Joel Testa of Testa Companies in Ohio is the president of the Home Builder’s Association Serving Portage and Summit Counties and is a featured writer in the Akron Beacon Journal’s Home Hunter magazine. In the February 2nd issue he gives great advice on selling your home, “By expending a bit of effort before it goes on the market, you can ensure that your home presents well, stands out from the crowd and doesn’t turn off potential buyers so that you can sell quickly and at the best price.”

Here is a summary of his tips:

“Tone down personality” In this section he addresses clutter, bookshelves, collectibles, family pictures, and neutralizing colors.

“Don’t burden the buyer with repairs” Here he suggests all repairs be made before showing the home. In this competitive market, the home in the best move-in ready condition wins the sale.

“Maximize exposure” This last section refers to using a true professional: a Realtor who uses Multiple Listing Service, the newspaper, and online resources.

100% of his article is on key, possibly his best peice of advice is to “consider using a Realtor who can prove results and a staging expert who can give you many more tips and suggestions.”

Earth tones aren’t only the trend, but they are also psychologically comforting for homeowners and visitors. This is very important when putting a home on the market and having the entire house staged for sale. Interior designers use the colors based on color forecasts from the Color Marketing Group and what they see in popular magazines and catalogs such as Better Homes and Gardens or Pottery Barn. If you are selling your home consider hiring an interior redesigner or home staging professional to help select the colors that are most agreeable and appealing to the volumes of potential buyers. Not only do neutral colors bring a sense of warmth and comfort, they also bring in high offers when selling your home!

At the office we use binder clips to stay nice and organized, so why not take the concept home? Unexpected uses give your work tools and old school supplies a second life. How about this great idea? Binder clips are an inexpensive and great way to store sets of napkins and table linens. What other office products can you think of using in your home? Share some of your tricks with us!

On a recent weekend getaway to Cincinnati, an interior designer and friend of mine said that Sofa Express was going out of business. Shocked because I knew of people who had recently furnished most of their homes with competitively priced Sofa Express furniture, I decided to pursue this rumor only to find out it was true. I tried visiting the website which said it was “under construction” – always a bad sign for a business.

I ran across a post from the Business Courier of Cincinnati. The article begins, “An Ohio furniture retailer with a nearly 50-year history is eliminating its corporate staff and beginning the process to close stores. According to documents filed with the Ohio Department of Job & Family Services, Sofa Express Inc. plans to close all eight of its Central Ohio stores and its headquarters and warehouse. Another six stores in northeast Ohio are scheduled to close, putting 436 workers out of a job altogether. That tally includes 253 workers at the Groveport, Ohio, headquarters.”

Yuck. As if Ohio’s economy wasn’t looking bad enough. The company’s reason for closing is their financial situation. Usually I can’t help but run into news like the closing of furniture retailers in my own backyard, but the company is quietly dragging out the closure. It will take several months for 40 stores to be closed.

“In the United States, 12 million barrels of oil and 14 million trees go to producing plastic and paper bags each year.”

Time to vent! I refuse to throw away plastic bags and I just won’t use paper grocery bags. Now I have bags of bags of bags, especially during this shopping season. The collection is getting out of control but there is an answer! No, I am not going to break down and throw them in the trash. (Speaking of break down, it takes plastic bags as much as 1,000 years to break down in landfill and 450 in water.) I plan on taking my bags to a local recycling bin (as seen in many Medina, OH parking lots) or to the local Giant Eagle grocery store which also has a bag-recycling bin. I will also stash a folded-up fabric shopping bag in my purse. Maybe this will relieve me from the funny looks I get when I reuse or refuse a bag at the store! 

Furthermore, I will now give preference to retailers that sell reusable shopping bags, like Giant Eagle. When I am not at a green store, I tend to apologize to clerks about my proactiveness, but why should I? I think I am hip and ahead of the crowd, kind of like the city of San Francisco who recently banned plastic grocery bags. You can read more about that in this past post by Sharon.

My friend’s think I’m crazy, but I know I am just more educated and aware about the issue. Now you are too.

More facts on plastic bags and their unfriendly impact on the earth:

• Plastic bags don’t biodegrade because their components do not biodegrade (especially oil). They actually break down into smaller toxic bits which become consumable contaminants for animals, even humans.
• Other than oil, plastic bags contain metals like chromium and copper. Exposure leads to diseases.
• Oil is expensive! Can avoiding plastic bags lower gas prices? Yes, if more people change their ways! 12 million barrels of oil, remember?
• My fave environmentally friendly, earth-loving, life-changing website ever - IdealBite – is chock full of facts like the one at the beginning of this article. 

