Is it Christmas yet? Transitioning your Home for the Season

Our homes work extra hard in the last few months of the year, so let's talk about transitioning them to be the most hosting friendly, beautiful, and fun that they can be.

Halloween is officially over so we are firmly in the holiday season. We're so excited for the season of hosting, celebrating, eating and gifting, and we're going to give you a lot of thoughts, tips and tricks on how to make your home work for whatever the goal is for you. To kick off our 6 holiday tips we’re going to talk about sales!

Tip #1 Buy What Is Helpful

A lot of us are thinking about shopping as Black Friday nears, and I think more people this year will be opening sales up early. Keep in mind just what would be helpful to you and how you can use sales specifically to your advantage.

And think about the needs that you have specifically for this season. Do you need a popup table because you're going to have extra guests over for meals? Do you need to have some extra chairs to fit at that Pop-Up table? Do you need an air mattress? Think about what you need, what could help make your life easier, and shop smart!

Tip #2 Remove decor before adding more!

You can easily get overwhelmed in the holiday season, especially if you're a big gift giver with all the stuff in your house it can easily get pretty cluttered. That is why our next tip is so helpful: Remove some decor before you get out the seasonal stuff. Take down some of your mainstay simple stuff. If you have coffee, table books, knickknacks, different even pieces of art, if you want to add more things to the walls, sometimes providing a blank slate to then decorate for the holidays can really help you from feeling completely overwhelmed in your home. Getting the clutter out of the way would definitely help as you have more people and more things inevitably in your house.

And a bonus is that at the end of the holiday season, when you're putting your regular décor back, it feels fresh and  it's exciting to put the seasonal decor away and take your regular decor back out.Now, I want to be clear. We're not putting pressure on you to go buy all of HomeGoods and put it in your house. Now, if you want to do that, we're in full support, but decor does not have to be so overt.

Tip #3 Subtle Seasonal Decor 

When you walk into the front door of your home it doesn’t need to say “It’s Fall” or “It’s Christmas Here”, your decorating can speak for itself by being subtle instead of overt. If you want a change, that 's a change in all of the senses, it's not just visual decor, but it's also things having to do with smell, taste, feel. So seasonal snacks, seasonal fabrics, think flannel sheets or plaid blankets. Since we know that we love a good candle, those can be just as impactful as visual decor and making sure that your whole house isn’t decorated in red and green. Small changes can really make it feel more like the season.

Tip #4 Pick a Holiday Color Scheme 

One of the easiest ways to decorate is to decide on a general color scheme, Christmas decor, if we're talking specifically about the Christmas season, does not have to be all red and green. You could be regal and still be Christmas-y. Decide on that general theme and keep in mind you don't have to use all of the Christmas decor that you have this year. You can save some of it and bring it out next season. Add a little bit here and there! Even wrapping your gifts could coordinate with that scheme and that you could treat your gifts as part of your decor, so your gifts wrapped under the tree can be totally part of your decor. (A rule of thumb should be, if they're not fun for you to put up, it's time for you to get rid of them.)

Tip #5 Outdoor Decorations Are Fun For Everyone

Let's talk about decorating the outside of our house for the holiday season. It's kinda part of being a good neighbor - helping make it fun for everyone. A lot of times it just exemplifies that people care for their homes. I live in a community where a lot of houses look pretty similar, because they're newer in our small little community and it brings me much joy to see the Christmas lights. Some people are all out and decorating the exteriors in different ways. 

Go big with an inflatable, because they sell one for everything OR a simple wreath, which is also so nice and seasonal. Outdoor decor is fun and we encourage you to be a good neighbor and put something outside!

Tip #6 It’s About Celebration, Not Perfection

It's really common for people to feel extra pressure about having this Instagram worthy Christmas tree, etc, etc. We do not want to be adding that pressure to you! It's about fun, enjoying and celebrating, not perfection. If there was a huge home project that you didn't get to this year, just let it go, reschedule it for the spring. Enjoy the season. I've had a couple of friends that have done kitchen renovations in October that all of a sudden ran into Thanksgiving, and they were so stressed out. Just enjoy your house exactly where it's at by looking for the good, instead of what it’s not. 

When do you put up your tree? Are you a...

Thanksgiving Tree: Nostalgia, traditions, and wanting as much time to enjoy the joy that Christmas brings as possible.

