AOL Real Estate - Blog

Category Page Intro - Selling

Randi Greenberg — 2010-07-15T12:02:00 00:00

Home Selling Tips

Selling your home can be a daunting process. The questions never seem to end: How do you set a price? What comps do you look at? How do you find a real estate agent to work with? (Or should you try selling by yourself?) How will you (and your agent) market your home? How do you sell your home on the Web? How much can you expect to make from the sale of your home? How do you negotiate with a buyer? What about the agent's commission? And then the big question: Where are you going move to and how will you coordinate your sale and your purchase (or move to a rental) at the same time?

With such a plethora of questions, it's easy to feel overwhelmed, but AOL Real Estate's guides are designed to take you through the process step-by-step. With renowned experts in home sales and staging helping you discover new sources of value in your home-hidden in your kitchen, bath, and even your front yard-AOL Real Estate will give you helpful advice so you can can learn how to increase your house's curb appeal and get your house sold, no matter how up or down the housing market may be.

Home Staging Ideas

Home Staging for Every Season
http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2010/07/20/home-staging-for-every-season/

How to Stage a Home Yourself
http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2010/07/20/how-to-stage-a-home-yourself/

How to Stage an Empty Home
http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2010/07/15/how-to-stage-an-empty-home/

Home Improvements to Help Sell

Selling Your Home: Quick Fixes for Big Returns
http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2010/07/20/selling-your-home-quick-fixes-for-big-returns/

Increase Your Home Value With Bathroom Renovations
http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2010/07/19/increase-your-home-value-with-bathroom-renovations/

Paint Colors that Help Sell

Painting to Sell: What Color Homes Sell Best?
http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2010/07/16/painting-to-sell-what-color-homes-sell-best/

Sell Your Home With These Interior Paint Colors
http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2010/07/15/sell-your-home-with-these-paint-colors/

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Marketing Avant-Garde and Affordable Home Design

Randi Greenberg — 2010-05-18T17:00:00 00:00

Filed under: Design

Inside the hallowed halls of the 2010 International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) -- where world-renowned interior designers gather to show off their most recent creations -- there's a pocket of young, fresh-faced designers selling their wares. Welcome to "designboom mart."

This collaboration is between ICFF and the mega-savvy European design site designboom and is a must-see for those who attend the fair. The goal of this market, currently in it's sixth year, is to give young and student designers a chance to sell their creations. It's also an opportunity for the public to not only see a new wave of innovation but also to buy them for less than $100.

Among the jewelry, eco-bags, stationary, and wildly varying items, I picked out some inventive pieces (from the quirky to the sublime) that would add extra flair to your home decor.

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See more of what ICFF has to offer....

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Design on a Dime: Glam Apartment Tips

Randi Greenberg — 2010-05-13T16:15:00 00:00

Filed under: Design

Last week I reported on the opening of the annual interior design event Design on a Dime. The event featured superb vignettes of of over 50 rooms decorated in all styles - from classical, to whimsical, to "French Fierce" - by an array of truly talented designers.

Before the doors opened to the public and crowds swooped in to buy the incredibly-priced decor, I had the opportunity to talk to four of the designers about their top three tips on how best to design an apartment on a budget.

Here are their suggestions....

Jarret Yoshida

Yoshida's cozy room was chock full of images on his wall and Daniel Craig's furniture. Wha?? "I designed Daniel's apartment when he was on Broadway and he donated the items," says the designer. Apparently, Yoshida has good taste in furniture and Craig has great taste in interior designers.

It doesn't have to be expensive "You don't need a name brand and it doesn't need to be new," stresses Yoshida. What does he suggest? Thrfting!
Paint comes last "This is a critical mistake that everyone makes," bemoans the designer. "People love to pick a wall color and decorate around it - but it should come absolutely last!" First pick the sofa, see how it fits in the room, add the the design details and let these things inform your decision of what color to go with for the walls.
Art is critical Spruce up your place with art. Again, it doesn't have to be expensive and you can get it from a variety of locales - framed or not. But here's what's key - curating. Yoshida says you have to have a good eye to complete this decorating task - and if you're not up to the task, ask a friend with a discerning eye for help - "Don't pretend you have good taste if you really don't. I cannot stress this enough! I wouldn't pretend to be an accountant, you shouldn't pretend to have a good eye!"

