There are enough television shows and magazine spreads about home decorating that many of us probably assume we have the basics down pat — declutter to the nth degree and clean, clean, clean, then apply your “neutral with pops of color” philosophy, swap out some personal items and artwork with items that have a bit more mass appeal, and you’re all set! Right?

In some cases, that might be all you need, but in most homes, there might be a little bit of shopping in order before you’re ready to list that house for top dollar. That doesn’t mean you need to buy an entire new living-room furniture set (though if you were already thinking about it, this might be a good time …) — there are plenty of affordable ways you can pretty up your space. Assuming you’ve done the deep cleaning and decluttering that’s absolutely critical to a successful staging job, consider adding these items to your shopping list as you’re preparing to stage your home.

A toy chest

Okay, this might not be appropriate advice for everybody … but where it is appropriate, it’s sorely needed. If you have children or pets living in your house, one of the most difficult things about selling is keeping all of their stuff corralled while you’re showing the house to prospective buyers. And if you don’t already have a toy chest, you’ll quickly learn why they were such popular items in kids’ rooms for so long: You can stash a ton of stuff inside them and they look great on the outside.

Think about the big challenges to keeping your house showroom ready at all times. If one of the things that you’re constantly doing is picking up toys or belongings in common living areas, then consider acquiring a chest or toy chest and using them as your main method for a quick cleanup. Don’t forget that part of staging is typically also eliminating items from your house, so think carefully too about where to put the chest. Ideally, you can remove a couple of items of furniture and replace them with the chest.

Bedding

When was the last time you bought yourself a new bedding set? We’re not asking to make you feel bad, but if it’s been a while, then your bedroom will probably benefit significantly from an update. Don’t overthink it; this doesn’t have to be the ultimate bedding set that perfectly encapsulates your personality and expresses why you loved living in this house so very much. It’s hard to go wrong with a crisp white or a neutral gray shade on your bed; as long as it looks fluffy and clean and inviting, you’ll be in good shape.

This might also be a good time to update your pillows if they’re sagging and unsupportive. And don’t forget about the dust ruffle — if yours is torn or stained or otherwise looking shabby, replace it with a newer version or just get rid of it.

New towels

Remember that your goal is to make any prospective buyers feel comfortable and at home when they walk through your house, and nothing makes a bath or shower look more inviting than a pile of fluffy folded towels. Can yours at least play the part without a stunt double standing in?

If you haven’t taken a close look at your towels recently, you might be surprised what you see when you pick them up and give them a close inspection. Hems unraveling, faded colors or sad and limp fabric are all good reasons to upgrade your towel situation, or at least break out the “fancy” towels from wherever you’ve stashed them in the linen closet.

Paint

It’s possible you already have some paint lurking in your closet that you can use to touch up any dings in the walls, and you should definitely do that. But while you’re breaking it out, why not consider updating the paint scheme as a whole?  Paint is one of the most affordable ways you can refine and polish the whole look of your home, and if you’re worried that your home doesn’t have enough personality, then paint can also be a good way to give it a little glow-up without breaking the bank.

Talk to your agent about which colors will present your home in the best light and get their opinion on whether it would be beneficial for you to update your home’s look.

Throw pillows

One very easy way to make a living room set look brand-new and fresh is to buy a new set of throw pillows. The pillows are the first parts of your couch to start showing wear and tear, from fraying to stains, and depending on the estate of the rest of your upholstery, you may be able to get away with a thorough cleaning/vacuuming and a new set of throw pillows on the sofa.

Lights

We’re not talking about light fixtures, necessarily, although those can also be excellent ways to help showcase your house to its best effect. First, you’ll want to assess how much light you have (and how much light you need) in every room in your house. Ideally, your home will feel airy and bright, and light is a major contributor to that atmospheric and elusive tone. If you walk into a room and it always feels dark and drab, then maybe investing in a table lamp or floor lamp will help alleviate some of that downward “pull” you experience when you walk in.

Another issue you might have is that you’ve got plenty of light fixtures and lamps in your home, but the light itself looks too harsh. It’s quite possible that you’ve got the wrong kind of bulb for the type of room in the fixture, or that you just invested in the cheapest possible bulbs (it happens!) without really thinking about it. You’re aiming for soft light, so look for warm-glow or soft light bulbs (you can get these in LEDs, too!).

Area rugs

The common advice that you hear when you’re staging a house is to remove, remove, remove — and you definitely should be doing that as much as you can. But one area where people may have an opportunity to add some items (an don’t) is the floor. A well-placed rug draws the eye down a hallway toward the armchair by the fireplace or provides some distinction between the living room and dining area in an open floorplan.

Mirrors

Many sellers worry that their home appears too small — it’s not always easy for buyers to really understand how big a room is because it’s full of things, which is one reason why decluttering is so important in the staging process. Another very well-known way to help expand the look and feel of spaciousness in your house is to add some mirrors. Hang one over the sofa or fireplace in the living room, on the big expanse of wall in the hallway, or on the closet door in the bedroom. Think about how mirrors reflect light, too, and place them accordingly; you’ll probably find opportunities to brighten up a room even more if you can combine your lighting efforts with a well-placed mirror or two.

Small tables or shelves

One problem with decluttering while staging is that sometimes you find you don’t have a lot of opportunities to showcase some of the niceties that would appeal to buyers. In most homes, flat and clean surfaces are in short supply; just think of how the coffee table and dining room area get overrun with homework and grocery dumps, not to mention office spaces.

Take a look around your almost-staged home and ask yourself if there are enough clean and shiny surfaces to display a plant or a vase of flowers. You’ll want to add some as your final touch on the home, and you won’t want to go overboard, but if you can’t find one spot per room to place an eye-catching detail, then you might want to get a small table or shelf to provide that surface for you.

Vases or pots

The mass appeal of plants and flowers mean that they are a universally beloved way to stage a house. And that means you’re going to need things in which to put those plants and flowers. Glass vases and ceramic pots are abundant and cheap; you can pick them up at home improvement stores or nurseries, garage sales, and thrift stores, and so on. Try to find enough to have a potted plant or vase of flowers in most rooms of your home.

Fresh flowers

One beautiful finishing touch you can put on your space is a bouquet or two of fresh flowers strategically placed throughout the home. Something about flowers or live plants inside helps to create a calming environment, and if you’ve taken the standard advice to outfit your house in mostly neutral tones, some pops of fresh flowers on clean, shiny surfaces will help pull the whole look together — and when buyers walk through the front door, they’ll find themselves breathing big sighs of contentment. 

Buying a new home can be an exciting time. It can also be frustrating and exhausting. To help prepare you for home hunting success, here are five important things to know about the market before you schedule your first viewing, or visit your first open house.

1) Buyers market or seller’s market? And what’s the difference?

