Expect to see emerald everywhere — Pantone’s 2013 color queen.

Goodbye Tangerine Tango. Hello emerald, Pantone’s 2013 color of the year.

Why emerald, or as Pantone’s swatch names it: 17-5641?

“Green is the most abundant hue in nature — the human eye sees more green than any other color in the spectrum,” says Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, a color consultant to corporations.

Eiseman says emerald sparkles, fascinates, and “brings a sense of clarity, renewal, and rejuvenation, which is so important in today’s complex world.”

Tangerine Tango, last year’s color queen (and my new favorite hue), was a pinkish orange that packed an energy punch. 2013’s emerald is a vivid, verdant green that “enhances our sense of well-being … promoting balance and harmony,” Pantone says.

Expect to see the color on everything from kitchen colors to gas grills to $25 commemorative mugs.

Emerald green: love it or hate it?

Read more: http://www.houselogic.com/blog/painting/pantone-color-of-2013-emerald/#ixzz2LvWTXrFR

Why the Newest listings for Evansville Sometimes Aren't!

You are doing some serious house-hunting.

You’ve been Googling ‘newest local listings’, but when you click on the most popular sites, somehow the ‘newest local listings’ are the same ones you’ve seen before. Worse, some of them turn out to have been sold! Or the price was wrong! Or the agent isn’t even the agent anymore!

What is going on? Doesn’t Google (or Bing, or Yahoo!) promise to show you sites with the newest listings in Evansville? How can the most popular sites (at the top of their results page: Zillow, Realty.com, Trulia) be showing ‘newest listings’ that were sold last month? Or contact numbers that take you to an answering machine that never calls back?

The answer is not mysterious, but it can take a while to catch on. The top of the search engine results pages show the biggest national real estate sites because they target the national audience (and pay huge amounts to the search engines!). Hundreds of thousands of house-hunters click on them all the time because everyone in the country sees them first.

The disappointment comes because of the near impossibility of their keeping current in every locality in the U.S. They can’t keep up with the avalanche of changes: changes in the asking price; changes in the listing agent; changes in availability. That becomes obvious when your contacts return a ‘home under contract,’ or ‘property sold,’ or – infuriatingly -- silence.

The good news is that the solution is just a couple of lines lower on those Bing or Google search results. Serious buyers do figure it out eventually, and look down the search engine listings to find a web address that looks more like it connects with a local real estate brokerage. That leads to listings overseen by local businesspeople who deal every day with the homes their pages show. When they change, local agents know it first.

Even better for you, you’re already here – a click away from what you are looking for – and just one click more from my invitation to visit the newest listings in Evansville! You can search all area listings here: http://thetrentiniteam.com/property_search

The Calling Card That Can Sell a Home

Your yard is your local home's calling card. A dated or overgrown yard can be a huge turnoff to potential buyers – just as an appealing one can trump other objections.

Landscape designer Cynthia Bee knows this well. "Landscaping often makes the difference,” she says, “between a prospective buyer getting out of the car for a closer look or simply driving on by."

The same goes for Internet prospects as they scan through listings in search of a local home to buy. An unappealing yard can detract from your all-important curbside glamour photo -- and cause them ‘to drive on by’ your listing. The backyard is not as important in attracting buyers, but often proves vital in holding their enthusiasm.

To help sell a home in Evansville this spring, right now is prime time to consider some yard-focused dos and don’ts:

DON’T allow ornamentation designed to create character -- that ‘character’ may be hard for prospective buyers to see past. In this category are mirrored globes, plastic fauna, and (definitely) gnomes of all varieties.

DO consider maintenance issues when you plan front and backyard updates. To sell a local home that appeals to the widest swath of prospects, avoid intricate garden plantings that shout, Weed me! Water me! Trim me!

DON’T let original planting design make an otherwise appealing property feel dated. It used to be considered elegant to have flat-toped and rounded bushes alongside pathways – but that was the 50’s. Today, the vast majority of buyers appreciate the natural look (and native plants).

DO consider who your likeliest prospects will be – and how your yard will fit their family. If you are going to sell a home with four bedrooms, a back yard with plenty of playing space for the kids is a good idea.

Sometimes it can be the smallest details that determine how quickly you sell ahome. It’s my job to help in figuring out which and what those are likely to be. If you are getting ready to sell a home in Evansville, I hope you will call me to put my knowledge to work! You can reach me on my cell phone at 812-499-9234 or email Rolando@RolandoTrentini.com

Kitchen Ideas Make an Attractive Listing

The importance of kitchens to prospective homebuyers is something that never seems to change. If you are preparing to bring your home onto the market anytime soon, you’ve probably been thinking about how to make your listing as attractive as possible. Odds are good that updating your kitchen (with an attractive photo or two) is somewhere near the top of your to-do list. An inviting kitchen rivals curb appeal in creating a superior MLS listing, so if you’re noodling a remodel of your home’s core, you will be interested in these trends for 2013.

 

About that linoleum from the 1970’s: it’s time to say good-bye. Kitchen experts agree that hardwood floors remain a hot kitchen remodeling trend…and there are a few fresh twists we can expect to start appearing more frequently in local listings. Interior designer Cami Weinstein says, "I am starting to see lighter shades of wood floors again - something that hasn't been seen in a while.” The washed-wood floors are back from the 80’s and 90’s -- but with wider planks and hand scraping that creates a less formal, beachy feel.

