Even if your home isn’t a “view property”, things can be done to enhance the attractiveness of windows and their views. Recently I was showing a San Jose home for sale to my buyers.  I was struck by the window in one of the bedrooms.  Have a look – what do you think?  Would you want to look out at this wall every day? It is not a cheerful and welcoming environment.

There are places in San Francisco, and probably other cities around the country, where homes are crammed in so tightly together that windows function only for light and air – not aesthetics.  But in Silicon Valley, that’s not usually the case.  What was the builder of this home thinking, to have a bedroom window look out only onto a wall?

This next photo is of a window which is very close to a fence. But please notice how different the whole look and feel is.

Although a fence is close by, plantings on both sides of it provide some pleasant scenery.  Additionally, the window itself is given two treatments: both shades and curtains.  The color in the drapes helps to improve the scene too.

Admittedly, it’s a bigger challenge if the window’s view is of a wall which is 6 or 8 feet away and more so if it’s a 2nd story window. But what could be done to make this more attractive?

Here are some thoughts:

(1) If possible, plant something that will provide color – ideally a flowering vine or tree.  Some are not too wide and would provide a pleasant vista.

(2) Consider hanging a bird feeder, planter box or yard ornament outside of the window

(3) Stained glass window hangings could cheer up this gloomy space tremendously

(4) Instead of bland drapes, provide something with color

(5) Translucent blinds, in the closed position, would be more attractive but still let light in

Many homes don’t have challenges as big as this example, above, but could be better staged in terms of the window view.  If you want to put your home on the market and get top dollar, walk through your property and take in what a visitor sees from each window.  Ideally, you’d like to have the shades or blinds open and provide something pleasant to see.  Sometimes that’s not possible.  See what can be done to mitigate an unpleasant view while keeping the curtains open.

A few landscaping changes in your own yard (if you have a house or townhouse) can make a huge difference, often for a small cost.  Consider adding color.  Yards that are all green are not bad, but they don’t tend to warm hearts the way that a splash of color can.

Sometimes the 2 way blinds – the ones that can go down from the top or up from the bottom – can solve a lot of visual problems, such as ugly RVs, old cars, or messy yards on the lower part of the window or power lines or tall buildings on the higher end.

Still not sure what to do? Hire a great home stager to help you to make your home attractive, and make sure that you’re considering not just what’s inside of the home, but what visitors see when they look out through your windows and doors too.

When improving yards for livability and enjoyment, one consideration may be attracting the desired types of birds and wildlife. How would you go about trying to lure more butterflies to your yard?  I found a couple of good articles online that I’d like to share with my readers today on this topic:

Plants for a California or Western Butterfly Garden – this is an extremely comprehensive resource with a lengthy list of which plants suit butterflies of varying types in their different stages of life.  Many links in each category provide further information.

TheButterflySite.com – Fabulous, intuitive to use site including a section for regions or areas and which butterflies are found there. I had never heard of a butterfly feeder before finding this website. Great information!

California Native Plant Society – Butterfly habitat gardening – more great info and links on the basics of butterfly gardening.

Do you have more local resources for San Jose area or Santa Clara County residents? I welcome the feedback to resources in the area, whether public gardens, nurseries or parks.

Seen on Realtors board tour: Pull out wine rack for under the staircase

Many of our houses in Santa Clara County are ranch style, tract homes which were built from the 1950s to the 1970s (or ’80s). Often they include one coat closet, normally near the entry area of the home, and one linen closet, usually found close to the hall bathroom.  To the surprise of folks relocating to Silicon Valley from colder climates, we don’t have basements in the majority of houses here.

Where does all of our “stuff” go? That’s what these home buyers are wondering. It is really a critical question in smaller homes with fewer, and tinier, closets.