Most markets are governed by the law of supply and demand–the housing market is no exception. When demand (buyers shopping for homes) is high and supply (homes for sale) is low, prices go up. On the flip side, when demand is low and supply is high, prices go down. As home inventories rise, so does the competition amongst sellers, which drives prices down.

In a buyer’s market, sellers have more flexibility with the selling price, which is good news for buyers. In a seller’s market, there aren’t enough homes available to support the high demand. Homes sell fast, and often at premium prices. 

Like any other market, the real estate market is cyclical. Periods of depreciation are then followed by periods of appreciation, and around and around the market goes. If you study the market, you can learn how to predict trends, and time the purchase of your new home accordingly. 

2) Analyze local pricing trends

Start by doing some initial online searches in the communities you’d like to live in to see what homes are selling for in these areas and what they’ve been selling for overtime. Then, check neighboring towns and compare where the prices might be accelerating or depreciating faster than the other. In areas where you see higher average home prices, this is also where you’ll find the most demand. As you get familiar with local pricing trends, you’ll be able to quickly spot good prices, and overpriced homes based on the home features, location, and amenities.

3)Research up-and-coming areas

Broaden your market research and look to neighboring towns. A key indicator of a soon-to-be hot town is the development of new infrastructure. New businesses, shopping centers, roads, and schools are all positive signs that an area is getting ready to grow. Being an early buyer in an up-and-coming market might turn into significant appreciation down the road.

4) Review School Rankings

Schools in each state are ranked by how well kids perform on math and English tests. Even if children aren’t in your future, this could be very important to a future buyer with school-aged kids in a few years if you decide to sell your home. Compare the school scores for neighboring towns as well, and even the rankings for several schools within a district. Searching for a home just a few streets over could put your home in a more desirable school.

5) Explore neighborhood demographics

Take a close look at the homes you’re considering in each market and determine the percentage of renters and owners. If you’re thinking about a home in an area where people are mainly renting, it can only take a few bad renters or property owners to set the neighborhood off on a downturn. What’s the average age of the people in the areas you’re exploring? If a town is full of young singles, or college students, will this also be a good place to raise children? Or, if you have young children, are there other children in the neighborhood? 

Purchasing a home will likely be the biggest financial decision of your life. For a homebuyer, understanding the market will help you find the perfect property for you. If you need any assistance guiding you through the process, get in touch!

Building a new home is a perfect opportunity to customize your space according to your own needs and wants — and it can also feel completely overwhelming. Many homes built from the ground up will require the new owner to make more than one thousand decisions about everything from paint color to what fixtures you want in your kitchens and bathrooms.

If you’ve always dreamed of having complete control over what goes into your home, then don’t despair. There are lots of ways you can make your new-construction experience smoother and even take some decisions off the table until further on down the road when you’ve lived in the house for a few months. Before you dive into a new construction deal, make sure you’ve got these basic tips in mind, and your experience with the builder will be both fun and rewarding.

Set a budget

Unless you’re independently wealthy or have won the lottery recently, you’ll be working within the constraints of a budget. This needs to encompass both the building itself and all the fixtures and features you can add. If you haven’t talked to a financial advisor about what you can afford on your current household income, that would be a good first step.

Once you have a budget range in mind, think about how much you really feel comfortable spending. It’s tempting to push to the very limit of your potential budget but think about the monthly payments (don’t forget taxes and homeowners’ insurance!) before you commit. 

Some of the upgrades that you’ll be offered will also be a lot cheaper and offer a lot more options if you wait until after you’re living in the home to take advantage of them. Remember that if you spend at the upper end of your budget, you won’t be able to make those changes as quickly as you might want.

When you’ve figured out what your budget is, make sure you stick to it. A little bit of wiggle room is fine, but if you find yourself constantly exceeding what you planned on spending, you might regret it later.

Create a vision board

Just like your clothing or your car, your home reflects your personality. It’s a place where people allow themselves to be vulnerable and spend their most intimate moments of every day, so spending some time to decide what feels right is going to help you make tough decisions and eliminate options as the build progresses.

One excellent way to pin down your sense of what you want in a home is to use a vision board to collect your ideas. A vision board for a house can include colors, textures, fabrics, pieces of furniture, windows and doors, flowers and plants, anything that you feel captures the essence of what you want to achieve. You can build your vision board using an actual piece of posterboard (an old-school but effective method), use vision board software on your computer, or just create a Pinterest category especially for your house and collect your ideas there.

Know why you want what you want

This shouldn’t be a newsflash to anybody, but different people need different things from their living environments. For example, a homeowner with arthritis or another condition that affects fine motor skills might prefer a faucet that’s easy to turn on and off to the low-flow model that proclaims itself to be the most environmentally friendly. If you don’t have any issues with fine motor skills, then maybe the low-flow faucet is the best choice.

Before you’re tempted to dig into fixtures and make decisions about them that could be hard to change, sit down with the other people in your household (if there are any), and have a conversation about what they like and don’t like about how your current home is configured. You might be surprised by what you learn, and it’ll give you an opportunity to structure your new home for maximum convenience for everybody.

Tour homes to collect examples

Builders will usually have at least one model home that you can peruse, if not several. If you can, spend some time looking at the different homes available to you — even if you’re not interested in using the builder or moving into the development that you’re touring. You’ll get a better sense of what different fixtures and finishes look like in a completed house, so these tours will help you when it comes to your own decision-making.

Bring your household with you on these tours, and take notes on what you like and don’t like about different homes and their features, from appearance to functionality. Then when your spouse is urging you to pick a fixture that you both thoughts looked terrible in the model home, you can remind them that you saw it and hated it.

Coordinate finishes

You don’t need to use exactly the same faucet in every bathroom in the home, or even the same finishes throughout the house. But thinking about how your finishes coordinate together within each room will save you from mistakes like inadvertently ordering a towel rack that’s a completely different color than your faucet. 

For a good rule of thumb, keep finishes standardized within each room. Then consider how each room-wide finish coordinates with all the others. It’s not always a good idea to go matchy-matchy with everything, but a modern brushed-chrome kitchen might feel jarring in a house where the bathroom fixtures are modeled after antiques. Consult your vision board while you’re making decisions to see whether your decisions match up to your overall vision or are way off the mark.

Match the look and feel of your house

A Victorian-inspired bathroom is probably going to look pretty out of place in a mid-century modern house. Not everybody wants a house that’s perfectly coordinated, of course — and most builders don’t offer a huge variety of home styles; many people who buy new-construction homes like them because they are, well, new. Modern!

So this isn’t a hard-and-fast rule as much as a guideline, but it’s still worth remembering: Do your best to match the look and feel of each room in your home with your home’s overall look and feel. This is how professional stagers work to make homes enticing to buyers, and if you follow their example, you can feel like you’re living in an interior design magazine every day that you’re in your new abode.

Remember the floors and walls

The floors and walls in your house are going to have a big influence on how space feels when all is said and done. Your builder should have several options for you, and it’s a really good idea to ask a lot of questions about all of them.

