U.S. home prices could rise 4% a year, forecast says

When you want to sell your home or condo you want it to sell as quickly as possible and for the best price possible.  But what things should you be doing to make sure this will happen.

In 2011, Randall Cantrell who is a housing specialist with the University of Florida had a difficult time selling his home and was inspired to write a guide for homesellers which gives short-term and long-term fixes to keep a condo or home in the best condition to sell.

Making a condo or home appealing to buyers is an important factor in the home or condo selling quickly and getting the best price so it makes sense that keeping up with certain maintenance and appearance tasks would assist with this.

There are a lot of things that can be done that are not expensive but go a long way to making a home or condo more appealing to buyers and the guides Mr. Cantrell goes over a lot of these.

Here is just part of the information in these guides as discussed in an article on the Florida Realtor’s Association site:

In the short-term category for keeping one’s home ready to sell, he lists such tasks as ensuring that the doorbell works, that fences are painted, intact and have working gate latches, keeping cars parked neatly and taking care that the mailbox is properly maintained and has reflective address numbers.

Cantrell even suggests keeping a fresh-looking welcome mat at the front door.

“If a buyer sees one thing that looks like it hasn’t been taken care of, they will wonder what else hasn’t been taken care of,” he said.

In the long-term category, he suggests changes such as taking care that deck boards are flipped nice side up and fastened with screws rather than nails, ensuring that a garage door is sturdy and clean, that tree branches hanging near the house are healthy, and the roof’s shingles aren’t loose, wavy or faded.

He also suggests taking time to check that ceiling-fan blades are balanced – and dusted.  Read the full article…

These guides (especially the first one) give a seller something they can do to feel in control over the whole process of selling a house or condo rather than just sitting back and feeling like there’s nothing that they can do.  The guides are free and can be accessed by clicking the links below.

Improving Savings and Health by Maintaining Your Home at a Ready-to-Sell Level

Improving Savings and Health through Minor Conservation Measures in the Home

Image by hyku via Flickr

For those of you that don’t know, Ron Jon is not a restroom named after me.  It’s a famous surf shop that originated out of Cocoa Beach Florida and has become extremely successful and popular.  So far the only Ron Jon in the Tampa Bay area was an outlet at the Tampa airport so this will be the actual first stand-alone store in the area.

The building that will house the new Ron Jon on its first floor is being built on Mandalay Ave. on Clearwater Beach and is expected to be completed soon.

And if that isn’t enough good news, to top it all off (pun sort of intended) the second floor will house a Hooters restaurant and on the 3rd floor will be a rooftop bar.  Surf shop and Hooters – sounds like a likely combination.

Here’s what the Tampa Bay Times had to report about this:

A Ron Jon Surf Shop is expected to open by late May in this building under construction at 385 Mandalay Ave. on Clearwater Beach. A Hooters will be on the second and third floors….More at Ron Jon Surf Shop to open on Clearwater Beach next month

Now there’s another reason for you to visit Clearwater Beach – the h….amburgers.