Satisfying and lucrative real estate investment depends upon 
your correct assessment of profit potential, of course, but 
your ultimate success depends on your ability to transform a 
fixer into a dollhouse. The renovation process involves 
physical work and choosing the best supplies, in order to 
create maximum positive emotional effect and profits. 

By incorporating the psychology of residential design, you 
can make wise choices in transforming your fixer house by 
using colors, textures, building materials, and decorations 
that will assure a future speedy and cost-effective sale.

The psychology of residential design addresses the entire 
home, inside and out, but the techniques of Transformation 
Psychology are a bit different, because your ultimate goal is 
different. The use of Design Psychology in your personal home 
is much more individualized, while renovating a doghouse into 
a dollhouse integrates more generalized design ideas to 
create a home that will be appealing to a broader spectrum of 
people.

Using Transformation Psychology to increase your real estate 
profits means that you must learn how our human senses and 
emotions are affected by our decorating details and choices 
of materials. Buyers view a prospective home with their eyes, 
but their brains interpret what they see and feel according 
to subtle touches you have purposefully put into your house.


Process of Transformation Psychology

Your goal is to create a glorious home that buyers won't be 
able to live without, and that process begins with planning 
all the changes that will be necessary, from inception to 
realization, in order to accomplish a total makeover of the 
house.


Color Psychology

Determine your potential buyers' income level and your 
selling season. Use simple colors for less expensive houses 
and complex colors for upscale markets. Add in warm colors to 
attract buyers during cooler weather and cool colors to 
attract buyers during hot weather.


Texture Psychology

Many investors fix up houses to flip without considering how 
the vacant house will "feel" to prospective buyers. This 
isn't a problem in hot selling markets, but selling a vacant 
house in a buyer's market means you need to outshine the 
competition instead of pricing your home lower. 

Vacant houses often feel cold with all hard surfaces. Avoid a 
boxy, hard feeling by adding soft textures. Window coverings, 
towels in the bathrooms, and a lightweight round table with a 
fabric tablecloth add texture to soothe the buyer's emotions.


Buy Materials with Drama in Mind

Instead of buying the cheapest lighting fixtures, cabinet 
hardware, and other building materials, look for additions 
which buyers fall in love with. This doesn't mean you need to 
spend more, just be selective. We found an awesome chandelier 
for only $25 at Restore (Habitat for Humanity's thrift 
store); I found matching wall scones at Lowe's (where the 
chandelier sold for $300). Paying $50 more for the wall 
scones than most investors would have meant little when the 
house sold for more than any other home previously sold for 
in the neighborhood. 

We love taking a dirty doghouse and turning it into a 
marvelous dollhouse, and we're willing to invest more time 
and money than the average investor in order to achieve a 
truly dramatic transformation. We usually spend about $12,000 
for each renovation, which includes the cost of materials and 
outside help. Many investors spend much less, but they make 
less profit when the property sells.

Real estate investing takes skill and planning, but using 
Transformation Psychology can give you a competitive edge, 
taking a doghouse and turning it into the kind of dollhouse 
that buyers will stand in line to bid on.

(c) Copyright 2004, Jeanette J. Fisher.  All rights reserved. 

Professor Jeanette Fisher, author of Doghouse to Dollhouse 
for Dollars, Joy to the Home, and other books teaches Real 
Estate Investing and Design Psychology. For more articles, 
tips, reports, and newsletters, see 
http://www.doghousetodollhousefordollars.com/