Nathan Thomas

The man behind Nathan Thomas Studios truly believes in pushing the interior design envelope (an easy guess from his room's wall-sized mural of a horse running on a beach at sunset). The room also featured a table he found at a thrift shop and covered in turquoise lacquer and white reupholstered chairs on which he artfully poured tempera paint - "It's easy to clean off and try something else!"

Play with scale and patterns "Don't be afraid to try oversized lighting or furniture just because you live in a small apartment," Thomas insists. The room also combined a kaleidoscope-like rug and a bench with an entirely different pattern (and don't forget those horses!) and somehow it all harmonized.
Have elements of good design There are ways around finding high-priced items with which to decorate. For instance, there were a cluster of objects on Thomas' lacquered table - goblets, a wine carafe, candlesticks, animal statuettes. It could easily look like clutter if you're not careful, but the designer has a solution, "Spray paint!" As a collection of white spray-painted items, the thrift store finds get a classy second life.
There are no rules "Just go for it," he declares. Go with what color you want, go with a theme that's fantasy and dreamlike or has some juvenile charm - whatever it is you want...simply do it!

Brett Beldock

As the design eye behind Brett Design Inc., Beldock gives a professional nod towards both high-end pieces and interior decor that doesn't cost much. She cites the design firm Oly as a great place to get your home accessories (the stag head, bird chandelier, and several other items in Beldock's vignette are pieces from Oly).

Make a commitment to furniture "Think about furniture as a long-term investment," says the designer. It's not the cheapest route, we know...but if you have to replace your furniture every couple of years, why not think ahead and put some money into a better quality piece that will last a long time and endure many moves.
Decorate the way you dress This goes back to the idea of investing in a good piece of furniture. So you have your one high-priced couch - now what? Decorate inexpensively! The super-stylish designer says, "Think about the way people dress. So you've got your expensive Louboutin shoes now match them with some cheap jeans and a top. it doesn't all have to be high-end." In other words, mix and match - a good couch, a less-expensive rug and lamp - and you've got yourself a well-heeled living space.
Decorate with wallpaper The designer is riding a wallpaper wave since her own line of graphic, self-adhesive wallpapers were released last week (you can see one of her designs within her Design on a Dime room, see a few more designs on her site). But you don't necessarily need to cover a room or even an accent wall - consider framing a particular print you like (Easily done with Beldock's line of wallpaper that come in 24" sheets!).

Derek Warburton

While not an interior designer per se, Warburton is a self-proclaimed lifestyle guru. And let's face it, the man has some interesting taste - so I thought anyone who could dress a room to look like a bordello (he corrected me and calls it "French fierce") might have some good insight into design on a budget.

Shop at Housing Works Warburton gives proper credit to the host of the Design on a Dime - and if you look at their online auctions, they definitely have some great finds. But those not in the New York area can take heart in the overall meaning of Warburton's sentiment - go thrifting!
Silk Flowers Flowers are lovely but so short-lived and can become an expensive habit. Warburton suggests silk flowers - "They make such beautiful ones now and they never die!"
Make things yourself He points to an ornate tablecloth as an example - "I loved the fabric - so add some simple stitching - and you've got yourself a luxurious addition to any room." Warburton says he used to to do the same trick out of old scarves. Can't sew yourself? Ask a friend!

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Design to Inspire, Priced to Sell

Randi Greenberg — 2010-05-07T15:38:00 00:00

Filed under: Design

Last night was the opening reception for the sixth annual Design on a Dime, an extremely popular interior design event where everyone involved really benefits!

Over 50 interior designs (including Ty Pennington, Jaclyn Smith, Yetta Banks and Jamie Drake) created vignettes of a room in the house, and outfitted them with an assortment of furniture, lighting, mirrors, artwork and just about anything you would use for decor (and some things you wouldn't have thought of).

So how does the viewer benefit? Every design morsel is for sale at a fraction of the cost of what one might find in stores or online.

The event is hosted by Housing Works, the nation's largest grassroots AIDS-service organization, and is sponsored by Sears, Kmart and a slew of other vendors and donors. All proceeds go to Housing Works.

The group will put it toward the renovation of 12 units in a complex of supportive housing for single, formerly homeless adults living with HIV/AIDS.

