The bedroom can be a tricky place when preparing to sell your home.  Aside from the kitchen and living rooms, most people spend a significant amount of time in this space.  In direct relationship with the amount of time spent there comes clutter, personal items (pictures, change, clothing, etc.) and an increasing challenge to make the room pop.

Simply put, most people just have TOO MUCH STUFF in their bedrooms.  Selling your home is a good time to address the 300 pounds of clothing you haven’t worn in years.  Aside from that – a few simple rules to follow:

1. Your closet doors should shut. Nothing looks worse (in pictures and in person) than a closet bursting at the hinges full of stuff.  The doors should shut and when opened one should see floor on the bottom, wall in the back and the ceiling above. 
2. Dress up your bed. Many times I suggest a new comforter (unless the one you have doesn’t look worn and washed.  Clean up your headboard, all loose change, books etc. should be removed.  Think of it this way, your bed should look like the bed you see in a furniture store (they are trying to get you to imagine your stuff on the bed, which is what we’re trying to do as well when selling your home).
3. Open your window. Natural light paints a room more than any other tool you can use.  I’d say over half the homes I sell have their blinds tightly drawn limiting the natural light entering the room.  I do it too, it’s the cave mentality, we want to feel protected and secure in our bedroom; unfortunately it’s not ideal when selling.
4. Make it smell good. Most of the time this means doing the laundry.  Other times it’s a pet bed.  Overall – freshen up the items in the room that hold smells – these are: Bedding, Pillows, Carpet, Dog Beds, Clothing and garbage cans.  A small oil-stick scent can help, but you want to avoid making it look like you’re covering something up.

The bedroom is one of the most important rooms in the home (aside from the kitchen) for a buyer’s decision.  Optimizing this area will help your home sell faster and in many cases for more money.

Tags: How To by Spokane Home Guy (509) 990-7653
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I get this question a lot (especially when selling rental units) – “How can I tell if the tenants have had police calls or possible drug issues.” Typically we discuss the matter with the seller, but obviously an independant verification is more desireable. I did some calling around today to determine how one would go about reviewing archived (public) information regarding a specific address and date range. Turns out – there’s a pretty simple way to get your hands on the information.

All it takes is an email (yep – that simple, and I’ll post the information below), you request the CADLOGS for the address and specified date range. They will present you the information which is all the Police Calls in which the specific address appears. You can then review for reports (and pull those seperately) or just know what you’re getting into with a specific tenant or property. Very useful.

[For City of Spokane Only]
To request CADLOGS of your own. You can submit a request to Police Records for that information. Their email address is spdrecordsinforequest@spokanepolice.org Just tell them you are requesting the CADLOGS for the specific address of the residence. You will also need to give them a time frame that you would like the search to cover. CADLOGS will provide you with any calls for service that occurred at that address. Presto! Please note that reports are subject to review, copying fees ($.90 first page/$.30 subsequent pages) and can take up to 90 days to receive in some cases.

Hope everyone is having a great day!

PS> If you have your own method – Please Share!

Tags: How To by Spokane Home Guy (509) 990-7653
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I recently decided to tear down the builder supplied deck that was virtually falling off of my house and erect a much larger composite deck.  I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the handyman around the house, and my skills are better used cleaning up the debris from construction rather than actually constructing, but I decided to take this one on myself.

I did a little research.  Code has changed a lot in the 7 years since my home was built and the deck originally fastened so I thought I’d find out the right way to do it.

Spokane County has a great resource that helps even a novice handyman (like myself) determine the materials and support methods needed for a basic deck.  Simple diagrams and charts (yes, they had to draw me a picture) made it easy for me to determin what I needed.

Take a peek here.

I’d like to give a shout out to Steve Pirtle of Foundations and Up Home Inspections (509) 954-5922 for spending a weekend helping me build my new desk.

Tags: How To by Spokane Home Guy (509) 990-7653
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