Avoid Surprises, Inspect The Home Before Buying!

Once a house has spent a couple or so years under the elements then it has the potential to have problems within – both minor and major. Buying a house without knowing of such problems can seriously demoralize you, and then some.

Professional inspectors are available, but if you could do most of it yourself, you could save yourself some money and time as well. Here are some of the simpler steps in the home inspection process that you can do yourself!

Walls, Inch By Inch

Upon crossing the portal, look to the right and check the wall. As you move through the various rooms and hallways, keep checking the walls to your right. Signs to look out for are cracks, stretched or compressed wallpaper, plaster abnormalities, and separated joints. These can point to the house shifting in its foundations.

Eyes And Ears Out For Leaks

Use your eyes to check for water stains on the ceiling or walls. If the walls are papered, then check for wrinkles and bubbles as these can also point to leaks. A bright flashlight might be needed to properly discern these problems, especially if they have been covered up. Keep your ears open and listen for drips. Check out all the sinks and water outlets – the toilets, the shower, and more. Water pressure is also an important consideration. Mildew, missing grout, or cracked or loose tiles may be markers of in-wall leaks.

Inspecting The Power

You should turn every switch on and off, checking the lights and other such things. If there are appliances provided, make sure to check them out as well. Outlets should be sufficient in number and well positioned. Check out all the outlets – it helps if you can bring a plug-in night light for this.

Condition Is The Name Of The Game

Doors and windows should be inspected for squeaks and ease of opening and closing. Listen for creaking floors or stairs. Good places to look for signs of the house shifting are the front stoop, chimney, and the point where the driveway joins up with the house. If the house has a garage, make sure to check all sides for problems and if the garage door is in good condition.

Pest Patrol For Control

No one likes having pests inside their home. Ants, termites, cockroaches, and mice are what you will want to watch out for. Sometimes, the insects can make their way in via holes made to accommodate electrical or water lines. Termites can seriously reduce a building’s structural integrity, so make sure the house is termite-free.

Of course, you might want to do everything yourself, however, I always recommend some professional know-how. Ask a pro home inspector to get into the generally inaccessible spaces like the crawl spaces and roof and check it out for you. Have him or her check for problems with the gas, electricity, water, heating, and air conditioning. Ask for a detailed written report, so you can consult with a contractor.

Enrich Your Home and Your Life with an Upgrade

Upgrading your home can mean making some of the toughest decisions that you will come across. It is tough because all the choices sound good, though not equally so – and that is the point here. Which upgrades for the home are the best choices? What are the top options for enriching your home and your life?

Well, to answer this question, you need to think about which parts of the home get the most use, regardless of personal preferences and activity levels. There are only two real places that come into consideration here, and they are the kitchen and the bathroom. Think about it – everybody has to prepare food in some way, and everyone has to bathe.

For the kitchen, upgrading cabinets and countertops can be much more stimulating than just upgrading the appliances. In any case, your kitchen is probably stuffed already! This points out one common issue with standard kitchens: the lack of cabinet space. Getting your cabinets upgraded to be taller and deeper will allow you not just to store more, but to store larger pieces easily. Take for example the fact that most ordinary cabinets are 12 inches deep, while the larger plates we use for big dinners exceed that.

Aside from upgrading capacity, you might want to choose a better wood for your cabinets and drawers. Oak is pretty standard, and while it is strong it is also not very visually appealing. A richer wood like maple is a good choice. Such visual stimulation might even inspire you to greater culinary heights. In any case, new cabinets refresh the look of the kitchen, and give it a more customized look.

Remodeling your kitchen’s island (if it has one) can also be very useful and can change the feel of the entire kitchen. Go for granite slab countertops if you can, because they make for solid and stable surfaces for any and all kitchen work.

Consider replacing your chrome fixtures with brushed nickel or brass, whether these are the taps in your bath, the handles on your cabinets, or the knobs in your doors. This is a particularly good choice if you have chrome-plated fixtures, which can lose their shine and appeal for a number of reasons.

In the bathroom, changing up your old water heater for a more modern, energy-efficient unit can be a big help not just to you but also to the environment. Toilets with half-flush options make for great upgrades too! This is a place that features quite a bit of chrome and could merit some changing to sturdier and more rust-resistant fixtures.

