5 Essential Tips to Prepare Your Home for a Speedy, Top-Price Sale

"Home staging" was coined in the early '70s,and the concept has become well known as "house fluffing," "dressing to sell," and "home presentation".

The focus of staging is to make a home more marketable by creating the most appealing home to the greatest number of prospective buyers. It should be impersonal enough not to infringe on a buyer's own sense of style.

Decorating is optional. Staging, on the other hand, is essential - that is if you want to sell your house for the most possible money in the shortest amount of time.

You can make at least 3 percent more with home staging. In some areas, that number can go as high as 50 percent! Statistics also show that homes that had not sold in an average of four and a half months after listing sold within a week of being staged by a professional. Homes staged before listing were under contract more than twice as fast as comparable homes that had not been professionally staged.

As you know, your home becomes a house - a product for sale. Staging your property gives you a more competitive edge in today's market by transforming it into a marketable product. A staged property helps you sell your investment for top dollar and is the first line of defense over lowering the price. Do not settle for less at the closing table simply because you did not understand the value of staging or did not want to take the time or spend the money to do it properly.

In this world of busy buyers, a property has to be staged to appeal to their imagination. They want to be able to look at your home and know that they can live there. They want to know that their furniture will fit. They want to know that everything is in "move in" condition. That is why staging is so important. It allows buyers to imagine themselves living in your home with their stuff, not yours.

Presentation is everything and staging is presentation! The result is improved functionality and complementary space. Following the techniques in this guide will maximize your equity while reducing the market time for your home.

1. Be sure that your home is staged before you or your Realtor takes the photos for the web. Over 70% of all new apartment/home searches are started on the Internet.It is imperative that the property looks good in the photos so that it can attract as many people as possible to see the real thing.


2. You should not have one person look at your house until it has been staged completely.It should not go through the broker walkthrough, MLS, open houses, or anything.Stage first!


3. Home staging works for all properties regardless of the price point because home staging is about preparing your home for a faster and more profitable sale and marketing your property to the most potential buyers for its target audience. A home stager who has have staged homes ranging from $100,000 to $10 million has had the same result - the homes sell faster and for top dollar compared with the competitors within their price range.


4. Do not offer money towards painting or installing new carpeting. Remember, if you are not willing to do it, your buyer is not likely to either.


5. You need to be willing to change paint colors. Paint is very inexpensive and gives you a big bang for your buck. Although a bit labor-intensive, painting is not expensive and gives your home a new, fresh, clean look. There are certain universally accepted colors and these should be used when repainting your home. Yellow or shades of gold are warm and inviting. You should also accent with yellow. Your eye absorbs more yellow and therefore sees it first. Green or blue in the bedrooms are great colors because they are restful.

House for Rent in Cumbaya

One o f the greatest things about Cumbaya is the weather. At just a few minutes from Quito and just a few meters below, you are indeed in a different temperature zone. This gorgeous home is inside a beautiful gated community with a great setup oriented to family and security.
This 350 meter/3768 sqft home is a available to you by RE/MAX Propiedades.
Take a virtual tour of this property by clicking on the thumbnail below:

My featured Properties

Here is a compilation of my listings, all of them include a virtual tour.CLICK HERE If you need more information about any of this properties or you are planning to move to Ecuador and need more information, please, don't hesitate to call me. Click HERE to find my contact information

Vilcabamba: Weather, healthy living?

Nestled in the Andes of the "deep south" of Ecuador, not far from the Peruvian border, Vilcabamba was founded in 1548.
The Vilcabamba Valley started to gain popularity when scientist started to study the longevity factors about this location. This is why Vilcabamba is also  known as the Valley of Longevity. Thousands of theories were based on the nearly perfect weather, water and air quality.

The water from Vilcabamba has active hydrogen, which has two electrons instead of one. This is an important factor when is consumed by humans because this minerals cleanse the body from "heavy minerals" and this is why is believed that Vilcabamba water is "The Fountain of Youth"

Vilcabamba weather is nearly perfect, averaging 22 degrees Celsius (71 degrees Fahrenheit) this is one of the most important factors to attract people from all over the world looking for a healthy life style.

It's hard to describe it's beauty in words, but if you are looking to retire in Ecuador you can visit my website http://QuintaEsencial.com

View from QuintaEsencial's Garden

Quinta Esencial

Here is a preview of this wonderful property in Crucita I went to shoot on March 1st.

The virtual tour is going into their website just like the one in Vilcabamba 

Front

Endless Jacuzzi

Getting an Ecuador Visa

Although, in the last couple of years, improvements have been set to speed things up in certain immigration formalities, it's still a good idea to plan ahead! It's not a good idea to be in front of an agent from the Ecuadorian Immigration Services without having a fair knowledge of the type of Visa or Residency status you want to obtain. 

The problem is not so much about rules and regulations. It has to do with the people working for this government entity and their lack of knowledge ultimately leading to your frustration. You'll probably won't get a straight answer to your questions or you might get a different answer from one agent to another.

 Most retirees or expats obtain an investment or  a retirement visa. There are some restrictions with these type of visas, and one of them is that you can't be out of the country for more than 90 days with in a 24 month period, and this happened to the wife of one of my friends!a few months back! She can't return for a certain period of time... 

When you apply for a retirement visa, be prepared to provide lots of paperwork, originals and certified copies (in some cases notarized and apostilled), and translated to Spanish. The documents include but are not limited to, Birth Certificates, Marriage Licenses, Certified Bank Letters that guarantee your retirement income and expect to pay anywhere in an average of $2000 in attorney fees.

