Curb AppealWritten by Amie Walton
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Homeowners should plant colorful flowers along walkway leading to door, prune existing trees, shrubs and bushes, and add fresh mulch. Clean out dead plants and weeds from flower beds and refresh with colorful plants and annuals. Taller plants at corners of your house will help anchor it with landscape. Shorter plants near your home's entry bring attention to your front door. However, this could have a negative impact if front door is in need of repair (another reason to rethink exterior improvements noted previously). Last but most definitely not least and probably most important, ensure your lawn is trimmed and green. If you have a lawn in need of attention, you may want to consult a landscaper for advice before trying to repair on your own. Overall Appeal Some further touches that will go along way to increasing appeal of your home from curbside are: Outdoor lighting - Exterior lighting in your garden, walkway or entrance area add a warmth and welcome feeling that will make a viewer want to see more. Indoor lighting - While your house is on market, leave lamps on in 1 or 2 front rooms. It brings home to life and, again, provides same warmth and welcome feeling as exterior lighting. Exterior lighting alone will not provide appearance of a well loved, lived in home, like combination of exterior and interior lighting can. Furniture - As long as chairs are well kept and not cluttered looking within space, two chairs on a front porch provides a tremendous visual appeal from street. Buyers view exterior as an extension of home and will want to view more. The best advice for creating great curb appeal, is to take a walk through your favourite neighbourhood. Analyze what works really well and what doesn't. Then determine why and incorporate those items to fit your own exterior. Most of all enjoy outdoors and don't get too overwhelmed by work at hand. © February, 2004 - Xstream Realty Incorporated
Amie Walton is the president and founder of Xstream Realty, a Virtual Agent for managing private real estate sales over the internet. As an Accredited Staging Professional, Amie also operates Xstream Staginga Home Staging business located in Nova Scotia, Canada.
| | STOP LOSS ORDER METHODSWritten by Al Thomas
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day moving average you will have to do calculations either daily or weekly. You add up closing prices for past 20 days and divide by 20. This should be done once each week and number calculated is your stop loss. Again nothing complicated. The steeper advance shorter should be number of days for moving average. If you are lucky enough to have one of those skyrockets you might even be down to a 5DMA. Some traders use a 50 day MA and others even a 200-day MA. Mutual funds lend themselves to latter, Finding support and resistance points requires a more sophisticated approach. This is something you are going to have to study. There are many places on Internet that have short explanations with examples of how to determine these points. Briefly you watch a stock, fund, ETF run up and then you see it stop and set back like a stair step. It will rest for a while with a short up and down sideways pattern that forms before next move higher. Your stop should now be down at point recent up move started. When it advances again this current formation becomes stop loss point. This is not mechanical and requires a more experienced trader to determine these points. Once you learn this technique you will also begin to see orderliness of market. The mastery of an exit strategy with stop loss orders will immediate put you in top 10% of all investors. Learning how to sell is key to successful investing.
F*R*E*E investment letter www.mutualfundmagic.com Author of best seller "IF IT DOESN'T GO UP,DON'T BUY IT!" Never lose money in the market. Copyright 2004 Albert W. Thomas All rights reserved.Former 17-year exchange member, floor trader and brokerage company owner.
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