 

Award-winning designer Kathleen Donohue points to a newer trend: re-facing cabinets rather than replacing them. People are watching their spending, and simply re-facing (the process of simply changing cabinet doors while maintaining the original cabinet structure) is a much less expensive option than total rebuilding. Freeing up remodeling dollars is a definite plus.

 

Adding to the trend toward thrift-consciousness, expect kitchen features that do double-duty – conserving precious kitchen space in the process. Examples are microwaves that double as second ovens and/or warming drawers, and refrigerators with convertible drawers that can act as fridge, freezer, or wine fridge. Either should be a great selling feature in local MLS listings. Especially if your home has a smaller kitchen, multi-taskers like those are valuable ideas.

 

Spring, 2013 is shaping up as a great time to sell. I offer complimentary and confidential evaluations all the time, so if you’re considering listing your home this year, give me a call… we can start in the kitchen! You can reach me on my cell phone at 812-499-9234.

Your year round housing checklist

There is a long list of household chores the beginning of each season. If you break it down with one chore a day and bundle a short, easy list on a day off from work, then it can become manageable. After all, you can only eat an elephant one bite at a time!

So first, think of your personality. If you put the worst chore first, would you be happy to get that one over with, or would you simply never start working on the list at all? Order the list to fit your comfort zone.

Spring

• Walk around the yard and take a notebook with you. Write down any lawn or outdoor buildings which require maintenance. Be sure to make specific notes, so you will not be scratching your head later trying to figure out your notes. Remember painting as well.
• Get rid of all the old stuff you have not used in a year. Garage sales are great motivators.
• Switch the clothes in the closet from heavy winter to spring.
• Check the roof. Are there any loose or deteriorating shingles? Are the gutters in need of repair?
• The outdoor furniture is calling; pull it out of storage and enjoy watching the flowers begin to grow!

Summer

• It may seem silly to think of the upcoming frost, but checking the furnace or heaters now makes sense, instead of having a failure at the worst possible moment.
• Check the screens on all the doors and the assemblies for the sliding glass doors.
• If you use contractors for replacing gutters and other outside household services, now is actually the time to take advantage of that. The fall is when they are typically the most busy.
• The kids will be spending a lot of time on the swing set, is it well maintained?

Fall

• The leaves are falling, sigh, time to rake. Make the activity more festive and have a contest to see which family member can gather the most. Remember the gutters!
• When is the last time you checked the insulation in the attic? Do any shingles need replacement after the summer sun?
• Now is the time to aerate the soil, in the front and back yards.

Winter

• It’s a perfect time to get a lot of the detailed “spring” cleaning done inside the house. Holidays are approaching and folks will be dropping by for short visits and lengthy meals. Move furniture, vacuum underneath, check the foyer closet for clutter, to make room for heavy coats and umbrellas. Give the whole house a white glove test!
• Change clothes in the closet from summer to winter.
• Check supplies to keep the walks free of ice; shovel, dry ice, salt, etc.
• Check decorations for the holidays.

Source: http://www.paramountequity.com/blog/2013/02/your-year-round-checklist/

For-Sale Home Inventories Remain Tight

Inventory levels in 2012 reached an 11-year low and fell yet again last month, further limiting the number of homes for sale nationwide. Inventories of for-sale homes were down by 16.5 percent in January year-over-year, and fell 5.6 percent from December, according to the latest data compiled from Realtor.com.

Inventories typically fall in December and January in preparation of the spring buying season.

“But the shortage of homes for sale in a growing number of U.S. markets is maddening for would-be buyers who frequently complain that there aren’t enough good choices,” The Wall Street Journal reports. “Bidding wars are becoming more common.”

At a time when buyer demand is strong, inventories remain constrained as banks slow their pace of foreclosures and home owners delay selling until they regain more equity in their homes.

Metro areas posting some of the largest monthly declines in inventory levels are San Francisco (where inventory levels are down by 21 percent in January compared to December and down 47 percent year-over-year) as well as Seattle (where levels dropped 9 percent from December). The two have also seen some of the largest price increases in the nation. Median asking prices have risen by 16.4 percent and 23.7 percent in those places, respectively.

Source: “Housing Inventory, Already Low, Dropped Further in January,” The Wall Street Journal

If a Home Gets Hit by a Meteor, Who Pays?

After a meteor struck western Siberia and more meteors threatened the entire globe on Friday, CNNMoney asked the question: Who pays for damage to a home if hit by a space object?

Rest easy, “your insurance covers falling objects," says Robert Hartwig, president of the Insurance Information Institute. In the rare events when meteors have crashed through home owners’ roofs over the years, insurers have paid the damage for those insured, Hartwig says.

“Blue ice” — the frozen sewage that sometimes falls from airplanes — is more common and is also covered if it falls from the sky onto your home, Hartwig told CNNMoney.

A remnant of a meteor struck in the Urals region of western Siberia Friday injuring more than 700 people and damaging nearly 300 buildings. It was referred to as a “once-in-a-century” event.

"The earth is pelted with 40 tons of space debris a year," says Laurie Leshin, a former NASA scientist. "Most of that is in teeny dust particles" and rarely does it injure people or damage property.

Source: “Who Pays for Damage From a Meteor?” CNNMoney (Feb. 15, 2013)