Adding ceiling fans or improving the layout of the electrical outlets can also be worth every cent you spend. For those living in colder climes, getting power-efficient space heaters is also highly recommended. Make sure to repair any insulation problems, like windows or doors that have spaces that let heat out.

Still, the most important thing to remember is to choose something that makes you happy and satisfied. It IS your home and your life after all. Resale value comes second to your wants right now (though you should not disregard it either). Just pick the one that makes you happy!

SOURCE:

Susan Felt of The Arizona Republic

Smart Energy Cost Cutters for Your Home

Energy efficiency is the talk of the town. It is all in the news and you have probably talked about it with your neighbors. The most important reason is to save money. Making your home energy efficient means optimizing room temperatures. A few simple home improvement projects should do the trick.

Check Your Insulation

Insulation works by keeping heat out during the summer and keeping it in during the winter. A good and sufficient insulation is the key to maintaining proper room temperature. Air ways and vents need to be checked for leaks and obstructions.

Install Blinds or Curtains

This is a inexpensive solution to reducing sunlight that enters the room. Blinds or curtains on windows keeps the sun out but can also be retracted making it very useful. Window tinting is also a viable option for those who want decorative pieces in their home.

Check Your Appliances

Recent advancements in technology have significantly improved virtually every home appliance’s energy consumption. You want to consider buying newer models to reduce your energy bill. When replacing your appliances, look for its Energy Star rating in its energy consumption information.

Also, make sure to turn off and unplug appliances that are not in use. This is a very simple thing you can do to minimize your energy consumption.

Monitor Energy Consumption

Energy monitors are available in the market. These units allow you to determine an appliance’s exact energy consumption. Some monitors are also programmable and automatically changes the temperature when applicable.

Seal Your Leaks

Good home insulation is practically useless if you have leaks. These can undermine the insulation seal of you home. It is like letting money fly out of your window. Be sure to seal every leak in your home for maximum efficiency. Check old doors and windows for cracks and consider replacing them altogether when heavily warped.

Perform Regular House Inspections

Just like you, your house also needs to undergo regular inspection. A few small cracks in your home are enough to undermine your insulation and in turn your energy efficiency. If you do not know how to do this, you can always hire a professional to do the work.

Hire a Professional

Check your local phonebook for experts that perform energy audits for your home. They are equipped with thermal cameras for identifying leaks in your home. This is particularly useful for knowing when and where to add insulation.

Increasing your home’s energy efficiency is a long-term investment you will never regret. Apart from lowering energy costs, it also helps your home become a more comfortable living space for your family.

The tips mentioned above are just some of the things you can do to achieve energy efficiency at home. These are fairly inexpensive home improvement projects that will pay for themselves in the long run.

Unexpected Home Showing Visit? Patch Things Up In Only 2 Minutes!

It is bound to happen sooner or later. Even if you normally follow a very neat and organized lifestyle, there are those short moments when your house is simply a mess and an eyesore.

And when it is within that messy-house hour that the phone rings and the guy on the other line delivers the bad news saying, ‘we will be there in two minutes’, time just seems to stop and you just know you are in for a major social humiliation.

Well, humiliation may be too much of a word but it can definitely end that way. So to avoid this from happening, there are sure ball ways to get your home fixed in only two minutes time. Now give yourself and your guests that much deserved reception even when time seemed to have gone against you. Here is how.

Step One: Just Calm Down!

Seriously, panicking will bring you nowhere but only deliver you to a fast-forwarded ruin. So what you should do in emergency times like this one is to take a deep gasp, and then calm down. You can keep in control better when you are not going haywire.

Step Two: Quick Browse And Delegate

Now that you are calm, take a quick look at the house. React by instinct and ask yourself what needs to be fixed and how. And then immediately designate each person within the house to a different task. Be in control, and be authoritative. You will want an air of command here.

Step 3: Make Quick Fixes

Alright, admit it, you do not have much time. So what you really need to do is patch things up. You will hide defects rather than really fix them. Here are some tips on how to make quick and emergency patches.

1. Pile laundry in a basket and cover up the mess with a towel or a piece of cloth. You only need to keep the top part proper to hide the ugliness beneath.

2. Do not bother with the thorough cleaning of dirty surfaces like the table mess after dinner. Just wipe the dirt away with a piece of cloth and spray a freshener or a perfume to hide the smell. You can also use lemon extract.

