Pet-Friendly Tips to Protect your Home for Future Resale

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Photo Courtesy of www.calxibe.com

Spring is here and so is puppy and kitten time! Getting your home ready and safe for your new pets is key to keeping your home looking good and providing a happy, healthy home for your pet.  Pet proofing your home will not only give you peace of mind, but will also help preserve your home’s value when you are ready to sell.

Preparing your Home for a New Furry Friend:

• Remove any destructible objects on low shelves or coffee tables.
• Start by inspecting your home from your pet’s eye level. Look for choking, strangulation, electrocution, and suffocation hazards. Things like electrical cords, and curtain ties.
• Do not leave human foods or medications where pets can get into them.
• Buy a tight lid for all of your trash cans, or place trash in a cabinet, out of your pet’s grasp.
• Keep your toilet lid down to eliminate any potential drowning hazard for small pets.
• Secure window screens to prevent pets from falling out.
• Properly store or lock up hazardous substances such as: Home Cleaning Products, Pesticides, Fertilizers and Antifreeze.
• Make sure any indoor plants are pet friendly, some common toxic plants include: Lilies, Amaryllis, Poinsettia, Mums, and Aloe Vera.
• Foods that are toxic to your pets include: Alcohol, Chicken and Turkey Bones, Nutmeg, Apples, Chocolate, Onion, Apricots, Coffee, Peaches, Avocados, Dairy Products, Pears, Baking Powder, Fatty Foods, Plums, Baking Soda, Garlic, Potatoes, Broccoli, Grapes, Raisins, Cherries, Macadamia Nuts, and Yeast.

Preparing your yard:

• Make sure your pets are protected against fleas and ticks.
• If you live near a busy road consider installing an invisible fence to protect your pet from traffic.
• Clean up pet waste as soon as possible.
• If you have a pool keep it fenced in.
• Check to make sure you don’t have any toxic plants in your landscape. Visit the ASPCA Toxic and Non-Toxic Plants database for more information.

Pet Food Considerations:

• Store leftover wet food in your refrigerator.
• Store dry food in its original bag within a clean, food-grade plastic container.
• This protects food bought in bulk from insects, rodents, and any dyes or additives that can leach in over time from plastic containers not designed for food.

Pet-Friendly Design to Consider if you are Updating your Home:

• Flooring: Choose flooring that can stand up to scratches, and is easy to maintain and clean.  Consider choosing tile, linoleum, hardwood or laminate flooring. Laminate floors are great because they cost less and are more scratch-resistant than wood. Instead of wall-to-wall carpet consider using area rugs.  Pick out machine-washable area rugs.
• Walls: Use washable semi-gloss paint in rooms that your pet will spend most of their time. Hang any wall decorations high enough so they are out of reach.
• Windows: Don’t use curtains that pool on the ground or have decorative tassels and long cords.  Pets can get caught in these or ruin them.
• Furniture buying tips: Match fabric to your pets fur; consider buying washable slip covers; regularly clip your pets nails if you own leather or vinyl furniture; keep in mind that patterned and tweed fabrics will disguise pet hair better and that leather and ultra-suede fabrics are easy to clean off and don’t show as much wear.

Ways to maintain and preserve your home from pet damage:

• Regularly clip your pets nails to reduce scratch damage.
• Frequently groom your pet to reduce the amount of pet hair on your furniture.
• Clean any pet stains as soon as possible so they don’t set in.
• Use products like Odor Logic Clean Away or Odor Logic Oxy Quick.
• Vacuum twice a week with a vacuum designed especially to pick up pet hair – Dyson offers a vacuum specifically for pet owners.

By keeping these tips in mind, it will save you and your REALTOR a lot of time and money when preparing your home to sell. Feel free to contact us at (518) 690-0011 for more information on this topic. If we don’t have the answers, we’ll get them for you!

Posted in Preparing to Sell in the Future

by Judi.

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Realtricity Helps Seniors Downsize

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One of the major transitions people encounter in their lifetime is the move into retirement living. Downsizing from a home you have lived in and taken care of all your whole life seems like an overwhelming task, but an important one. Personal items tend to collect and build up over time making the chore associated with moving daunting to most. We are here to help you through the process associated with downsizing and help you sell your home. Once you recognize that the tasks associated with home ownership have become too much to handle its necessary to take the next step in life to see what other options are available to you.

Taking the step to downsize will only help to simplify your life and make more time for the things you enjoy. Outside of home ownership there is always the option to rent, but nowadays as the baby boomer generation continues to age into retirement the need for more senior housing, alternative senior living communities, and a more fulfilling lifestyle has begun to grow. In a 2009 census estimate there were 40,477 people over the age of 65 in Albany County making up almost 14 percent of Albany’s total population. With this growth comes new opportunities and gone are the days when the only options for retirement were assisted living facilities or senior communities with no services or amenities. Today, several options have taken shape within the Capital District for senior living, and Realtricity is happy to be a part of two of the area’s up-and-coming independent retirement communities. For more information on these independent living communities, you may visit the Ávila and Shaker Pointe websites.