Christmas Tree: Fall is for Thanksgiving and Winter is for Christmas, enjoying each individual season/ seasonal decor. 

We'd love for you to head on over to social media, give us some comments, vote on when you like to decorate, and we'll see who's in the majority here! Which one are you?

Reason For the Season

This season is just all about celebration and it is so sweet to just remember the reason for the season. Take or leave whatever advice really suits you today. We hope this season provides a little reprieve from the weight of this year in particular. If you need some direction on preparing for hosting, we've got a blog for that, so check out our blog called 10 Ways to Prepare Your Home for Guests at WhereWeLivePodcast.com. Lastly, don't forget to tag us in your holiday decor photos, we would love to see them!

Happy Holidays! (too soon?)

Brianna & Keelie

Design Trends for Today's Buyers

This week, we’re giving you an update on what buyers of today's market are looking for. Whether you're about to sell your home, are looking to do improvements, or just want to stay up on the current housing trends; this is for you. According to a recent survey, 61% percent of millennials want a move-in ready home. But what does moving-in ready mean for our generation? Well, here's a hint: it no longer includes carpet or dining rooms.

Let's get into it!

The Millennial Marketplace: What’s important?

We get to talk about the millennial generation, which we are proudly card carrying members of. We're going to chat about what buyers are looking for, as well as, what's in or what we're seeing trend wise in design and where things are headed today. The majority of clients, particularly millennials, are looking for move-in ready homes. 38% of buyers last year were millennials and that number is going to continue to grow as our generation ages into buying more and more homes. That's a huge majority of buyers that are out there and especially first time buyers. Basically, if you are looking to sell your house, these are the most likely people that are going to purchase it!

Another key piece of information that I think our generation brings to the table when looking for a home, is that we work more hours than any of the previous generation and are truly the first to be fully connected. On average, we just end up working more because our work life balance is a lot more fluid.

When we look at investing money into your home, when it's for the purpose of selling or otherwise, we want to make sure that the money you invest appeals to the widest audience possible, because we need to cast that net wide to make the best return that we can.

#1 Move-In Ready Home

If you're not familiar, the reason that they're looking for move-in ready homes is, because they have rented for a very long time. The majority of this generation is used to coming from a fully updated, modern, low-maintenance apartment, and are not necessarily very handy.

If you look around, you see apartment buildings going up left and right. And that's truly because of the supply and demand and the fact that entry level housing, the price keeps going up, up, up in comparison to our incomes and how far our incomes are going up: which is exactly why millennials have been renting for a long time. New apartments are going up, so there's more available for the millennials to be living in before they purchase a home. They're getting used to really nice new living spaces. 

A big part of a home being move-in-ready is a buyer looking at the property and saying, “how much would it cost me to make the updates that I want?”

#2 In-Home Office

Covid-19 has changed the game here and now we would say a Home Office is an absolute must. For me, it was probably about 50/50 pre-pandemic. Whether or not people wanted a home office space, now it's a given. Everybody needs somewhere where they can put it in the Home Office. People desire more flexibility to work from home, or if they need to work from home, school their children or whatever that is, it is a necessity at this point.

And I think something that with home offices that we've never even seen before is an increase in demand for two home offices. I have shown a few homes that have two separate office spaces, and the response I’ve seen has been like, “Wow, this would be a game changer for us.” If you're able to carve that out in your space or if you're selling, it needs to be somewhat separate to create some kind of private space. The pandemic has just made homes work harder. 

#3 Multifunctional Spaces

Multifunctional spaces are even more important than they were before. I find that when we walk into older homes with millennial buyers, the formal dining space or formal living space, is often seen as dead space. Luckily, we also see a lot of different ideas of what people are doing with these spaces/square footage such as play rooms, offices, storage, or gyms. Ultimately our generation doesn’t gravitate towards the traditional use of those spaces and can transform it into something much more functional for their lifestyle.

What’s in style? What’s poppin’ on Pinterest?

There's a difference between what is specifically in today and what is appealing to the mass of buyers. I would say, for the most part, we're moving away from really intense cold grey as a style in general. Things are warming up and getting more colored, so we're seeing a lot of that!

The Kitchen:

• For hardware, oil rubbed bronze that’s on the orange/distressed side is on it’s way out and antique brass is on it’s way in.

• We're seeing a ton of black hardware. It's very modern and fun and super popular at the moment.

