Home Improvements

There is a general rule in real estate that says, “Property will always gain value while the structures on it will always diminish in value over time.” But no matter the age of a Utah County home, no matter its location, regardless of its style of construction and decoration, as time goes by property owners have to continue to update and maintain their homes in order to maximize their real estate investment. How much of a return on your investment can you expect to glean from various remodeling projects, and what affect can they have on your Selling Success?

Key #5 – Return on Remodeling Investment & Competitive Edge

You will not glean a dollar-for-dollar return on your investment from remodeling and updating projects.

There, I said it.

Almost without exception, the money you spend on your home is not recouped in full when you sell it. Yes, a property’s value is maximized when it is in great shape and reflects the current trends in design, amenities, and layout. Yes, spending time and money upgrading and updating your home produces positive benefits in addition to the fact that you are living in a nicer home (don’t forget that part). But certain remodels, replacements, and additions generate a greater return on investment at resale than others.

Real estate industry lore says start with kitchens and bathrooms — that is what people care about the most and where you will gain the most bang for your buck when it is time to sell.

Not necessarily, says the analysis done by Hanley Wood LLC for the National Association of Realtors this last year. According to their study, upscale siding replacement earned the largest return on investment in the Utah County area, just over 82 percent of the job cost recouped.

Talk about unsexy! Most of us would much rather be picking out gorgeous granite countertops and hip appliances, or luxurious claw foot bathtubs. Next on the list is a kitchen remodel at (73 percent) return on investment, followed by adding a deck (72 percent), and replacing windows (71 percent).

Two additions that are commonly suggested in the Utah County area as excellent addition investments for a home recoup a surprisingly low percentage of the job cost, according to the study: adding a garage (59 percent), and adding another bathroom (58 percent). Curiously, adding a garage on a Pacific coast home recouped 88 percent of the job cost. I don’t think anyone from Hanley Wood has recently had to broom 10 inches of snow off of their car and scrape the ice off of their windshield before heading in to work on a frigid morning, in the dark.

Remember to put costs and values into context. Seemingly small differences in project scope or material quality can dramatically affect the final costs. It is also important to consider whether a remodeled space reduces the perceived number of rooms or the available finished square footage of a home. A small bedroom converted into a home office, or cannibalized for your cavernous new master bathroom, while a positive development in many respects, may reduce the number of bedrooms below the minimum expectations of prospective buyers, for example. Carving a half-bath out of unused storage space under a staircase, or over a garage, is an obvious gain.

Also, the older the remodeling project, the smaller the recouped job cost, but the longer a home owner gets to enjoy the benefits of the project. If you are getting ready to list your home on the Utah County real estate market, consider what your job costs will be, how long you will get to enjoy those home amenities, and what affect those improvements will have on the sale price of your property and its time on the market. A good real estate agent can help you with these questions a lot.

Finally, all other things being equal (read: asking price), the newer, nicer home sells first. Exterior projects seem to have the greatest affect and are the best value. Remember our discussions about the importance of Buyer’s first impressions? While some prospective Buyers seek properties that have remodeling needs, what many of us refer to as “fixer-uppers,” they are seeking properties whose asking prices are below the Utah County real estate market averages. The possibility of sweat equity can be a selling point, but the sale price will be negatively affected from the Sellers standpoint.

Stay tuned as we round out our 8 Keys to Selling Success – Strategies for our “soft” market by discussing #6 – Sales Incentives & Marketing Extras, #7 – Power Pricing, and #8 – The “It” Factor.

Remember to leave your question as a comment below, or e-mail MichelleMinzghor@homerealty.com

All the Best,

Michelle

Home Improvements

There is a general rule in real estate that says, “Property will always gain value while the structures on it will always diminish in value over time.” But no matter the age of a Utah County home, no matter its location, regardless of its style of construction and decoration, as time goes by property owners have to continue to update and maintain their homes in order to maximize their real estate investment. How much of a return on your investment can you expect to glean from various remodeling projects, and what affect can they have on your Selling Success?

Key #5 – Return on Remodeling Investment & Competitive Edge

You will not glean a dollar-for-dollar return on your investment from remodeling and updating projects.

There, I said it.

Almost without exception, the money you spend on your home is not recouped in full when you sell it. Yes, a property’s value is maximized when it is in great shape and reflects the current trends in design, amenities, and layout. Yes, spending time and money upgrading and updating your home produces positive benefits in addition to the fact that you are living in a nicer home (don’t forget that part). But certain remodels, replacements, and additions generate a greater return on investment at resale than others.

