2010 May — Silicon Valley Real Estate: Home Buying, Home Selling & Getting Your House Ready to Sell

A to Z Construction Contractors & Service Providers: G: Granite Shops in the San Jose CA area

May 18, 2010 By Kelsey Lane 4 Comments

I went years thinking that you had to pay at least $10,000 to put gorgeous granite into a kitchen. Not true friends! I have now successfully put granite into many residences for anywhere from $900 to $2000. The trick is to use pre-fab pieces. The drawback is that you are typically limited to about 10 choices or less in terms of stone type & color when you are trying to stay within a reasonable budget for your remodeling construction project. It’s worth it for one fifth the cost though! Pre-fab granite shops all tend to carry pretty much the same inventory & they display showroom samples. A lot of them are over off of Brokaw in San Jose CA, but one of our favorites is in South San Jose CA. They tend to carry long rectangular pieces (different dimensions, but usually about 96” long). They also carry backsplashes and some carry prefab island pieces. The island pieces often need to be cut on one side to fit your specific size – then you can pay extra to have the cut side fabricated. Fabricating is what jacks up the price, so whenever it can be avoided, that’s best. However, it doesn’t break the bank – fabricating one side of a narrow island (having it polished into a bullnose, for example) would run about $100 or so. Another way to save on the project is to use a top mount, drop in sink. If you use an undermount, you need to have the sink hole fabricated/polished which can run as high as $400 just for that. Here are our favorite inexpensive granite shops for your remodeling construction needs – this information is worth its weight in gold! Here goes:

KWW, 1090 N. 7th Street, San Jose CA 408-289-8838
KZ Kitchen Cabinet & Stone, 2128 N. 1st Street, San Jose CA 408-441-1288
Deco, 950 McLaughlin Ave., San Jose CA 408-947-1188
Union Stone, 2201 Lafayette Street, Santa Clara CA 408-988-6888

Need to find a contractor for a remodeling construction project? Get a contractor list of recommendations from The Listing Look (Silicon Valley realtor professionals) by clicking “Find a Contractor” in the top navigation.

Staging to Get the Highest Return while Home Selling

May 17, 2010 By Kelsey Lane Leave a Comment

If your real estate team is really awesome like us, they may even stage your place for you with your own furniture at no extra cost.

Our home selling clients often ask if staging really makes a difference. Our answer, in a nice and roundabout way is that every listing must be have some staging involved. There are a many ways to accomplish this goal, but if a seller wants to make the most money (or lose the least amount of money) on home selling, then it is imperative. The least expensive way of getting your house ready to sell is to do the staging yourself. Often, the realtor can go through the house with you and give you a list of what to take out and what to keep & how to rearrange for showing the house to its highest potential. Ask the realtor to be brutally honest! The next step up would be to do the same thing with a staging professional– in this case you’ll pay anywhere from $150-250 for a consultation with the staging professional where they will tell you what to do. This is a great option if your realtor is a friend or sheepish about telling you which furniture to 86. If doing the actual work & moving is unpleasant for you, the staging professionals can help with that. Their team will usually charge about $1000 (give or take, depending on the size of the house) for staging with your own belongings and moving things around. If not much is involved, the cost is much less than that. The biggest bang for hour home selling buck is whole house staging—this option will make your place look like a model home & it has the biggest financial return. Of course, it also has the biggest financial outlay. In our area it runs from $2200-$4000 for a moderate staging job depending on property size. Typically this works best if the house is vacant – staging professionals bring in furniture, air mattresses, art & other décor and transform your place in one day! It is an investment that can bring upwards of $25,000 or even more. What you don’t want is a dowdy, frumpy, cluttered house on the market. The competition will eat you alive (because guess what – they are staging!).

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Home selling? Find out your home value & start the consulting process for getting your house ready to sell by clicking My Home Value in the top navigation. Or, if you are interested in a complimentary 30-Minute Consult on getting your home ready to sell, call Kelsey Lane today to set a time: 408-316-0660, kelsey@kelseylane.com.

Getting ready to buy a house? Use our Santa Clara County property search tool to create & save your search.

Need to find a contractor for a remodeling construction project? Get a contractor list of recommendations from The Look Team (Silicon Valley realtor professionals) by clicking “Find a Contractor” in the top navigation.

A to Z Construction Contractors and Service Providers: F: Flooring Contractors

May 10, 2010 By Kelsey Lane Leave a Comment

F: Flooring contractors. First off, we have a contractor who does hardwood matching, refinishing, and screening that is out of this world. When he matches & patches floors, you cannot ever tell it was done. Our friend Holly told us about him & he repaired several spots at her place where dogs had ruined the hardwood floor. I ended up using him at my house for the same reason & then we’ve recommended him to several home buying & home selling clients who gave great feedback after the fact. His name is Nelson Castillo and his number is (650) 576-4125. Secondly, we have a contractor James (Jim) Watson who is phenomenal at installing hardwood and laminate flooring. What makes him unique is that he and his team truly take time to pick each piece that they lay down from a visual perspective – meaning, each piece of laminate, wood, or engineered wood is slightly different & different pieces look better together. We have observed them on more than one occasion discussing together which pieces to lay next to each other. This is a very good sign! For one job, Jim had a broken hand and was still going at it, without complaint. What a contractor gem. Jim’s number is 408-561-2491.

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