A recent Zillow survey again confirmed that extensive renovations are usually not the shortest path to a sale. Across the board, experts agree: it’s still curb appeal and home staging—staging that highlight’s a home’s best features while downplaying its flaws—that often prove most effective.

So, after your Portland house smells like fresh-baked cookies and your walls have been freed from family photos and a roaring fire has made the living room warm and inviting…what if those basic staging moves still haven’t produced the offers you know your home deserves?

Portland staging pros have a lot more tricks up their sleeves. Here are three:

1. Hide Your Demographic

Maybe you’re the parent of four, so your house is full of kids’ bedrooms, toys and playrooms. Perhaps you’re selling a home or bachelor pad with minimal decor and lots of high-tech devices. Maybe you’re putting that empty nest on the market after living in it for decades. The fact is, Portland staging veterans work from the premise that potential buyers shouldn’t be able to walk into a house and be able to tell how old you are […]

Having a Portland home for sale as autumn swings into full bloom has more than one advantage. First off, this is definitely not looky-loo season—the majority of home shoppers this time of year tend to be serious-minded (perhaps because many are hoping to be comfortably moved in by the holidays). Whatever the reason, because many other owners will wait until spring to put up their own Portland home for sale, if you are listing now, you can usually count on a narrower amount of competition.

A subtler reason why fall is an exciting season to put up a home for sale has to do with what can be a presentation advantage—the same reason home décor professionals like this time of year. It’s the Autumn Advantage: a time of year loaded with eye-catching decorating ideas. When the leaves start to change, it’s time to take advantage of the autumnal decorations that can make any Portland home for sale extra inviting.

• Pumpkins aren’t Just for Jack-o’-Lanterns

Modern Man may have cracked the atom and devised telescopes that can see to the very edge of the Universe, […]

Your Portland home listing is, hands-down, the most likely place prospective buyers will get their first glimpse of the home you are selling. Most serious prospects will go online as an early step in the process of winnowing candidate properties by area, asking price, number of bedrooms, etc.—so the photos in your home listing will be your offering’s face to the world.

You probably already know that—and that not all pictures are created equal. What’s important to realize is that some home listing photos actually scare away buyers! Whether you are preparing for a professional photographer’s shooting day or just helping your Realtor^® choose the shots that will be included in your area home listing, here are some red flag/don’t go there/bad idea/just-say-no off-kilter ideas for real estate photos. If you steer clear of these approaches, you home listing will benefit:

Adorable Pets in the Shot

Resist the temptation to make your home more appealing and homier by include the cuddliest member of the family—your pet. “But,” (your may be thinking) “half the commercials on TV have a dog or a cat in them! […]

If you find your Portland rental property without a tenant this fall, it may not take long before you’re tempted to take the first applicant who shows up. Sometimes it doesn’t take much longer to remember why that can be a costly mistake!

Hastily selected tenants can transform your Portland rental property from a dependable revenue-producer into a sputtering headache-producer. Troublesome tenants are hard to manage, can cause serious damage to your Portland rental—and can be infuriatingly difficult to remove.

Of course, the best solution is to avoid renting to trouble-making tenants in the first place. Whenever your rental property falls vacant, you’ll be much more likely to sign a quality tenant if you follow the basic self-protection procedures:

1. Be Wary of Cash Buyers

A tenant who’s willing to pay cash upfront for months in advance might seem like a walking windfall—after all, doesn’t it seem as if the offer would eliminate a degree of risk? But sometimes cash shouldn’t be king. Experience shows that there is usually a reason why an applicant wants to rent on such seemingly advantageous terms. It may be […]

Sparks are flying. Your imagination has become hot and heavy. It’s true love. You’ve fallen hard–for a Portland house!

Buying a Portland house is serious business. It’s not only where you’ll be hanging your hat: it’s also a great investment. So when you find the one that’s the total knockout you were hoping for, the excitement can be blissfully overwhelming. But—easy there, partner! Falling in love with a house too soon is a predictably bad idea.