Design on a Dime is open to the public through Saturday. You will find an array of housewares, new vintage furniture and even linens at very low prices. But here's the rub: Last night's VIP reception was a melee of people with good design sense staking out the bargains and claiming them as their own.

Tickets to the event started at $150 -- and while that may seem like a high-price ticket, it was well worth the cost to people carting away merchandise that would have come at a much heftier price anywhere else. Smart and thrifty!

But there are still deals to be found and inspiration to be had -- so if you're in the New York area, go take a look for yourself. The address is at the bottom of this post. (And buy! Remember it goes to a very worthy cause).

Below is a sampling of what some very talented decorators did for this event.

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I had the opportunity to talk to several of these designers throughout the evening and next week will share with you some of their creative insight on how to design for small spaces on a budget.

Design on a Dime
Friday, May 07, 2010 - Saturday, May 08, 2010
Metropolitan Pavilion
125 West 18th Street
New York, NY

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Crazy Collections of Apartment Dwellers

Randi Greenberg — 2010-05-03T14:30:00 00:00

Filed under: Design

While designers will tell you to gather and artfully arrange the items you collect, many of these designers probably envision collections of statuettes from your trip to China or maybe even your burgeoning collection of milk glass.

But could these designers be prepared for some of the strangest collections I discovered while poking around the web?

In Washington, D.C., there's an eclectic shop, Wake Up Little Suzie, that's filled to the brim with strange and unusual decorations, toys, jewelry and home goods. Its owner, Susan Lihn, spoke about her home decor in a recent article in The Washington Post's Express, D.C.'s free daily commuter newspaper.

As one might expect, Lihn's amassed an unusual collection of items to showcase around her home.

In the article D.C. designer Annie Elliott of the interior design firm Bossy Color says, "Collecting, in general, is a little bit of a dying art; people aren't collecting the way they used to.... It really distinguishes you and your space. Collecting something makes you interesting."

Well, it doesn't get more interesting than these:

Taxidermy
In February, Rented Spaces introduced you to Morgan Mavis and her apartment full of stuffed-and-mounted animals (pictured). But this collection isn't meant for just her and her partner Christopher Bennell; the pair opened their strangely curated space as the Contemporary Zoological Conservatory. For a small entry fee, you can be bewildered by their collection of things that once flew, swam and roared.

Antlers, Chickens and Eyeballs -- Oh My!
Admittedly, antlers are not that unusual in decor these days. In fact, it's probably jumped the shark now that you can easily find expensive porcelain antler lamps and a slew of other questionable antler decor. But finding 54 sets of antlers in any one bathroom is kind of impressive. Bruce Norman Long is an interior designer near Philadelphia with some serious collection-addiction. Seemingly mild-mannered, the designer also collects colorful African bugs, a random assortment of taxidermy, and an impressive display of glass eyeballs (be sure to look at the slideshow!).

Bizarre Indoor Plants
Yes, it's extremely normal to have some potted plants scattered throughout one's apartment. (We should know, we cover it a whole lot.) The website You Grow Girl took a tour of a fellow Torontonian apartment that's full of "diminutive plants." For those of you with an ability to keep plants alive, the impressive collection of conophytums, lithops, pleiospilos and euphorbias will get your green thumb twitching. For the rest of us the pictures of these plants just look really cool -- and a lot like body parts.

Archaeological Finds
In 2006, an apartment fire in Prague killed the inhabitant but left behind a most odd assortment of metal objects. The aspiring archaeologist who lived in there had amassed over 3,000 metal objects in his collection. The Czech Academy of Sciences' Archaeological Institute estimated that the collection could be worth millions on the black market. Some of the pieces are truly unique and, unfortunately, since there's no documentation of where the pieces were found, it's impossible to trace their exact origins. (Of note, the fire was started due to a cigarette-smoking in bed -- let's be careful, people!)

A Real Curiosity Shop
Artist William Schaff has cornered the market on weird decor. There's a collection of skulls and taxidermy; a plethora of his small paintings, album art and embroideries covering the walls; and plastic figurines hanging from the rafters. But it makes sense that the Rhode Island artist's live/work space should echo his eclectic work -- it will definitely keep the people coming back to take it all in. See more of his work on his Flickr page.