Real estate industry lore says start with kitchens and bathrooms — that is what people care about the most and where you will gain the most bang for your buck when it is time to sell.

Not necessarily, says the analysis done by Hanley Wood LLC for the National Association of Realtors this last year. According to their study, upscale siding replacement earned the largest return on investment in the Great Lakes region, just over 82 percent of the job cost recouped.

Talk about unsexy! Most of us would much rather be picking out gorgeous granite countertops and hip appliances, or luxurious claw foot bathtubs. Next on the list is a kitchen remodel at (73 percent) return on investment, followed by adding a deck (72 percent), and replacing windows (71 percent).

Two additions that are commonly suggested in the Utah County area as excellent addition investments for a home recoup a surprisingly low percentage of the job cost, according to the study: adding a garage (59 percent), and adding another bathroom (58 percent). Curiously, adding a garage on a Pacific coast home recouped 88 percent of the job cost. I don’t think anyone from Hanley Wood has recently had to broom 10 inches of snow off of their car and scrape the ice off of their windshield before heading in to work on a frigid morning, in the dark.

Remember to put costs and values into context. Seemingly small differences in project scope or material quality can dramatically affect the final costs. It is also important to consider whether a remodeled space reduces the perceived number of rooms or the available finished square footage of a home. A small bedroom converted into a home office, or cannibalized for your cavernous new master bathroom, while a positive development in many respects, may reduce the number of bedrooms below the minimum expectations of prospective buyers, for example. Carving a half-bath out of unused storage space under a staircase, or over a garage, is an obvious gain.

Also, the older the remodeling project, the smaller the recouped job cost, but the longer a home owner gets to enjoy the benefits of the project. If you are getting ready to list your home on the Utah County real estate market, consider what your job costs will be, how long you will get to enjoy those home amenities, and what affect those improvements will have on the sale price of your property and its time on the market. A good real estate agent can help you with these questions a lot.

Finally, all other things being equal (read: asking price), the newer, nicer home sells first. Exterior projects seem to have the greatest affect and are the best value. Remember our discussions about the importance of Buyer’s first impressions? While some prospective Buyers seek properties that have remodeling needs, what many of us refer to as “fixer-uppers,” they are seeking properties whose asking prices are below the Utah County real estate market averages. The possibility of sweat equity can be a selling point, but the sale price will be negatively affected from the Sellers standpoint.

Stay tuned as we round out our 8 Keys to Selling Success – Strategies for our “soft” market by discussing #6 – Sales Incentives & Marketing Extras, #7 – Power Pricing, and #8 – The “It” Factor.

Remember to leave your question as a comment below, or e-mail MichelleMinzghore@homerealty.com

All the Best,

Michelle Minzghor

As we formulate your bullet-proof Master Plan to sell your Utah County real estate in our “soft” seller’s market, we need to address the possibility of taking on this challenge yourself vs. hiring a real estate professional.

The real estate industry term for home owners who attempt to tackle the preparation, pricing, marketing, buyer qualification, seller disclosures, inspection process, contract negotiation, contingency removal, contract closing, deed transfer, and successful sale of their own home is FSBO, short for “for sale by owner.”

While it is not impossible to market and sell your Utah County home by yourself, it takes a LOT of insight, hard work, persistence, patience, and thorough knowledge of the laws, responsibilities, and norms of the real estate and financial industries to be successful. Selling a home is now more complex and time consuming than ever before.

The percentage of gainfully employed, non-real-estate-license-holding individuals who achieve FSBO success is in the single digits. The vast majority of for-sale-by-owner properties, more than 90 percent of them, end up listing with a real estate brokerage because they grossly underestimate the time, money, knowledge, and effort required to sell their property by themselves — and that is in a typical Utah County area real estate market. Readers of this blog are acutely aware of the nature of our current sellers market, and it’s not pretty.

Most FSBOs know enough to put a “for sale” sign in their yard. Many will try to tell their friends and neighbors they are trying to sell their home. Some will try to figure out a way to get their property listed on their local Multiple Listing Service (MLS) without actually listing it with a real estate brokerage. A few will even go as far as trying to gain some Internet exposure in their attempt to sell their home. Unfortunately, these attempts do not take into account how most home buyers search, view, decide on, and purchase homes.

