It’s said you never get a second chance to make a first impression. That’s especially true when it comes to pricing your home for sale. One mistake you don’t want to make: overpricing it.

What are the dangers of overpricing a home? Pricing a home too high can stall your sale. The greatest amount of traffic occurs within the first couple of weeks that your home is listed for sale. Visitor traffic trails off dramatically after that. So even if you drop your price later, you have potentially lost buyers who have found other properties, or who are no longer considering your home, as they left with the impression that it was priced too high.

The best strategy is to work with your agent to price your home right to reach the greatest number of potential buyers with the right first impression.

We use color to describe our emotions: she’s feeling blue, he’s red-faced, we’re green with envy. Researches say that colors play into human psychology and can even impact how we react to what we see, and what we want to buy.

How can color psychology help you sell your home?

• Soft yellow is associated with happiness and light, making it a great color for family gathering areas, such as kitchens
• Light blues can create a feeling of tranquility, like the ocean waves: relaxing and calming, terrific for bathrooms
• Greens are associated with nature, used to convey a feeling of peace and quiet and versatile for almost any room in the house
• Gray is a neutral color, best used to connect spaces, such as hallways.

Colors to leave off your walls? Avoid reds and oranges, color experts recommend…

Buyers selected outdoor space as an important feature in a home. About half of all buyers said that decks, patios and yard were required or desired. But guess what other home feature is far more important to buyers? Air conditioning!

That’s right, according to a massive annual consumer study from the Zillow Group, most buyers – 62 percent – want air conditioning in their homes. The good news is that 65 percent of all homes in the U.S. have central air conditioning while another 27 percent have individual air conditioning units.

With those numbers, it’s no surprise that keeping cool is more important to home shoppers than decks, patios and yards!

When interest rates rise, the true impact on a home buyer is their buying power. While home values might not change, the cost to obtain a home load goes up. This means that you may be able to afford less home than you thought. The graphic above shows how you may be impacted while interest rates go up.

Did you know that homeowners are now living in their homes 50 percent longer than they did in 2007? The National Association of Realtors says the average U.S. homeowner sells a home once every nine years. Previously, it was more frequently: once every six years.

This is one of the reasons most sellers today use a real agent: 88% of buyers purchased their home through a real estate agent or broker—a share that has steadily increased from 69% since 2001.

In real estate, location is paramount. And for many buyers, proximity to work and public transportation are key factors in the selection of a neighborhood. According to a recent study of consumer housing trends, nearly half of all buyers want to be close to public transportation (45 percent), and nearly 7 in 10 want to be close to work.

All buyers want to find a home they can afford. But beyond that, guess what most buyers most want?

Neighborhood safety ranks highest – 71 percent for all buyers – followed by a home with air conditioning (62 percent of buyers), the right number of bedrooms (62 percent), and bathrooms (53 percent).

The Consumer Housing Trends Report 2017 by the Zillow Group, also found kitchens were tied with energy efficiency as the most desired home feature (48 percent). “Preferred finishes,” such as flooring, countertops, and appliances, came in a close second at 47 percent.

Parking is important to buyers too. Many buyers require that homes have ample parking (40 percent). For 39 percent of buyers, finding a home in their preferred neighborhood, is also important.

What if you could just look at a home and get an idea if it was a good home or one that might be, well, complicated? Dylan Chalk, author of “The Confident House Hunter,” an award-winning book with a novel way for buyers to look at homes, says you can.

Chalk, a certified home inspector, found a commonalty among the 5,000+ homes he inspected. It begins with the roofline.

“You would be hard-pressed to find a single feature or attribute of a house that can tell you more about the house in less time than the roofline,” he says. Sturdy and elegant rooflines = sturdy and elegant houses; quirky rooflines = quirky houses; sagging rooflines = a house likely to have some kind of structural problem. Always look at the roofline!

Join SchillingBridge Cork & Taphouse on Thursday nights for Rhythm & Brews from 6-9pm.

April 26: Dustin Prinz

April 19: Jonathan Leach

April 12: Ro Hempel

April 5: Josh Hoyer

March 29: Mike Rye

March 22: Evan Bartels

March 15: The Shineys

March 8: Levi William

A new study says that more than half of all homebuyers are interested in “green homes” with energy-saving features. According to the 2017 Sustainability Report from the National Association of Realtors, homes that feature energy-efficient lighting and heating systems, solar panels, geothermal heating, water-saving landscaping or energy-saving appliances are increasing in popularity.

The Real Estate Standards Organization, or RESO, recently added “green” information to property listing data so that consumers can better search online for homes with energy saving features.

Two of the hottest “green” trends: solar panels and “tiny homes.” 80% of Realtors surveyed reported that they sold a home with solar panels and nearly half believe that solar features added to the value of the home. And nearly one-in-four Realtors reported that tiny homes are in their markets!

If you asked a professional home stager if you could do just one thing to help your home sell, they would likely respond with one word: neutralize. The one thing you want is for potential buyers to see your home as if it were theirs. But unfortunately, family preferences often get in the way: a bathroom is hot pink, a bedroom is black and red, and another has striped wallpaper.

So put away the velvet Elvis paintings, posters, pet and personal items. Yes, they are you and yours, but try to make it their place. The more you create a blank canvas, the easier it will be for your buyers to paint themselves in your home!

Here’s a general rule of thumb for credit scores: the higher your score, the lower your interest rate. It really does pay to work hard to improve your credit score.  Just follow these four rules:

1. Always pay all of your bills on time
2. Check your credit reports (all 3) for errors and correct them
3. Don’t close old credit accounts – leave them open; the longer you have established credit, the better
4. Stay away from your credit limits

If you are solid with the first three, focus on the last one. The lower your total debt is as a percentage of your total available credit limit, the higher your potential score. So if you qualify, ask your creditor to raise your limit! That can help quickly raise your credit score.