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Renters, There's Still Time to Bargain

Randi Greenberg — 2010-04-29T14:00:00 00:00

Filed under: Renting

Yesterday we reminded you that May 1st is moving day. Chances are good that you or someone you know is about to take the big leap into a new place - but don't sign that lease without a little insider's knowledge.

According to the UK's National Landlords Association (NLA), landlords are still experiencing high levels of vacancies in their rental properties (as of March 2010, 52% of UK landlords experienced vacancies in the last year). While this is a UK-based group, the problems with securing tenants remains as much of a problem stateside. So as long as apartment inventory exceeds renters, you have the upper hand.

While normally I wouldn't suggest poking around on landlord association websites (yawn!), a little reconnaissance on sites like those could help prepare you for negotiations -- when you know what the other side is thinking.

The NLA suggests the following tips to help landlords avoid vacancies (and what this could mean to you as a potential renter is in bold):

Price sensibly - it might be worth accepting a lower rent in order to secure a new tenant. (Deals! Deals! Deals! Don't simply accept the price of rent as quoted. Remember that vacancies do the landlord no good -- an empty apartment costs them in the long run. Now's the time to wheel and deal. Maybe you can receive a reduction in monthly rent or maybe they'd consider a reduction if you offer a couple months of paid rent up-front. The worst response you can get is: No.)

Add finishing touches and incentives - make sure the house and garden are in a good state of repair and well-kept. Also consider 'added extras' to help entice your new tenant - what about garden furniture or wireless broadband? (Ask for incentives! Do the apartment's walls need a fresh paint? Is there a satellite dish on the roof that would allow the landlord to include cable and internet for no additional cost to your monthly rent?)

Market well -- make sure you market your property effectively and in the best places. Make sure it is on the internet as this is where the majority of tenants search for their next property. Make sure photographs do your property justice. Would the photos make you want to live in it? (Really, who wants to live in a prospective apartment with garbage strewn around? Check out picture #3 in a slideshow for this New York apartment -- would it have killed someone to pick up the toilet paper from the bathroom floor? But what does this mean to you as a perspective renter? Don't fall in love with -- or rent! -- a place strictly from the pictures. Beware of wide-angle shots that make the space look bigger and other tomfoolery that can be done to enhance images.)

Does the rent really need to go up? If you have good tenants, think very hard before choosing to put the rent up. In the current market, as long as the rent is covering mortgage repayments, you might want to think twice about rocking the boat. (Deals! Deals! Deals! If you're comfortably situated and your lease is up soon, try to see if your rent can remain the same without that pesky annual raise in rent. If you're feeling confident -- why not ask for a reduction in rent?)

Remember, renters, there are still good deals to be had and the party's not over yet.

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Upcycled Vinyl: Vintage Records Get Home-Decor Spin

Randi Greenberg — 2010-04-20T15:00:00 00:00

Filed under: Design

Vinyl purists, look away. You may not want to see the artistic liberties young crafters are taking with your coveted records. But then again, you may want to decorate your home with these repurposed LPs.

In it's third year, Record Store Day (April 17th) was a worldwide success. Record stores and the people that love them celebrated for hours. Long lines of vinyl lovers waited their turns to flip through dusty boxes of platters to discover rare finds. And even though vinyl is getting newfound time in the spotlight (more artists are releasing their newest track or albums on vinyl and as of November 2009, sales of vinyl records had risen 35 percent in just a year), we have to face the fact that there are a whole lot of unloved or unusable albums out there. These vintage items can be found at garage sales, Goodwill stores and trash bins.

And while it may or may not make the music and vinyl fanatics happy, these groovy discs are finding new life as home decor.
Gone are the days of simply slapping the vinyl on a form, throwing it in the oven and calling it a bowl. Artists are turning their attention to this vinyl medium and creating some truly desirable pieces in the forms of wall decor, desk clocks and serving trays. It's not shocking to find a large amount of the design on Etsy -- that supercrafty crowd. But then there are artists like Carlos Aires whose vinyl wall silhouettes have been featured in international galleries.

So as we find ourselves wedged between Record Store Day and Earth Day (April 22), let's peruse just a sample of this sustainable decor for the home.

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(An eagle-eye search of these sellers will land you an Earth Day Sale. OK, here's a hint.)