For flooring, ask about cleaning and upkeep, durability, and which options are popular choices in the development. This can help guide your own decision-making; even if you really like the laminate flooring that most people on the block are choosing, if you’ve got kids or pets, upgrading to real wood might keep your floors nicer for longer than the laminate.

And think about your own lifestyle choices, too. If you’ve got a young cat that likes to claw up the carpet, it probably makes sense to forego carpet for a different flooring type (or ban the cat from your beautifully carpeted bedroom). If you have several young kids, the carpet might be a bad move for another reason. But if you live in a cold climate and remove your shoes at the door, the carpet may be just the thing to make your house feel cozier. Revisit your considerations of why you want what you want and use them to tackle questions about the walls and the floors as they emerge during construction.

Know what to skip now and tackle later

Although it feels more efficient to buy everything upfront while your house is being constructed, there are several upgrades that you might want to hold off on making until after you’re occupying the house. And in some circumstances, it might make sense to opt for a lower-quality choice to pass the inspection, then upgrade at your leisure later one.

For example, if you want a range hood in your kitchen, consider installing the cheapest one that the builder has available and then upgrading it later. You’ll have a wider selection of options and will probably be able to get a better deal on a high-end range hood after you’re in the house, but a range hood is an addition that needs to be inspected and approved, so you might as well include it in the initial build and clear the inspection hurdle upfront.

Other upgrades will be cheaper and provide a lot more selection if you can bring yourself to wait. Some of those upgrades include countertops, light fixtures, cabinet hardware (door and drawer handle), paint on your walls, backsplashes in the kitchens and bathrooms, and kitchen appliances. Even if you’re head-over-heels for one of the options that the builder is offering, you can still save a lot of money by waiting until after closing to add it.

Try not to fall in love

New construction can be just as heartbreaking as it is exciting — usually when you discover a fixture or an upgrade that’s absolutely perfect, then realize it’s way beyond your budget. When you find yourself starting to have feelings for something specific, recognize it as a warning sign to back up, take a deep breath, and remind yourself that you’re going to be living in this home for (most likely) a long time, and you’ll have more opportunities to make it perfect.

If you bring some structure and strategy to your new-construction project, it’ll feel more like an opportunity than an overwhelming mess. Do your best to plan ahead and manage your own expectations, and you’ll discover that moving into a new-construction home that you helped design gives you a giddy feeling nothing else can match.

If you’ve never fixed and flipped a home before — but you’ve watched enough HGTV think it looks like fun — then you might not think you need a real estate agent to help with the process. What can an agent tell you that you don’t already know?

Plenty! Whether you’re fixing and flipping in an area you know intimately or a new region where you’re not as familiar, agents can help you understand fair market value, identify which fixtures and finishes are going to be most desirable, and potentially even find you a buyer when you’re finished.

But that’s far from all. Keep reading to discover the many ways a real estate agent is one of the best allies you can have in a fix-and-flip project.

Securing your finances

If you’re not paying cash, then there are some things you should know about mortgages on second homes that don’t apply to primary residences. There are different lending requirements, to start with; lenders typically want you to put down a full 20% on any second homes you purchase, and there aren’t programs available that accommodate lower down payments.

Not only can a real estate agent put you in touch with a loan officer who’s familiar with second-home mortgages, but your agent can also help you identify other costs that you might not be considering. Utilities, for example You’ll probably need those turned on and working while you work; it’s hard to remodel a house with no lights. 

In addition, your agent can help clarify questions about finances — for example, whether you can avoid capital gains tax if you live in the house while you work on it. (Yes, but only if you’re there for at least two years … that’d be a really long renovation project.)

Creating a budget

At first, your budget might simply be the amount of money you can afford to spend buying and fixing the place, but a real estate agent can help you get much more granular so that you can plan how much you’re spending on what and when.

Agents know about how much it costs to refinish a floor, remodel a kitchen or bathroom, update the landscaping, and any other number of big home improvement projects. Agents also know which finishes and fixtures are most popular among buyers in the area, and they can help you figure out any budget line items that you’re forgetting or missing.

And an agent also has an idea of how long these improvements take and how long homes stay on the market in the area. If you’re paying a mortgage, then you’ll need to know how many months you’ll likely be carrying that expense, and an agent is one of the best people to help you nail it down.

You can’t fix and flip a home without a budget, and an agent can help make sure that your budget is as accurate and realistic as possible before you make any big decisions.

Finding the right home

Most fix-and-flippers follow the 70% rule, which means that they don’t want to spend more than 70% of the final sales price of the home to buy the home. To make it easy: If the fair-market value for three-bedroom homes in your area is about $100,000, then you don’t want to pay more than around $70,000 to buy a three-bedroom fix-and-flip.

An agent can help you find a home in that price range, of course — but beyond that, an agent can help you understand how much work will be involved in fixing up any given property. Some homes are going to be in better shape than others (and some in worse), and especially if it’s your first flip, you’ll need an expert advisor who can tell you “this is a decent deal that won’t require too much heavy lifting” or “even though it’s cheap, you’ll spend more than it’s worth trying to get it ready for buyers.”

Negotiating the sale

It’s probably safe to guess that you don’t buy a home every day. And there might be parts of the negotiation and transaction process that are over your head or overwhelming — which is when it’s lovely to have the assistance of an agent.

Agents deal with home sales every day. They know every negotiation tactic in the book, including many you may not have considered, like giving the sellers control over the transaction timeline or offering to let them stay in the home longer than normal.

When you have a real estate agent managing the negotiation for you, not only do you have an advocate who’s working for your best interest, but you also have an expert who can come up with creative ways to get everybody what they want (without emptying your checkbook).

Inspections and closing

You don’t want to skip the inspection even if you’re doing major renovations to the home — after all, if there’s a structural issue or a bigger problem than you can fix on your own, that’s something you need to know before you get to closing so you can decide whether it’s a deal-breaker.

An agent can help you find an inspector who’s an ace at finding the big problems. And if something major is wrong, an agent can help you decide if it’s worth it to continue with the transaction or whether you should start looking elsewhere for your first flip.

Securing permits

Do you know what permits are required to make the changes you’d like to make? A real estate agent does, and an agent can also give you advice on how to navigate the bureaucratic red tape so you don’t miss a thing.

You do not want to find out that you’ve failed to secure permits for updates and fixes when a buyer starts asking where they are. Make sure everything is in order beforehand by consulting an expert and asking for advice.

Finding help

Maybe you’re a general contractor who’s built homes before and this is your first flip — if so, you might not need any help.

But if you don’t build or fix houses for a living (and honestly, even if you do), it’s always smart to find a crew of people who are trustworthy skilled laborers. You also might need a specialist here and there for jobs that are beyond your scope of knowledge.

Do you know who knows a ton of general contractors, plumbers, electricians, and other home-maintenance and home-repair folks? That’s right — your real estate agent! Ask for referrals and tap your agent’s network to find the best team to help you do this job.