It is not uncommon to see garages in the San Jose area acting as a catch-all for seasonal decorations, old financial documents that can’t yet be shredded, business files, boxes from the last move which haven’t been opened yet, keepsakes and things that the residents haven’t had time to handle yet…for years at a time.  Guilty here also!  We will not be featured on an episode of “Hoarders”, but our garage also needs thinning out.  In this case, I have real estate files going back until 1993.  Rather, I did.  I have been scanning them, saving to both an external hard drive and to CDs, and shredding them.  So far about 10 boxes are gone.  Only a few more to go (I wish!).

Clutter increases stress for most of us.  Home buyers love built ins and see a future with less clutter when viewing cabinetry in home offices, family rooms, hallways, etc.  It’s a great surprise that assures them of better organization and less clutter in that home.

Most houses, townhouses and condos have places where a little more storage can be squeaked out, or even where wasted space was planned in!  This is especially true for structures with attics (sorry, Eichler and mid-century modern home owners). Here are some possibilities to consider in your own home:

• A furnace in a closet inside the home may be able to be relocated to the attic, providing another inside closet
• Water heaters hogging interior closet space could be moved to the garage or a different type of water heater could be installed in the attic.
• When remodeling the kitchen, consider removing soffits and bringing the cabinetry all the way to the ceiling (assuming your kitchen has a normal kitchen height, not vaulted ceilings!).
• Don’t forget the corners in the kitchen!  Often at the bends in a u-shaped kitchen, hard-to-access spaces can be lost. But by inserting a lazy Susan, or at least access from the other side should it face the nook, you will capture some of that back.
• If your house has interior stairs, make sure you are using the “under the staircase” space well.  That area can be more than just one large closet with a hard-to-access area.  Home or interior designers may have great ideas for you.
• Consider adding closet organizers, particularly in bedrooms.  Some master bedroom suites offer only one small closet – it is really critical to get the most use out of that, so including more than a coat hanger rod is important!
• Adding built in cabinetry to garages and interior spaces can be a huge boost to storage space.  Even more so if they include pull-outs rather than just shelves.
• If you’re a business owner, as I am, you may have a lot of paperwork in your garage that you could toss, but are concerned that it might be useful some day.  Scan and shred!  If you are too busy to do it, hire someone. Many photocopy places can handle this task. As your garage thins out, you will feel better and your storage space there can be put to better use – holding the stuff that you really do need to hold onto.
• Outside, consider a small storage shed for gardening tools, patio furniture, etc. A small shed on the side of the house should be unobtrusive but very useful.

Decluttering

Adding storage is great, but the other half of the equation is getting rid of items that aren’t truly needed.  If you are preparing to sell your Silicon Valley home, one of the best things you can do to boost your sales price is to declutter.  After that, you’ve probably heard me say (or seen me write) that a storage pod is a good idea.  I strongly suggest going through the decluttering before the storage, though, or you may actually increase the problem at the new place. It can be hard to find the time to go through boxes of stuff later, especially when you know that really, half of it should have been thrown out prior to the move.

For many home owners in Los Gatos, Saratoga and San Jose, this really is one of the toughest challenges in a move: getting rid of accumulated things, some treasures but many not.  The lighter the load, though, the less it will seem to you and to your home’s prospective buyers, that storage is not really an issue.  For many, senior home sellers especially, it can be a good idea to start thinning out possessions years ahead of time.  A bag a week each to family, friends or a charity and another to the trash or recycling.  After a few months you’ll see a huge difference!

If you live near a creek, pond or lake, you may have more trouble with wild life

Recently I was in a Silicon Valley neighborhood forum where someone asked what to do about a mouse (“or something”) in the wall of a house.  For better or worse, I have a fair amount of experience with this both personally and professionally: birds in chimneys, mice and rats in homes (inside plus in the attics, walls, crawlspaces, and heating ducts) and even a bat that got into first an attic and then into the living area itself – that last story goes with the photo from a backyard in Campbell of a townhouse I sold some years ago.

Sometimes this can be a do-it-yourself project but often it’s better if you leave it to the professionals: a good termite & pest control company is normally going to be your best bet for removing rodents and other unwanted visitors and keeping them out.