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Upcycle Your Junk Into Treasures

Randi Greenberg — 2010-04-12T14:00:00 00:00

Filed under: Design

These early days of spring cleaning will have you eyeing your possessions with a bit of should-it-stay-or-should it go mentality. Before you're too quick on the draw to either "trash them" or "donate them," consider the word "upcycle."

Not to be confused with recycling, upcycling is taking an old or useless object and turning it into something better. Your boxes of cassettes? A recycle bin full of egg or yogurt containers? That unloved container of small green army men? Pure design gold!While authors William McDonough and Michael Braungart may have made the word famous in their 2002 book "Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things," many designers have been in the upcycle mindset.

And now we can learn from a new batch of young designers. An entire set of innovative thinkers are really pushing the upcycle limits (or maybe the entire concept has no bounds). Re-creating some of the designs featured below requires skill sets many of us do not share; luckily they're all for sale. But if nothing else, these products are launch points for your own creativity.

Who knew that our trash would have so much potential?

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Beyond Astroturf: Grass-Like Carpets for the Home

Randi Greenberg — 2010-03-25T09:52:00 00:00

Filed under: Design

Now that you've stowed away winter's wooly socks and skid-free slippers, your bare feet are likely touching polished wood or worn-down carpeting - so why not add a touch of grass.

Spring has sprung and the urge to spruce up your interiors has no doubt crept into your psyche. One glorious spring/summer pastime is long walks in the park - so why not continue that activity indoors.

There are health benefits to walking barefoot, even more so while walking on grass. So let's see if we can fool Mother Nature - while decking out our floors - with this round-up of grass-like carpets:

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Your Chance to Dine in Italian Palaces

Randi Greenberg — 2010-03-04T17:05:00 00:00

Filed under: Design

If the adage that it takes a village to raise a child seems astonishing, you may be overwhelmed to find out that it takes a city to serve dinner. Italian designer Alessandro Zambelli has come up with a brilliant set of dishes that won't clutter your kitchen cabinets because chances are you'll want to display them proudly on your counter tops.

The soon-to-be-released Palace stacking dishes are miniatures of Florentine-inspired Renaissance homes. Each mini-building is comprised of six porcelain dishes or "floors." When the dishes from all four units are unstacked you'll have a complete dinner service for six that includes dinner plates, side plates, soup bowls and small bowls. Not to allow any real estate go to waste, the roofs of each palace, when turned over, can be used as serving dishes. And Zambelli didn't skimp on the architectural details, either - the plates and bowls are outlined with floor plans.

The designer teamed with the Italian house goods company Seletti for this project. From Pantone-hued folding chairs to decorative tool boxes to modular bookcases, Seletti has a long, rich history of combining fun and function in their designs.

The Palace dinner conversation pieces don't come cheap. The small plate and bowl sets are each $98 while the soup bowl and large plate sets are each $130. They're available online for pre-order at the design site A+R Store - and if you decide to go whole hog and get the entire set (and, really, why wouldn't you?), it's 10% off.

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A Washing Machine Problem Solver

Randi Greenberg — 2010-02-19T14:15:00 00:00

Filed under: How To

Perhaps you are one of the fortunate few who have a washer and dryer in your own apartment. You no longer find yourself shlepping pounds of dirty clothes down flights of stairs to the nearest laundromat several blocks away.

But even if you can include yourself in the don't-need-to-collect-quarters-for-the-wash crowd, your luck runs out the minute you turn on your machine. Those insufferable rocking, rolling, and banging sounds are essentially part of your clean clothes routine.

Enter VibeAway...This environmentally responsible solution is a great option to keep your washing machine from it's other status as a sound machine. And what is it, exactly?

VibeAway is a rubber pad, made completely from recycled tires. Placed under the four corners of your front- or top-loading washer or dryer the vibrations stop. The product can be used for any large appliance you need to keep from moving - like a freezer or a table saw. An added bonus of these eco-friendly pads is that they save you from damage to the floor underneath your appliances.

The goal of the creators of VibeAway, B Green Innovations, is to reduce the environmental impact of waste. And they are definitely part of a new wave of manufacturers doing their part to be green. According to the EPA, in 1989 only 10% of scrap tires were recycled or reused while the other hefty 90% were being thrown in landfills or discarded illegally. Today it's reported that 80.4% of used tires are being reclaimed.

