Five Flooring Choices to Make a Home Seem Larger

Thanks to Scott Levit for this excellent post, which we've copied below.

Debbie Gartner of Floor Coverings International in Westchester/Western Fairfield wrote a concise post recently on how choosing the right flooring can improve the apparent size of a seller's home. This piece is adapted from Garner's post...

Here are 5 subtle tips for your sellers that will help stretch smaller spaces.

1. Use lighter colors. Lighter makes the space look larger. The same goes for walls.

2. Use wider planks. Wider makes the space look larger. The same goes for tile; larger tiles make the space look larger. (Conversely, parquet hardwood makes the space look smaller, so stay away from this and from small tiles).

3. De-clutter. The more open space readily visible (be it floor or walls), the larger, cleaner, and neater the space will look. Remove some of the knickknacks and maybe even a piece of furniture that's not necessary.

4. Use same flooring material and color across rooms. Whenever possible, continue that same surface across rooms. By continuing the same surface, you connect the space and it just looks larger. Be it hardwood, tile, or the wall color cafe au lait, try to be consistent and make the rooms appear seamless.

5. Lay your floor on a diagonal. Whether you have tile or hardwood, this will make you space look larger as it carries your eye along the longest length (In trigonometry -- remember that? - the hypotenuse is the longest side of the triangle). It will also make your space look more visually intriguing. Note that occasionally when the space/room is very rectangular, a straight lay across the longest length is a better option, but most often, a diagonal is the better choice.

Just Listed in Northwest Spokane

This attractive Northwest Spokane Rancher is move-in-ready.

Beautiful wood floors throughout most of main level. Fireplace in living room. Family room and large unfinished laundry area in the basement. Built-in storage space all around the home!

Priced at just $133,900 for three bedrooms, 1 bathroom and a wonderful basement, this is a areat find at this price!

Click here to learn more.

Reaching Generation Y: "Why" You Should Try Spokane's Best

From the Spokane Home Builder's Association:

Generation Y relies on e-mail, the Internet, PDAs, BlackBerrys and other electronic devices and, for many, these technologies are their preferred method of communication. In addition, studies show that eight out of 10 Generation Y home buyers use the Internet to research their home choices.

Once they have narrowed their choices, they expect their requests for more information to be answered quickly and for those answers to be personalized ― they don’t want to wait a week or two for a generic response.

I wonder if Generation Y'ers mind being labeled? We're cautioned about defining home buyers (empty nesters, seniors, minorities, etc), but when it comes to young people, the rules seem to change.

There is a lot of truth here, though. We find that a lot of our younger buyers use our automated home search tools and rely more heavily on email. Undoubtedly many of our clients are also using social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Blogger.

To that end, we now provide our sellers with the tools and expertise to integrate their home’s listing to any number of websites, increasing exposure to potential (and potentially younger) buyers. Here are some examples:

 Through our relationship with Realbird.com, you can use social book-marking or networking services to save and share your personalized listing website. Forwarding to friends, family or prospects is easy and encourages viral marketing.

 Your listing is featured on our blog using a handy program called a “widget” that is regularly updated and user-friendly.

 We have all the information and coding available to help sellers imbed a beautiful slideshow of their listing onto their blog, website, Facebook profile—or just about any site !