What happens if you hire someone to get rid of your mouse, rat, bat, bird or other invading animal?

Usually it’s a 3-4 visit process over 3-4 weeks to catch the house guest, then do “exclusion work”, which means finding how it got in and making sure that or any other access points are cut off, then rechecking another time or two to make sure that the problem is taken care of.  (What you do not want to do is get a dead rat or mouse stuck in your wall, so the pros will usually use traps where they can retrieve them rather than poison in the house’s attic or crawl space.)  The cost is often a few hundred dollars for this multi-visit process.

A lot of times, the rodents can get in through a torn exterior vent in either the crawl space or attic and from there go up or down the walls to get to the opposite side, so if you have the pest guys come out, expect them to need access to both the crawl space and the attic access (for most people, that means clear all the stuff off of the floor of the closet that has the opening to the crawl space and remove anything stacked up under the attic hatch).  If your duct work is loose, the truly adventurous and creative visitor may decide to see where it goes.  That actually did happen at my own house on Easter Sunday some years ago. It was noisy as the panicked creature ran along the length of the duct work under our house.  My kids were worried that it would pop out at one of the heat registers so placed books and heavy items at the access points to keep it from getting any closer.  And they dubbed our noisy athlete “the Easter Rat“.

Many termite companies have a branch that takes care of this type of work, but not all do. Thrasher Termite & Pest Control in Los Gatos  (408  354-9944) is who I suggest to my clients and who has helped us keep out intruders at our home (this is not a paid post).  I’ve been very happy with their work.  Many, but not all, termite companies have a division that handles these problems, so they are a good place to try if you have an unwelcome guest from the wild.

Right now I’m working with a number of very frustrated home buyers.  Silicon Valley real estate inventory is painfully low, and in the lower price ranges especially, that means multiple offers are fairly common.  FHA home buyers, in particular, are getting out bid and out negotiated by all cash buyers, many of whom are investors.

How low is the inventory?  Let’s have a look at January’s inventory for houses & duet homes (“class 1″ or single family homes) over the last ten years in Santa Clara County (San Jose, Los Gatos, Campbell, etc.):

2012  1,382
2011  2,007
2010  2,426
2009  4,759
2008  4,872
2007  2,698
2006  2,202
2005  1,285
2004  1,612
2003  3,119

The average January inventory of available houses over the last 10 years is 2,636.  At 1,382, January 2012′s available inventory of houses for sale in the San Jose area was just 52% of normal.  It’s not really much different now, in early February (just did a quick check on the MLS and it’s  1509 houses now – 630 have sold & closed in the last 30 days so that’s 2.4 months of inventory – a hot seller’s market).  This is what constitutes a very severe inventory shortage.

Demand hasn’t slackened, but supply has.  You know what that means – it will push prices up, it will make buyers crazy feeling.

Why is inventory so low?

A common question is this: why is inventory so low?  I believe that there are a few drivers.  First, many home owners who would like to move really need more equity to do so.  They are waiting for the market to recover.  Some may be waiting for prices to return to their previous highs (they could be waiting awhile). Others just need a little more to make the move possible at all.

Many owners of higher priced homes are holding on until the second half of 2012, when it is expected that there will be more people with buying power due to recent and upcoming IPOs.  Economists are now predicting a bit of a frenzy the second half of this year with prices in more expensive homes getting pushed up due to competition from employees of various high tech firms.  Smart buyers are trying to get in before that hits – a real challenge given the inventory situation.

Reality check: not every house is selling!

The best properties are selling well – those which are newer or nicely remodeled, in turn key condition, easy to see, great marketing with multiple photos, appropriate MLS exposure and priced aggressively.  This is what every buyer wants, the perfect house.  Most of my clients tell me that they are willing to replace carpet and repaint, but they don’t want to do anything big, such as kitchen or bathroom remodels, removing a pool, foundation or drainage repairs, etc.  No one does!

