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Top 10 Top 10 Real Estate Lists

Why it is that we’re drawn to “Top 10” lists in general is a matter we can leave to the psychologists. Suffice it to say that the lists are a staple on the supermarket tabloids and they’re all over the web. I admit they get more than their share of my own attention, even when my curiosity about a list’s subject matter is negligible. It’s probably because they’re quick to skim through and agree or disagree with…

Since they are so pervasive, it occurred to me that there might be something to learn if we could determine which ones that deal with real estate topics get the most attention. Northwest real estate didn’t have its own area-focused Top 10 real estate lists—but for the whole country, I guessed there could be hundreds (there were).

There turned out to be a lot of ads mixed in with the ones that were legitimate; but after 15 or so minutes of deep internet research, here’s what registers as—

The Top 10 […]

2016-05-07T00:42:56+00:00
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Springtime Inspiring Home Décor

There is something about spring that gets everybody at least thinking about fixing up the house, and it’s that time of year again. Throughout the length and breadth of the area, home décor decisions are being pondered. Ambitious landscaping and fix-up plans are being laid, budgets drawn, and troops assembled (the troops will be armed with paint brushes and rollers, hedge clippers and rakes).

Perhaps it’s the weather; perhaps the angle of the sun—or maybe it’s prompted by the spring cleaning—for whatever the reason, this time of year is when we look around the house and decide changes will be made!!

It’s also the time of year when occasional disagreements between husbands and wives have been known to crop up. The Home Improvement section of the realtor® web site just ran a feature titled “When Couples Disagree About Home Décor,” which promised to tell who the winner is in such arguments. […]

2016-04-16T15:27:01+00:00
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Top 10 Listing Phrases

It’s small wonder that with this spring’s selling season underway, the northwest’s house hunters can afford to be a discriminating bunch—they have the luxury of picking and choosing from a crop of truly inviting offerings. And it doesn’t hurt that today’s low mortgage interest rates have enabled more properties to fit within more family budgets.

For those of us who get to translate those home offerings into words for the local listings, the job is to find phrases that draw attention to each given property’s uniquely attractive features.

But there’s another dimension that complicates things. English is a rich and powerful language, but when it comes to marketing lingo, it’s also true that these days everyone is being deluged 24/7 by vivid advertising claims. We’ve all developed callouses when it comes to the ballyhooing we get from every quarter.

Today’s house hunters have developed sales resistance. Times 10!

So what’s the answer for cooking up language that helps a property jump […]

2016-04-05T03:03:56+00:00
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The Future of Home Automation

Home automation is going mainstream.

There: I said it. We all knew it would happen, but some of us hoped it would happen later. The prospect of our house being smarter than we are has been out there since as far back as when the first Terminator movie hit VHS (or was it Beta? Or Betamax?)…

Anyway, the “Smart House” idea has always had such a science-fictiony patina, it allowed many homeowners the valiant hope that the whole thing might be delayed—at least until there was a flying car parked in every garage. Now it looks like our hopes are soon to be dashed. At least, that seemed to be the news coming out of Spain last week.

According to reports from last week’s Mobile World Congress assembled in Barcelona, “the IoT was pervasive.” If you haven’t heard what “the IoT” is, maybe you’d better sit down—

The IoT is short for “the Internet of Things.” It’s a logical development. For home automation […]

2016-03-03T23:31:36+00:00
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Renovation and Home Prices

Here’s an instant spot quiz— (see what comes to mind within a second or two):

If you decide to sell your town home, if you had a crystal ball, what’s the most important detail about the sale result?  Quick! Answer!

If you’re like seven out of ten people, you were curious about the bottom line: “what price did it sell for?” Some people come up with “how long did it take?”—but usually, that’s the second or third choice (“what were the buyers like?” is another contender).

It’s hardly surprising that the closer they get to putting their own house up for sale, home prices are foremost in people’s minds. Yet most homeowners assume that the ultimate sale price will be determined by market forces outside their control. That’s sort of true, but not entirely so. Home prices aren’t set in stone. Homeowners do have a degree of control over what their property will bring—if they choose […]

2016-02-23T03:52:12+00:00
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Portland Open House Tips

If you are planning for your own open house in Portland, you won’t have much trouble finding good advice. Here’s a quick list of what you’ll find:

  • Don’t leave your pet behind
  • Don’t forget the yard
  • If you’re not confident in your house cleaning ability, trust that instinct (hire a pro)!
  • It’s the kitchen, stupid (really: don’t leave dirty dishes in the sink)
  • Clear out the medicine cabinet
  • Fresh bath towels

 

These are all sound pieces of advice   (although the medicine cabinet one should be more comprehensive: any valuable items should also be packed away). It’s why you’ll find some variation of those pointers on just about everyone’s ‘Top Ten Tips for Holding an Open House.’

There are also some open house tips that may not apply to every Portland open house, but which deserve to be in the running anyway. One good idea syncs with the last bullet point: white-out […]

2016-01-25T18:23:28+00:00
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Rainy (or slushy) Day Home Décor Inspiration

Even if you don’t pride yourself on your artistic flair, you probably have developed fairly firm ideas about what makes some Portland metro area homes come across better than others. Without even consciously thinking about it, you know as soon as you walk through a front door whether that immediate impression is strongly positive, just so-so, or sub-so-so .

A Portland home’s agreeable first impression can usually be laid to a combination of pleasing architecture, diligent maintenance, and appealing décor. Not every home in Portland has all that going for it, but there can also be a saving note: sometimes the most important impression comes from just a few minor touches—clever accents that just seem perfect.

Now that we’re wading deeper into the months when the Portland area’s bad weather days are stacking up, (especially with the recent “blizzard”) we are more likely to find ourselves with some spare time—the commodity that was so hard to […]

2016-01-04T19:49:38+00:00
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Portland Area Home Décor: How ‘Decade Sensitive’ are You?

First of all, a Spoiler Alert: It’s not fair to peek down where the answers are! Now that we’re clear on that, this is a quiz that will tell you how “Decade Sensitive” you are when it comes to local home décor. It took a little browsing around to put this together, but it sure was fun.

The idea is to match the décor item with the decade it is most closely associated with. Ready? GO!

  1. Popcorn Ceilings
  2. McMansions
  3. Sherwood Green & Stratford Yellow
  4. Stainless Steel Appliances
  5. Shag Carpets
  6. Sustainable Materials
  7. Kitchen Islands

The 50s

The 60s

The 70s

The 80s

The 90s

The 2000s

NOW

 

 

—

Now that you’ve matched the items with the decade, you’ve probably noticed that there is a lot of ambiguity here, because Portland metro area home décor themes didn’t just go in and out of style at the beginnings and ends of decades. The answers are combed from a variety of sources, but here is what the consensus (sort of) agrees on:

THE ANSWERS

The 50s: Answer-C. Sherwood Green and Stratford Yellow were first popularized for kitchen appliances during the postwar era. The 50s can be forgiven for these unnatural apparitions, which […]

2014-12-04T00:48:30+00:00
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