Archive for September, 2010

Step by Step Plan to Spruce-Up the Garage in Your Brooklyn Home

Thursday, September 30th, 2010

De-cluttering your Brooklyn home is an important part of preparing it for sale. Buyers want to be able to imagine themselves and their belongings inside your home. However, this idea isn’t limited to the inside of your home. It also applies to your garage.

Cluttered, over-crowded garages turn buyers away. Fortunately, sprucing up your garage is easier than you think. Here are some tips to get you started.

1.      Start with a list. If you’re like most people, you probably don’t even know what’s inside your garage. Take a pencil and paper and walk through your garage, writing down everything you see. You don’t need a detailed list. For example, screws, bolts, and nails can be listed together as hardware.

2.      Reduce the list. Cleaning your garage means getting rid of anything you no longer need or want. Just like inside your Brooklyn home, the general rule is that you can toss any item you haven’t used in 1 year. If you don’t use it, it’s only taking up space. Give it away, trash it, or recycle it.

3.      Group related items. It just makes sense to store items together. If all your camping supplies are stored in one place, you won’t waste time anymore looking for them. Place each item on your list in a group, like painting supplies, home repairs, winter blankets, etc.

4.      Create zones. Decide what you want to do with your garage. If you want to park a car inside, designate a parking zone and don’t let anything but your car in that zone. Choose a work area where you can place a workbench or household projects. Garage storage zones should be at different heights throughout the garage.

5.      Give it some personality. Once your garage is organized and clean, make it more attractive with some decorative touches. Paint the garage floor. Decorate it with an automotive theme. Upgrade to an automatic garage door.

With a little work, your Brooklyn home will be ready to sell in no time. Let me help you prepare your home to sell. Call me today at (718) 253-9600 ext.206  or email me at [email protected]


Charles D’Alessandro

[email protected]
tel 718 253-9600
fax 718 253-9573
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Staging Brooklyn Homes for Sale: Not Just Pretty Furniture

Thursday, September 23rd, 2010

Many real estate agents say, “Stage your Brooklyn homes for sale!” If you have no idea what that means, you might Google it, read a few articles and get the idea that you throw a little rented furniture into your home and call it done. If you read a little bit more, you might add a mirror or potted plant here and there. However, if you really dig into it, you’ll find that staging Brooklyn homes for sale take a whole lot more than that.

Test Your Knowledge

Did you know…

  • Smaller furniture in small areas makes the space appear bigger.
  • Carefully arranged plants bring warmth to a living area.
  • Rugs and artwork add depth and dimension to a room.
  • Sunlight shining through a window makes a room feel warm and inviting.
  • A staged bedroom is as important as the bathroom and kitchen.
  • The colors you choose can make the difference between a sale and a flop.

If you didn’t know any of the above, it’s time to do your learn how to stage or hire a professional stager. Why? Home staging has been proven time and again to be one of the best steps to take to sell a home quickly and for more money.

Find Home Staging Resources

There are tons of online resources available to help you stage your home, if you’d rather do it yourself. Here are just a few, in no particular order:

  1. Field Guide to Preparing and Staging a House
  2. Home-Staging Cheat Sheet
  3. Staging to Sell: The Secret to Selling Homes in a Down Market

Hire a Professional Stager

Does this mean you can’t do it yourself? Not at all. You just need to ask yourself two questions:

1.      Can you afford to wait to sell your house while you’re learning how to stage your home?

2.      Even after researching and studying, will you be able to do a quality staging job?

If you can’t afford to wait or you’ll never be great at staging, hire a professional.

What’s the moral of the story? If you have one of the Brooklyn homes for sale and you’ve been considering home staging, stop considering. Do it!

Need help preparing your home for sale?  I can help. Call me today at (718) 253-9600 ext 206 or email me at [email protected] for more information.


Charles D’Alessandro

[email protected]
tel 718 253-9600
fax 718 253-9573
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Slow Markets and Brooklyn Homes: Bringing Them Together for the Sale

Saturday, September 18th, 2010

Today’s slow real estate market is a hard place to sell Brooklyn homes. However, the fact remains that homes are still being bought and sold.  Buyers are out there; you just have to attract them to your home.

Here are a few tips for getting Brooklyn homes sold in a slow real estate market:

Prepare for the Sale

Your home needs to stand out from the rest. Give it a lot of sparkle and shine:

  • Make minor repairs:  Patch holes, fix faucets and replace cracked tiles.
  • Clean inside and out:  No cobwebs, dirty carpets, worn rugs or smelly odors.
  • Check your curb appeal:  Mow the lawn, plant flowers, trim bushes, etc.
  • Remove clutter and de-personalize:  If it isn’t essential, pack it up or get rid of it.
  • Straighten your cabinets and closets:  Buyers will open them; make sure they’re nice and neat.

Stage Your Home

Hire a professional home stager or read informational home staging articles on doing it yourself. Here are a few quick tips:

  • Carefully choose your window coverings.
  • Tie new bathroom towels with ribbons for a “finished” bathroom look.
  • Use color psychology.
  • Bring in plants.

Use Good Marketing Techniques

A strong marketing campaign is a must.  A few techniques you want to be sure you or your agent includes in your marketing campaign are:

  • Take photographs with good lighting that show off the positive aspects of your home.
  • Create a virtual tour that showcases both the inside and outside of your home.
  • Display the photos and virtual tour on as many real estate websites as possible.

Selling [city] homes isn’t a quick or easy endeavor. Especially now, aggressive marketers are the winners. Taking the time to clean and stage your home, as well as create a wide-reaching marketing campaign, can get that for sale sign taken down for good.

