Traverse City Real Estate Blog: March 2010

If you’re getting ready to sell your house, take a look around. Chances are that one of your bathrooms could be a little drab. Dated wallpaper and lackluster draperies could be sending the wrong message to potential buyers. With just a few simple DIY projects, you could inexpensively breathe new life into that old bath!

When it comes to prepping your home for showings, there are a few simple things a homeowner can do to make their rooms shine:

1.    A fresh coat of paint: This one is a no-brainer. If that 60’s gigantic flower wallpaper is making you dizzy, it most likely will make potential buyers turn their noses. It is a lot of work to remove wallpaper, but with a steamer and some elbow grease it should only take a few hours. Now for the paint, pick a color that will make your bathroom look bright and clean. Any color that will make your bathroom look bigger is a plus. Also, consider the fixtures and trim that are already existing. If you can find a paint to compliment those features, you’ll save a bundle by not having to replace any hardware.
2.    Window Treatments: Now that your walls are looking fresh it’s time to get rid of those dusty curtains or broken blinds. The most important issue with this is privacy. Think about putting in a valance to split the window in half. This way, the sunlight can still come in, but wondering eyes will be forced out.
3.    The little details: This is the fun part. Pick out some embellished towels, a unique shower curtain, or even some decorative handles. These items will come into play, while your house is being shown. Even though some of those items will be coming along with you to your new home, they will add just the right touch to really showcase your bathroom.

Get creative and have fun. These tricks can be used in just about any room in your house. Also, they are great ideas to consider when its time to personalize your new home.

And remember, when it is time to buy or sell your next home, trust the professionals at Century 21 Northland!

Jennifer Allen

Century 21 Northland

3337 S Airport W Ste 2

Traverse City, MI 49684

(231) 929-7900

www.c21northland.com

As you know, home staging is frequently employed by homeowners and real estate agents to help show properties to their best advantage. We all know that a staged home shows better than an empty home. As wonderful as traditional home staging is there are some drawbacks with regards to cost and what is actually included with the home.

BlueLaVaMedia, producer of Traverse City Virtual Tours is very pleased to announce our all new virtual home staging product.  We will take any unfurnished room and stage it to your taste and style for only $60.00.  You're able to choose the furniture from our online furniture library.  Ordering virtual staging for one of your properties can be done by giving us a call by placing an order online. Please follow the link below and start Virtually Staging with us today!

Only $60.00 per room! Click below to see a demonstration of a virtually staged room.
Traverse City Virtual Staging
http://www.BlueLaVaMedia.com
Call Today - 231-946-1360

ould it really be High Definition Interactive Virtual Tours?  Yes, times have changed drastically over the last two years and team BlueLaVaMedia is working hard to keep our virtual tour technology at the forefront of virtual tour technology.

Today we are proud to announce that we have upgraded our virtual tour viewer to support Full Screen High Definition images. Take a look at the virtual tours below and you will quickly see how our new HD full screen virtual tours transform the typical interactive virtual tour to something quite spectacular.  Trust us that our new HD experience literally makes your audience feel like they are standing right in the room! With just a click of a button BlueLaVaMedia now delivers you a brand new amazing interactive virtual tour experience.

Sample our new HD Virtual Tours:

Real Estate Sample:
http://rtvpix.com/RE-3608-MEK2OV-01

Real Estate Sample:
http://rtvpix.com/RE-3273-5SCY8A-01

Traverse City State Theatre:
http://rtvpix.com/BU-2026-5KWOEM-01

Don't worry about load time.  In fact, our virtual tours load faster than any of the other video or interactive virtual tour platforms out there!  This is because we compress our images down to an amazingly small size before publishing them to our servers while maintaining strict standards in quality.  No waiting for a huge video file to load only to get a tiny window.  No more staring at a loading bar for two minutes only to end up viewing a simple full screen slide show. Now you can tell your customers that you're giving online shoppers a truly interactive HD virtual tour experience.  Finally, our HD full screen virtual tours can also be easily converted into streaming video for YouTube deployment! It's truly amazing!

We want you to experience this new feature on your listings, so from now through April, your first virtual tour you purchase from us will get a free HD full screen upgrade. Starting May 1st 2010 an upgrade to our HD viewer will cost $20.00 on our Real Estate Virtual Tours.

Show your customers that your are on the cutting edge of technology with one of our "NEW HD" virtual tours today.

Thanks!

Team BlueLaVaMedia

The 'BIGGEST' Traverse City Virtual Tour Company
http://www.BlueLaVaMedia.com
Order a Virtual Tour : 231-946-1360

LOCATION & SIZE - One of largest homes in the neighborhood offers more for the $$$ (only $68.51 per sq. ft.) & close to stores/restaurants, TART trail, Mt. Holiday, VASA , East Bay and still boasts a 1+ acre country lot, kids playground, 2 story barn for storage or shop. Home features newer kitchen w/ stainless appliances & large pantry, huge living room, patio, family room w/ natural fireplace, mud/laundry room ( laundry on main floor & basement), water softner, almost new furnace, attached heated garage & paved drive. Private well & septic or municipal water/sewer available. + $6500 - $8000 TAX CREDIT UNTIL APRIL 30TH!

See full photos, listing brochure and all Traverse City real estate listings at www.c21jb.com or www.c21northland.com

Jon Becker has completed the National Association of Realtors requirements and training and is now a "Green" designated realtor.  Just 1 more way to enhance his knowledge and expertise to better help serve his customers Jon chose to get the "Green" designation not only for enviromentally friendly lifestyle information to help his clients with these features and building or adding Green features to their homes to be more enviromentally friendly and energy efficient.

Buying or Selling  Traverse City real estate contact Jon Becker at Century 21 Northland anytime!

Attention active rain community, real estate agents, virtual tour photographers and camera junkies alike.  Please join us for the next episode of The IMAGE "The official photography webinar of RTV virtual tours". 

Are you looking for that perfect camera and not sure which brand is best?  Have you been to several camera shops only to hear each supposed expert claim their preferred brand is the best because of XY and Z?  If you have, please know that you're not alone out there.  In fact, there are thousands of people who simply throw their hands up in the air each day and select a camera out of sheer exhaustion.

If only you could get all of those camera shop owners in one room at the same time so you can witness firsthand a fair and balanced debate then maybe then you could make an informed decision. Well now you can!  Because RTV has hundreds of virtual tour providers all around the world we are going to do something that most companies out there could never achieve.  We're going to put die hard Canon junkies up against must have Nikon lovers against Fuji fanatics and Olympus addicts and watch them fight it out on The IMAGE 13 "Camera Wars".

Join us ringside for an amazingly fun no holds barred evening as dedicated RTV Virtual Tour Builders throw off the gloves and debate why they chose Canon, Nikon, Olympus, or Sony. This will be a sheer battle of the brand and only those with true grit will be left standing.

Find out the advantages and disadvantages of each brand of digital SLR so you will know what to pick the next time you plan to get a camera. Join me, Ben Knorr, for the IMAGE webinar – "Camera Wars" on March 30th at 7:00 Eastern.

Sign up NOW! Public is welcome!
https://www.gotomeeting.com/register/710831347


P.S.  If you love your digital SLR, think it is the best brand, don't have a problem telling the other brands off, then we would love for you to be a guest on this show! Shoot me an email or give me a call today at 231-947-0684!