3. If something is dirty, then just remove it. For example, if you failed to replace your dirty curtains with a clean one, then replacing it now could waste precious time. So just remove them, open the windows and let in some light.

4. As for dirty dishes, just do a quick rinsing of the solid dirt, dry them quickly with a towel, and hide them ‘neatly’ in a cabinet somewhere. But if you have enough people, proper washing should be a good idea.

5. Do on-the-spot cleaning. Instead of sweeping and mopping the entire floor area and other dirty places, just handpick dirt and do spot cleaning. So if there is a dark spot on the floor, only mop that area and look for other spots.

And there you go! You should have a properly patched up place by now. But of course, this is only temporary. Make sure keep things straight as soon as your guests leave. And try not to make a habit of doing this when it is not needed.

Getting the Right Price for Your Home

One of the most important things when you put your house on the market is getting the right price. Many things are to be considered even before deciding if your house is worth a certain amount. It is difficult to accept a certain value especially if you think, as an owner, that value is too low. Here’s some information that you will need to get a idea of the real estate market:

Check on current market trends of real estate

Here, “current” means within the last three months. Not because a house that is the same as yours sold at a high price a year ago, it would also mean you can still sell for that value. Houses decrease in value very quickly and market values also change dependently on a multitude of factors. Be sure to consult a full-service real estate professional to determine the right and accurate value of your home. They would usually show you a current list of the prices of houses similar to your home and that would give you an accurate view of the market trends.

Be clear on Regional Appreciation

Not because the real estate market has fallen in the last two to three years, can you just accept a lower price for your home. Markets all over the country have differences in the increase or decrease of market values for houses. With this in mind, you should check on the surrounding areas around your home to understand the changes. This is especially true if your house has been bought a few years ago. It is best to consult professionals on the realistic gains and loss of the value of your house in the last few years.

First impressions last

When you have set a price for your home, any available buyer would like to see that whatever you are offering is up to what you want for the asking price. A good thing to do is to prep up your home even before you list it. Start by working on the outside by simply mowing the lawn, trimming trees and cleaning up the yard. You can repaint exterior walls and brighten up the interior by minimizing clutter and working on light neutral colors.

Make your own Full Inspection

Even if it has been your home for many years, it is still possible that repairs will be needed for certain parts. A house that requires too many repairs might not come out as marketable real estate. Repair any problems that can be dealt with immediately like simple plumbing problems, gutter repairs or worn out paint. Make a report of things that would be harder to repair so that you can be clear to your prospective buyers. Better yet, get a pre home inspection and repair items prior to listing.

You can give a copy of the home inspection to any prospective buyers along with a copy of the completed repairs.

Work on “Seller’s Contributions”

Working with professional real estate agent can help you obtain buyers without lowering your house’s value. Special arrangements can be made to add “sweet deals” to your house sale.

These are just a few things to consider for getting the right price for your house. Always make sure that you consult a professional on the real estate market just to make sure that you get your investment’s worth. In the end, the only thing you need to worry about is how to invest what you’ve earned into something better.

DIY or RTW: Should You Build or Buy Your Arizona Home?

You have two options if you are looking for a home to call your own: you can either build a home from the ground-up or buy a home as-is.

Each has its own unique ups and downs, and you have to set your priorities straight in order to make the most of the situation. Here are a couple of factors to help you make the final decision:

Building: The Pros and Cons

o Match the house to your needs. This is one of the first and foremost reasons homeowners want to build their own homes. You can basically design a home to fit your wants and needs, especially if you are looking for something that most homes do not normally possess.

o Increased value of a home. A house that is freshly-built is always more valuable than one that has been standing for a few years already. You can effectively make a business out of building and selling houses, especially if you are well-acquainted with the local real estate market.

• Search for reliable construction services. Having your house built means entrusting the job to engineers and construction workers. This can be a hassle on your part, especially if you are not that familiar with the reputations of construction companies and regular construction expenses.

• Heavy expenses. Building a home from scratch is a very expensive ordeal; initially requiring a very big capital from your end. You will have to pull out a bigger mortgage than when buying a home, so you will have to be very careful in balancing your budget.

Buying: The Pros and Cons

o Fewer expenses. Older homes tend to cost less on the get-go, meaning you will need less money to actually purchase a house that has already been built for some time. This makes buying a home much more preferable option if you do not have a lot of capital at your disposal.

o Instant access. Once you buy a home, the only thing you need to worry about is moving in. Waiting for the construction teams to finish and removing the smell of fresh paint is a lot less likely when you simply move into a house that has already been built.

