buyers, for example, can often decide where their bathroom might go, choose their favorite type of flooring, or pick the color of the exterior paint. Buyers moving into a subdivision can sometimes even pick the lot they like best. “There is a lot of flexibility for [new home buyers] to kind of put their personal signature on the product,” says Patrick Costello, president of Forty West Builders. “Those kind of things you can’t do with a used house—it’s just not possible.”

2. Building envelope: Building codes have mandated increasingly higher energy efficiency standards since they began to address the issue in the late 1970s, says Kevin Morrow, senior program manager for the National Association of Home Builders’ green building programs. “The most recent International Energy Conservation Code came out in 2009 [and] required roughly 17 percent more efficiency than the codes of three years prior,” he says. “So using that as sort of a gauge to how newer homes should perform from an efficiency standpoint compared to older homes, it’s pretty clear that just as homes meet code, they are going to be more efficient.”
Newly constructed homes use energy more efficiently in two ways, Morrow says. First, they tend to have a tighter-sealed building envelope that helps prevent conditioned air—cool air in the summer, warm air in the winter—from escaping. Features that create this envelope include higher-efficiency insulation, doors, and windows. “Gone are the days of the single pain window … now I think you are starting to see triple- and quadruple-paned windows,” Morrow says. “These are windows that are designed to really minimize the transfer of heat either from warm to cold or vice versa, and they of course will help the building envelope.”

3. Green appliances: The more energy-efficient mechanics of the house also help reduce utility bills for new home buyers, Morrow says. Newly-constructed homes often include green systems and appliances—like high efficiency stoves, refrigerators, washing machines, water heaters, furnaces, or air conditioning units—that homes built years ago might not. “The conditioning equipment is usually considered to be one of the larger energy consumption devices, but certainly those kitchen appliances matter,” Morrow says. Existing homeowners can always retrofit their property or buy higher-efficiency appliances, but doing so requires a potentially significant expense.

4. Fewer repairs: The features of newly constructed homes should also hold up better than those of existing homes, which may have experienced years of wear and tear, says Evan Gilligan of Mandrin Homes. “People will buy [previously-owned] houses and then the carpet needs to be replaced or it needs to be repainted, or it needs new appliances, or the flooring is shot,” Gilligan says. “When they buy a new home in today’s market, it really is new.”

5. Less maintenance: At the same time, today’s new homes are engineered specifically to minimize maintenance requirements. For example, Costello says his company uses composite products for a home’s exterior trim instead of wood, which could rot or need repainting. “You buy a used house you don’t know what you are getting, you might have to do a lot of maintenance,” Costello says. “We are trying to look down the road and make things as easy as possible for the homeowner so they can enjoy living there and not have to be saddled with maintenance.”

6. Warranty: In addition, builders often agree to take care of the repair work that becomes necessary in your newly constructed home for at least the first year. “A new home is generally fully warrantied by the builder for a minimum of a year and most of all the other components are warrantied for extended periods,” says Jack McCabe. So if your roof starts leaking or the heater breaks during the warranty period, your builder will pick up the tab for the repairs. “When you buy a resale home, even if you have a home inspection done, it still does not turn up hidden defects that you don’t find out about a lot of times for two years,” McCabe says.

7. Fire safety: Newly constructed homes often include fire safety features that may not be present in properties built years ago, Gilligan says. “We use fire retardant in our carpeting and in our insulation,” he says. In addition, all newly constructed homes are required to include hard-wired smoke detectors. These devices can provide better protection than battery-operated smoke detectors, which can fail to perform if their battery runs out, Morrow says. “Hard-wired [smoke detectors] run on the electricity of the house and then have a battery backup for if the house power goes out,” he says.

8. Concessions: Especially in today’s sluggish housing market, buyers may be able to squeeze more concessions out of a home building company than an individual seller. That’s because individual sellers often have an emotional attachment to their property that can blind them to its true value. “People usually think that their home is worth more money than it is,” McCabe says. At the same time, builders often have greater financial wherewithal to absorb a loss on a sale than individuals. “I’ll put it to you this way: a $30,000 hit [spread] over 30 lots hurts a lot less than a $30,000 hit on one existing house,” says Christopher Rachuba of Rachuba Home Builders. “So I think [buyers] may get more bargaining [power] that way.”

9. Financing: New home buyers may be able to take advantage of mortgage financing perks made available through their builder. “New home builders, in many cases the larger ones, have their own mortgage companies or they will offer paying points or closing costs and buy down certain rates for you,” McCabe says. “The seller of a resale home is generally not going to do that for the buyer.”

Refreshing pools, acclaimed golf course, endless walking trails, boutique shops, friendly restaurants, 10 acres of open space, local grocery markets………what more could you want.  Forty West is pleased to recently announce the Grand Opening of its latest community, Taylor Preserve at Waverly Woods, where all of these amenities and more can be found within footsteps of your front door.

Situated on the scenic Waverly Woods golf course and conveniently located to Baltimore and Washington DC, Taylor Preserve is a community like no other.    With 12 different floor plans to choose from, a dense list of included features second to none and resort style amenities without the hefty price tag, it’s easy to call Taylor Preserve home.  Unlike other master planned communities, homeowners at Taylor Preserve aren’t required to pay high HOA fees for benefits they may not maximize.  Instead, amenities are optional at the homeowner’s desire.  So if it’s pool and tennis for Mom and the kids, and golf for Dad, then each can have it their way.

If you are looking for the ultimate family community within Howard County’s most sought after school district (Waverly Woods ES, Mount View MS, Marriotts Ridge HS), then you owe it to yourself to visit our award winning Breckenridge model at Taylor Preserve.  Don’t wait though, we are already halfway sold out.  Come see what everyone is talking about.  Model open daily 11-6.

Living in the Mid-Atlantic region, you often find that the construction of new homes are dominated by large, national, publicly traded builders.  Naturally, these builders have divisions in several major metro areas across the nation, they consolidate buying power, have a stable of the same plans coast to coast and use building practices that best serve their shareholders.  So while this model is critical to the economy, it really makes us appreciate that small, local builder who has become an endangered species.  These hidden gems are the perfect match for that first or second time move-up buyer who wants personal flair without breaking the bank.   For more than 30 years, Forty West has been doing just that!

Some call it custom, some call it semi-production but at Forty West we call it GETTING PERSONAL.  That means offering our buyers an array of floor plans we know are structurally sound and designed for today’s living, and then allowing our customers to personalize these floor plans to meet their desires.  This can mean moderate changes like converting a first floor study to private in-laws quarters, wholesale changes like closing in a two-story family room and elevating the master bedroom above it, or it can mean cosmetic personalization like visiting a granite warehouse to pick that perfect slab for your kitchen.

Buying your first home is no doubt an unforgettable experience. . . . but in more ways than one.  The progressions from that “happy homeowner” stage to the “if we had known” stage to the “in our next house we will” stage are common.  So as you search for your next home, don’t forget about the “all the things you wished for in your next house stage” and find a builder who can make your wishes come true.  After all, buying a home is a personal decision so make it personal!