If you’d like to sell your Brooklyn home, let me create a strong, wide-reaching marketing campaign to get your home sold.   Give me a call today at (718) 253-9600 ext.206 or email me at [email protected]


Charles D’Alessandro

[email protected]
tel 718 253-9600
fax 718 253-9573
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Myths about Selling Your Brooklyn Real Estate in a Slow Market

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010

Trying to sell your  real estate in a slow market can be frustrating. You may find that it takes longer to sell and you can’t get as much money as you could during a booming market. However, you can’t believe all the hype about a sluggish real estate market. Do your research and separate the facts from the fiction.

Here are 3 myths and the facts behind the fiction:

  1. You won’t get a decent price. Your  real estate will sell for whatever a buyer is willing to pay. A comparative market analysis shows you what other buyers spent on property like yours. Of course, if you bought your home when values were up, you may not get the return on your investment you’d hoped for. However, most sellers get a fair price and even make a profit in a slow market.
  2. Your  real estate will stay on the market too long. While it’s true that real estate tends to take longer to sell during a slow market, it’s not impossible to sell. People still buy in slower markets. If your home is priced right, prepared for sale and marketed professionally, it will sell.
  3. Buyers only want foreclosures and short sales. The truth is that buyers want good deals, and this can be in the form of money or time. The price of a foreclosure or short sale may certainly be attractive, but they can take a considerable amount of time to close while the banks negotiate their terms. Paying slightly more for a traditional sale is sometimes well worth the time they can save.

Using my proven marketing plan, I can help you sell your Brooklyn home whether it’s a slow market or a booming market. Call Charles D’Alessandro of Fillmore Real Estate today at (718) 253-9600 ext.206 or email me at [email protected].


Charles D’Alessandro

[email protected]
tel 718 253-9600
fax 718 253-9573
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3 Things You Shouldn’t Say No To With a Home for Sale in Brooklyn

Sunday, September 5th, 2010

The point of having your home for sale in Brooklyn is to… well, sell it, isn’t it? I mean, it makes logical sense, right? Yet, too often, home sellers seem to think that selling is as easy as “hire agent, put sign in front, sold.”

This attitude, especially in a slow real estate market, has left many a seller empty-handed. They say “no” when they should have said “yes.” They have all these reasons why they won’t “A, B or C,” rather than just doing “A, B or C” for their home for sale in Brooklyn.

What am I talking about? Well, here are just a few of those “don’t say no” things:

Buyer Incentives

Listen – a slow market or not, you do have competition. What does this mean? You may have the best house on the block, but if your neighbor’s house has higher perceived value, yours will be left sitting there.

By offering buyer incentives such as a home warranty plan, pre-paid homeowner association fees or credit toward the closing costs, you’re giving the buyer more perceived value. Let’s face it; buyers want the best bang for their buck.

Home Showings

When an agent calls and asks if they can show your home, say YES!  It doesn’t matter if they want to show it in five minutes or five hours, your answer should be yes.  If your home doesn’t get seen, it won’t get sold.  That person you said “no” to might have been your ideal buyer.

Virtual Tours

Buyers like to be able to view a potential home online first. The best way for them to do this is with a virtual real estate tour, looking at the home with a 360-degree view. Because this is such a quickly growing trend (some buyers ignore listings without them), you can’t afford to pass it up.

If you have a home for sale in Brooklyn and it’s been on the market for a while, you may have said “no” to too many things. Take some time to look at what you can do to market your home better. These pointers may very well make all the difference!

If you’re trying to market your home and need a professional, I can help. Call me at (718) 253-9600 ext 206 or email me at [email protected] for more information.


Charles D’Alessandro

[email protected]
tel 718 253-9600
fax 718 253-9573
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How to Set the Right Price for Brooklyn Homes for Sale

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

Setting the asking price for their Brooklyn homes for sale is one of the most important decisions homeowners have to make in the selling process.  Why is it so important?

  • You only get one chance to make a good first impression. With so many competing Brooklyn homes for sale, yours has to pop out immediately as a good value or buyers will move on, unlikely to return. You get one stab at your home’s debut, and it’s easy to blow it.
  • Set the price too high and you could hurt your chances of selling your home. The amount of traffic a home gets in the first week on the market is about 5 times what it gets the following weeks.  The traffic continues to decrease every week. You might say, “Well, I’ll just lower my price.”  This hurts almost as much as it helps.  It conveys to buyers (the few who are still considering your home) that your home was overpriced and may still be.
  • Setting the price too low can be almost as harmful. Buyers who are looking in a specific price range may not consider your home because of the low price tag.  They assume it will not fulfill their needs or worry that there’s something wrong with it.

How do you know what that magic number should be for your home?  Here are 3 factors to take into consideration when setting your asking price:

1.Neighborhood sales prices: Recent closed sales in your immediate neighborhood offer the most pertinent data for predicting the sale price of your home.  List prices of homes still on the market should be taken into consideration also, because they show the current pricing trend.  A professional real estate agent will do all this research for you as part of their services.

2.Condition of your home: If your home has been better maintained, is more up to date and shows better than the other Brooklyn homes for sale, it will sell faster and for more money. Updates, even those as minor as having current paint colors, impact pricing.  Updated kitchens and baths are especially important to buyers.

3. Appraisal value: As the seller, you can get an appraisal on your home before putting it on the market.  You’ll have to pay for it, but it may be worth it to get access to this pricing tool.

Ready to sell your home?  Let me do the research for you and help you set the best price to get your home sold.  Call Charles D’Alessandro of Fillmore Real Estate today at  (718) 253-9600 ext 206 or email me at  [email protected]


Charles D’Alessandro

[email protected]
tel 718 253-9600
fax 718 253-9573
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