Pre-Spring Your Properties Now!

If you're like me and dreaming of birds chirping, flowers blooming and the sun shining, you'll understand where I'm coming from (and those of you below 40 degrees longitude... I covet your glorious and continual access to warmth!) For an Oregonian, Wisconsonite or Idahoan, we live for the moment the tulips bloom and day the sun warms our face when we walk to get our mail. Springtime is winter's mistress. We are desparate!

So capitolize on it!

Don't wait until every house out there is wearing her prettiest Easter dress or you'll be one among many lovelies for sale or rent! Who says you can't wear white shoes now? Do it! As another AR blogger, Steve Bachman, just wrote "we eat with our eyes first." Put those fresh flowers in a vase on the kitchen counter, by the driveway entrance and in a pot by the front door (even if they die in two weeks.) Wash those windows clean of winter's mess. Powerwash those pavers. Remove every last brown twig, leaf, dirt clump or debris that blew in over the past few months. Paint the window trim and front door when the first slightly warm day appears. Clean up your act! We want to believe that there's a sanctuary out there... just waiting for us. One that speaks nothing of all these layers of clothes and clogged gutters and muddy shoes and endless winter clean-up we dread. Please give it to us!

And when you're done making your home look like it's ahead of Mother Nature by 30 days, advertise the heck of it! Snap every flowery, clean photo you can and blast it through every online property advertising site you can think of for all the internet to see. In my daily life, I help landlords and property managers reach over 20 online syndications with a click of a button, all while automatically updating their online listings page. I wish I saw more flowers on those listings...

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Janell K. is a member of Rentec Direct, a web-based rental software program offering Landlords and Professional Managers tools for tracking income and expenses, payment processing, tenant screening and online advertising.