One of the easiest ways of improving your odds on being able to purchase a house is to move away from the new or fully remodeled vision of your ideal house.  Lower your budget a little, decide to prefer homes that have been sitting on the market not due to location issues, but rather to pricing or condition issues – both of which can be fixed.

For instance, many home buyers will take a pass on properties which have a pool in the backyard.  A few months back, I did some research and found that houses with pools are harder to sell right now.  Appraisers count a pool as an improvement, but many consumers view it as a liability – an ongoing monthly expense to heat and maintain and a risk if there are small children.  Many think that it will be overwhelmingly difficult to remove and relandscape a pool, so will not even consider writing an offer if the property includes an in ground pool.

Truth is, it’s not that hard to hire a company to redo a backyard; it is not invasive the way a kitchen remodel is.  You could have it done before even moving in!  The cost varies on whether you want the pool fully removed or partially as well as how to relandscape afterwards.  I have seen bids for pool demolition work under $10,000 (relandscaping extra) with more bids between $10,000 and $25,000.  Lawn and sprinklers are not so expensive to add!

The pool issue is just one example – there are many other properties for sale which are passed over due to the condition not being ideal.  Remodeling can feel a little scary but when inventory is so tight, it can be the ticket to home ownership.

Likewise with over priced properties.  Although most homes sell within a couple of percent of list price, there are exceptions.  Sometimes real estate is badly overpriced, and in those cases you may get a seller to agree to a larger price reduction – 10% may even fly.  (This is unusual, I would note. Usually if a house is not worth within 5% of list price, the seller is unreasonable and won’t accept an offer which is less. But sometimes it can work.)

Here’s to the over priced ugly duckling.  It could be your best friend when inventory is rock bottom!

What is a “cool air return“?  Silicon Valley home hunters are very likely to encounter both heating vents (also called heat registers) and cool air returns in houses, townhouses and condos across the South Bay Area.  They are found wherever a home enjoys central forced air heat with ducts and vents.  (Some Victorian houses have forced air heat but it is only brought to perhaps one main room or area in the house!)

The purpose of a cool air return is to feed the furnace with a supply of cooler air to be heated ad then circulated back into the rest of the dwelling via the heat registers or vents.  Often the cool air return is found near the floor.  This makes sense when you consider that the hottest air will rise, leaving cooler air nearer the ground. Heat registers are often near the floor (and near a window), but if the home is on a slab foundation and has forced air heat, the vent will be on the ceiling.

How can I tell the difference between the cool air return and a heat register or vent?

Generally speaking, the vents for warm air are long and narrow, and the cool air return is much larger and boxier in shape.  Below please find an image of heating vents.

The first example of a heating vent is probably the most typical you’ll find in Silicon Valley: it’s metal, kind of a dark gray color.  Older ones (homes from the 50s) have an even narrower shape but still tend to be metal, sometimes painted dark brown.

The next example is usually found where the property has hardwood floors.  The idea is to make the vent blend in and be less noticeable. Naturally, the wooden vents come in a variety of colors to match the many types of woods that might be found in a residence.

By and large, cool air returns and heat registers are pretty ugly. The wooden vents are a nice step above the usual offerings.  Several companies sell nicer cool air returns and heat registers or vents, though. So if you are remodeling and want to get away from that “tract housing feel”, a few custom touches might be just the ticket for a more unique feeling home.

What else can be done, besides changing the material from metal to wood, to improve the look of my home?

An entire industry seems to be rising out of the desire for more attractive finishing touches in homes, offices and public spaces.  With a little searching, you’ll find that in addition to the basic vent style shown above, there are other types too.  For instance, ornate brass  (or other finishes), may be found in Victorian homes which do have heat in every room. Restoration Hardware advertises several of these, some of which would look great with a Craftsman style home or other distinctive architectural styles. (Click on the link to see their offerings and images of these vents.)