• Stainless steel appliances still are where we think you should invest your money. That still communicates new to buyers. It coordinates with the design trends that we're chatting about and, if you still have a white fridge, it's time to change it out.

• When it comes to backsplash, when in doubt go neutral and simple. You can’t go wrong with white subway tile: people love the white and bright clean look, it's easy to maintain, and it can adapt to a variety of designs.

• White cabinets are still in. That's still going to appeal to the majority of buyers.

• We're seeing a lot more colored cabinets/kitchen islands. I'm sure you have seen a Navy island or Navy cabinets every once in a while. Blue green is going to be really popular moving forward. We're also seeing a lot more of creamy white or really light tan cabinets as people don't want to maintain and wipe down white cabinets anymore.
  

Carpet? No thanks!

Buyers that want move-in ready homes do not want to see carpet. They definitely don't want to see carpet in the living room and quite a few of them don't want to see any carpet in the house, period. Not unless it is brand new and light grey or super neutral. I see people try to replace the carpet right before they go on the market, but if it’s not to people's taste, then you would be better off just not doing carpet at all. There's a lot of asthma nowadays and there are a lot of concerns around cleanliness; which I think are only heightened by our current environment.

They would prefer to see wood floors instead of carpet, which might go without saying. ,  In addition to wood floors, there's also the option of a tile that looks like wood. I see wood-look tile being very popular. Let’s break down the kind of hardwood floors:

Super dark = still in.

Middle tones = preferred by most.

Very Light = super trendy.

80’s orange = get rid of it. 

*Just remember, whichever floor you choose, let's make it consistent throughout the home. Go on back after you're done listening to this episode and listen to episode number 4: Top Five Home Improvement Mistakes.

Let’s talk about colors!

I have said to so many buyers that homes do not feel like your own until you paint it. Here's the recommendations in terms of colors:

• We are really getting away from Grey. Everything has been grey, grey, grey; the floor, the wall, the house, the carpet, for a long time.

• Things are warming up in the house. We're going away from cooler tones and more towards warm, warm whites, creamy whites, bright whites and more towards an earth toned palette. 

• I'm recommending all of my sellers to paint things a bright white, because natural light is obviously extremely important. People are spending more time than ever at home, so if you don't have a lot of big windows, natural light, you have to moderate light in a space yourself. 

• I think at the end of this decade we're going to see light tan being really popular, because we're just going into more of those earthy shades.

Dark, very moody colors:

• We're seeing a lot of dark blue and a ton of dark green and even black.

• A moody color can make a space feel bigger and also just make it feel cozy and inviting

• People are still loving an accent wall; Dark and moody colors are great for that!

Light is so important because so many of us are working from home and our big trips are canceled. We need that natural light to boost our moods.

To summarize all this paint talk up, let’s talk about our prediction for color of the year. A lot of the major paint companies come out with a color of the year every year. At the end of this month, Sherwin-Williams is going to announce their 2020 color of the year. My guess is that it's going to be some sort of green, more of an earthy mossy green.

*Painting is one of those fairly easy, inexpensive things that can make a really big impact that we talk about back in Episode 4 as well.

All about trends: Grand Millennial.

I’ve been asked recently “how should I style my house”, not necessarily what improvements do I need to make. I'd say modern-farmhouse is the way to go, which absolutely originated with fixer upper and the whole Joanna Gaines movement. Black hardware mixed with some whiter, cleaner patterns, appeals to a larger audience. Both modern-farmhouse and mid-century have really dominated how we've decorated our homes. And that's extremely popular still with millennials today. 

There's also been a movement back towards shopping vintage or thrifting and not buying everything new. In those ways, traditional and vintage style is coming back. There's actually a term for this that I just recently heard, which is called “grand millennial” style. Basically this term implies that it's like your grandma's house… vintage rugs, blue and white China, ginger jars, and all of that stuff. I love seeing the modern hardware finishes like the cabinets, the woodwork, etcetera, mixed with softer elements such as rugs or art pieces on the wall being vintage. 

The Millennial Buyer

When we look at what millennials want, they essentially want to know what they're getting. They want to know that you're kind of in touch with what's “in” right now and hopefully that there's not a lot of money that needs to be put into making it look current. The overall vibe appears to be neutral, light, and balanced; which sounds pretty good in times like these.

You're now up to speed on what millennial buyers are looking for in the housing market!

Until next week!

Brianna & Keelie