• Maintenance costs. Homes that have been built for quite some time have a tendency to deteriorate. This is especially true if the house has been built more than a decade ago, and hazards like chewed-up wires, rotten boards or pest infestations are expensive issues to correct.

• ‘Get-what-you-see.’ You will basically buy a home because of what it has to offer, but you won’t necessarily get what you really want or need. You will need to adjust to the house you buy, especially if money is tight and you cannot afford to make major modifications in the near future.

Keep these tips in mind, and you will be able to make the right choice between building a house from the ground up or simply buying one that has already been built!

Understanding the New Normal in Real Estate - Are you the ‘New Normal’?

The ‘new normal’ in real estate is a term that is steadily gaining prominence in the business world. It might sound like a revelational term, but ‘new normal’ essentially boils down to a customer that is much harder to please than before and maybe you are one of them?

Minimalist
The first quality that defines the new normal is minimalism. Most real estate buyers are looking not for the luxurious offerings like bathtubs or Jacuzzis, but are instead looking for the basic essentials in a home. They are looking to cut out nonessential additions in a home in a bid to lower the overall expenses, especially since the economy has taken a serious bite out of their savings. It will then be a lot easier to sell your home if you present it as a basic home with essential needs all bundled in one package.

Pragmatic
Another quality of the new normal customer is the desire to look for homes with useful amenities. This balances out their minimalist tendencies, which is why cheap, bare-bone homes will not work for new normal customers. They want to keep things cheap and minimal, but they also do not want to do away with the basic necessities in a house as well. This means that you need to define the basic needs of a potential buyer instead of just stripping away all the extras in a bid to lower the value of the home.

Incentive-oriented
Making the best bang-for-buck deal is another important quality of new normal customers, which is why bonuses and other incentives work well with these types of customers. Tax cuts, extra furniture and appliances, easier payment terms and other extra bonuses will go a long way in convincing a new normal customer to purchase a home. Work with your real estate agent to present a potential buyer with extra bonuses to sweeten the deal.

Skeptical
New normal customers take great pains to learn more about what they are buying, and this gives them a somewhat skeptical approach in deals. You will have to spend more time providing records, documents and other items to prove the worth of your home. It may be a headache on your part, but providing these small extras is definitely worth gaining the trust of a potential buyer.

Buying a Home in the Present Economy

If you are looking to purchase real estate, then you had better act fast – the market demand for real estate is slowly returning to what it once was a few years ago. You can expect the prices of real estate to start increasing as people start to gain more money and increase their spending.
The problem here is securing the necessary capital and credit in order to actually buy a house while things are still cheap. Not everybody can fork over five, six or even seven digits out just like that, but there are a few things you can do to increase your working capital:

Liquidation of assets
The first thing you can do to earn more money is to sell your unnecessary possessions, and auctions or garage sales are a great way to do just that. Old cell phones, computers, clothing, jewelry, antiques or any item worth selling can be put up for sale. You can list these items down in online such as craiglists or you can just put up a garage sale for a week or two to get rid of the smaller items. You can even post advertisements in your local paper to help increase sales. If you have pricier items like antique jewelry, you must look for a specialist to appraise the items. This will give you a good idea of how much the item is really worth out in the market.

Trade-in programs
Another way you can earn some extra money is to trade your current property or properties for that piece of house or land you are eyeing. This is especially useful for people who already have property but are looking for more profitable long-term investments. The rationale here is to take advantage of deflated prices to acquire more desirable or lucrative properties. This is especially true for high-value properties that have been foreclosed; thus making them cheaper than what they are really worth. Just be careful with the properties you purchase, though. Speculative investment in real estate will reward you well, but only when you take the time and effort to learn more about the properties you are looking at. Hire a real estate professional that is a specialist in trading properties. Don’t try it yourself.

Fixed-rate mortgage loans
One other option you have at your disposal is a mortgage loan with fixed interest rates. These types of loans usually have higher rates than other loans, especially when you compare them to variable loans in today’s economy. The plus side here, however, is that the payments you make will never fluctuate in the long run – even if the price of the property jumps up ten-fold. This is unlike the variable loans, which can suddenly and abruptly increase as the property’s value increases. This is one of the most reliable ways to pay for property over years or decades, making it a great option if you have a relatively stable and predictable income.