We aren’t kidding when we say the market is rough and that you need to stage your home to sell it as quickly as possibly to avoid taking a loss. Here are some terrifying facts from foreclosure1.com:

• Last October 115,568 foreclosures had been listed 
• This year it is 224,451, showing a 94% increase.
• In October the ratio was 1 foreclosure for every 555 houses.
• The foreclosure filings are inclusive of default and auction sale notice as well as bank repossessions.
• 45 states saw a high jump rise from last year.
• Year by year the number is still up but it had leveled during the last two months after making an all time record in August this year.
• The pace has slackened most probably because of the lenders bending to pressure and beginning to modify terms of loans. Another reason may be a lull in filings after the shooting up following a new surge in interest rate rise.
• It usually takes two to three months for a borrower to be marked as defaulter after the reset sets in.
• Roughly 2 million loans are about to reset in the following eight months. Inevitable this would lead to a surging of foreclosures.
• In October lenders repossessed more and more houses after failing at the trustee auctions. Very few of those who were marked foreclosed managed to save their houses.
• In Ohio especially 45% of all the filings were bank notifications for repossession.
• In Missouri and Michigan the numbers were 46% and 37% respectively.
• Apart from the sub-prime other causes were economic woes like job loss.
• Nevada topped the foreclosure list with a ratio of 1:154 compared to the national average of 1:555.
• In October the filings numbered 6,618 showing a rise of 20% from September and triple that of what it was in the same month the previous year.
• In California the ratio was 1:258 but it recorded the highest number of foreclosures – 50,401. It had come down by 2% from September but triple that of what the numbers were in October 2006.
• The ratio in Florida was 1:273 with the state recording 30,190 foreclosures. It was a 9% drop from September but up by 165% from the previous year.
• Ohio showed 1:290 with 17,276 foreclosure listings – 10% more than last month but 136% higher than the last year.
• The other top ranking offending states were Georgia, Michigan, Colorado, Arizona, Indiana and Illinois.

Many homes may look like a magazine ad at first glance, but what is stashed behind doors, in drawers, closets, pantries, basements, garages and attics?  When a buyer tours a home they look in all the nooks and crannies for storage space.  It’s best to box up anything you don’t use every day.

My motto when selling a home is to “live like you’re on vacation.”  This means that all items in every room, including the basement, garage and attic, should be evaluated for regular use.  Buyers know you are moving and are not turned off by boxes.  They will be turned off by clutter in storage areas.

You are moving anyway – box everything NOW!  You will feel ahead of the moving game, have less to move and/or clean, and will really impress buyers with how clean, organized and spacious your home is.

Another Arhaus warehouse is going to be shutting it’s doors for good. Sadly, this isn’t the first one of the Cleveland-based, family-owned company’s warehouses to close down. The good thing is everything will be marked down 50%-70% which makes it a stager’s dream! This is going to be some great shopping and my inventory will be stocked up with some fabulous high-end items that normally are too pricey for the budget. FYI If you are in the Cleveland area – it is the Brookpark Clearance Center and the final day is July 31st.

No mom is too busy to put the toilet seat and lid down for showings. But what mom doesn’t hate cleaning the toilet? Bemis Manufacturing Company, a toilet seat manufacturer, is holding a campaign to find the busiest mom. One reason is to bring awareness to how demanding the job of being a mom is, and the other is to promote its Easy Clean toilet seat hinge. The campaign runs until August 1, 2007. They will select the 20 busiest moms, then an ultimate busy mom will be chosen with the prize of maid service, personal chef, massage therapist/spa treatment, and a babysitter allowance twice a month for a full year! And, of course, busy mom gets enough Easy Clean toilet seats for her house. Know a busy mom? Nominate her at www.busymomcontest.com.

If you want some privacy, prefer the look of paper shades over vinyl, and don’t want to spend a lot of money, then you gotta check out QuickShades by the same company that makes Levolor and Kirsch window treatments. These are great! They are pleated paper shades that stick in place with a strip of non-damaging adhesive. Like standard blinds, there is a functional cord to raise and lower them. They come in 36 and 48 inch widths (typical) and can be customized by trimming them down with a utility knife. You can find them at Wal-Mart, Lowe’s, or Family Dollar stores for around $5 each. So simple. So affordable.