HGTV's Designed to Sell Offers Great Real Estate Advice

Designed to Sell on HGTV takes viewers on a quick trip through home redoes that ensure homes on the market will sell more quickly and for more money. Home makeover shows have captured the American audience. Designed to Sell puts a twist on the traditional makeover show by teaching viewers how they can add big bucks to the bottom line value of their home. Each show is full of interior design ideas, home improvement projects, and real estate insider secrets.

Each show beings with the host Clive Pearse walking Shannon Freeman, a real estate agent, through the home they will be renovating. Shannon Freemon is completely honest in her assessment of the house. Beginning with the outside she begins to point out strengths and weakness of the property. Great architectural detail always gets a thumbs up, while plain homes quickly receive her verbal wrath. Shannon also accesses the state of repair the home is in. Rickety railings and peeling paint clearly do little to impress this savvy real estate agent. While Shannon is assessing the property the homeowners are watching a recording of her comments. While honesty is not always appreciated, it definitely is here. Owners want the most money for there property and now they know what they need to do to get it.

After being assessed, the home begins its redesign under the care of resident designer Lisa LaPorta. Lisa LaPorta hails from Los Angeles, California. She graduated from UCLA's Department of Environmental Design. Her design style is strong and practical. Although Lisa is tiny in size, her ideas are huge. Taking into account Shannon's assessment of the property, Lisa organizes her team of experts and the homeowners and they tackle home improvement projects and interior design issues.

Designed to Sell acknowledges that many homeowners do not want to invest a lot of money into a home they are trying to move out of, so each show is given a $2000 budget. With this small budget, Lisa and her team try to make the home the hottest property in the neighborhood.

Home Improvement Projects

In the episode titled Completing Home Projects, Lisa and her team tackle a myriad of home improvement projects begun by the homeowners. Ellen and Chris DeVrieze began working on what they thought would be their dream home, but now they are moving and the projects are still incomplete. Incomplete projects scare potential buyers away and they should be completed at all costs to increase the bottom line of the home. Lisa and her team show viewers how to retile a back splash, lay laminate self-adhesive floor tiles, and how to hang crown molding and door molding. By the end of the episode all projects are complete and Ellen and Chris DeVrieze are ready to receive a great offer on their home.

Interior Design Ideas

In the first episode, entitled '70's Home Update, Lisa and her team tackled some major interior design issues that many older home have: dark wood paneling, years of clutter, and outdated carpet.

Removing clutter from your home is a must do when you are selling your house. This is one of the single most important tasks a homeowner can do while selling their home. Clutter tells potential buyers that they will not have enough room for their own belongings. Clutter also prevents potential buyers from really seeing your home. Buyers cannot see your beautiful hardwood floors if they are covered in toys and clutter. Homeowners Jani and Rick Geary from '70's Home Update held a yard sale to remove the clutter so that they could begin to update their home's interior. In other episodes, homeowners de-clutter by beginning to pack and moving the boxes out of the house to a storage unit or their new home.

Create open spaces. Buyers want open living spaces. Most buyers will tell you they do not want to be separated from their family while they are preparing meals, hence the popularity of the kitchen and great room combination. The team removed upper cabinets in Jani and Rick Geary's kitchen that divided it from the family room. This created an open modern floor plan that homebuyers look for.

Remove dark wood paneling. Painting over the wood paneling in the home creates a lighter and brighter contemporary setting. Wood paneling can date a house and turn away potential buyers. Lisa and her team also removed the old navy blue carpet throughout the home and installed a lighter neutral beige color. These steps add valuable light inside the home.

Update fixtures. In almost every episode Lisa and her crew replace outdated light fixtures as well as faucets and mirrors. Replacing fixtures is an inexpensive way to instantly update the look and feel of a home.

Real estate Insider Secrets

Highlight architectural features. Shannon Freeman encourages buyers to carefully consider furniture placement. This is not the time for what works for your family, but for what works to highlight the best features in you home. It is your job to do the work for the prospective buyers. Furniture placement creates flow through the home and can accent great architectural features through out the house. Creating cozy sitting areas that draw the eye towards features such as fireplaces and architectural detail can make your house a hot commodity to buyers. This is the time to remove any unneeded furniture that is making your house look small or poorly laid out.

Character is a must. According to Shannon freeman, "Character equals money." If your home is plain, then the owners need to create some charm to really make their house stand out in the real estate market. Highlighting existing over looked character or creating new character will bring in the money. To save money highlight or further develop any charming qualities your home may have.

Create a clear purpose in each room. Everyone has a junk room where all the leftover furniture you did not know where to place ends up. This is a huge don't when you are trying to sell your home. Remove the clutter and assign one purpose to the room. Create a home office, gym, or guest bedroom. Remember, you must think for the buyer.

Create a great first impression. First impressions set the tone for the entire visit. A great landscaped yard or a fabulous front door can be great deal closers. Buyers will make their judgments of the home in the first minute. Do not waste this opportunity. It is a lot easier to start with a great first impression than it is to try to recover from a bad first impression. Lack of care to the outside of the home will lead buyers to believe that this condition is true through out the home.

Designed to Sell incorporates all of this advice into a weekly thirty minute show that can be viewed on HGTV on Tuesday nights at 8:00pm eastern standard time. This is a useful and educational show whether you are in the market to sell your home or would really like some ideas to revamp your current home.