These are three of the more useful methods of securing capital for you to buy property in this economy, so keep them in mind when you’re looking at a great piece of land to call your own!

Martian Homes for Men, Venusian Homes for Women

Men and women have always had their differences, and buying a house is no exception. This is an important fact to take into consideration especially if you are going to choose a house with your spouse or partner.

Here are a couple of points to think about, courtesy of a 1,000-respondent, omnibus phone survey by Coldwell Banker Real Estate:

Speed of decisions

Surprisingly enough, it is the women that make the faster decisions when it comes to buying a house. The fairer sex is more likely to decide on a house the day they walk into it, while men need more time and more visits to make a final decision.

Proximity to job and family

Women prefer their houses to be near to their extended family member over their jobs, while significantly fewer men prefer the opposite – to find a home nearer to their jobs than to extended family.

Individual financial decisions

More men would like to think they ‘wear the pants’ when it comes to major financial decisions in buying a house, although there are some women that think the same way as well. Curiously enough, most of the respondents that said this were more likely to think they make the major decisions – not their partners.

There are, however, some things where men and women agree on without much of a fuss. Here are some of the more prominent areas where both sexes see eye-to-eye on:

Mutual financial decisions

More men might want to think they have the final say in financial matters, but an even higher percentage of couples prefer to share the responsibility of making a major financial decision. They say it is mutual, and that both partners come to a conclusion together.

Use of spare rooms

If a person will choose what to do with an extra room, both men and women would stick to practical answers – bedrooms, studies and dens in that order of prevalence. There are respondents that said they would like to convert the spare room into a recreation, and men makes up the majority of this small group of respondents. It looks like men really do want their own little ‘man caves’ of pool tables, darts and pinball machines after all.

Security

A high percentage of both men and women are prepared to back out of a promising house if safety becomes an issue, although this is more observable in women than in men.

Now here’s the question: what does this all mean?

These differences and similarities all have a part to play when a couple chooses to buy a house of their own. Give them special attention and it will be easier for you to understand what matters for your partner. Ignore them, though, and you will definitely create friction when you and your partner are out looking for a home.

Just don’t forget to actually talk to your partner before you go ahead and make a decision. These statistics help you understand what’s going on, but it will take a deeper level of connection for you to understand what’s going on in your partner’s head!

The Ups and Downs of Owning a Home

If you want to save money in the long run, then buying a home is definitely one of the best ways to do that. This has been a standard motto ever since the real estate market started, and it has been a pretty good motto to live by for quite some time now.

That is until the real estate market crashed, paving the way for the recession to grab us all by total surprise.

Do not misunderstand this – owning a home is still the only way to save money in the long run. There are just some things you have to understand before you start saving any money at all.

For starters, you have to pay your mortgage fees ASAP. The more debt you have, the more time the interest has to grow. Your payments must also be large enough to not only pay for the interest but for the principal amount as well. You really don’t want to pay 5% of a $100,000 debt every month – which, by the way, increases as the overall debt increases. You can easily overcome this problem if you opt for fixed rate mortgage, where your monthly payments will never change until your last payment. The terms may be stiff, but the stability helps you plan better in the long run than with variable interest rates.

Properly maintaining your home will also significantly affect your overall costs. Learning how to keep your house in tip-top shape and fix minor problems will result in major savings over time. By contrast, damaging your house and letting small problems will rack up the bills. The only person that will handle these problems is you, meaning that you’ll have to shoulder all the expenses if you do not take good care of the home.

Another important consideration is the value of the property with the passage of time. The value of property does not always shoot sky-high over time, especially when you consider that most property values increase along the same values as inflation rates. Even this slow rate of value is good as long as the value of the property increases over time. The last thing you want to happen is to sell your house at half the amount you paid for it.

Just remember, however, that any money you put into your mortgage fee is akin to a savings account. Paying for a hundred-thousand dollar home is like putting a hundred thousand dollars in the bank – except you ‘use’ your savings every time you step into the house. This is why you have to take care of your house, since it is a form of savings that will appreciate in value.

All in all, there are only a few ways you can really lose money when you buy a home. The fees you pay for the transaction, the interest you pay for your loan, the maintenance of your home and the value of the property dropping instead of rising over time. Keep these in check, and you’ll be able to save money in the long run!