A quick search on Google images will reveal that there are lots of choices out there!  I’ve seen just about every type imaginable.  One website, called BuyAirVents.com, has a nice selection of cool air return covers as well as warm air register covers.  Another site, Beaux-Artes, features exquisite grille work which looks fabulous in a variety of settings – check out the return air page!  My own home is Spanish style – so now I’m on a quest to find vents that will match the look of our house too.

When house-hunting in Silicon Valley, it’s good to take note of how clear the windows are.  Sometimes when a dual pane window appears wet or foggy, it’s not just a matter of the sprinklers hitting it, but instead could be a failure of the vacuum seal. If that’s the case, the window may no longer be as energy efficient and certainly will not be as attractive as intended.

There are some window repair professionals who claim that they can de-fog windows with condensation (the common belief is that foggy windows must always be replaced).  What many consumers do not know when purchasing dual pane windows is that many of them will fail, unlike the single pane windows they are replacing. (The Old House Authority site says 30% of the time, a replacement window will be replaced within 10 years. It also advises that “More heat is typically lost though your roof and un-insulated walls than through your windows. Adding just 3 and 1/2 inches of insulation in your attic can save more energy than replacing your windows.”)

Seal failure of dual pane window

Many of my home buyer clients for Los Gatos, Almaden, Cambrian and San Jose insist upon having dual pane windows in their future house or townhouse.  Before assuming that any brand is OK, though, do some research to learn about the windows’ failure rate and how long the warranty on them will be.  Dual pane windows look great and do save a little energy, but if you have to replace one third of them within ten years, it won’t be a bargain at all.

In the middle of the last century, the Santa Clara Valley was bursting with vineyards, fruit and nut orchards, and groves of citrus trees. The mild climate and all of these beautiful blossoms mile after mile warranted the nickname, “The Valley of Hearts Delight“. Most of it was, of course, unpaved.  Following the end of World War II, the agricultural land began giving way to housing and industry, later more housing and high tech in particular, and Silicon Valley was born. And, to quote a song, “they paved paradise”.

Water can be somewhat scarce here at times – the sub tropical climate means mild temps and just enough rain, about 20″ per year for most of the San Jose area, but more as you get closer to the Monterey Bay and Pacific Ocean.  When we do get rain, where does it go? In the days of big agriculture, most of it found its way back into the drinking water: it was absorbed by the soil, and then it filtered down into the underground streams.  Wells tapped into this water source and the water was used for drinking, cooking, bathing, watering the crops and more.  Now, though, much of the valley is paved.  Water runs to gutters, and they lead directly to the bay, skipping the aquifers and also skipping the filtering process that the soil provides.  As you might imagine, this can screw things up a bit.

One solution is to create more places for the runoff water to get back into the soil and meander back to the aquifer.  The City of Cupertino has vegetated swales for just that purpose behind the library and city buildings, and a large sign explains why the landscaping looks the way it does (a dirt strip with a sunken section in the middle, but landscaped).  This is not uncommon in many parts of the US – I have seen it all over the east coast and the southern states – but a little less common here.  A great idea, I hope it catches and becomes more typical. Kudos to Cupertino for working to improve the local ecosystem and water quality! We need to do more for water reclamation. If it gets all the way to the bay, it cannot be drunk any more, but from the aquifer it can. So many reasons why we should be diverting water away from pavement and gutters and onto soil!

After taking note of this a week or two ago, I did some searching online and found a 2006 article by the Cupertino Courier (now owned by the San Jose Mercury News) about this same effort. It’s a well written piece and if you want to learn more, read on over at the archive:
http://mytown.mercurynews.com/archives/cupertinocourier/20060201/cu-news1.shtml

If a house or other building is going to be fumigated or tented for termites (or other pests), certain things must be done for the tent to go on and to effectively seal the structure.  We call that “fume prep” work or “fumigation prep” work. It is sometimes included in the cost of the fumigation, and sometimes not – so if this work is being done at your property, be sure to ask if it’s part of the bid!  If it’s not included, there are companies that can be hired to do these jobs if you do not want to or cannot do them yourself. (If you need one in Silicon Valley, please email me and I can give you a name or two.)