In keeping with our propensity for numbered lists, here are the Top 10 Reasons for hiring professional real estate representatives:

1. To optimize the sale price/market time relationship
2. To achieve “show quality” condition for your property
3. To maximize your property’s market exposure
4. To qualify prospective buyers
5. To help guard against misrepresentations and claims
6. To provide buyers comprehensive property, community, school, neighborhood, and market information
7. To ensure privacy, confidentiality, and safety for both sellers and buyers
8. To minimize the demands on sellers through the planning, marketing, and sale process
9. To utilize the methods and avenues used by most buyers
10. To negotiate for top dollar and maximum seller advantage

Let’s look at how you should arrive at an accurate and marketable price for your Utah County property as an example highlighting the challenges facing the do-it-yourself-er.

How will you arrive at a fair and marketable price for your home? Do you go with the “I’d love to get X”-price? How about the “my neighbor wants X for his home and ours is SO much nicer”-price? Or maybe you try to utilize the appraisal you paid for when you refinanced a couple of years ago. You know, the same type of appraisal that has helped send the secondary mortgage market into its current calamity.

(May we give you a hint? Banks make money loaning money; the appraisal the bank generated when you sought to borrow more money against your property is not worth the paper it is printed on.)

Good real estate agents typically research and analyze at least half a dozen different indicators to establish the real market price for a given property in a given market. We will then include additional factors like what a seller’s goals and time frame are, what they owe on the property, and other factors that will affect the successful marketing and sale of a home.

While it is possible to attempt the preparation, pricing, marketing, buyer qualification, seller disclosures, inspection process navigation, contract negotiation, contingency removal, contract closing, deed transfer, and successful sale of your own home, it is no where near the best plan. In a market where only a painfully small percentage of the available properties are selling at all, further hindering your success by trying to also be a part of the fraction of FSBOs that achieve success is not only bad math, but a bad plan.

Yes, we’re biased in our opinions, but we also spend all day, week-in and week-out, intimately involved in Utah County real estate market, achieving success for both our buying and selling clients.

There are of course some who claim that they not only sold their home themselves, but that it was a breeze, and that they don’t have any idea why any sane person would ever hire a professional. These are often the same people who claim to be great drivers because they’ve never had an accident, or who always win at their local casino despite the fact that said casinos annually report their cash profits in the tens of millions of dollars a year!

Claims of no-hassle, anyone-can-do-it, why-pay-a-professional real estate dealings and “I do real well at the casino on a regular basis” fall under the same general heading — I’ll let you give it your favorite moniker.

Ask the Realtors readers are learning that to achieve selling success in today’s Utah County real estate market, you need to maximize all the available positives while trying to eliminate as many negatives as humanly possible. Utilize the very best professionals you can to help ensure your selling success in our soft market.

8 Keys to Selling Success — Strategies for our soft market. You must understand the effect that buyer’s first impression has on their interest in buying your Utah Valley home.

Key #3 – First Impressions:

1. Pick it up

2. Clean it up

3. Finish it up

4. Paint it & Un-decorate it

5. Illuminate it

One of the Four Fundamental Factors of Utah County real estate property values is condition.

The real estate industry statistic/urban legend says that a buyer formulates a strong first impression of your home within 15 seconds of seeing it. Multiply that by the “Internet factor,” or the shortened attention span of most (real estate buying) surfers who are looking at property, and the importance of first impressions takes on its true importance. Unlike the location of your property (which you cannot change), you have direct control of the condition of your home.

Remember our discussion of “Show Quality?” A home in “Show Quality” is clean, organized, and inviting. Pick it up and clean it up. Get rid of all but the last month’s magazines. Empty your property of all of the garbage on the premises. You may want to take this opportunity to re-establish your definition of “garbage” (and maybe your spouse’s definition as well). Take all of the recyclable materials to the collection centers. Make sure all of the laundry is cleaned, folded, and put away in its proper place. If something does not have a proper place, you probably don’t need it as badly as you need your house to sell.

Go after the garage and the basement too, while you’re at it. Remember, you want your home to stand out amongst the legions of other houses for sale in your price range, and this is an area that you can have a dramatically positive affect on.

Clean your house like all of the church ladies are coming over with their white gloves on! There are several really good cleaning professionals locally that can give your home a sparkle it may have never seen before, and for the price, this is an excellent option almost every time.

Pay particular attention to the window glass. We humans are a visual species, and even a little grime on a window, inside or out, is easily detected and will give an impression of dirtiness regardless of how spotless the rest of the home is.

We’ll learn about the importance of illumination below. Suffice it to say that you want to utilize your daylight as much as possible with your squeaky-clean windows. I cannot picture a home that is too clean.

