10 Jun 2007 07:44 am
The Secret of Successful Landscaping
| By spending $500 to $3,000 on plants and materials and a few hours of time, you can achieve a well-landscaped look without shelling out for professional help. Besides the personal enjoyment you’ll get from a prettier yard, landscaping adds more value than almost any other home renovation. A recent Michigan State University study found that depending on where the house is located, high-quality landscaping adds 5 percent to 11 percent to its price. If you have no immediate plans to move, all the better: Landscaping is the one home improvement that actually appreciates over time. |
 |
click here for article
search for : landscaped look, prettier yard, landscaping
09 Jun 2007 08:21 am
Little Known Ways to Insure a Successful Move
 |
Summer is the busiest time of year for professional movers, according to the American Moving and Storage Association. It’s an arduous process, but these tips will make your transition much smoother. If you’re planning to use a moving company, call now. As busy as they are, they usually need plenty of notice — often at least six weeks or much more if you’re moving a long distance. |
Be sure to build in some overlap between the closing/possession date of your new home and the last day of the lease on your rental (or closing date of your current home). Moving always takes much longer than you think. If you want to make any changes to your new home — for instance, paint some walls, put in new carpeting or refinish wood floors — plan enough time to do it BEFORE you move in so your furniture and belongings are not in the way.
click here for article
search for : professional movers, furniture
08 Jun 2007 06:57 am
What To Do When Torn Between Two Houses
| As you find yourself heavily immersed in the house-hunting mode, you may encounter a situation in which you’re torn between two houses. Perhaps you and your spouse each have a favorite, or perhaps you both like two houses equally - or think you do. Making a final decision and determining which house to make an offer on shouldn’t be taken lightly. The decision should be made rationally and not guided by emotion. Of course, you may not have the luxury of taking your time on deciding which house you’d like to pursue. You may be in a market in which homes in your price range get snatched up as quickly as they go on the market, perhaps even attracting multiple offers. |
 |
click here for article
search for : house-hunting
07 Jun 2007 05:11 am
Hazards Of Foreclosure Rescues
| Nationwide, the number of foreclosures is up more than 60 percent compared to this same time last year. It’s not quite a crisis in our area, but there are many folks facing the possibility of losing their home. That can leave them vulnerable and promises of foreclosure rescue often wind up leaving them in ruins. For a family that doesn’t want to be named, though the answer came with a knock at the door and a company willing to step in. They claim the company offered to talk to the mortgage company for them, take over ownership of the home and leave the mortgage in their name — then rent the home back to them at a price that was lower than their mortgage. The homeowners would also have the chance to re-buy the home after a couple of years. |
 |
click here for article
search for : foreclosures, foreclosure rescue
06 Jun 2007 07:16 pm
The Secret of new home prices
 |
The outlook for home prices this year - already expected to post the first drop on record - got worse Wednesday as an industry group cut its forecasts for sales and prices for 2007. The National Association of Realtors said it now sees the median price of existing homes sold falling 1.3 percent this year. That’s almost twice the 0.7 percent drop forecast just two months ago, and is worse than the 1.0 percent drop in prices it estimated in May. New home prices are now expected to sink 2.3 percent, according to the group’s report, much worse than its previous forecast of essentially flat prices for the year. If home prices fall as is now expected, it will be the first time that’s occurred in the nearly 40 years the group has tracked home sales. |
click here for article
search for : home prices, National Association of Realtors
06 Jun 2007 06:28 am
How new real estate agents can find job that fits them best
| Many new real estate agents don’t start out with the business skills they need. “Put income on one side of the ledger and support on the other, and write down what you need on the support side and see what you need to give up to get it,” Kimmons says. And it’s important to visit several offices, recommends Pat Hoferkamp, president of Burgdorff Realtors ERA. “Every office has a different personality,” she says. “Make sure you’re comfortable with the manager.” Here are some of the questions new real estate agents should ask when they look for a place to work: |
 |
click here for article
search for : new real estate agent
05 Jun 2007 06:32 am
The Secret of Successful First Time Home Buying
| Many a young grad makes the mistake of buying a house and digging into a community only to discover that first job fresh out of college doesn’t suit their ideals — and that a much better one awaits them in another town. Suddenly, that new house morphs from an American dream to an agonizing albatross — especially if the resale market is soft, as it is now, and you have to move in a hurry. Sales data consistently show that first-time buyers are more transient than the rest of the home-buying population and generally move within three years after buying. |
 |
click here for article
search for : buying a house, first-time buyers
04 Jun 2007 07:09 am
Little Known Ways to help your home sale
| These days, elaborate patios, outdated or high-maintenance landscaping and invasive plants and trees can kill buyer interest in a home almost as quickly as an outdated kitchen or orange shag carpeting, according to landscaping experts and real-estate agents. “Landscaping often makes the difference between a prospective buyer getting out of the car for a closer look at the house and simply driving on by. |
 |
click here for article
search for : Landscaping
03 Jun 2007 08:45 am
Little Known Ways to Use Google
 |
Two new online mapping features offer literal spins on the way we get from one location to another and how we learn more about where we are going. The Web-based applications can give consumers a better look at where they are and they can serve as marketing tools for professionals looking to send their business in the right direction. During Silicon Valley’s Where 2.0 location aware technology conference in San Jose this week, virtual tours hit the street as Google rotated the bird’s eye view of satellite imagery 90 degrees and swooped in to get a down-to-earth look at the neighborhood, much as Google Earth has been looking at select locations around the globe for years now. |
click here for article
search for : online mapping, satellite imagery, Google Earth
02 Jun 2007 06:17 am
The Secret of Successful Home Staging
| Home staging can be simple and inexpensive, involving small projects like repainting rooms or adding fresh flowers and plants. But, sellers who really want to impress might drop the big bucks and rent high quality furniture, or even remodel. You might not think the fancy tissue box or those fresh flowers on the kitchen counter make a difference, but they do. In fact, according to stagedhomes.com, most home staging efforts have a return on investment somewhere between 400-700%. For example, simply cleaning and de-cluttering your house has a value nearly seven times the cost. So if you spend $400 getting rid of junk, it can raise your home value by an estimated $2,800. |
|
click here for article
search for : Home staging
« Previous Page — Next Page »