Anything which obstructs being able to enclose the home or building must be cut back, disconnected or removed.  For instance:

• fences or gates which touch the building must have a few slats or sections removed so the tent can be placed next to the house
• bushes, hedges, trees and other plants which are adjacent to the house must be trimmed back or pulled away as much as possible – at least 12″ from the structure (if trees are touching it, they must be trimmed)
• any other structure such as a trellis or deck must either be included with the fumigation or separated from the house so that a tent can go between it and the house
• downspouts connected to French drains must be disconnected at the ground
• loose gravel, tanbark or mulch needs to be raked back or removed at least 12″
• any stored items up against the building must be removed

Other items which make it hard for the fumigation to happen need to be removed, such as an aerial or antenna on the roof or an awning on the side of the home., a chimney cap, or weather vane.  Solar panels must be drained.

When everything else is done, it’s important to soak the soil around the building (the perimeter) so that it’s really wet going down about 4″ and out from the house or other building about 12″.  The damp soil helps to create a seal so that the fume is effective.

Please note, this list may not include everything required for your specific building!  Your fumigation contractor should provide you a comprehensive list both of what is needed for the fume prep and also what is needed inside the home (food removal, for instance), by way of utilities, accessibility & keys etc..  There’s a lot of paperwork that you will be asked to sign when you hire a fumigator, but don’t just skim and sign: read and make sure you understand everything so that there are no surprises!

Related reading:

Choosing a home inspector in Silicon Valley

How often should you get a termite inspection?

Choosing a termite company (on my Live in Los Gatos blog)

Keeping up with the latest trends in home decor and remodeling is a bit like painting the Golden Gate Bridge: by the time you’re done, you need to do it all over again.  Styles change, tastes change.  How often do you really want to remodel and update your hardware, light fixtures, floor coverings – to say nothing of kitchens and bathrooms?  If these items are functional and you like them, there’s no reason to change.  Then again, if you’re going to sell your home and want to maximize the return, it might be worth it to do some updating.

The average American kitchen is remodeled about every 17 years (sorry, I don’t recall where I read that) – that’s long enough to jump from one trend to the next, one set of materials or colors to the next.  If you wait long enough, certain themes actually come “full circle”, not unlike clothes!

To make a point:  in the mid 70s, brushed brass was in, and many if not most homes built then in the San Jose, Silicon Valley area were made with brushed brass doorknobs, hinges, drawer pulls, doorbells, you name it.  That trend moved to gold, brushed stainless steel and now – full circle – back to brass! Ditto that with colors.  “Earth tones” were all the rage in the 70s (olive green, deep brown, tan) and as things moved through the cycles (with a whole lot of white in between), the earth tones have come back again.

Some colors make more infrequent appearances, such as lemon yellow, lime green, bubble gum pink, baby blue….

Let’s just take a look at bathrooms and kitchens for this discussion about colors, materials and being in style.

If you’ve got a beautifully preserved 1920′s style bathroom with lovely tile, it’s practically an antique. (Apparently antiques are 100+ years old at a minimum.)  A few years ago I sold a Spanish style home in the Japantown area of San Jose with a drop dead gorgeous, original tile bathroom – you can see the photos and info online via the link.  This isn’t just old, it’s special!

Wood and tile were the best of the first half or so of the 1900s.  Early 1900s kitchens included wooden counters that boasted ridges and grading down toward the sink – a greatly practical idea to get the water or anything wet out of the way.  Some bathrooms with lesser quality had wall hung sinks rather than sinks with vanities, and they had a monochromatic tile scheme (just one color) with no fancy trim tiles.  The image of the bathroom sink and vanity, above, was very typically found in Santa Clara County homes in the 60s (or earlier) – very frequently there was a 2 or 3 color scheme and the trim tiles might have indents or ridges.  In the photo above, most tiles are green but there are pink accent tiles on both the counter top and floor, the sink is pink but the corner tiles are all black (similar to the older Spanish style bathroom I linked to above).