My favorite is finish it up. Finish all of the little projects you have started, but never finished, around your home. You want to be selling your home as a finished product, not a work-in-progress. One of the best ways of soliciting low offers on your home is to have a list of items that are not complete. Buyers will “naturally” deduct the expense of finishing your projects from whatever your asking price is.

Again, this is an area where you can directly affect the successful sale of your home, so no complaining about your lack of selling success with a laundry list of home projects that you are trying to pass off on an unsuspecting buyer. “Honey Do’s” can be very expensive for a seller.

Another great Utah County real estate adage is: “Paint is worth $20 in the can and $2,000 on the wall.” Paint it & un-decorate it. Even a fresh coat of whatever great color you have on your walls will go a long way, but pay attention to your trim in particular.

Un-decorate is counter-intuitive. Most people have too much stuff, particularly if you have collections of anything. Pack most of your stuff (whatever you cannot sell, give away, or recycle) carefully away in boxes and get it off the walls, floors, and shelves. De-clutter. Clutter makes rooms seem much smaller, and your house less bright and inviting. People’s tastes vary widely, so your stellar collection of race cars, seashells, and all things nautical may very well turn off a buyer who is more interested in a clean, bright, well-cared-for home and great location.

Finally, illuminate it. As we have already said, humanity is a visual species. All forms of illumination take a back seat to our heavenly source 92 million miles away. Sunlight is your friend. Open the blinds and curtains. Replace any burned out or low-wattage bulbs with fresh new ones. If you are able, turn on every light in your home before any prospective buyers are scheduled to come view your property for sale. It makes a big difference, even in photographs.

Incorporate these first impression builders into your solid, well-thought-out plan to sell your home and you will be on your way to selling success, even in a “soft” market.

What Sells a Property?

Last week I covered the first step in successfully selling your home in our “soft” seller’s market – 1. Make a Plan.

This week’s second installment of 8 Keys to Selling Success — Strategies for our Soft Market says your plan needs to understand and address the four fundamental factors that affect the sale of real estate in Utah County.

Key #2 – What Sells a Home:

1. Location

2. Condition

3. Price

4. Marketing

Location is the factor you have the least ability to affect; the location of your real estate is fixed by definition. (Goes without saying, doesn’t it?) It is the primary factor a buyer decides upon, and is the one factor on which a seller should spend the least amount of worry and effort. Beware of pouring money into improving a property that’s value is limited by its location and/or neighbors.

Conversely, it is the property itself, and its location, that constitutes the largest component of overall value. In general, property gains value over time, and structures lose value over time.

The next three factors are where you need to spend the most effort, construct the strongest plan, and make the best decisions.

The Condition of your home and property is vitally important to its successful sale in our soft market, and this is a factor you have a lot of control over. With the sea of Utah County real estate for sale, your home needs to stand out amongst the competition within its price range. I suggest to our @Home Realty clients that their property needs to be kept in “show condition” while it is being marketed and shown for sale. (We’ll go into great detail about this in the coming weeks.)

Very few of us live in homes that are in show condition, much like very few of us drive cars around that are in show condition. We can all come up with excuses why we cannot keep our homes in show condition, but read very carefully: All things being (even close to) equal, the home in the best condition sells first.

Picture going through your used car’s interior with a toothbrush cleaning every nook and cranny, and using every cleaner, polish, and special tool in your arsenal to get it ready to sell. Now apply that mentality to your home. Clean it, put it away, and get rid of all of the clutter.

For heaven’s sake, try to limit the pet hair, not to mention the litter box odor. Replace all of the burned out light bulbs. Fix the sticking door. Actually paint the back bedroom with the can of paint you bought two years ago.

Remember, “show condition.”

How and where you Price your property for sale is of vital importance, and unfortunately not clearly understood by most sellers, and even some real estate agents. Realize that in today’s Utah County area real estate market, residential property has become more of a commodity and sellers (and their agents) need to adjust their pricing accordingly to be successful.

If you are shopping for a white refrigerator and have $400 to spend, you have literally dozens of possibilities to choose from right here in our area, and you are going to get the absolute best white fridge for your dollar. The current Utah County real estate market is no different.

Buyers in any segment of our market have literally dozens of candidates available, regardless of what they are looking for or how much they want to spend. Your property has to stand out amongst its competition to even be in consideration.

Finally, the Marketing of your Utah County property is the crux of your challenge, and needs to be cunningly incorporated into your plan.

Read the last sentence again for me.