Building to taste

It’s really easy to impose your own personal tastes on a home you’re flipping. If you like it, why wouldn’t somebody else?

You may have an impeccable sense of color and texture, but even so, it’s always wise to ask an agent whether the fixtures and finishes you’re installing have mass appeal. They know what most buyers like and can help you find an aesthetic that’s pleasing to most people who’ll see it — without breaking the bank.

Agents have also seen dozens of homes (and know how quickly those homes sold), and can advise you as to whether it’s smart to put the higher-end stainless steel appliances in the kitchen when the norm in the neighborhood is for slightly lower-end cooking environments. An agent can point out where you’ll see a return on your investment (and where you really, really won’t) so you can focus your energies accordingly.

Pricing to sell

Of course you want the highest price you can get for your flip. But here’s the thing about pricing a home too high: Most buyers who are going to look seriously at your home will do so within the first 48 hours after it’s listed. That doesn’t give you any time to adjust the price if it’s too high, and then you’re faced with the bane of every seller — price reductions until the place sells, and a more limited pool of buyers than if you’d been realistic in the first place.

An agent can help you avoid this pitfall by showing you how quickly similar homes in the area have sold at different price points and can identify a price that fits your budgeting but also is reasonable and realistic for the market, bringing in the biggest possible pool of buyers.

Staging and photographs

Marketing a home is important — especially in the digital age when the first impression that buyers get of your home won’t be the flowers on the porch when they drive up to see it, but rather the photos posted with your listing that they’ll peruse online before they even decide to come to look in person.

An agent can help you position and frame those rooms in the photograph in their very best light, ensuring that lots of buyers are going to want to walk through the house in person. Agents know stagers, photographers, and other professionals whose job is to make your flip shine, and you’ll be doing yourself a disservice if you don’t take advantage of that service.

Finding a buyer

Agents know a lot of people, including other agents who have buyers looking for homes. When it’s time to sell and you need to find a qualified buyer to buy, agents know exactly where to look and can market your home far and wide so that any buyer who might possibly be interested knows it’s available and comes to see it.

You might think that fixing and flipping a home is an agent-free process, but there are plenty of people who have tried it and regretted not involving a local expert to advise them along the way. If you’re serious about getting into the fix-and-flip world, the best thing you can do for yourself is to find a reliable, trustworthy agent to help you in your journey.

There are plenty of reasons to go green. Conserving energy and running an energy-efficient home can lower your monthly utility bills, saving you some green for your wallet.

Here are seven simple ways to reduce your home’s energy footprint and save some cash on your bills too.

1) Upgrading Appliances
While the upfront cost may be higher, the national standards for energy efficiency are constantly improving the environmental performance of appliances, so the next time your old refrigerator needs repairs, it might be time for an updated model. Trading in your old appliances can save energy and money on utilities and repairs. 

2) Use Cold And Hot Water Wisely
Water heating can account for around 13% of all the energy your home uses. Dial the temperature of your water heater down to its warm setting (120°F), and you’ll save on water heating costs. You can also avoid a surprise hot water scalding. You can also try washing your clothes with cold water instead of warm or hot water and save up to five times more energy—your clothes will never know the difference.

3) Smart Thermostats

When you use a programmable thermostat correctly, you can save up to $150 a year. Look for a thermostat that can automatically turn off your air conditioning when you’re not home and turn it back on just in time for you to arrive to a cool and comfortable home. Even setting your thermostat for just a few degrees higher in the summer and lower in the winter will help save energy and utility costs. Also, consider smart WiFi thermostats that you can control from your smartphone wherever you are, even when you’re not home.

4) Swap Out Light Bulbs
Lighting can account for up to 10% of your total home energy cost. Swapping standard incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs) can save you up to 75% on utility bills. CFLs last longer too, saving you money on replacements and trips to the hardware store.

Also, be sure to pay attention to where you’re placing lamps, especially if you’re still using incandescent bulbs since they give off more heat than CFL bulbs. If you have lamps near your thermostat, it can wind up making your cooling system run longer than needed since the thermostat senses the heat. Keep lamps (and large electronics like TVs and computers) placed as far away as possible from your thermostat. 

5) Window Coverings
Thermal curtains or shades can help keep your home cooler in the summer and keep heat in more efficiently in the winter. On a hot and sunny day, keeping window coverings drawn will block out the heat from the sun, saving you on air conditioning costs.

6) Inspect Ductwork Annually
Avoid wasting cooling and heating energy from blocked or damaged ducts by having your ducts professionally inspected once a year to make sure air is flowing properly, and they’re adequately insulated.

7) Landscaping For Energy Savings
A beautifully landscaped property isn’t just for curb appeal. Talk with a professional landscaping company about how placing trees and shrubs strategically around your home can save you on heating and cooling costs. 

These are just several ways to increase the energy efficiency of your home. Check out home energy professional in your area; they can perform a thermographic inspection to detect any air leaks in your home and make recommendations to make your home even more efficient. 

Need help finding an energy professional or have questions about your home’s energy-saving potential? Get in touch.

When you’ve indulged in aspirational dreams about your real estate career, you may have envisioned yourself as the head of an office full of sharply dressed agents and their streamlined, uber-efficient assistants. Most agents probably don’t daydream about hiring a virtual assistant to help them manage their business, but even if a virtual assistant isn’t part of the vision in your head, hiring one can be an excellent way to get a few low-hanging tasks off your plate without completely breaking the bank.

But when is it worth it to hire a virtual assistant? Are you ever better off skipping the virtual step and going straight to hiring an assistant who can work with you side-by-side and learn your business backward and forward? Here’s what you need to think about before you decide to hire a virtual assistant.

What do I need to be done?

Virtual assistants are going to be much more effective and efficient at handling some tasks than others. And it’s quite possible that you might not need a human assistant at all for some of the things you’re trying to delegate in your business — for example, if scheduling is a big headache for you and you’re constantly forgetting to put things on the calendar, there are plenty of digital assistants (like chatbots) that will handle scheduling new appointments for you, even emailing the recipients of your calendar invitation as if the email is sent from an actual assistant. The company x.ai is providing this service now with “assistants” named Amy and Andrew who can schedule appointments for you.

On the other hand, if what you really need is someone to help show your buyer clients twenty new homes this weekend or someone to host an open house for you, then a virtual assistant or even a real live unlicensed assistant won’t work — you need a full-blown licensed real estate assistant for those tasks.

Consider the different things on your plate that you would, ideally, like to delegate, and then prioritize them according to what you really want to stop doing first. If the items at the top of your delegation list are all (or almost all) marketing, database management, or other administrative tasks, it’s very possible that a virtual assistant would be a good first step toward building your real estate empire.

An assistant or a product?

Another option besides hiring a virtual assistant is to subscribe to a service or a product that will complete your task for you — for example, a marketing automation business that promises to fill your blog post with content and your social media feed with engaging posts, or a gift-giving system that will send out your post-close gifts to buyers and sellers without you having to do anything.

