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Preparing a house for the market is the main concern of every prospective home-seller. This allows future owners to envision for themselves how they will make that home their own comfortable and hospitable dwelling. Likewise, this increases you potential for making as much profit as you can from you long-term investment. Reaping that profit finally can only be achieved through certain necessary steps to be followed, which are:

• Declutter your house

The physical appearance comes first, of course. Clearing up the house, especially the cellar and the garage will open up space that potential owners may want to see but could not otherwise if you do not declutter.

• Remove as many personal items as much as possible

Hide personal, especially family photos, in order to make it easy for the prospective buyer feel that they are already living in your home. This will not only distract them or you from unnecessary conversation about you and your family; it will also make you tour of your home more business-like and unobstrusive.

• Keep interior paint colors and décor a neutral tone

Nothing can be more distracting and evenoff-putting than loud interior colors, garish curtains and rods and paint-splashing abstract paintings on your walls. They tend to, again, distract and take away from the essential value of your home, particularly the use of space, ventilation, natural lighting and other advantages which you would want ot emphasize over the less important matters.

• Stage your home and rearrange furniture

Having lived in and used your home for so long, you may not value this advice until you realize that selling a home is not about you and your home but about the buyer and his/her future home. Doing away with large furniture will open up space where future owners may be free to visualize their own dreams for the house. In short, you set your home up in such a way that you no longer own or use it but the prospective buyer.

Maximizing the potential of your house’s resale value requires these essential steps and some others which Haney Garcia Realty Group can recommend to you during a consultation meeting. 

Biomass Gets A Slice Of Army’s $7 Billion Renewable Energy Pie

We’ve been following the US Army Corps of Engineers’ ambitious $7 billion renewable energy plan, and it looks like the first round of contracts has concluded with smooth sailing. The public-private initiative will use Department of Defense properties as sites for utility scale solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass facilities that will be built and operated by private companies. DoD in turn will benefit from access to cheaper, safer, more reliable power. The first three areas were awarded earlier this year, with biomass bringing up the rear.

Since the facilities will be built under power purchase agreements, the US taxpayer does not bear any up-front costs (the figure of $7 billion refers to the value of the energy).

$7 Billion For Renewable Energy

As with the other three areas, the biomass awards are what DoD calls Multiple Award Task Order Contracts, which are typically used for engineering and architecture services. Basically, it’s a way to streamline the contracting procedure by pre-qualifying bidders, before the actual jobs are identified.

That will depend on site assessments and analysis for cost-effective opportunities to convert biomass, including municipal solid waste, to energy. Once the sites are identified, the next step is for USACE to issue competitive request-for-proposals to the eligible bidders.

The streamlined procedure puts the Corps of Engineers in synch with the Army’s new Energy Initiatives Task Force, a team of experts who have the experience to package utility-scale facilities at Army bases. That relieves individual base commanders from having to reinvent the wheel with every new project.

The companies tapped for biomass including the heavy hitters Honeywell International and Siemens Government Technologies, along with Acciona Energy North America Corporation, ECC Renewables LLC, EDF Renewable Energy, Emerald Infrastructure, Energy Answers International Inc., EIF United States Power Fund IV L.P., Energy Management Inc., Energy Systems Group LLC, MidAmerican/Clark JV, Pacolet Milliken Enterprises Inc., and Stronghold Engineering Inc.

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Twenty years after mainland firms began listing in Hong Kong, it is no surprise to see a growing number of cross-border liquidations, from which some Hong Kong professionals are making a tidy living.

"As long as a liquidator knows the tricks and trade secrets of how to get things done in China, he can arrange asset sales and bring the money out of the mainland to pay creditors or shareholders," said Alan Tang Chung-wah, a partner and head of specialist advisory services in the Hong Kong office of mainland accounting firm ShineWing. "I have done that for 30 years and still do it every day."

ShineWing has handled many cross-border liquidation cases and Tang, a Hong Kong-based accountant, has specialised in mainland-related bankruptcy cases for 30 years. His clients include Hong Kong and foreign investors who set up joint ventures or subsidiaries on the mainland, as well as collapsed Hong Kong-listed mainland firms.

While many people assumed companies sought to be wound up because they could not repay their debts, Tang said this was not always the case. "Besides financial troubles, many companies apply to be wound up because shareholders have disputes among themselves and seek to liquidate the company to divide its assets," he said.

Last month, the Securities and Futures Commission applied to wind up Hong Kong-listed mainland firm China Metal Recycling because it alleged the company had issued a misleading listing prospectus in 2009 and continued to maintain the false information. The Court of First Instance appointed provisional liquidators to investigate its books and records and take control of the company.

On the mainland, Tang said, he would need to go to local courts to apply to take over the mainland assets of a company as required by the country's bankruptcy law. Each local court would decide individually on the release of assets located in their city, and to attach the assets of a company with operations in 10 mainland cities would require applying to 10 local courts.

"In theory, it is the court that decides how to divide the assets of the company. But in reality it is the local governments and other local business partners who make the decision as the court takes their views seriously," Tang said.

The key to retrieving assets from the mainland is therefore to convince the local governments and local business partners that it is a good idea to deal with liquidators. "Many local officials and business partners are reasonable. As long as the liquidators can present them with a valid asset sales plan or a debt restructuring plan that can help to maintain the business and jobs for the local people, they co-operate with us," Tang said.

"In one case, a mainland business partner said he had waited for a long time for me to arrive, because only after the liquidators sign off on all the paper work can a business continue to operate and get its money out of the banks," he said.