There’s a LOT of competition, but if you are serious about selling your home, utilize all of the tools that you can bring to bear to achieve success. That includes hiring the best real estate agent(s) you can find, developing a strong marketing plan with them, and implementing that plan aggressively.

Be creative and flexible. Spread the word. Concentrate as much energy on the Internet as possible. Not only has the World Wide Web become the most dominant aspect of real estate marketing, it becomes more so every day.

You can try to market your home by yourself, but how thorough a plan can you develop and implement? Will that really be your best chance of achieving success? If your time or financial options to sell your home are limited in any way, we implore you to seek the very best professional help you can find as quickly as possible. It is not a coincidence that between 80-90 percent of all for-sale-by-owners eventually list their properties with a real estate brokerage to successfully sell them… and that’s in an average seller’s market.

We are experiencing a “soft” seller’s market, but with a well-designed and executed selling strategy that successfully addresses the four fundamental factors that sell homes, you can be one of those sellers in the Utah County area that find willing and able buyers.

This week, lets talk about the “soft” seller’s real estate market in the Utah County area with our 8 Keys to Selling Success — Strategies for our Soft Market.

If you are selling your home — if you are even considering selling your home — you absolutely cannot ignore these guidelines, especially right now when it is so challenging to be successful.

When tackling any major event (and selling your home is a major event), you first have to define your objectives very clearly.

1. Make a plan.

Like any well-coached team, the greater the plan and preparation, the greater the likelihood of success. If you are married, you need to actually sit down with your spouse and reach a firm agreement on these important questions:

What are your motivations for selling your home? What happens if it doesn’t sell? (You know, like three quarters of all the other properties listed For Sale out there…)

What is your realistic time-line? What happens if it takes longer than you’re planning to sell your home?

What is your financial situation? What are your options? What is the best course of action for your financial health and future? Who do you know that you can trust, and who can actually help you assess your options? What if your financial situation is in already in distress, or about to be?

How are you going to go about answering these questions? And then how are you going to go about implementing your plan and selling your home?

Keep tabs on us for the next number of weeks, and by Ground Hog’s Day you will be ready to implement your carefully crafted plan for selling your home. We will go over a complete selling strategy, piece by piece, so you can “Wow!” the Utah County area real estate market like a well-oiled machine.

Feel free to leave your question or comment below, or e-mail MichelleMinzghor@homerealty.com directly.

All the best, and

THINK SNOW!

Announced FHA Policy Changes:

1. Mortgage insurance premium (MIP) will be increased to build up capital reserves and bring back private lending
* The first step will be to raise the up-front MIP by 50 bps to 2.25% and request legislative authority to increase the maximum annual MIP that the FHA can charge.
* If this authority is granted, then the second step will be to shift some of the premium increase from the up-front MIP to the annual MIP.
* This shift will allow for the capital reserves to increase with less impact to the consumer, because the annual MIP is paid over the life of the loan instead of at the time of closing
* The initial up-front increase is included in a Mortgagee Letter to be released tomorrow, January 21st, and will go into effect in the spring.

2. Update the combination of FICO scores and down payments for new borrowers.
* New borrowers will now be required to have a minimum FICO score of 580 to qualify for FHA’s 3.5% down payment program. New borrowers with less than a 580 FICO score will be required to put down at least 10%.
* This allows the FHA to better balance its risk and continue to provide access for those borrowers who have historically performed well.
* This change will be posted in the Federal Register in February and, after a notice and comment period, would go into effect in the early summer.

3. Reduce allowable seller concessions from 6% to 3%
* The current level exposes the FHA to excess risk by creating incentives to inflate appraised value. This change will bring FHA into conformity with industry standards on seller concessions.
* This change will be posted in the Federal Register in February, and after a notice and comment period, would go into effect in the early summer.

4. Increase enforcement on FHA lenders
* Publicly report lender performance rankings to complement currently available Neighborhood Watch data – Will be available on the HUD website on February 1.
o This is an operational change to make information more user-friendly and hold lenders more accountable; it does not require new regulatory action as Neighborhood Watch data is currently publicly available.
* Enhance monitoring of lender performance and compliance with FHA guidelines and standards.
o Implement Credit Watch termination through lender underwriting ID in addition to originating ID.
o This change is included in a Mortgagee Letter to be released tomorrow, January 21st, and is effective immediately.
* Implement statutory authority through regulation of section 256 of the National Housing Act to enforce indemnification provisions for lenders using delegated insuring process
o Specifications of this change will be posted in March, and after a notice and comment period, would go into effect in early summer.
* HUD is pursuing legislative authority to increase enforcement on FHA lenders. Specific authority includes:
o Amendment of section 256 of the National Housing Act to apply indemnification provisions to all Direct Endorsement lenders. This would require all approved mortgagees to assume liability for all of the loans that they originate and underwrite
o Legislative authority permitting HUD maximum flexibility to establish separate “areas” for purposes of review and termination under the Credit Watch initiative. This would provide authority to withdraw originating and underwriting approval for a lender nationwide on the basis of the performance of its regional branches