But back to your washer and dryer...

VibeAway may be the answer for which you've been looking in regards to the noise-level issues you have when you're getting rid of your ring around the collar. Or maybe you simply need to rethink how you're loading your laundry. Learn your lesson from 80's classic flick Mr. Mom:

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The Secrets of a NYC Apartment Winner

Randi Greenberg — 2010-02-09T14:00:00 00:00

Filed under: How To,Renting

In a recent search for news in the world of apartment living, I stumbled across a contest in Manchester, England that awarded some lucky bloke a furnished, rent-free, luxury apartment for a year - James Gilhooly, I envy you. But it made me wonder about another apartment giveaway contest that took place last year a lot closer to home here in New York.

Local clothing retailer Daffy's (think T.J. Maxx with an especially eclectic European label fetish) had a competition to find the most worthy shopper to be a tenant in an apartment building where the $7,000 per month rent would be decreased to a much more affordable $700 for a year. And this wasn't a nondescript apartment building for which people were baring their souls on in a 30-second video submission- this was for a building designed by Rogers Marvel in the West Village. Passersby know this building for its extremely triangular and highly voyeuristic glass façade.

So after a little Googling, I found the winner - Kimberly Dawn Neumann. Out of sheer curiosity and seething jealousy (yes, I entered the contest), I called her up to see how things are in her glass tower. And it's no surprise to find that the Broadway performer-fitness instructor-writer is living it up in style while she has ownership of the furnished two-bedroom, two-bath apartment.So how did she stand out amongst the thousands of other entries?

Neumann explains she knew she could win the contest with just a little bit of forethought. "I recognized it was a promotion," she says. "Daffy's is obviously looking for people who frequent the store and knew what they're talking about. It's not blind luck like a lottery, this was a competition." In other competitors' videos she watched them complain about loud neighbors, being out of work, bad neighborhoods, terrible relationships and general apartment whininess (watch the video below for a mashup of complaints). So she wisely sold herself as "The Carrie Bradshaw of Broadway" - someone who has the champagne tastes of the Sex in the City character but in reality has the budget of a discount Daffy's shopper.

Her creativity didn't stop there. Once picked as a finalist she had to drum up the support of everyone she knew - and everyone they knew - to get voted into her dream apartment (Seriously, folks, the elevator opens up into her apartment!). "I created daily e-mail blasts to a very large list of people," Neumann laughs. "I created horoscopes that all ended with 'and you'll vote for me today.' I had a mixologist create the Daffy-tini and I sent the recipe out one day." All this effort and originality obviously paid off.

But it's not all caviar dreams. You find out a lot of things when you read the fine print. The apartment is hers not for a full year but rather nine-and-a-half months. And while she's paying $700/month rent, she's also paying the taxes of a $7,000/month apartment ("Obviously I blame the IRS and not Daffy's"). And she now pays an electricity bill that's five times more than her previous much smaller (and, apparently, darker) one bedroom apartment. Then, of course, there's the house guests. She had so many people wanting to come see her new digs that she would throw parties to get as many people in and out as possible at one time. She introduced the apartment at a Halloween party where she dressed up as Barbie and had the opportunity to show off her not-quite-Malibu Dream House. ("I was left with the biggest mess. I may be living like a millionaire but I had to clean it up myself.")

And what has she learned that she'll take back to her more meager existence when this all ends in August? A lot about the desirable amenities and a bit about design.

Her glass surroundings have her rethinking how she has piled up things in the past. "I used to artfully place piles everywhere, I can't do that in a showplace apartment. I really like the lack of clutter and the minimalism." Then there's the shag rug - "I would love to get one, I adore what it does for the space. it's so plush and so feminine." And perhaps most importantly, she has a new appreciation of a full-sized tub. "It's my favorite feature. I live in the bathtub. It's really the best thing ever," coos the lucky* contest winner. "My Facebook updates for the first few weeks were solely about the tub."

*In case you singles out there wouldn't mind some of Neumann's luck rubbing off on you, the relationship expert (she wears many hats as the Bradshaw of Broadway) is launching a dating advice website on Valentine's day - www.datingdivadaily.com.

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