Your home is on the market during the holidays and the decorating begins. Normally you go all out with creatures cackling during Halloween and a light factory explosion on your front lawn with a giant village covered in snow on your coffee table.  Surely this will help you sell your home as buyers will walk in and feel the warm coziness of the holidays?

Not so much. Sorry. I'm not telling you to give up decorating all together but let's edit it a bit because you want buyers to see them in the house, not you. Outside skip the creepy and go for autumn decor - pumpkins, perhaps a scarecrow and a wreath of leaves and pots (or plantings) of chrysanthemums.  For Christmas and such, go with white lights, skip the multi colored this time around as it's distracting and abandon all things that inflate. 

Inside do not cover up every surface or good selling points (like the fireplace or staircase) because the house starts feeling cluttered and small.  Pick small areas to enhance with natural elements like pine cone wreaths or evergreen garlands. Go for some red accents for pop and interest.  You don't have to forgo the tree but do make sure it doesn't take up the entire room or walkway.  This is also a great opportunity to set the dining room table with a great Thanksgiving theme or for a holiday feast. 

Just because your home is on the market doesn't mean you have to get rid of all of your traditions, but you need to help your buyers imagine them creating their own traditions in the house too so keep that in mind as you gear up. 

This is a closeup from the Urban Land Institute's 32nd annual report on emerging trends for 2011.  Both Los Angeles and San Diego made the top 10 regions to watch in the upcoming year.  Don't even ask about the Inland Empire except note that Vegas and Phoenix are less desirable than we are.  San Diego rated well because of their coastal properties and I always look to the numbers here with respect to Temecula because we are on the cusp of both areas giving us a unique market not completely tied to some of the more Northern areas of Riverside County.  Keep in mind that most of this report revolves around commercial and multi family real estate but there is a pretty chart that shows the scores for new home construction feasibility... you don't even want to know where we're at on that chart. Ok if you really want to know we're rated a 2.97 on a possible scale of 10, and we're in the bottom 1/3 in the nation (in the full report this chart can be found on page 29).  


For the full report from ULI click here. If you just want a commentary on San Diego's market, read Sign On SanDiego's article here. 

We live in an area where we do indeed have some horrid little custom homes on amazing pieces of property and while they may not be 100 year old cottages, this article made me think that for the right people, those tear downs may not be un-salvageable after all. 

This cottage wasn't just remodeled but it became an experiment in eco-friendly living and not in a 'wow those people are crazy' sort of way.  The couple experimented with grey water and wind turbines as well as simply insulating and putting in new air vents. There are certainly ideas that not everyone would be able to install (what association in Temecula would be pro windmill?) but the little changes like lighting the bathrooms with sun tunnels (fancy skylights) and using LED lighting could be adapted anywhere.  

So for those inclined to buy that little remodel, I will be directing them to this article as a great guideline on being proactive with their real estate choices.  How much value do you think they added to the home? Please go to This Old Home to see all of the pictures and details.  My only problem with the article is that there were no before pictures it wasn't laid out well for on-line reading, but that's a whole different story.