If you have recently listed your house for sale, then there is a good chance you are looking into tips for home staging in order to increase your chances of success when it comes to selling the home. If you’re not, then you should be! After all, there are all kinds of steps you can take to increase the overall appeal of your home to potential home buyers and those who schedule showings. One aspect that many people fail to consider when it comes to home staging, however, is the importance of preparing your home’s floors.

For starters, if you do not already have any hardwood flooring in your home, now would be a great time to have some installed. After all, this is generally thought of as the most appealing type of flooring in homes, especially in areas such as main living spaces and kitchens. You can have this type of flooring purchased and installed for less than you would expect if you shop around and choose the right company, too.

Of course, if you already have hardwood flooring in any space of your home, it is important to ensure that it looks its best prior to that first showing. And while hardwood is extremely appealing, the truth is that it can be very hard to care for. For this reason, it is important to know what steps to take in order to get your floors looking their best for potential buyers.

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HomeGain partners with RealtyTrac , Point2Agent, New Home Source, and Apartments.com to share over two million listings of foreclosures, existing homes, new homes for sale, and apartment rentals; HomeGain also unveils redesigned home page

by Louis Cammarosano

HomeGain, a leading provider of online marketing solutions that connects real estate agents and brokers with home buyers and sellers, recently announced new partnerships that increase the number of foreclosures, existing homes, new homes, and apartment rental listings to over two million.

HomeGain’s partnership with RealtyTrac provides over 1.4 million foreclosure listings and pre-foreclosure homes from over 2,200 counties in the United States. Point2Agent provides over 550,000 existing homes for sale listings nationwide. New Home Source brings new home listings from over 8,000 communities from over 500 home builders. Apartments.com, the leading online apartment resource, offers rental information from apartment properties across the country.

Home buyers and sellers who visit HomeGain.com will also notice a redesigned and more user-friendly home page. The three-column layout remains intact but has a fresh new look. HomeGain’s redesigned home page now makes it easier for visitors to search homes for sale. A navigation menu has been added to the top of the page, along with a new search form that provides access to over two million real estate listings. Users can access HomeGain’s find and compare real estate agents product and home values tool from the home page.

“A redesign of the HomeGain home page was long overdue, especially as we have added an enormous amount of listings and other real estate content over the past year”, said Louis Cammarosano HomeGain’s General Manager. Kudos to our product development and technology teams for implementing the sleek design which enables users to easily search our two million listings and other real estate content.”

HomeGain’s  Home Buyers and Sellers Listing Preferences survey finds home buyers want to see marketing amenities like photos and floor plans in home listings; A majority of home sellers select real estate agents based on fees, web presence and office location rather than on their specific marketing plans

We’re pleased to announce the results of its survey on home buyer listing preferences and home seller listing agent criteria.

HomeGain surveyed over 1,000 home buyers who were asked to rate, on a scale of one to five, the importance of certain home listing amenities and information including, but not limited to, the number of photographs available, neighborhood information, virtual tours and interactive floor plans presented in connection with home listings.

The results show that the most important listings feature (scoring 4.3) buyers want to see is a large number of photographs. The next most important listings feature (scoring 4.1) for buyers are maps that display the location of the listed property.

Top 10 Most Important Property Listing Features for Home Buyers (Cumulative Averages, 1 = Least important, 5 = Most important):

1. Wide selection of photographs (4.3)
2. Location of the property on a map (4.1)
3. Room sizes (4.0)
4. Floor plans (3.9)
5. Town name (3.8)
6. House number (3.57)
7. Street name (3.57)
8. Room description (3.51)
9. 360 virtual tours (3.4)
10. Information on local services, eg. shops and schools (3.2)

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In a relatively uncertain real estate market with lenders exercising strict lending practices, finding qualified home buyers can be daunting. However, there is a pool of qualified buyers who are otherwise neglected: International Buyers.

With a continually expanding global economy, local real estate has the potential of reaching home buyers anywhere in the world. The U.S. real estate market has always been an attractive investment vehicle for foreign buyers, who place emphasis on America’s strong private property rights and historically, long-term market stability.

According to a report by the National Association of Realtors®, for the time period ending 1Q2010, purchases by foreign buyers (those whose main residence is outside of the United States) accounted for $907B, a 4.45% share of the residential market. And although purchases by foreign buyers were reported in 39 states, there was a heavy concentration in California, Florida, Arizona, and Texas.

Furthermore, 55% of foreign buyers are cash buyers, due in large part to difficulties in financing real estate purchases in the U.S. Compare that to 92% of Americans who finance their home via a mortgage.

So how can real estate professionals market to international buyers? Continue reading this post

The “Diamond-Water Paradox” is a basic, fundamental economic theory: Water is essential to life; diamonds aren’t, but because there is so much water available, consumers place much greater value on a diamond to a drop of water.

The same paradox can be applied to selling a home.

When potential home buyers view homes these days they’re looking for that diamond (or, a “diamond in the ruff” to be exact).  And, just like diamonds with their detailed system of clarity (FL, VSI, SI, I, etc.), a home’s marketability may be characterized by three important details: Price (P)/Condition (C)/Location (L).

• Above average landscaping & curb appeal (+C)
• Kitchens and bathrooms that have been remodeled with the latest and greatest (+C)
• Freshly painted rooms in neutral tones (+C)
• A home that is clean and spotless (+C)
• A home situated right next to a factory (-L)
• Orange shag carpeting (-C)
• A home’s price that is at the top-end of the market for similar homes in a given area (–P)
• A home that has easy access to major highway and is also located in a community with very little noise & traffic (+L)
• A home that’s priced at or slightly below market conditions (+P)
• A home located in an area of superior job growth and stability (+L), etc, etc… Continue reading this post

We recently received a notice (see image on right) from the Better Business Bureau (BBB) stating that 861 people have inquired about HomeGain.com over the past few months — to which the BBB replied that HomeGain is BBB Accredited and BBB rated A+.

HomeGain is dedicated to continuing its efforts of providing its real estate professional customers with the best customer service it can, and its consumers (home buyers and sellers) with the best free services on the internet possible.

Some recent feedback from agent customers:

• “Holly is wonderful.  She is responsive, informative, honest and extremely helpful.”
• “Great company.  You are a great business partner.”  (Eric Pakulla, RE/MAX Advantage Realty)
• “I like your program, I pay you when I get paid, it works well and is consumer driven.”
• “Tried them all and your site is the only one that works as far as capturing leads.  Gabriel is a cool rep as well.”
• “The HomeGain team is remarkable and helpful in every way. I appreciate all of them.”
• “Value received, and customer service.  I sold my first house on-line with HomeGain BuyerLink, now I am a Top Producer with RE/MAX!”
• “I love HomeGain! My favorite lead source….if you were to create a brokerage, I would be first in line to run an office for you here in SoCal!”
• “Wonderfully run organization.  Everybody is winning with what you are doing, unlike many others out there who try to do what you’re doing.”
• “I have used many other internet lead generation companies and HomeGain is the best without question! Working with them is always very nice. Karina does a fantastic job for us! The quantity and quality of the leads we get are great! I would recommend HomeGain to anyone — it is a very good, solid company!

Read more HomeGain reviews from Realtors and consumers (about working with Realtors they found through HomeGain).

Read more about HomeGain being rated A+ by the BBB.