The question you have to ask yourself is whether you want to piecemeal together several different products and services to accomplish what you want to be done, or whether it would be more efficient and affordable to have one person handling all of those things for you instead.

How far away should your virtual assistant be?

Just like the internet has made it possible to hire virtual assistants in general, it’s also made it possible for those virtual assistants to be located literally anywhere on the planet — including on the other side of the globe from you. In many cases, this can be a best-case scenario. Outsourced work from overseas can get a poor reputation, but the truth is that there are a ton of highly qualified, very talented virtual assistants who have extensive real estate experience and who happen to be living in another country. If you don’t actually need someone who understands the nuances of your local market, then this can be a good consideration for you.

However, many agents truly do require a virtual assistant who has at least a rudimentary understanding of the geography and market where they are operating. If this is the case, then you’ll want to look closer to home (and potentially pay a little bit more) for your assistant’s help.

What can you give your virtual assistant to do?

In most cases, your virtual assistant is going to be most helpful in removing all of the tedious little things that, when accumulated together, take up hours and hours of your day that would better be spent working with clients. For many agents, these tasks include:

• Scheduling an appointment help

• Social media posting

• Marketing assistance: Writing and publishing blog posts

• Creating marketing materials

• Produce slide presentations

• Research leads

• Update your CRM or customer database

• Mail fliers or other items to your sphere

• Respond to certain emails

You can hire your virtual assistant on either an ongoing regular basis, contracting with them for a certain number of hours every week and feeding them work accordingly, or you can consider hiring a virtual assistant on a project-by-project basis. This might be especially beneficial for agents who need help with creating marketing materials or slide presentations for buyers or sellers — once a virtual assistant has put in the work to create a template, that may be all you need. Or perhaps you want to post some evergreen content on your blog for a year or so and see how it goes; in that case, a virtual assistant might be a good way for you to experiment with blogging and marketing without taking too much time away from your core business.

Some virtual assistants are also qualified to be inside sales associates (ISAs); these types of assistants can help you with responding to leads quickly and efficiently. Be careful about assigning a virtual assistant any duties that an ISA or a licensed assistant would ordinarily tackle, though; not every virtual assistant will be qualified to do everything that an ISA or license assistant could do unless they are also equivalently qualified.

Hiring a virtual assistant can be an excellent way for a real estate agent to start scaling and growing their business intelligently. As your virtual assistant is able to take different tasks off your plate and allow you to focus more on clients, you may find that your business grows and you have a need for another type of assistant. 

Most people have heard of a franchise before and at least sort of understanding what it is and why someone would join a franchise, and some of that information does translate to real estate — but when it comes to choosing a brokerage, most new agents especially aren’t sure about the differences between an independent and a franchise brokerage, or which one would be best for them.

Only you can say for sure whether you’d prefer working for an independent or a franchise brokerage, but it’s important to know how they’re different (and how they are similar) so that you can make an educated choice and start your real estate career on the right foot.

What’s the difference between an independent and a franchise brokerage?

The easiest way to explain the big difference between the two types of brokerages is to describe ownership and operation. A franchise brokerage is usually owned and operated by a broker as part of a franchise group; the broker agrees to follow the franchise’s rules and regulations and branding guidelines, and to pay a portion of brokerage profits or agent commissions to the franchise, in exchange for access to the franchise’s brand name, educational and technological resources, and more. (To complicate things, there are also some franchise brokerages that are owned and operated by the franchise group or a subsidiary of the franchise group itself.) Some well-known real estate franchise names include RE/MAX, Keller Williams, Century21, Coldwell Banker, Sotheby’s, and many others.

By contrast, an independent broker is owned and operated by a broker who has no affiliation with any franchise. These types of brokerages have full independence in the sense that they don’t have to adhere to corporate marketing, branding, or process guidelines. Although they don’t have to pay franchise fees, they also don’t have access to the brand recognition, training, or technology resources that a franchise can bring to the table.

Two branches, one tree

One important thing to remember before we dig further into the differences between an independent and a franchise brokerage is that there are plenty of similarities between the two ways of operating a real estate brokerage. Both independent and franchise brokers are members of the MLS (multiple listing service). You’ll find independent and franchise brokerages at all levels of real estate in most markets — independent brokerages don’t necessarily have a corner on luxury sales (for example), nor do franchise brokerages always dominate entry-level transactions. Independent and franchise brokers alike are expected to adhere to standards of professionalism and client advocacy, regardless of which type of operation they are.

The costs for real estate agents can vary widely across both independent and franchise brokerages, as can the culture (and attention paid to culture), and level of support offered to new and experienced agents alike. Don’t assume that an independent brokerage won’t have a very corporate culture, or that a franchise is going to be buttoned-up every which way; also don’t assume that you won’t get any ongoing training or support at an independent brokerage while a franchise will offer you those opportunities. There is a wide range of ways to operate a brokerage that manifest across both independent and franchise establishments, so make sure you aren’t basing a brokerage decision on stereotypes instead of evidence.

Why work for a franchise?

There are plenty of reasons why agents (and especially first-time agents) might choose to start their careers working for a franchise brokerage. First and foremost, franchisees have brand recognition and national clout. These are real estate brands that we see all across the country and that consumers know, like, and trust, so the uphill battle of establishing recognition with buyers and sellers has already been done.

Oftentimes, franchise brokerages also have referral partnerships and networks that extend across the country and even all over the world, which can be helpful when you’re trying to find clients. Many franchises have structured training programs to help you learn your way around the real estate world, including continuing education modules and opportunities.

Franchise brokerages have typically invested a lot of money in an online presence that’s robust and visible, and they also usually offer more cutting-edge technology and marketing tools for agents as part of the package.

Why work for an indie?

The biggest advantage that independent brokerages have over franchises — and it’s a big one — is freedom and flexibility in running a business. An independent brokerage is able to react swiftly and decisively to market changes in a way that a big, unwieldy franchise is simply incapable of managing. Many independent brokers have translated this agility and ability to innovate into different areas of running a real estate business, such as more innovative and specialized education for agents. Some agents who feel that franchise brokerage education programs are too basic and geared toward entry-level real estate professionals might benefit from working with an independent brokerage that’s crafted specific, targeted educational materials for agents in certain niches and at certain levels of the profession.

Independent brokers also may have more freedom to negotiate contract terms with agents than their franchise counterparts, which may be bound by corporate guidelines when it comes to the commission splits they can offer. And independent brokers almost always have deep local market understanding; they care enough about the local community to establish their small business there, and they have usually been operating in the same area for long enough to learn everything there is to know about how real estate operates.

There’s no one right answer when you’re considering a franchise brokerage or an independent brokerage as the next jumping-off point for your real estate career — there’s only what’s best for you. Think about the pros and cons of each, talk to the brokers at the brokerages that seem like the best fit, and learn everything you can so you can make the best possible decision. 

