Packing your kids’ stuff for a move may be in some ways a little bit trickier than packing your own. Unlike you, your children have more than clothes, and accessories – they also have toys in all shapes and sizes.

Kids’ rooms and playrooms are usually piled high with toys, storybooks, and just about anything that triggers their creativity. And while “picking up toys” is in their daily chore charts, it may take more than that to keep these things organized especially when you’re in the process of moving houses.

Just in case you need more help; we came up with a few tips on how to keep your little ones’ precious (and forgotten) toys organized during the moving process.

Ask your kids to help

Children love being treated like adults. They like to feel needed and are almost always keen on helping out. Organizing toys is something your kids can do, and you sure can use the help from several small hands.

Sort the toys into piles or boxes

Sorting their toys is an essential step in the process. Besides, you don’t want to bring all those toys to your new house, do you?

Your kids have probably outgrown most of them anyway. What you should do is take two boxes: one for the toys your kids want to keep and the other for the ones they don’t want or play with anymore. Leave the sorting to your kids. Don’t worry; they’ll manage.

You might also want a separate box for your kids’ favorite toys. They’ll probably want to take those with them on moving day.

Categorize the ones you’re keeping

When your kids have finally decided which toys they’re taking with them, subdivide them again into groups. Maybe a group for arts and crafts supplies, another for board games, one more for dolls and stuffed toys, and so on. You may end up with a bunch of “uncategorized” toys, but this is expected. Just put the odd ones in one container.

Place the toys in separate containers and label them.

After categorizing the toys, place them in boxes or storage bins and label them accordingly. Labels make finding stuff so much easier; you and your kids can benefit from this especially when things are lost in a maze of moving boxes and containers.

Here’s an idea: Have your kids create and stick the labels themselves. It might be just another random task for adults, but your kids will think its super fun!

Consider donating

The moving process can also be an excellent chance to teach your kids the value of sharing and giving to the community. Remember those toys they tossed in the “unwanted” pile? They can find a new home in the arms of children not as fortunate as they are. Your local charity will be more than glad to make the pick-up.

We hope these few, simple tips help ease the stress and make the transition more convenient for you and your family. Happy moving!

Realty Executives Midwest
1310 Plainfield Rd. Ste 2 | Darien, IL 60561
Office: 630-969-8880
E-Mail: experts@realtyexecutives.com

It’s nothing new that home staging is a wise move. After all, it has the potential to increase the final sales price of your home by 6 to 20 percent. But what you may not realize is that it doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg to do it. After all, who needs more expenses when you’re moving? If you’re short on cash but want to speed up your home sale and possibly increase that final dollar amount, here are some budget-friendly home staging tips.

Declutter

The first step to home staging is about as budget-friendly as you can get — because it’s free. Donate or trash items such as clothes, extra furniture, books and knick-knacks – anything that’s not being used or that you no longer need. Go through the pantry and donate canned goods to a local food drive. Sift through piles of random papers and shred and recycle what you don’t need.

Hold a pre-moving sale

Hold a garage sale to get rid of what you won’t be taking with you when you move. Not only will you declutter, you’ll also make some extra cash for other home upgrades. Don’t feel like doing a traditional yard sale? Download OfferUp or another buy-and-sell marketplace app to sell your items.

Borrow from friends

A good rule of thumb with home staging is to furnish and stage every room in your home so that no room is left empty. To save costs, you can borrow furniture from friends and family, or you could split up the furniture in other rooms of your home to round out the less furnished rooms. Borrow the treadmill your sister no longer uses and the weight lifting bench in the garage to transform an empty bedroom into a home gym, or add a desk and cabinet to your guest room to help buyers envision both a guest room or home office in that space.

Consider portable storage

After getting rid of the items you no longer want, it’s time to empty your home of excess furniture items, quirky art, and any personal items that may be distracting to buyers. A portable storage container is a popular cost-effective option because it conveniently combines moving and storage.

Here’s how it works: A driver delivers your storage container to your home to fill at your leisure. Once you’ve loaded the items you’re storing, the driver picks up the container and takes it to a nearby storage facility. When your home is sold, have your container re-delivered to your door, fill it with the rest of your stuff, and ta-da! You’re all ready to move. Some portable storage providers can move your container long-distance. For instance, PODS can move your container to your new home even if it’s across the country, in Hawaii, or in some parts of Canada. A solution such as this that combines moving and storage can help reduce the costs of moving by eliminating the need to rent a storage unit or moving trucks multiple times. Moving long-distance with a container can also be significantly less expensive than using a traditional full-service moving company.