In the  70s earth tones reigned. Bathrooms and kitchens might have larger white tiles or tan tiles with black or dark brown grout.  Stall showers might be gold, tan, light brown – all with dark brown grout.  (Kitchen appliances were “harvest gold”, “avocado green” etc.)

In the 80s things began to lighten up.  The harvest colors receded and the golds and greens became a thing of the past.  Sinks, toilets, and appliances largely went to light colors (mostly white) or to a stark black.  Counter tops were more likely to be white tile with white grout or a light colored, swirly plastic or cultured marble surface.

By the 90s, tile was no longer the preferred material: slab granite, granite tile and Corian or other solid-surface materials were the best.  Slowly, white was getting some accent colors again but the “light and bright” tone remained the mainstay. Black appliances were in (and they were blacker than ever).

A decade later, at the turn of the century,  it was maple cabinets, slab granite (or other natural stone, or even concrete) and black appliances were giving way to brushed stainless.  Bathrooms enjoyed more recessed lighting, and where fluorescent lights were required, they were showing up in strange places, such as under the cabinet (by your feet) – to keep the incandescent lights above. Some Italian style, metal cabinets and counters also became increasingly popular too.  Light colored bamboo wood flooring (soft wood, not a hard wood), were highly prized.

Today, engineered stone counter tops, which are easier to maintain and come in a wide variety of colors, are perhaps the most popular choice for bathroom and kitchen counters. Dark cherry cabinets and dark, Brazilian wood floors are popular.

All of this to say:  whatever you do today, expect it to be outdated tomorrow (within 10 years).  Unless you are doing improvements to sell, I suggest making changes that you will like.  After all, first and foremost, your house or condo or townhouse is your home.  It’s not a showpiece, a gallery, a piece of jewelry.  The popular ideas will change over the next 10 years. You can also choose colors and materials which are traditional and have enduring value with a wide appeal.  If these are within the realm of what you personally like, it may be the best bet of all.

 For more reading:

Home sellers: beware over improving your property when preparing to sell

Selling Your Silicon Valley Home: Staging & Color

Want to Sell Your Home? Make it Easy for Buyers to See It!

When I show homes in and around San Jose, often I will see things that my buyers don’t recognize and I will take that as an opportunity to educate them on some of the components of a house, townhouse or condo.  (The strangest question along these lines I ever got was when a Silicon Valley first time home buyer had never noticed or recognized antennae on houses before and wondered what they were!)

A whole house fan is a more affordable way to cool down a residence. How does it work?  In the evening, when the outside air temperature is lower than the indoors temps, windows are opened and the whole house fan is turned on for about 15 minutes.  The fan sucks all of the hot air out of the house and discharges it outside.  Since the windows, and maybe doors, are open, this vacuum sucks in the cooler night air.

This is a lot cheaper than air conditioning to install and also to run. According to one whole house fan installation website “installing a Whole House Fan is approximately 25% the cost of installing an air conditioning system and approximately 10% the cost to run.”

Alternatively, of course, if you do not want to have A/C, or if you don’t want to run the air conditioning every time it’s a little too warm, you can pull out fans for the windows and doors in your home and run them in the evenings to pull in the cooler night air.  But the whole house fan is easy and convenient – you simply turn a switch on and off – and is considered a very nice home improvement.

Whole house fans have been gaining in popularity across all types of markets, even among luxury homes, since they are more energy efficient and eco-friendly than air conditioning.  The only thing you might not know that’s important to understand upfront is that when it’s running, the noise is very loud.  Luckily it only goes for a few minutes – a perfect opportunity to step out onto your back porch and enjoy the cool evening air while it runs.