Expect some issues when obtaining an Investment Visa, specially if you are planning to buy Real Estate.  To qualify for this visa, you need to invest and maintain a minimum of $25,000 in a bank if single, and $1000 per each dependent, so, if you have a family of three, then you need $27,000. Just like a retirement type visa, you need to provide with all the necessary paperwork. You can also qualifying for an Investor's visa buying  real estate. But the problem you may run into is that in order to qualify for an Investor's visa you need to provide the immigration services with the deed to the property you are acquiring, and, there have been numerous incidents were it turns into a nightmare to obtain the Deed Certificates eating up the time that you have been allowed to stay in the country legally. 

I sell real estate for a living, and I want you to hire me to be your agent but this is one of these circumstances where if you decide to get an investors or retirement visa, I will have to recommend you to rent first, and, I can help you with that as well. 

Ecuador is a beautiful country, and renting will give you the opportunity to find out if Ecuador is right for you. 

Meanwhile, we can go and look at some potential properties while you decide... 

But, if you are ready and decided about buying a piece of real estate.... You might want to consider a Corporation Visa or a Work Visa The corporation visa takes about 2 months to obtain. 

As a business entity, a corporation  does not need a visa, the visa is for the person who's behind the corporation. 

The requirement is that 1% of the shares of a corporation must be owned by an Ecuadorian citizen. The corporation must have a Manager to whom you'll pay the minimum wage, currently around $340 a month plus all the benefits required by law . You file 0 on your tax forms without penalty as long as you file on time, or you can hire the services of an accountant to file for you for less than $50 a month. You will need to assign a single transaction power of attorney(meaning that the power of attorney is only for the purpose of entitling one person to act in your behalf to form a corporation and no more)  whom you are going to send the necessary documentation to start a corporation in Ecuador.

 Later on, you can apply for an Investors or Retirement Visa.  

The advantages of the Corporation visa:

• It costs about $1,500 to $2,000 for attorney fees  
• You don't have traveling restrictions as for the Investors or Retirement Visas
• You can purchase real estate, and as soon as you get your deed you can apply for an Investor's visa
• It is not a resident visa, meaning that if you decide not to stay, you can sell/transfer your Corporation to someone else and Chao!

Oh! by the way, if you need an Ecuadorian Immigration Lawyer or documents translated from any language to other language in more than 40 languages, notarized and certified,  shoot me an email at ivangolfer78@gmail.com with a PDF file of the documents to by translated and I will send you a quote within 48 hours. You can find additional contact information even a a local US number where you can call me by clicking HERE

I'll see you when you get here!
Ivan Moncayo
   

Gringos Pay More? Why?

It works in my advantage to be part of two cultures. I was born in Ecuador but I´ve lived more than half of my adult life in the US. And not to brag or anything, but.... I think I am qualified to talk about this issue.

One of the things that doesn't make me too proud of being "half"  Ecuadorian is that I see how certain Ecuadorian citizens take advantage of the newly arrived visitor.

So, I decided to do a little research about this "dishonest issue" and I found out that most people see foreign visitors like they have a big dollar sign imprinted on their foreheads! It's true that $1 dollar goes a long way in Ecuador and when we just arrive, everything seems so cheap when  we are really paying 3 times the cost of taxi raid if we are not careful!

Same thing happens when we are looking at properties to buy! And that is why future buyers like to work with an "Agent" whom they have already developed a level of trust knowing that they will keep a high level of discretion when they are prospecting properties for foreign buyers. In other words, keeping their mouths shot without disclosing that their prospective buyers come from other country so they pay a fair price for a piece of Real Estate.

The majority of my clientele are US Citizens, and most of them have worked with a Realtor. It's an advantage for them to work with me because I apply the same level of service as if I was practicing Real Estate in the US.

There's no Agency Law intended to protect the buyer in this country, meaning that an Agent and a "Corredor Inmobiliario" are two different levels of service. The latter works on his own benefit while an Agent (which aren't easy to find) work on his or her client's interests.

Here is the link to one of my listings where you can find my contact information and even a picture! By the way, if you are a Real Estate Professional, there's a generous amount of $$$ for the agent who refers me a ready and able buyer.

Enjoy the show! http://QuintaEsencial.com

QuintaEsencial Vilcabamba-Ecuador

Moving to Ecuador?

Ecuador is once again the #1 place to live according to International Living Magazine. This is a great opportunity for local home builders and home owners to market their properties to International Buyers. The best way to advertise properties to international buyers is through the powerful combination of images and the internet! The reason is simple: It is NOT practical for a potential international to just come and visit a couple of properties, like he was just looking at properties in his own town and country! It's quite a long commute! Unless of course, they are coming to your hometown for vacation. The best way to sell properties to international buyers is to cater properties to them. One effective way of doing these is through the use of Virtual Tours. VirtuoMedia360 Interactive, is a Virtual Tour Company that focuses on Real Estate Marketing.

One of Ecuador's favorite spots for Retirees is Vilcabamba, AKA "The Valley of Longevity. Located in Southern Ecuador, this small town is home for the most diverse international community in the country. Here is the link for a Property marketed by VirtuoMedia360TM : http://QuintaEsencial.com where a web site and a Virtual Tour were combined to cater the best of this beautiful property.

Virtual Tour Powered by: VirtuoMedia360 Interactive

Enjoy the show! And if you are interested in advertising your properties overseas click HERE!