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Thinking of selling in Summer?

Summer is such a vibrant time to sell. Long, warm days and blooming gardens really benefit your home in the selling process.  Here are just a few easy and effective ways you can make your home bright, tidy and enticing for the Summer market!

1) Prepare The Exterior Of Your Home For Summer

  1. Mow the lawn and keep it watered (the smell of freshly cut grass is very nostalgic!)
  2. Trim bushes and shrubs & keep plants hydrated
  3. Weed
  4. Touch up peeling exterior paint – window panes etc
  5. Paint and/or clean up the front door and step

2) Make Your Outdoor Space An Inviting One

Tidy up any area that could work as an optimal outdoor social/living/dining space – We’re talking outdoor BBQ area, deck or patio – this can also be an area you can have staged! Talk to one of our agents about their go-to staging companies.  Showcasing an area such as this to potential buyers creates an idyllic and coveted area that they will hopefully be able to picture themselves enjoying with their own friends and family!

3) Keep Your Home Cool and Comfortable

Make sure you have at least a couple of windows open at each end of your house. If your home is equipped with air conditioning (especially if it is advertised as a chattel), make sure it’s performing efficiently and has been serviced recently by a professional HVAC technician. If your homes is without central air conditioning, turning on ceiling fans, keeping lights off and blinds drawn prior to showings are all tricks to keeping the airflow at a comfortable level.

4) Stage The Home To Reflect The Season

Staging is proven to enhance the appearance of a home, which can make a positive impact on a seller’s decision. While there are great staging companies that our agents can recommend, there are a few things you can do on a low budget yourself to enhance areas. Bright flowers on a dining room table, flowers in a window box, and having summer scented candles are all relatively simple and cheap, but can make a home stand out, and smell delicious!

If you’re thinking of selling this Summer, your Holmwood agent is the best person to talk to about ways you can enhance your home for viewings. Get in touch for a non-obligation marketing proposal and some tips on styling your home!
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What Makes a Great Real Estate Agent?

What makes a GREAT real estate sales consultant?

Not all agents have a background in sales, and at Harcourts Holmwood our agents have diverse professional backgrounds, all of which form a kaleidoscope of knowledge, creativity, and work ethic. While sales are a big part of the role, there are common personal attributes and expert qualities that many of our agents share.

Our pro-active, honest and reliable agents are the real packhorses of the industry, wearing many hats at various phases of the process; they are a buyer’s representative, a business manager, a consultant, a negotiator, a marketer, an open-home chauffeur, a lawn-mower and an over-arching guide to ensuring informed decisions are made in an ever-changing market.

Agents form such strong ties with their clients through the real-estate process that often they become friends, going on to sell multiple properties through existing links.

Some of the key ingredients we’ve learnt make a great agent are below:

Problem solvers:

  • Coming up with creative solutions to problems or issues and having a clear purpose and mind-set is imperative. Also, it is crucial to be constantly surrounded by positive reinforcement. Surrounding themselves with positive people increase chances of success.

Self-motivated:

  • Having the drive to control your professional success and be your own boss is a common trait shared by top real estate professionals. To be successful in real estate requires a high degree of self-motivation, ambition and smart decision making.

Honesty and integrity:

  • This is a valuable one. Professional reputation is crucial to a long and successful career in real estate. The REAA have clear guidelines to ensure real-estate professionals as well as buyers and sellers are protected with regards to honesty and integrity.

Enjoy the hustle:

  • Being a great real estate agent requires great work ethic. You must have the tenacity to pursue every lead and the hustle to aggressively market your clients’ properties in order to facilitate success. Sometimes this may place you outside your comfort zone. At Holmwood, we have regular training sessions and seminars that will help to grow your confidence and knowledge.
  • This may seem obvious, however having a deep interest in property and architecture goes a long way! Some of our agents are qualified builders and drafts-people, while many also help with styling their clients’ homes ready for photography and the sale process. A sound interest in the industry is always noticed, knowledge and interest level is apparent in conversations, caring passionately about your industry goes a long way.

Be engaging!

  • This follows on from the previous point: Have an engaging personality! A good real estate agent does not just sell properties – they sell dreams, they sell aspirations, and they sell themselves. It’s important to show your true self. People will respond well if you are enthusiastic, have a great attitude, are personable and honest, have confidence in your abilities, and are interested in genuinely helping them to realise their real-estate goal.