Entrance to Shaker Pointe at Carondelet Independent Living Community

The Cottage Residences at Ávila Retirement Community

Downsizing tips:
It’s better to downsize your home before you list it for sale. Downsizing removes excess clutter and unwanted or unused items while helping the home look larger and more appealing to a potential buyer coming through. Pack away personal items and mementos such as family photographs and excess clutter and move them to storage. Consider all of the personal items and furniture you own and determine the items you don’t wish to take with you to your new home. Go through your home and place a sticker on the items you wish to get rid of. For these items consider the following options to remove them as soon as possible from your home.

Your options for the items you wish to dispose of:

• Donate to family and friends: Begin to contact the individuals you would like to give furniture and other household items to.
• Garage sale/estate sale: If you plan on having a garage sale, it may be a good idea to ask a few of your neighbors to join you. In most cases, the larger the sale, the more people it will attract. If you are not able to have a garage sale or would rather someone else dispose of your things, consider having an estate sale. For more tips on garage and estate sales please contact one of our agents.
• Donate to charities: The Capital Region has many deserving charities. Please try and donate items that are in fair condition. Many charities will pick-up unwanted items and there are many places to drop off items. Always be sure to ask the charity for a receipt and a value of the items that you donate for tax deductions. To see a full list of Capital Region Donation Organizations please contact us and we would be happy to pass it along to you.
• Waste Disposal: For items that are too worn out or broken, consider disposing of them. For large items or large amounts of unwanted items, consider calling 1-800-Got JUNK or 1-888-Chuck-It. They will pick up anywhere in the Capital Region if you call ahead.

Posted in About Real Estate Company News Downsizing

by Kate.

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Realtricity Sells Home on Market for Two years in Just Three Weeks!

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A home that was on the market for over two years with other Realtors, sold in just three weeks when listed with Realtricity!

Our Forts Ferry listing was a charming 3 bed, 1.5 bath, tri-level ranch home in the heart of North Colonie. The home now provides it’s new owner with a beautiful fenced in backyard, open ground-level family room, cathedral ceiling living room, updated appliances and close proximity to central highways and area shopping. It sounds like a great home, doesn’t it?

But why didn’t it sell the first time? Its simple, really! Unlike other real estate brokerages in the area, Realtricity’s new approach to real estate went to work on marketing the best assets of the home. In an already tough real estate market, many homes end up sitting regardless of condition. In the case of the Forts Ferry home, it was in superior condition, but no one was buying. This disheartening trend is occurring all over the nation as a result of the recent housing market slump and increased supply of homes. Realtricity recognizes the challenges of today’s market and employs better ways to make a home standout among the competition.

How do we market our homes?

Realtricity focuses on the individual property when designing a marketing plan tailored to what the client wants. Our website creates a better way to organize real estate information in order to make it easier to find, visually compelling, and attractive to potential buyers. http://www.Realtricity.com makes your property more marketable by providing all of the listing details of a home and making it available to buyers over the Web. Our marketing focuses on the use of effective electronic multimedia to give each property we list that extra edge in the market. All of our photos and videos are produced in the highest quality to insure they stand out next to the best neighborhood competition.

Benefits to expect when listing with Realtricity:

• A free consultation by Realtricity’s in-house Home Stager – preparing each home to show in the best light.
• A TV commercial for each property to be showcased on CBS 6 and Time Warner channels like HGTV, YES, CNBC, ESPN, FXNC, LMN, MNBC, and many more
• A personalized Web page that provides all the information of a property to those searching on http://www.realtricity.com/
• A 2-3 minute online virtual tour of every home listed
• A Realtricity sign in the yard that speaks quality and draws attention to the sale of a home
• Social media marketing – Realtricity uses this blog, Facebook and Twitter to generate buzz about each new listing
• A featured section on our website to draw Internet visitors to each new listing

Is Realtricity more than just a Web presence?

YES we are a full service real estate brokerage! We do everything a traditional brokerage does, plus more!

• All of our agents are licensed Realtors
• Every property is listed on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS)
• Every property gets a Realtricity sign in the yard
• We print high quality fliers for information boxes
• For clients who are intersted, we hold Open House events
• Not to mention all the extra benefits – like the TV commercial, virtual tour and social media marketing!

Our client from 58 Forts Ferry said, “Realtricity is not just a website. You deal with real people who are always very professional.”

One of the key ingredients in getting homes ready to sell in this market is Home Staging. Home Staging creates an environment that appeals to the broadest number of buyers who will potentially purchase a house. To sell a home in today’s market it must stand out and be enticing to as many buyers as possible. To do this, Realtricity provides each property with a free consultation by our Accredited Staging Professional, who will view the house and draft a proposal with suggestions to help prepare your home to sell. Almost all homes, no matter how nicely decorated, need a few updates, de-cluttering, de-personalizing, and fresh paint on the walls. The idea behind home preparation is to prepare the home to appeal to others by removing personal styles and possessions. The hardest part of this process is recognizing a home as a marketable asset rather than a place to live in.

Take a look at the before and after pictures of our recently sold Forts Ferry listing and see how a little Staging goes a long way in selling a home!

Tags: realtricity

Posted in Company News

by Admin.

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