Janie's Blog Clarksville,TN Real Estate Marketing Expert

Everyone is aware when they walk in to a room with the perfect lighting scheme. A room with a well planned out lighting scheme just feels right; it feels welcoming, relaxing and yes even sophisticated.

How do you feel in your home? Do you walk in to your rooms and feel as though you've just entered an operating theatre or a movie theatre during the previews? Are your pets and small children afraid of what could be lurking in the dark corners of your rooms?

Getting the right balance of lighting is an art...but it is an art with it's foundation firmly rooted in science.

Lighting Formula = Layers of Light = Artful Lighting

The different types of lighting, and I'm not talking about floor and table lamps, chandeliers etc, have specific purposes and can be artfully layered to create the perfectly lit room for all your lighting requirements.  

The Science of Lighting

Layers of Light

The 5 Basic Types of Lighting:

• ambient - this is your general purpose lighting
• indirect lighting- which comes from 1 or more fixtures also known as luminaries. Light from these sources bounce the light off the ceiling and walls. Indirect can be used as the ambient lighting for a room. Uplighting which can come from scones for example is a form of ambient where the light uses the ceiling to bounce the light back down on to the room...et voila! You now have indirect lighting.
• task - provides a focused light designed for specific tasks you preform such as fixing meals or reading a book. The task lighting would be a layer of light in the room over and above the ambient lighting source.
• wall washing - provides even lighting around the perimeter of a room and can come from the floor up the wall or from the ceiling down. Placement is important so avoid lighting over or under a window, mirrors or framed photography or you will create reflections which can be harsh and distracting. If you have an accent wall in your room with a darker paint colour you will no doubt have to add additional lighting to wash the walls due to the darker colour absorbing more of the light.
• accent- is placed specifically to highlight an object. Make sure you avoid the light from straying beyond the object and avoid over use of accent lighting or you will overwhelm the room and occupants with visual stimulus and potentially move the lighting in to the realm of operating theatre.

What architects, interior designers, decorators and lighting specialists know in order to calculate the perfect amount of lighting for a room:

The Lighting Formulas

1. general formula

Room Length X Room Width X 1.5 = Required Wattage to Light a Room

An example:

10 x 15 foot bedroom x 1.5 will require 225 watts.

Therefore if you only have 1 overhead light with 2 60 watt bulbs the lighting in the room will be deficient by 105 watts. 

    2.   task lighting formula

task area length X task area width X 2.5 = Required Wattage for Task Lighting

The concentrated lighting provided by the formula results in the amount of wattage for getting the job done.

The Art of Lighting - Professional Required

With required wattage in hand the left half of the brain takes over and the art of lighting reveals the intricacy's of layered lighting. The artist understands the interplay of light and colour and can visualize the layers of lighting required in a room to achieve the perfect balance.

In a follow up blog we will discuss the art of lighting and layering in detail.

Please feel free to re-blog this post to spread enLIGHTenment!

WWW.2-HOUNDS.COM

Who is Eligible 

• The $7,500 tax credit is available for first-time home buyers only.

• The law defines a first-time home buyer as a buyer who has not owned a home

  during the past three years.

• All U.S. citizens who file taxes are eligible to participate in the program.

Income Limits

• Home buyers who file as single or head-of-household taxpayers can claim the full

  $7,500 credit if their adjusted gross income (AGI) is less than $75,000.

• For married couples filing a joint return, the income limit doubles to $150,000.

• Single or head-of-household taxpayers who earn between $75,000 and $95,000 are

  eligible to receive a partial first-time home buyer tax credit.

• Married couples who earn between $150,000 and $170,000 are eligible to receive a

  partial first-time home buyer tax credit.

• The credit is not available for single taxpayers whose AGI is greater than $95,000

  and married couples with an AGI that exceeds $170,000.

Effective Dates for the Tax Credit

• First-time home buyers would receive a $7,500 tax credit for the purchase of any

  home on or after April 9, 2008 and before July 1, 2009. To qualify, you must

  actually close on the sale of the home during this period.

Tax Credit is Refundable 

• A refundable credit means that if you pay less than $7,500 in federal income taxes,

  then the government will write you a check for the difference.

• For example, if you owe $5,000 in federal income taxes, you would pay nothing to

  the IRS and receive a $2,500 payment from the government.

• If you are due to receive a $1,000 tax refund from the government, your refund

  would grow to $8,750 ($1,000 plus $7,500 from the home buyer tax credit).

• Buyers can take the tax credit in their 2008 or 2009 tax return.

• If you purchased the home in 2008, the tax credit is taken on your 2008 tax return. If

  you buy in 2009, you have the option of taking the credit on your 2008 or 2009 tax

  returns.

Types of Homes that Qualify for the Tax Credit

• All homes, whether single-family, townhomes or condominium apartments will

 qualify, provided that the home will be used as a principal residence and the buyer

 has not owned a home in the prior three years. This also includes newly-constructed

 homes.

Payback Provisions

• The tax credit essentially serves as an interest-free loan to be repaid over 15 years.

• For example, a home buyer claiming a $7,500 credit would repay the credit at $500

  per year. If the home owner sold the home, then the remaining credit would be due

  from the profit of the home sale.

• If there was insufficient profit, then the remaining credit payback would be forgiven.

Do you struggle with names?  This has personally plagued me for years and is a constant struggle in a people business where we meet new potential clients on a daily basis.  However, I also know that there is no quicker way to impress someone than to remember their name, especially after a long time has gone by.

Here's a tip from a memory master (and yes, I paid dearly for a seminar that I am boiling down to a 30 second email because I am all about, say it with me, helping you make more money, make it faster, and with less cost).  Here you go with the tip -

Use the SAVE method:

S - Say name 3 times when first talking to them

A - Ask a question about the name

V - Visualize a memory hook.  If their name is Lake, visualize them swimming in a lake

E - End the conversation with their name

 

You won't believe how well this little tip works when we put it into play. 

 

Carpe diem,

 

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If you would like to know a little more about us, feel free to visit our website at www.mastery-coaching.com

Roost.com has a free form keyword search on their real estate site that lets people type in what they are looking for to narrow down their home search results.  Interestingly, they just released the top 10 things that their users type into this box.  Here is the list:

1. Pool
2. Garage
3. Hardwood
4. Waterfront
5. View
6. Basement
7. Tile
8. Deck
9. Condo
10. Shop

They then compared this to the top 10 words real estate professionals most frequently used to describe homes.

1. New
2. Large
3. Great
4. Beautiful
5. Open
6. Huge
7. Finished
8. Spacious
9. Custom
10. Newer

It is interesting to compare these two lists.  The first is 90% nouns, or actual things that a person wants in the home.  Compare that to what words are most being used in marketing text, none of them are actual features of a home, all adjectives. 

I don't think it is entirely fair to compare these lists side by side, because 'great' could be used to describe each of the items on the first list, thus making it more popular then say 'hardwoods' which can only be used in cases where there are actually hardwoods present. 

But the idea of this list is at least important to think about when writing marketing text that is going to be found online.  This type of writing for marketing purposes might be different than a brochure that is left in the home at an open house.  At the open house you are trying to sell that home at that time to that person- maybe more descriptive words are appropriate.  With Internet market text, you are trying to get the home to come up in front of the person and making sure you have text that is feature rich, verses adjective rich, may help this happen more frequently.