By Melissa Dittmann Tracey
LAS VEGAS – Check the lists below to see if any of your listings include any of these home features. If so, you might have an extra selling point to attract buyers. According to the National Association of Home Builders’ Consumer Preferences survey, these are the features most in demand among today’s buyers.
Top 5 Kitchen Features
1. Walk in pantry: 86 percent
2. Island work area: 80 percent
3. Special use storage (custom made for appliances): 66 percent
4. Built-in microwave: 72 percent
5. Drinking water filtration: 69 percent
Top 5 Bathroom Features
1. Linen closet: 89 percent
2. Exhaust fan: 88 percent
3. Separate shower enclosure: 79 percent
4. Water temperature control: 79 percent
5. Whirlpool tub: 66 percent
Top 5 Specialty Areas
1. Laundry room: 92 percent
2. Dining room: 81 percent
3. Home office: 71 percent
4. Den/library: 63 percent
5. Sun room: 53 percent
Top 5 Decorative Features
1. Ceiling fan: 83 percent
2. Built-in shelving: 70 percent
3. Window seats: 51 percent
4. Woodburning fireplace: 48 percent
5. Gas fireplace: 48 percent
Top 5 Community Features Preferred
1. Walking/jogging trails: 49 percent
2. Park area: 46 percent
3. Outdoor swimming pool: 39 percent
4. Lake: 34 percent
5. Playgrounds: 32 percent
Friday, April 17, 2009
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Color Psychology: Choose the Right Color for Your Listings
By Melissa Dittmann Tracey
Is there a science behind selecting the right colors for your listings? In this month’s Realtor® Magazine, I spoke with experts in the field of design psychology to learn how the color on the walls may affect buyers’ moods. (Read the article: “Can Color Cost You a Sale?”)
For years, psychological research has been offering insights into how the brain reacts to color choices. Such research is often tapped by the marketing field in making products more desirable to buyers.
Can these same studies be applied to motivating such big purchases as a home? It’s a leap, but at a subconscious level, certain colors on walls may evoke buyers who enter a home to feel more welcoming and even warmer (which may be particularly nice for rooms in chilly areas of the home).
A recent study by lead researcher Juliet Zhu of the University of British Columbia found that red seems to improve attention to detail. (The findings appeared this month in the journal Science.) The researchers speculated that we’re taught at a young age that red means danger so red might slow us down and prompt us to zoom in on details (so would that make it a good choice for, say, surrounding the fireplace or to bring out other key details in your listing?).
While color preferences and psychological responses vary, research has revealed some of the following commonalities, according to The Rohm and Haas Paint Quality Institute and Architects Design Group (also included below is suggestions of what rooms the color may work best in).
Red: Increases energy and heart rate, creates excitement and stimulates the appetite. Best for: Dining rooms
Orange: Adds comfort, warmth, and cheerfulness and too much can bring about feelings of cautiousness. Best for: Living rooms and Read more
Is there a science behind selecting the right colors for your listings? In this month’s Realtor® Magazine, I spoke with experts in the field of design psychology to learn how the color on the walls may affect buyers’ moods. (Read the article: “Can Color Cost You a Sale?”)
For years, psychological research has been offering insights into how the brain reacts to color choices. Such research is often tapped by the marketing field in making products more desirable to buyers.
Can these same studies be applied to motivating such big purchases as a home? It’s a leap, but at a subconscious level, certain colors on walls may evoke buyers who enter a home to feel more welcoming and even warmer (which may be particularly nice for rooms in chilly areas of the home).
A recent study by lead researcher Juliet Zhu of the University of British Columbia found that red seems to improve attention to detail. (The findings appeared this month in the journal Science.) The researchers speculated that we’re taught at a young age that red means danger so red might slow us down and prompt us to zoom in on details (so would that make it a good choice for, say, surrounding the fireplace or to bring out other key details in your listing?).
While color preferences and psychological responses vary, research has revealed some of the following commonalities, according to The Rohm and Haas Paint Quality Institute and Architects Design Group (also included below is suggestions of what rooms the color may work best in).
Red: Increases energy and heart rate, creates excitement and stimulates the appetite. Best for: Dining rooms
Orange: Adds comfort, warmth, and cheerfulness and too much can bring about feelings of cautiousness. Best for: Living rooms and Read more
Monday, April 13, 2009
How Design Psychology Can Help You Lure Buyers
By Constance Forrest and Susan Painter
Design psychology is a subject you know something about, even if this is the first time you’re hearing about it.
When we’re asked what design psychology is, our best sound bite comes from the world of real estate. When helping a buyer find a house, after going on “The Journey of Many Houses,” have you ever had the experience of walking through the door of the umpteenth house and being overwhelmed with the feeling: “YES! This is the house!”—before you’ve even seen all the rooms?!
Most people make the decision to buy a home having spent less than 20 minutes inside it.
But why? What makes a house just seem “right” to a client so quickly?
As psychologists, we want to know what gives someone the “YES!” feeling — and as designers, we want to know how we can create it — every time. For real estate practitioners, getting to “Yes” means making the perfect match between client and property.
Design psychology is the only approach to design and architecture that recognizes our responses to the physical world are essentially emotional in nature.
At ForrestPainter Design, we’ve adapted psychological interview and testing methods to let us understand our design clients’ emotional responses to the physical world. And then we use that wealth of information to design ideal spaces for them.
Over the next few months, REALTOR® Magazine’s Styled, Staged and Sold blog will have information from the fields of psychology, neurobiology, immunology, and design that can help your clients satisfy that deepest of desires: to live in a house that is truly a home.
TRY THIS TECHNIQUE
In order to get to ‘YES!”, you need to know more about your client than the number of bedrooms and bathrooms they want in a house. To know what their ideal home would look like — ask them!
We use a technique we call “Castles in the Air.” Read more
Design psychology is a subject you know something about, even if this is the first time you’re hearing about it.
When we’re asked what design psychology is, our best sound bite comes from the world of real estate. When helping a buyer find a house, after going on “The Journey of Many Houses,” have you ever had the experience of walking through the door of the umpteenth house and being overwhelmed with the feeling: “YES! This is the house!”—before you’ve even seen all the rooms?!
Most people make the decision to buy a home having spent less than 20 minutes inside it.
But why? What makes a house just seem “right” to a client so quickly?
As psychologists, we want to know what gives someone the “YES!” feeling — and as designers, we want to know how we can create it — every time. For real estate practitioners, getting to “Yes” means making the perfect match between client and property.
Design psychology is the only approach to design and architecture that recognizes our responses to the physical world are essentially emotional in nature.
At ForrestPainter Design, we’ve adapted psychological interview and testing methods to let us understand our design clients’ emotional responses to the physical world. And then we use that wealth of information to design ideal spaces for them.
Over the next few months, REALTOR® Magazine’s Styled, Staged and Sold blog will have information from the fields of psychology, neurobiology, immunology, and design that can help your clients satisfy that deepest of desires: to live in a house that is truly a home.
TRY THIS TECHNIQUE
In order to get to ‘YES!”, you need to know more about your client than the number of bedrooms and bathrooms they want in a house. To know what their ideal home would look like — ask them!
We use a technique we call “Castles in the Air.” Read more
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