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 doghouse 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 appeals to a specific target buyer.

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 chosen to decorate 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. Calculate your eventual selling season. For instance, if you will be selling during summer, chose colors and patterns that make the buyer feel like your home is a refreshing haven from the heat; using green cool colors and bamboo patterns will attract buyers during sweltering heat.

Also, consider your ultimate target market. Determine the type of buyer by estimating the income level. For homes in upscale neighborhoods, use complex colors like sage green; for working-class neighborhoods, use simple greens.

Buy Materials with Drama in Mind

When you envision your ultimate transformation and make a plan, you will be prepared to choose the right building materials. Spend a little extra time choosing design details like paint colors, new flooring, and lighting fixtures. Check out new development houses nearby and see what your competition features. This helps you to follow current decorating trends.

Spending a little extra money on upgraded materials can boost your profit when buyers fall in love with your creation. Also, in markets with more houses for sale than buyers, making your home stand out can mean that you sell fast and pay fewer mortgage payments.

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 gives you a competitive edge, taking a doghouse and turning it into the kind of dollhouse that buyers stand in line to bid on.

(c) Copyright 2005 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, newsletters, and sales flyer template, see www.doghousetodollhousefordollars.com/pages/5/index.htm