Pay attention to your clients as people:

  • A successful real estate agent is attentive to the unique needs of their individual clients. Being organised, following up leads, communicating well, and paying attention to their needs is crucial for a long and fruitful relationship with a client.

Understand the local housing market:

  • Know how the market stands locally, but also how it reacts to wider situations and unforeseen events, which is now especially true!

Being a network builder:

  • Successful real estate agents have an extensive but curated network of contacts within the market they serve. This list of connections should include strong relationships with other real estate agents, mortgage specialists, and all the other players in the real estate industry, such as appraisers, home inspectors, right down to gardeners and electricians!

Be ready to constantly upskill!

  • Continuing education and professional development will always assist in any trade or profession, real estate is no exception – in order to stay at the forefront of your industry it is important to stay one step ahead.

Real estate is like any career at the end of the day, you get out what you put in. There is a level of investment needed (time, energy, drive and dedication) to make any business venture successful, but if you are passionate about real estate and helping people realise their dreams it can certainly be extremely rewarding.

To find out how you can begin your real estate career at Harcourts Holmwood, click here

 

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All you need to know about Pop Up Penguins

Find everything you need to know about our cute penguin friends here!

Wild in Art is bringing a second sculpture trail to Christchurch this summer. In partnership with Presenting Partner, Harcourts and with the support of many other sponsors and funders, Pop Up Penguins will give residents and visitors a fresh opportunity to discover and delight in all that makes Ōtautahi special.

The public art trail will include 50 large and five smaller penguin sculptures, sponsored by companies and decorated by established and emerging artists, along with 65 little penguins, decorated by schools as part of the Pop Up Penguins Learning Programme. This is a great opportunity for all of us to get out and about in our city this summer and be surprised by the creativity of not only our artists, but also the children from local schools who have been involved in the creation of some sculptures. The designs and their implementation is truly amazing.

The sculpture trail will run from 29 November – 31 January, download the app (Pop Up Penguins 2020) to find all the information you need. With the app you can collect penguins, unlock rewards, find out more about the designs and the artists, and view your trail progress. You can also download the trail map here.

After nine weeks, out and about in Christchurch, the street sized penguins will be auctioned to raise awareness and much needed funds for Christchurch’s very own Cholmondeley Children’s Centre. So, if there is a special penguin that steals your heart, register for the auction scheduled for Tuesday 16 February 2021 and you could be the lucky owner once the summer trail wraps up. But until then we all have the opportunity to enjoy the penguins, challenge ourselves to find and photograph as many as we can along the trail, and learn a bit more about issues threatening penguins including climate change.

Pop Up Penguins is guaranteed to bring a smile to all our faces after a challenging year for our community, NZ and the world.

Holmwood penguin – UNDERCOVER

This not so little penguin has been selected and sponsored by the Holmwood team. We are very proud to be part of this wonderful event, after literally months of work by the organisers, artists and schools. The talented artist in charge of bringing ‘Undercover Penguin’ to colourful life is Jo Ogier. Jo is passionate about the natural world around her. Her work reflects a strong conservational and ecological tie with nature, as well as her deep love and connection to the environment.

You can find our new favourite and cute summer friend in the Merivale Mall. So, if you are around visiting, we would love to see some of your photos. Just tag our Facebook or Instagram account or add the hashtag #harcourtsholmwood or #holmwood.

Activity Book: If you visit Undercover at the Merivale Mall, make sure to scan it with your phone. This will give you a code stating you have visited it and you can pick up the Activity book from any of our five offices.  Your kids will love it! Something fun to do over the holidays.

Dance like a penguin COMPETITION

Because these friends are just too cute and we cannot avoid waddling every time we talk about them, Harcourts Canterbury is running a ‘Dance Like a Penguin’ competition. So, get your happy feet out! There are 5 family passes to the International Antarctic Centre to give away. You just need to send in your best dance/waddle like a penguin video to be in to win one of these awesome prizes (entry for 2 adults and up to 6 children along with a $60 café voucher). Message your video entries to Harcourts Canterbury Facebook page. Video entries close Sunday 13th December so invite your penguin colony to your place and get out filming your waddling!

You can read the T&Cs by clicking here.