Grab your paint brush

Want to transform your home cheaply? Painting gives you the best bang for your buck if you if you’re looking to give your place a makeover. Light, neutral colors are great for staging. If you’re really tight on cash, opt for touch-ups or pick key walls in high-traffic areas to repaint.

Make tiny upgrades that make a big difference

Make your home feel fresh and new on the cheap with some inexpensive updates to hardware, lighting, and faucets. Even new outlet plate covers, vent covers, and kitchen cabinet hardware can give your place a facelift. You don’t even need to buy anything fancy – just shiny and new.

Decorate on a budget

Some simple décor updates can have a surprisingly effective impact on the way buyers view your home. Replace your old, boldly colored shower curtain with a cheap but tasteful curtain. Cover up stained or old couches and chairs with affordable slipcovers. Add some homey cushions to the living room. Just remember to keep things neutral – it’s not the time to express your unique personality! Save that for your new home.

While redoing your flooring or putting in new kitchen cabinets would be ideal, it doesn’t have to take much money to give your home a makeover and make it appealing to buyers. With a little time and creativity, you can turn your soon-to-be-sold home into a beautiful space and have some fun while you’re at it. Good luck with your move!

Article Source: Realty Executives International, Written by PODS

Realty Executives Midwest
1310 Plainfield Rd. Ste 2 | Darien, IL 60561
Office: 630-969-8880
E-Mail: experts@realtyexecutives.com

Most sellers expect their real estate agent to hold at least one open house while their house is on the market. But are open houses really necessary? Do open houses really sell homes?

Let’s look at the pros and cons of open houses so you can decide for yourself if an open house should be part of your marketing plan.

Pros:

Exposure

Holding an open house provides exposure for your listing. Your real estate agent will advertise the open house on real estate websites, on social media, in industry networks, and perhaps even in print. This advertisement gets more eyes on your listing. And the more people who see your listing, the more likely you are to find the right buyer.

A low-pressure environment for buyers

Open houses also provide a low-pressure environment for buyers. Buyers can feel comfortable coming in to view the home without a buyer’s agent watching them for signs of interest. Of course your listing agent will keep an eye on the potential buyers coming through and will provide plenty of information so those buyers get to see all the highlights. Your agent will also make sure potential buyers know how to take action if they’re interested in making an offer.

Cons:

Looky-loos

The downside of the exposure and the low-pressure environment is that open houses attract looky-loos. Interestingly, most open house attendees have no intention of purchasing the house. They’re often just curious neighbors and real estate hobbyists. Serious buyers who are actively looking to find the right house are more likely to make an appointment for a private viewing with their agent.

So, while holding an open house will increase your exposure, it won’t necessarily increase your chances of selling the house.    

Security Concerns

The biggest downside to open houses is security concerns. It’s not exactly common for personal items to go missing during an open house, but there is some concern about extending an open invitation for strangers to stroll through your house. And your listing agent might not be able to keep eyes on all visitors at all times. Especially if he or she is busy discussing the house in detail with a potential buyer.

The Bottom Line

Holding an open house is a personal choice. If you feel the pros outweigh the cons, have your agent go for it! But understand that open houses aren’t required. Your agent can successfully sell your house without one.

Talk to your real estate agent if you’re unsure about whether an open house is right for you. If you don’t already have an agent, you can contact your local Realty Executives International office to speak to a highly-qualified agent about the success rates of open houses in your local market. You can also discuss security concerns. Ask the agent if they are aware of any security issues around local open houses.

Getting all the facts on open houses in your specific market will help you make the best possible decision on whether or not an open house should be included in the marketing plan for your property.

Article Source: Realty Executives International, Written by: Michelle Clardie 

Realty Executives Midwest
1310 Plainfield Rd. Ste 2 | Darien, IL 60561
Office: 630-969-8880
E-Mail: experts@realtyexecutives.com

1. Complete and pass 90 hours of Pre-Licensing coursework.
The course work includes 75-hour Real Estate Broker Topics and a 15-hour interactive course in Applied Real Estate Principles. These courses must be taken through an IDFPR-approved school, like The CE Shop, which offers industry-leading courses that can be taken online. We're partnered up with them to offer you 30% off all courses - click here to get started!

2. Complete the course final exam.

3. Pass the Illinois real estate broker’s state licensure exam.

4. Apply for licensure within one year of passing the exam.

5. Be sponsored by a Managing Broker.
How do you choose the best broker to sponsor you? Just like anything in life, there’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all broker. At Realty Executives Midwest, our unmatched support team is light-years beyond the competition so we are able to provide the support you need without the rules you don’t. As a team of top performers, our confidence is built on our unmatched expertise and that is why our high per-agent production speaks volumes. We offer modern technology to help you build and maintain your business - tools that are designed by agents, for agents. We also give you access to EXEC™ University, a unique training program laser-focused on increasing agent efficiency and productivity.

