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Summertime is the season for real estate, so if you’re looking to put your home on the market, make sure it’s ready to sell. Host of HGTV’s “Rehab Addict” Nicole Curtis is dishing on four inexpensive insider tricks to help market your home and get the best price.

In today's digital age, people are checking out your home online before even driving by. Maximize your digital presence by taking as many photos as the listing website will allow, and adding pictures of decorative accents throughout the home, such as flowers or updated hardware.

With your home's exterior being the first photo potential buyers will see, take an afternoon to spruce it up before snapping photos. Add vibrant flowers, inexpensive shrubs and get that lawn freshly mowed.

“Twenty dollars of fresh flowers makes a huge difference,” Curtis said.

Those photo frames lined up in your living room featuring your family’s smiling faces? Take them down.

“You want people to focus on your home, not your pictures,” Curtis said. “If you have family photos up, they will stare at your photos all day long and not pay attention to anything else.”

Also store away memorabilia collections, personal keepsakes and done town any themed bedrooms, which can be distracting if they are not the potential buyer’s taste.

“Themed bedrooms are not a good selling point,” Curtis said.

Kitchens will make or break a sale, so consider updating yours before putting the home on the market. Curtis says that with kitchen upgrades, you will most likely get 85 percent of your money back, and renovations eliminate a buyers negotiating points (they may ask you to knock $10,000 off the price because the kitchen needs updating).

To make the kitchen looking fresh without draining the bank account, consider adding a fresh coat of neutral-colored paint and new hardware to dated cabinets. If you do have a little bit of cash to spend in this area, Curtis recommends adding at least one stainless steel appliance to give the kitchen a high-end look.

Storage sells, but packed closets make it look like your home doesn’t have much room for a buyers’ things. Showcase your closets by taking half of your belongings out of the closets, then neatly organizing what remains. Another nice touch is to swap out cheap plastic hangers for wood ones, as they give a high-end look to closets.

“The key to selling your home is about 32 Rubbermaid containers,” Curtis said. “The time to pack is before you list your home.” 

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About Real Estate The Cathford Group Inc Consulting

CathFord Consulting, LLC. was formed in 1993 as a real estate appraisal and development firm in Richmond, Virginia. Robert P. Englander, Jr. is the Principal of CathFord Consulting and has been in the real estate development business since 1978.  He has consulted on over 350 commercial development projects and managed developments in both Virginia and Texas.  CathFord Consulting specializes in the development of adaptive reuse projects in historic areas as well as urban in-fill developments. The company has developed over 375 apartments and 1,560,000 sf office space in Richmond, Va, and Texas, as well as the completion of a five-story, 113,500 square foot, multi-tenant office building in the historic Shockoe Slip area of Downtown Richmond. This development (Turning Basin) included the adaptive reuse of a turn of the century train depot combined with the construction of a five-story office building along the new riverfront (James River) canal.   The project was 92% pre-leased prior to it's completion, was the first Class A office building built in Downtown Richmond in over 10 years, and received an award from Virginia Business Magazine as one of the Top Five Real Estate Projects in the State of Virginia for 2001.

In addition to the above developments, CathFord Consulting has consulted on plans for numerous mixed use projects in the Richmond, Henrico, Petersburg, and Charlottesville areas.

Contact:  Bob Englander - 804.405.8787