The best and the worst thing about being your own boss as a real estate agent is that your career path is entirely in your hands. You can give yourself a promotion or stay at the same level forever if you so choose — you can move at your own pace and determine what the next best steps are for you in your situation.

Most agents with experience know that this is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, pretty much as soon as you’re ready to take on more responsibility, you can start taking steps to do that. But on the other hand, if you aren’t proactive about advancing your own career and giving yourself a promotion, no one else is going to do it for you.

One big way that agents can level up in the real estate business is to make the transition from an agent to a broker. It’s a big step, though, and one that comes with a commensurate increase in responsibility. How do you know you’re ready?

How long have you been an agent?

Real estate broker requirements vary from state to state, but all of them will require you to work as a licensed sales agent for somewhere between one and three years before you can even take the brokerage exam. So the first thing to do is to familiarize yourself with your state’s laws and figure out how long you need to be working as an agent at a minimum before you can become a broker.

Some agents start training for their brokerage exam as soon as they can, while others prefer never to take it and are content staying at the agent level for as long as they’re selling real estate. There is nothing wrong with that approach if it’s the right one for you! Not every agent is cut out to run a brokerage, and not every agent wants to. Knowing the level at which you’re happy and remaining there as long as you can is an act of wisdom in today’s world.

How are you doing financially?

Some real estate agents want to get their broker’s license because they think they’ll automatically be earning more money as a broker than an agent. While a broker’s earning potential is higher than an agent’s, if a broker is running a brokerage, they also have a heck of a lot more responsibility than an agent, too.

It’s easy to dream about the desk fees or commission splits multiplied by the number of agents in your brokerage and tell yourself that you could do the same thing. But you’re usually not thinking about all of the expenses that the broker has, the legal liabilities, the stress and the long nights — and the lack of a guarantee that your business is going to survive long-term, anyway. 

Any career decision you make should be informed by your finances, but there are ways to earn more as a real estate agent besides applying for your broker’s license. You can try to sell more transactions in a year. You can move up in price point. You can start by referring to more business. You could even invest in some real estate yourself to make some money. If the primary reason why you want to become a broker is financial, that’s OK, but be very careful about the type of brokerage path you decide to pursue (more on that later) and make sure you have at least a few more decent reasons to make this shift.

What’s missing?

The answer to this question will be a real key to help you understand whether getting your broker’s license would be a good next step in your real estate career. Many agents are happy with where they are in real estate — they like the work, they’re good at it, they feel challenged but not overwhelmed, and they don’t feel like they have any talents or skills that are remaining largely untapped as a result of their career choice. For those agents, getting a broker’s license might be a nice-to-have addition to their tool belt, but it’s far from critical.

On the other hand, maybe you’re a natural-born manager who’s skilled at solving conflicts and organizing complicated tasks and processes. If you’ve applied your skills to every aspect of your job and you still feel like you’re being under-utilized, then you might be a good candidate for getting a broker’s license.

What type of broker do you want to be?

Before you decide whether or not to go for your broker’s license, you’ll also want to think about what kind of broker you want to be. Yes, you have options!

An associate broker is basically a sales agent who’s very experienced and can negotiate better commission splits with their brokerage. They work under another supervising broker, just like an agent. The only difference is that they are licensed to run their own real estate business if they choose. This can be a really good choice for agents who want better negotiating opportunities at their brokerage and who are primarily financially motivated.

One other thing that associates brokers can do but real estate agents cannot is to manage properties for clients. If you want to add property management to your list of services that you can offer, chances are good that you’re going to have to get your broker’s license to do it.

A managing broker manages a group of agents, and a designated broker is responsible for all of the transactions in a specific brokerage. Sometimes the designated broker is also the managing broker, and sometimes the designated broker is also the owner of the brokerage — but not always; you might find brokerages where the owner is one person, the designated broker another, and the managing broker a third.

So what exactly do designated and managing brokers do? They’re the glue that holds the brokerage together, allowing independently employed agents to act as a group. Their responsibilities are often the ones that keep the brokerage running and that dictates how successful it would be.

For example, a managing broker is responsible for recruiting new agents to the brokerage and training them, in addition to implementing ongoing training and continuing education for existing agents. Brokers must ensure that all the brokerage’s agents are compliant and that their licenses are all verified and up-to-date. They establish and manage relationships with associations and MLSs, tech vendors, and other organizations that touch the operations of the brokerage.

A managing broker also, obviously, manages the brokerage office. This means that in addition to handling the logistics of the office space, they may offer marketing and lead distribution assistance to agents, and they’re also on deck for handling any conflicts between agents, or between agents and staff at the office.

Some managing brokers continue to help clients with sales transactions, while some focus solely on brokerage operations. There’s no right or wrong way to operate; do whatever works best for you.

Do you ever want to run your own brokerage?

There are agents who think that running their own brokerage someday would be a dream come true, while others classify it more as a nightmare. If you land squarely on the “nightmare” side of the equation, then you know that an associate broker position is probably as far as you’ll aspire to climb — whereas if you really love the idea, you’ll know you need to shoot a bit higher.

Deciding to get your broker’s license is a highly individualized and personal choice. Think hard about where you are in your career and where you want to go, then ask yourself whether a broker’s license would help you get there. 

When everyone seems to be talking about the “r” word — recession — it can make homeowners nervous, especially if they’re not sure whether they want to move in the next couple of years or not. But because recessions are cyclical, we know a few things about the best options to take for both buyers or sellers when one is looming.

If selling your house might be an option for you and you have some flexibility over when, exactly, you want to move, here is some guidance about what to expect about selling a home during a recession.

Recessions are a buyer’s market

The truth for sellers is that recessions are much better for buyers. Home prices tend to stagnate or even fall, and depending on what the economy is doing, fewer people may have the financial wherewithal to buy a home at all during a recession. Most people are tightening their belts, not looking to spend a lot of money on a house, and so that means the buyers who are qualified and ready to take immediate action on a sale are few and far between.

There’s still a lot you can do to maximize your home’s appeal during a recession, but the first and most primary truth of the matter is that a recession is not a great time to sell if you have any choice in the matter.

Timing is everything

So when is the best time to sell a house? This is where it gets tricky because oftentimes the very best time to sell a house is before a recession. Home values can fall during a recession, but they’re usually at a peak right before the recession hits, so if you can, it’s smart to sell high and buy low.

Of course, it’s not easy to accurately predict exactly when home prices are going to start turning more toward a buyer’s market than a seller’s market — if it were, then everybody would be investing in real estate with abandon. So if you want to list your house before a recession, feel free to do so, but remember that it can be a dangerous game with no guaranteed payout.

Less desirable homes will drop more in value

Of course, any seller thinks that their house is one of the best homes in the neighborhood, but if you’re realistic about where you live, then you know that there are probably nicer homes and probably homes that are not quite as nice as yours. But do you know what buyers are looking for on your street and the street around yours?