In addition to the changes proposed today, the FHA is continuing to review its overall response to housing market conditions, and continuing to evaluate its mortgage insurance underwriting standards and its measures to help distressed and underwater borrowers through FHA/HAMP and other FHA initiatives going forward.

Reports from fellow mortgage professionals indicate lender rate sheets to be improved from yesterday. While the par 30 year conventional mortgage rate remains in the 4.75% to 5.00% range, it is less expensive to get those rates today. These rates are the most aggressive in the mortgage market, only very well qualified consumers will have access to these borrowing costs. To secure a par rate you must have a FICO credit score of 740 or higher, a loan to value at 80% or less. These quotes also assume the borrower is willing to pay all closing costs including an estimated one point loan origination/discount/broker fee. If you are seeking a 15 year term, you should expect a par rate in the 4.25% to 4.50% range with similar costs.

With lenders still offering the best rates we’ve seen in over a month and further progress unknown in the rates market, I think most should consider locking in their mortgage rate. As I said yesterday, we have picked up significant gains this week, by locking you take advantage of those gains and remove risks. At this point, without a fundamental shift in investor sentiment or the economy, it is going to be very difficult for mortgage rates to move much lower. In my opinion you do not have much to gain by floating. Also like yesterday, I am not totally against floating into tomorrow, but do feel the recent price gains warrant locking in loans. If you do decide to continue floating, you should be re-evaluating your stance on a daily basis.

Mortgage News Daily

Adding Value To Your Home By Remodeling

Remodeling is a great way to add value to your home, but being judicious in home remodeling is important, and still worth the investment according to Remodeling magazine’s annual “Cost vs. Value Report”

In this economy one must be restrained and cautious in remodeling projects, and it doesn’t take a major overhaul to increase the value of your home.

In 80 metropolitan markets surveyed by Remodeling magazine, they found the 10 projects that brought the best return on investment. Six of the 10 projects involved home maintenance and two projects involve adding more livable space in and around your home.

Converting an attic into a bedroom landed 3rd place with an 83.1% average national return on investment, with some cities getting a 100% return on investment.

A mid-range entry door replacement is expected to generate a 100% return on investment nationally. It is the least expensive of the upgrades surveyed, yet brings a national average of 128.9% return on investment in over half of the cities surveyed, with several cities getting a more than double return on investment.

Upgrading kitchens and baths are smart rooms to upgrade, however homeowners will get a better return on their investments by going with a mid-range remodel instead of a super deluxe for these rooms. The average return on investment for a mid-range remodel for kitchen and bath averages 72.1% of the money invested.

The only upscale projects that cracked the top 10 were the home maintenance projects of fiber-cement siding and vinyl window replacements. The average cost of the siding is over $13,000 and it returned 83.6 percent, which put this project in second place in the survey. The average cost of vinyl window replacement is almost $14,000 and it generates a return of 76.5 percent, putting it tenth place in the survey.

Adding value to your home by remodeling must be done carefully, but remodeling the right areas at a mid-level range can bring excellent returns.
View 2009-10 Cost Vs. Value Report. Data courtesy of Remodeling Magazine

Here are more tips when selling your home in the winter.

Make sure to get the windows washed. Buyers act on the first impression. Windows are the one thing that Sellers don’t even consider. In winter, that strong southern light can reveal grime and make it look like the home hasn’t been well maintained.

To help warm the place up, play music softly in the background. To create a little atmosphere, turn the radio to the local classical or jazz station. Turn it down so that you barely hear it in the background. It is soothing and seems to have the most appeal to buyers.

Make it comfortable and cozy. Set the scene and help the buyers see themselves living happily in this house. Consider things such as putting a warm throw on the sofa or folding back the thick comforter on the bed. Set a breakfast tray on the bed containing a coffee cup, saucer, napkin and rolled-up newspaper. For baths or spas, roll up wash cloths, tie with a ribbon and place in a basket on the counter. Set up a grouping of soaps, lotions and shampoo. Tap into the simple things this time of year that make you feel like you are home.