It’s easy to get swept up in the excitement of buying a home. Once you’ve had an offer accepted on your dream house, you’ll probably be anxious to move in. However, before you make a significant financial commitment, it’s best to know exactly what you’re buying.
Continue reading Avoid These Top 8 Home Inspection Errors
If you use your garage as storage space, you’re not alone. Unfortunately, because the space isn’t climate controlled, it’s best to keep these items elsewhere and avoid these storage mistakes according to Realtor.com:
Pollutants, moisture and heat can quickly destroy your photos. You should digitize all of yours. If that’s not an option for you, keep printed copies in a dry area inside your home.
Continue reading 7 Garage Storage Mistakes
Whatever your reasons are for relocating to a new area, the process can feel overwhelming. Whether you’re moving across town or across the country, you’ll be changing more than your address. Besides a new house, you may also be searching for new jobs, schools, doctors, restaurants, stores, service providers and more.
You’ll need to pack, make moving arrangements, and possibly sell your old home. With so much to do, you may be wondering: Where do I start?
In this guide, I outline 7 steps to a seamless move. These steps will help you get prepared, get organized, and get settled in your new community. My hope is to alleviate the hassle of relocating—so you can focus on the exciting adventure ahead!
Continue reading 7 Steps to a Seamless Move
According to the National Association of Realtors, staging a home prior to listing it can result in a faster and more profitable sale. In fact, the Real Estate Staging Association estimates that professionally staged properties spend 73 percent less time on the market, receive more foot traffic, and typically sell for more money.
Continue reading 10 Staging Secrets for a Quick Sale
There’s a reason REALTORS® always advise home sellers to remove all clutter when selling their homes: The difference is remarkable. The clutter-free home often looks like a new one entirely, and homeowners even wonder how their home could look that good.
You don’t have to wait to sell your home to make it look better. Plus, clutter can physically and mentally stress us out. By breaking your decluttering down into five-minute sessions, you can slowly conquer your clutter. Leo Babauta of Zen Habits offers some ways to start:
Continue reading Kill the Clutter
If you’re in the market for a new home or investment property, one of the first questions you’ll probably ask is, “What can we afford?” To answer this question, you must look at more than just the asking price of a home. You need to understand what your total buying power is, and the factors that will affect it.
Continue reading What’s Your Home Buying Power?
No matter if you’re in a buyer’s or seller’s market, there are a few critical steps you can take to make a smarter purchase. Since buying a home is likely the biggest single investment you will ever make, being prepared will help you make a better purchase. Here are 7 tips and tricks to buying a home.
What is your buying power? It is your ability to borrow plus the cash you have available for a down payment and closing costs. Your credit-worthiness and income will affect how much you can realistically borrow for a home.
Continue reading How to Buy a Home: 7 Tips and Tricks from Real Estate Insiders
When you list your home for sale, you may think you’ve priced it right, staged it beautifully, and timed the market for a quick sale.
The reality is that buyers are full of surprises, nearly all of them predictable. They rarely pay list price; they discount or dismiss improvements you’ve made; their inspections usually turn up something for you to fix, and they may have terms that you weren’t counting on — like needing to sell their home before they buy yours.
Continue reading Three Negotiating Mistakes Sellers Make
You can’t avoid paying taxes, and we all need to pay our fair share. However, paying your fair share shouldn’t place an unjust burden on you. As a homeowner, your tax burden is doubled because you pay both income and property taxes. To decrease that burden and boost your tax savings, take advantage of these homeowner tax deductions. As a result, you can use your tax savings to go on a vacation, increase your child’s college fund, build upon your retirement fund, or complete another home improvement project.
You are probably aware that federal law entitles you to a free copy of your credit report annually by each of the three credit bureaus: TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax.
Why bother to check your credit? Because by regularly looking at each of these reports, you can determine if there are any errors on them and be aware of your credit worthiness.
Continue reading Check Your Credit