New Secret Weapon to Sell a Home Fast Include Green Features

For Immediate Release Contact: Norma Lehmeier Hartie

914-739-8966 norma@HarmoniousEnvironment.com

To sell your home fast in a buyer's market, the most important factor is pricing the home correctly. But, once that's done, the seller must make their home stand out positively in other ways. It is a given that your home is clean, clutter-free, and looking its absolute best. Adding green features and making ecofriendly improvements are the hot new ways to make your home stand out over others to sell it quickly and for the best possible price.

According to Carson Matthews, associate broker and EcoBroker in Atlanta, green certified homes are selling closer to the list price in a much shorter time period than non-certified homes are selling. In 2009, the average green certified home sold in 106 days compared to the non-certified average of 186. While these figures are for the Atlanta market, anecdotal evidence suggests the same holds true in other markets.

Supporting the concept that green features sell homes are the results of Better Homes and Gardens' "Next Home Survey for 2010," which reveals what consumers want in their next home and their overall priorities for home improvement projects. An astonishing 87 percent of respondents said a greener, more energy efficient home is a priority.

Learn which green improvements to make and all the other secrets to selling your home quickly in 9 easy steps with the new book, Sell Your Home Fast in a Buyer's Market: Secrets from an Expert Green Feng Shui Staging Designer. The book reveals how to create a home that buyers desire and want to buy. The steps include what it takes to make the seller's home look and feel great—tips that will sell the home. The book also provides information on selling the home for the best price. It is the first in its subject to address the hot new sought-after green home improvements and features to sell the buyer's home fast

"Sell Your Home Fast in a Buyer's Market is a must for anyone selling their home in today's tough economy. In addition to exploring the importance of pricing your home right, staging, de-cluttering and Feng Shui, Hartie advises what eco-friendly improvements to make that will appeal to buyers. I highly recommend this book if you want to sell your home quickly and for the most money possible."

Barbara Corcoran, Real Estate Mogul, Business Consultant and Speaker

Norma Lehmeier Hartie is the author of Harmonious Environment: Beautify, Detoxify & Energize Your Life, Your Home & Your Planet, which was The Grand Prize Winner of The 15^th Annual Writer's Digest Book Awards, Best New Non-Fiction USA National Best Books 2008 and a Finalist in your
Book of the Year Awards. Hartie is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence and Parsons School of Design and has been an interior designer for over 20 years. She is the creator of the practice of Harmonious Adjustments™. Ms. Hartie resides an hour from NYC.

Sell Your Home Fast in a Buyer's Market: Secrets from an Expert Green Feng Shui Staging Designer by Norma Lehmeier Hartie.

ISBN: 978-0-9779633-1-7 Softcover * Real Estate * March 9, 2010 * 232 pages * $19.95 * 6" x 9"

Lingham Press, http://www.linghampress.com

Why Go Green to Sell Your Home?

"Green" is in. Green is also rapidly becoming mainstream. However, learning about what is or is not eco-friendly can be time consuming, intimidating, frustrating, and misleading. But relax…this chapter will introduce you to what green means, why it's important and how to make eco-friendly changes to help sell your home. My hope is that when you see how easy it is to make green choices in the home you are selling, you will also want to make them in your new place.

Greening up your home will give you an advantage over much of your competition, which will sell your home faster.

All the agents I interviewed were enthusiastic about green features and believe the addition of them helps sell homes faster. Make sure your agent is just as enthusiastic, as that excitement will be conveyed to buyers which can encourage them to buy your home!

Benefits to Adding Green Features to your Home:

• Make it more energy efficient. That means utility bills are reduced and money is saved. Buyers want to save money!
  
• Improve air quality, which makes the environment healthier for inhabitants.
  
• Make your home worth more money.
  
• Make your home more desirable, because people want green features.
  
• Make your home more desirable because green is hip and current and buyers want whatever is new.
  

There are a number of factors that will help to determine what green features to make in the home you are selling. Almost anyone can make minor, eco-friendly home improvements that will make a home more desirable. Major changes—like adding a geothermal pump or solar panels—would make sense only under certain circumstances and will be explored in the next Step.

If you are putting your home on the market in the future and have some time before you sell it, adding insulation, new windows and other energy efficient changes can prove to be extremely beneficial. You will be able to show how much money you have saved by making these changes. If you have less time, however, you may still make energy efficient changes, as you can compare energy used in your home to comparable homes. I highly recommend you ask your agent what eco-friendly improvements they are seeing in comparable homes.

Why Going Green is Essential

If all the talk about words like eco-friendly, green, sustainability and so on has gotten you confused, you are not alone. For all the good information that's available, there is an equal amount of misinformation. The following section presents what I hope will be an easy to understand explanation of what green really means and why it is so important for the survival of the planet and its inhabitants.

I understand that you don't need to know why it is important for our health and the planet to sell your home, but it is my hope that, if you are new to this subject, you will see why it's important and you will want to make these changes for both your current and future homes.