It seems like an obvious truth, but it bears emphasizing that homes that buyers don’t want quite as much are going to drop more in value than homes that are more desirable for buyers. This might mean that a certain number of bedrooms or bathrooms is at a premium in your neighborhood, or it could mean that buyers are prioritizing certain lot sizes or square footage in their home search.

How can you find out how desirable your home is in the current market, and how to make it more desirable? The best way is to talk to a real estate agent who’s active in your area so that you can get a sense of what homes they see receiving multiple offers and even starting a bidding war versus the homes that linger on the market like an afterthought.

Take care of any upgrades you can

Some sellers think that selling before a recession means they can avoid sprucing up their house for a buyer at all, but in fact, the opposite is true. Selling your home before a recession means that you’re working within a window of time that might close tomorrow, so you don’t really have time to get hung up in the inspection or appraisal process.

Some sellers decide to hire an inspector before they list their home so they can identify most of the possible issues and address them before any buyers ever step foot inside. This can be a very smart strategy for sellers before a recession to show they are motivated and serious, which will in turn attract the most qualified buyers to make offers on your lovely house.

Price it fairly

Speed is of the essence if a recession is looming on the horizon, which means you really don’t have time to test the market with a fantasy price that you hope will fly with some uneducated but desperate buyers out there. In a worst-case scenario, the recession could hit while you’re haggling back and forth with a buyer who originally offered a price you were happy to take … and then that bird in the hand who would have happily bought your house a couple of weeks ago will suddenly find themselves in the candy store of a buyer’s market and most likely tell you to go negotiate with somebody else.

What constitutes a fair price? A real estate agent can tell you if you’re unsure, so ask yours what they think your house could sell for tomorrow, then adjust accordingly.

Don’t forget, recessions are cyclical — if you miss this one, another one will come along in a few years. Sellers who have the flexibility to time their home sales according to the economy are in a prime position to take advantage of the ups and downs of home values, but it’s important to be careful not to get too confident and try to time things too close to the peak.

In a society where we refer to our homes as our castles, it makes sense that we also want to feel safe and secure in our residences. But as we spend more time inside looking at screens and less time outside making connections with neighbors, it also makes sense that many homeowners today feel less safe and secure than they did a few decades ago.

The irony is that violent crime rates have decreased even as our feelings of danger lurking around every corner have increased. So what can you do to help assuage your fears — and actually make your community safer in the bargain?

Plenty! Establishing yourself as a community and working together with your neighbors is one of the best ways to increase feelings of safety while actually reducing crime in your area. Here’s how to get started.

Form a Facebook group

Let’s face it: We are all on Facebook a lot more than is probably healthy for us. But this can be turned to your advantage if you leverage it as an asset.

Form a community safety Facebook group that is geared toward your specific community. There is more than likely already a general community Facebook group; join that one, too, and ask the moderators if it’s okay to advertise your safety-focused group there.

It’s up to you if you want to create standards for joining the group. If you decide to do that, it might make sense to recruit a moderator or three to help you manage to join requests and to maintain the standards of the group.

You can use this Facebook group to talk about safety issues, advertise safety meetings, make safety-related announcements, and much more.

Leverage Nextdoor

The great thing about Nextdoor — the neighborhood-focused social network — is that Nextdoor does the hard work of verifying that the people in your neighborhood group actually do live in your neighborhood (no lurkers!).

Using Nextdoor can be another excellent way to figure out which of your neighbors are interested in helping you increase community safety, and to warn your neighbors of any thefts or other safety risks in the area. If you do use Nextdoor as a warning method, make sure you’re providing only factual information and not conjecture or speculation. You want your neighbors to pay attention and act accordingly, not for the conversation to devolve into an argument over whose houseguest might have been trespassing on whose property, or whose kids are inviting unsavory characters into the neighborhood.

To that end, talk to your neighbors online about standards for identifying scofflaws and their behavior (especially underage ones). For example, if there’s a teenager who drives erratically and over the speed limit down a road with small children every day, most parents are going to be fine with identifying the vehicle make, model, and color, the sex and general appearance (clothing, hair color, and so on) of the driver, the time of day they usually drive down the road, and other details specific to this situation. Sharing a license plate number or taking a picture of the driver on social media, however, might be considered a violation of privacy by some parents.

Create clean-up groups

Some safety issues emerge because city and county departments might be strapped for cash or short several employees, and things that ought to get done as a result just … aren’t. Maybe a tree fell across a popular trail and hasn’t yet been cleared, or maybe there are local public-access staircases that are covered with slippery leaves or other debris.

If there’s a safety issue that you can easily and professionally tackle with a group of people, organize one! Use your social media groups or fliers in the local cafe or post office to advertise a clean-up day at the local park or along a busy street. Ask the local dump or trash company if they’d be willing to donate a dumpster or supplies and trash pickup. Sometimes all it takes to make an area safer for everyone is a little coordination and elbow-grease, and the coordination is the hardest part, so try to tackle it and see where it gets you.

Start a neighborhood watch

Do you know all your neighbors? Are you familiar with the cars they drive, their regular visitors, and any special guests who pop in from time to time?

For most people, the answer is “definitely not.” But having a sense of who’s who in your neighborhood can help prevent a lot of crime, from illegally dumping trash to burglary or robbery.

If your block or neighborhood doesn’t already have a neighborhood watch program, consider starting one. The first step is to find neighbors who are interested in participating. Once you have a group of people willing to put in the time, call up your local law enforcement bureau and tell them what you’re doing. Many local law enforcement offices will be willing to send a police officer or two to your neighborhood watch meetings, which can be an invaluable resource for helping you learn how to spot and safely report any suspicious activity.

Coordinate meeting times for your neighborhood watch, which can be held in a community space or even online. Talk about the safety issues that concern you the most, and ask your law enforcement liaisons what you can do to help.

Secure your own space

There’s only so much that neighbors can do to help you keep your home safe. Ultimately, the responsibility to secure your property lies with you — so make sure you spend some time looking at your own home’s vulnerabilities and decide how to fix them.

For example, routinely leaving your door unlocked when you leave the house is a good way to invite burglary. Some smart locks allow you to remotely lock your door if you forget, so it might be a good idea to upgrade your door lock. New camera technologies allow you to see who’s on your front porch when the doorbell rings and replacing broken or damaged windows is also a good safety move.

You can’t be responsible for everyone’s house on the block, but if you’re responsible for your own, the odds that you’ll experience a safety violation go down. It’s worth it!

Problem-solve using SARA (scan, analyze, respond, assess)

Many police departments use the SARA method to solve problems, and it’s a method that community safety advocates can also use with a lot of success.

The SARA method involves four steps: scan, analyze, respond, assess. First, scan the situation. Take it all in. Try to absorb everything you possibly can about what’s happening. In this step, you are identifying and describing the problem.