·         Love at First Sight Can Backfire         

Whether you drove by or saw the home on an online listing, it’s all too easy to get stuck on a home’s curb appeal. Exteriors count for a lot, and with more houses in Portland than ever being listed online, wise sellers know how to make sure their property looks great from the outside. But beauty that’s skin deep in a Portland house isn’t good enough. It’s what is inside—the bones of the place—that can be the difference between a canny investment and one that never quite pans out.
Takeaway: Don’t ever judge a book (or a Portland house) by its […]

If you are currently selling your Portland home, you may already find yourself playing the waiting game. It’s a normal course of affairs in most real estate markets—but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating. You’ve got decisions to make, moving deadlines to order, but everything goes into limbo while you await the completion of the buyer’s home inspection report (and the resulting after-inspection decisions). What did the inspector find during the investigation? Will there be significant offer and timing changes as a result of those findings?

When you’re selling your home, one way to nip much of that anguish in the bud is by having already completed a home inspection of your own. You are already aware of minor problems which might or might not concern prospective buyers, but you may not be aware of more serious problems that could trigger an offer change.

If you take the initiative when selling your home to order your own pre-sale inspection, you will get a useful verdict on the overall health of the property. It will help you make an informed decision on whether […]

In earlier eras, a would-be Portland home buyer had few tools to aid in the task of finding a home that was ‘just right.’ Today, the situation has gotten a good deal easier thanks to a wealth of real estate apps that home buyers simply download onto their mobile devices. There are apps that can help you with everything from finding your dream home (and determining how much you can afford) to learning more about the neighborhood.

Home Buyer Terminology

Every home buyer is inevitably exposed to a welter of technical terms—and some of them have meanings that differ from what you would guess. Trying to decipher the jargon is a challenge you can shortcut with a good app dedicated to the task. Android users can download Relmark’s Glossary Real Estate Terms; iPhone and other Apple devices use Barron’s Dictionary of Real Estate Terms (although, like so many parts of the Apple universe, it’s a bit pricey).

Neighborhood Info

When a home buyer wants truly in-depth information about an area, SiteWise can provide some data that’s not usually provided. This app was actually developed for […]

Local homeowners are among the keenest observers of Portland mortgage rates because they are such a large factor in the long-term investment that is their house. It’s the factor that determines if and when refinancing makes sense; the factor that plays a large part in heating (or cooling) the overall Portland real estate market.

For the most part, home buyers simply accept the mortgage rate in Portland that happens to be currently offered when they decide buy a Portland home. The timing of their purchase is generally triggered by their own financial fortunes, or when the right home comes along, or when some outside circumstance forces them to find new digs—or any of a dozen reasons other than the current Portland mortgage rates.

If they even consider how Portland mortgage rates come into play, they may look to financial experts—but only for guidance in how to land the lowest available rates (and that answer is always the same: “protect your credit score”). Few consider whether a mortgage rate dip should in itself be the determining factor for triggering their home purchase—but it wouldn’t […]

Portland residents don’t have to have children at home to know when we’ve gone through the familiar back-to-school rituals. Just turn on a radio or TV, step into a retail store, or drive past a school and the calls to educational muster are evident. At the same time, it’s hard not to be reminded how significant education is when it comes to Portland home buying—how likely it is for schools to be on the forefront of many buyers’ minds.

Most people know intuitively that top-notch schools carry significant weight in the searching and home buying processes—but the result of a survey done by realtor.com has spelled it out in black-and-white. Their research reveals that more than 60% of buyers consider school district boundaries during their home buying process. It’s a surprisingly weighty number.

The depth of interest that buyers registered was also illuminating. The same survey uncovered the fact that prospective homebuyers are willing to spend more—and give up other features—in exchange for a house located in a preferred school district. For example, many buyers said that they are ready to ignore access […]