For a confidential business consultation - contact:
Jana Pinc, Managing Broker
Office: (630) 969-8880
Email: JanaPinc@RealtyExecutives.com

Your garage is a big deal. Even if you totally ignore that your garage doors themselves can take up a significant portion of your home’s street facing surface, there’s all that (often unfinished) space inside that you’re just leaving to its own devices (and possibly growing lots of brown recluse spiders).

Your garage doesn’t have to be an afterthought, though! You, too, can have a super fancy garage that feels almost like another living area. We’re talking taking garages to the next level today.

The Garage Reimagined

There was a time, not so long ago, when simply having an attached garage was kind of a big deal. Then it was a two-car attached garage, then an extra-deep third garage bay, and onward and upward. A garage, even at the four-car level, was still just a garage: a poured concrete slab, some drywall (finished if you were lucky), a couple of four foot long fluorescent shop lights and maybe a workbench in one corner.

Then suddenly something happened. People started demanding more out of their garages. Like so many other spaces in a modern household, the garage needed to be more than a mere storage unit, it needed to become a flexible living area.

Dolly Holmes, garage designer and owner of San Antonio’s Premier Garage, put it best in an article in The San Antonio Express-News, “I recently had a customer come to me and say they wanted to drive into a garage that looks as good as the rest of [their] home.”

Turning an old grimy, potentially frightening, garage into a gorgeous and welcoming living space where your car just happens to hang out is no small feat. It takes the concept to a whole new level, really.

From car-safe flooring that can resist oil stains to gorgeous cabinets that can hold chemicals that are traditionally banished to the garage, plus all those accessories for home theaters, pool cues and ping pong tables, today’s high end garage can become far more than anyone ever believed.

Beefing Up Your Garage’s Storage Potential

It can be easy to let your garage turn into a storage unit, that’s why so many of the fanciest garages start with a really amazing plan for dealing with the clutter. If you walk through your favorite home improvement store, you’ll notice an entire section of cabinetry just for the garage. These durable options offer more than just a place to put all your stuff, they give you a huge start on a high end garage that you’ll love.

Cabinets might not be the sexiest part of your high end garage, but they will help calm the overwhelm that a garage lacking storage for all those random things that end up being stacked to the ceiling can create. And hey, if you want to get really neat, use those cabinets to create a wet bar or a media center fit for the inside of your home.

Unappreciated Garage Tech

Even though garages have been getting smarter for years, most people haven’t noticed and these technological leaps have gone largely unadopted. Garage tech ranges in complexity from simple swaps of equipment already in your garage to quite complex undertakings that definitely will require a construction crew.

Smarter Garage Doors

Smart garage door openers have been around for a while, but they fail to get the kind of attention that other smart gadgets have seen. For example, this unit from Ryobi was named “The Most High-Tech Garage Door Opener in the World” back in 2016, but apparently no one read this particular article.

These door openers range from being simply controlled by your phone to being part of a complete safety system for your home. For example, some will notify you if they’re opened when you’re not home and most will tell you if you’ve left them open on those mornings you need a lot more coffee to get the job done. You can then tap into a security camera and even shut the door from anywhere.

How About an Elevator for Your Car?

Of course, simply replacing your garage door opener with one that inhabits the Internet of Things is one thing, but literally being able to park your car underground is quite another. This is major stuff here. Instead of wasting valuable above-ground garage space with dedicated areas for your car, motorcycle, boat or other garaged vehicles, a garage lift can kill two birds with one stone.

Basically, your garage can now be your own personal Bat Cave.

Garage lifts are pretty cool, but they will require a professional installation and work best when incorporated into the building plans of your garage. Still, if you’re building and you’re hoping to use your garage as a rec room, you can recapture lots of square footage with one of these amazing things.

Is it Time for a Garage Upgrade?

When it comes to high end garages, you might as well go big or go home (although, your garage is part of your home, so that doesn’t really work…). From cabinets that can handle anything your garage can throw at them to custom flooring and one of those fancy garage lift systems, you’re going to need a few good home pros to create your ultimate garage.

Luckily, they’re easy to find with HomeKeepr. Not only can you count on your home pros being absolutely top notch since your real estate agent recommended them to you, you can check out other pros that those home pros recommend to complete your dream garage dream team.

Article Source: HomeKeeper

Realty Executives Midwest
1310 Plainfield Rd. Ste 2 | Darien, IL 60561
Office: 630-969-8880
E-Mail: experts@realtyexecutives.com