Next, analyze the situation. Think about who is involved, what they are doing, what social and economic realities exist that feed into the situation, and try to determine what has caused this situation or problem.

Then, respond to the problem. The response usually works best in a collaborative environment. Ask different people involved in the situation what they think. Involve the community in brainstorming possible solutions and arriving at an option that seems to work well for most people. Form an action plan for what you’re going to do — and do it.

Finally, assess the results. Spend some time looking at how your response has changed the situation (or not). Did it solve the problem? Did new problems emerge as a result of your response? How well did the response work in terms of both process and the impact it had? Who is happy with the results, and who is not, and why?

By using the SARA method for community problem-solving, you’ll help maintain the collaborative philosophy that’s central to any successful community safety program.

Host regular meetings or touch-base sessions

Meetings and touch-base sessions are the glue that holds any community group together, and this rings true for safety advocates, too. The people involved in your community safety efforts will want opportunities to talk to each other, share ideas, brainstorm ideas, or even just to get to know each other. 

Take the time to organize regular opportunities for the people in your community to get together and talk about safety. How often you do this really depends on your community; once a month is usually a good rule of thumb for setting up meetings, but some communities might prefer to meet every two weeks, while others don’t see a need for meeting more often than bimonthly. Supplement your meetings with social media Q&A sessions and other ways to involve your community, and consider taking notes at your meetings and making them available in your social media groups, too.

Warn people of suspicious activity

Your law enforcement liaisons will be the best resource for exactly how to do this. Maybe your contribution involves disseminating the police department’s announcements about crime more widely to your community group, or perhaps you can have regular discussions about what’s been happening in the newspaper’s crime blotter.

Talk to your law enforcement partners about which types of suspicious activity they think should include a community warning. It probably will also be helpful to them if you ask about false reports and whether there are any common themes. The last thing you want is for your police department to get tied up investigating something trivial and nonrisky, so make sure anybody warning others of suspicious activity in your community groups understands what types of activity are suspicious and doesn’t raise alarm bells unnecessarily.

Host a self-defense course

Although playground fights may have been a rite of passage for some of us, many of us don’t have any experience with self-defense and wouldn’t know what to do if (heaven forbid) we were actually attacked. A free, local self-defense course with a qualified instructor can give everybody who’s interested a little bit of training and supplement their confidence in being able to take care of themselves under adverse situations.

Ask your local law enforcement liaison if there are any self-defense instructors they recommend or use themselves, then talk to that instructor about whether it’s possible to set up a free class. You can give the instructor the opportunity to plug more extensive training before and after the session. Invite everyone who might be interested, and ask questions of both the attendees and people who expressed interest but didn’t attend. It’s possible, for example, that some women in your community would prefer a women-focused class and decided not to attend for that reason — if that happens, then you’ve got a great case for asking the instructor to come back and teach gender-specific mini-courses.

Share tips for safer landscaping

You might not think of your landscaping as a safety hazard, but think again: Dead or dying trees or carpets of dry pine needles can be a real fire hazard, and if your landscaping allows someone to creep up to your front door unseen by anyone else, that can be a problem, too. And that’s not all. There could be an insect or vermin infestation that presents a safety hazard (wasps’ nests, anybody?).

Landscaping safety might not be at the top of your list of things to address, and that’s okay, but it’s a good topic to consider once the low-hanging fruit has been plucked. Again, your local law enforcement liaison may have ideas and thoughts about which hazards are most critical for your area, so talk to them about the landscaping safety tips they wish everybody knew, then do your best to spread the word.

Coordinate community events to reclaim spaces

Vacant lots or abandoned parks are nobody’s problem and everybody’s problem all at once. There might not be a lot you can do about private property, but if there are any public areas that have fallen into disuse or disrepair, then maybe those would be a good project for your community safety group to tackle.

Just cleaning up the trash and removing dead plants and shrubs from an area can eliminate or reduce new refuse and discourage people from dumping hazardous materials there. If you can take additional steps to repair and revitalize public spaces, so much the better. Your local law enforcement liaison can help you identify spots that could use a little bit of attention and contact the appropriate people in the city and county offices to make sure you’re moving forward with everyone’s blessing.

Document your strategy and analyze your results

There’s nothing wrong with approaching your neighborhood watch with the philosophy of throwing things at the wall to see if they stick — but if you can be methodical about how you document what you’re doing and the results, you may find a whole world of opportunity opens up. Public funds might become available once your local administrators see what a great job you’re doing. Other people might become inspired to join in and help out if you can articulate how you’ve improved the neighborhood.

Talk to the different members of your neighborhood watch and ask if there are any analysts or analytically minded members who might want to take on this task. Ask them to keep notes and track metrics around your activities, and encourage them to report back to the group about what they discover. Your ability to cite cold, hard numbers when you’re having conversations about community safety will benefit you everywhere.

Teach social media safety

Even though billions of people are on social media, it’s still a new world for many of us. As a result, people often post updates or photos on social media that are an actual safety risk.

One obvious example is announcing your vacation plans on social media or posting photos of your trip while you’re still away. It might not lead to anything harmful, but if someone happens to be waiting for an opportunity to break into your house … well, you just provided them with a good one.

Share safety tips and best practices on social media with your community group, and encourage them to spread the word. The more people know about the risks of posting random life updates on social media, the better — after all, you can always upload those photos of your toes in the sand after you’re back at home, giving yourself a little vacation extension at the same time.

Give neighborhood tours for kids

We don’t let kids run around outside as much as we used to, but it’s nonetheless a really good idea to make sure the children in your neighborhood know how to navigate it. One way to encourage kids to learn more about their neighborhood is to host a kid-friendly tour that parents can join, too.

What should be on the tour? Kids might want to know where the schools, playgrounds, parks, police stations, and fire stations are in their neighborhoods, so include those for sure. It might also be worth your time to talk to retail store owners or other stakeholders in the neighborhood and ask them if they have any information they want you to pass along during the tour. Where can kids go skateboarding without breaking any rules? Does the owner of the ice-cream shop have a bike rack where they can lock up their bikes?

Depending on how many children are in your neighborhood, this might be a one-time activity, or it could be something you repeat several times a year. Talk to the parents in your community safety group to ask them what’s best for them — may be one of them can help coordinate the tours moving forward.

Set boundaries for where your children may go

If you have kids yourself, make sure that they not only know their neighborhood but are also very aware of their own boundaries. If you don’t want them venturing onto undeveloped property or beyond certain roads, tell them! Show them exactly where their cutoff points lie and talk to them about what to do if they’re tempted to travel beyond them — maybe after a lost ball. Help them make a plan for how to handle those situations so they won’t be hurt and you won’t be angry.

Making the neighborhood safer isn’t just one person’s job — it’s everybody’s. By joining forces with your neighbors and working with local law enforcement, you’ll be improving safety in your area by leaps and bounds.