When you purchase a house on a corner lot, you may not realize that most likely there will be additional requirements of you regarding your landscaping compared to other properties which are not on the corner.  This is because corner lots need to provide a “line of sight” so drivers of cars can see what’s ahead should they round the corner.

In most parts of Silicon Valley (San Jose, Los Gatos and elsewhere), in the setback area of a corner lot you will not be allowed to have fences or landscaping that are more than 3′ tall – with the possible exception of a tree in which the branches really only fan out at a height of 7-8′ or more.

For properties which are not on a corner, drivers don’t really need to see through the property to get visibility on the road ahead, so the landscaping rules are much less restrictive.

These rules are not often or uniformly enforced from what I can tell, but you never know when a code compliance officer might show up with the requirement that you thin out or remove some landscaping or fencework, so keep that in mind if you buy a house on a corner lot that is heavily landscaped too close to the street.  Also, check with your own municipality (Campbell, Santa Clara, the county if not in an incorporated area, etc.) to see the residential real estate codes which apply in your specific property’s case.

I’m going to ask you something personal…regarding your bathroom habits.  Is your toilet low flow?

If your house was built before 1994, soon your toilets will need to be “low flow”.  So too will your shower heads and faucets.

In 2010, a bill was passed in California (SB 407 Padilla) requiring all homes (all residential properties) built prior to 1994 be retrofitted with low flow devices when remodeled as of 2014.  If not remodeled, the change still must take place by 2017 for all residences built prior to 1994.

So if you are updating your kitchen, wet bar, or bathroom any time soon, remember: low flow’s the way to go!

For those selling, it should not come as a surprise that this will mean another disclosure to make (whether or not the retrofitting has been done).

About a year and a half ago, I wrote an article for Silicon Valley home sellers about preparing the house or condo for sale: Preparing Your Silicon Valley Home to Sell and Return on Investment.  In that piece, my hope was to convey to sellers that strategic improvements to their real estate prior to sale will result in a good return on investment.  Too often, sellers don’t want to do enough prep work so that they can maximize their sale price.

Sometimes, though, I meet property owners with a bent toward the other extreme.  They decide to do a whole ton of renovating (almost as if it were a house which they are flipping or one they want to be like brand new) in order to get more money from the sale of the house.   What they plan to do may be overspending or over improving.  It may be going too far such that the return on investment is actually lessened rather than improved.

Most of the time, your best investment will be in doing small, strategic repairs, renovating or improving.  You get a good return – even great – on things like paint, floor coverings and touching up the front landscaping.  Often even fresh sod can bring a good return because an attractive front yard will get home buyers to look inside, whereas really poor curb appeal may cause them to turn away. Counter tops, light fixtures, and maybe new interior doors can wow a buyer and give you a good bang for your buck.  Totally remodeling a kitchen (with new cabinets) or bathrooms may recoup you less than what you’re putting into it. Hire a great Realtor and then work with her or him to determine which improvements will net you the most.

Think of the pre sale home improvement like this: it’s lipstick and rouge, not cosmetic surgery.  Go too far and you not only won’t net the most from the sale, but you could actually lose money too.  “Balance in all things” applies to preparing your home to sell too.  Not too little, not too much.

In case you haven’t heard, The Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Prevention Act of 2010 (Cal. Health & Safety Code §§ 13260 et seq.) is now law.  As of July 1, 2011, California homes need to have a carbon monoxide detector installed.  This is not a “point of sale” ordinance just for people selling their homes, but instead is for all houses, condominiums, townhouses etc.  (whether occupied by owners or tenants).  For apartment buildings the deadline is later, January 1, 2013.

These detectors look a lot like smoke detectors and can be run on either batteries or plugged into the wall, depending on which model you purchase.  Experts suggest that you place the detector in the sleeping area of the home and on every floor of it (including basement, if your dwelling has one).

To learn more, I suggest doing research online, and be sure to include the Consumer Reports information on carbon monoxide detectors too.  The Cal Fire news release regarding the requirement can be viewed online also.