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Flooring is one of the more controversial subjects when it comes to home improvements. There are two firm camps and rarely do they meet in the middle. And when you’re in search of a team of highly skilled professionals who employ cutting-edge equipment and environmentally-friendly cleaning products to guarantee comprehensive and efficient cleaning, then you need not search any further than upholstery cleaning Melbourne. If you’re planning to sell your home, you may think you need to replace the carpet or just clean it with the help from carpet cleaning cincinnati.

While only your local real estate professional can advise you on the best option for your situation, here are some thoughts for consideration:

Hardwood Flooring: Hardwood floors have become central to modern design and many homeowners raised in wall-to-wall carpeting are easily persuaded to exchange their carpet for hardwood. Updating an older look with wood flooring or timber flooring might just be the key to getting your home sold. Before you do, however, make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons.

Visual appeal: There’s no getting around it: Mirage hardwood floors are simply beautiful. Whether you’re into dark cherry or a modern light bamboo, a wood floor can complement most décor and most tastes. A more affordable option for that wood-like appearance is laminate flooring.

Maintenance: For many people, a modern wood floor product is easy to maintain. Usually sweeping or a light dust mop works for most cleaning. Periodically going over your floor with a damp mop using a wood safe product can pick up sticky residue or spills. In addition, they handle a lot of traffic without the “traffic patterns” that carpets pick up. Finally, if your floor gets scratched, you can have it buffed out, re-stained and coated with a clear protective coating.

Special considerations: People that suffer from allergies may find that they have fewer episodes with hardwood over carpet. Since the carpet fibers can collect pollen, animal hair and dander, dust mites and other allergens and irritants, you may find removing the carpet and replacing it with hardwood is an excellent and healthful idea. On Rugs Online you can choose your favorite carpets to redecorate your space.

People looking at your home with an eye to purchase it will find that hardwood holds a lot of attraction for them if they suffer from allergies or asthma.

A note of caution: If you’re considering a vinyl or other synthetic wood-look flooring, you might find you have fewer takers. Those with allergies tend to stay away from household products that can release VOCs (volatile organic compounds), which make asthma worse. Laminate products and especially those products requiring glue can be a source of VOCs. A better option is engineered wood since the surface is a layer of wood veneer over several layers of wood.

In many cases, hardwood can boost your resale value above that of carpet and yet the cost to you is relatively reasonable. According to a market data study done by USA Today, hardwood flooring is one feature people are willing to pay extra for.

If you’re considering some upgrades before you put your home on the market, take a look at replacing the flooring with real hardwood, or an engineered hardwood. Many retailers have end-of-the year specials on home upgrade products.

As always, if you have questions about the best changes to make for your home’s resale value, talk to your local real estate professional.

Compliments of Virtual Results

It’s the end of the year.

You’re already thinking ahead to the spring. You have tons of plans for home improvements.

So why bring this up now?

December is the perfect time to make some money moves to improve your bottom line and get your home ready for the New Year.

Property Taxes

Most property taxes are due by the end of January, but if you pay yours in December you can take the deduction in 2015 and perhaps have a nice little bump in your tax return. Talk to your reliable tax accountant similar to a Trusted Accountant in Liverpool to see if this would work well for you.

Early Mortgage Payments

If you make a second mortgage payment in December you’ll have a little more interest to write off in 2015. Again, as with any tax strategy, check with your tax accountant to see if this is a good move for you.

Leverage Holiday Sales

Home improvement stores, appliance dealers and even carpet companies offer sales and discounts in anticipation of the holidays. If you’ve got a home improvement in mind, or are planning to work on a home project in the New Year, utilize the holiday low prices to buy your materials, appliances, fixtures or tools. You can even put tools on your Christmas list and maybe Santa will put that impact drill or reciprocating saw under the tree. If your washing machine is still fairly new, you may hire a washer and dryer repair technician to service it instead of buying a new one. 

Take an Energy Check Up

Give your home an energy check up to see if your can reduce your utility bills during the high-usage winter months. Contact your local utility to see if they can give your home an energy audit. According to the Department of Energy you can save between five and thirty percent on your energy bill by making some efficiency upgrades to your home. Check out Simply Switch to know more ways on how to save on energy bills. A professional audit can tell you the best places to save the most money.

Other ideas include:

• Seal your windows
• Use a “draft dog” or other draft stopper around your threshold
• Wear layered clothing
• Change your ceiling fan to run clockwise. Typically, fans run counter-clockwise to move cool air. Reversing your fan (on low speed) helps push rising warm air back down into the room. The air near the ceiling can be as much as 10 degrees higher than the air near your feet, so moving the warm air back into the room can lower your energy needs.
• Close window coverings a dark. As soon as the sun sets, close the curtains, drapes and blinds. They act as an insulation barrier to keep the cold out and the warm air in. But, when the sun it out and shining through those windows, open up the window coverings to let that radiant heat in.
• Cook in your oven. Baking or roasting your home-cooked meals gives some extra warmth to your home.
• Replace your furnace filter. Constant running clogs the filter with dust and debris. Clean or replace the filter regularly throughout the winter and you’ll have a more efficient furnace…and lower energy bills.
• Get a new water heater installation with a higher energy-efficiency rating. Otherwise, you may just put a blanket on your water heater.
• Add insulation to your attic. You may opt for Low GWP Spray Foam as your insulation material.
• Consider using energy efficient LED decorations

Your real estate professional can point you in the direction of other savings available in your area.

Compliments of Virtual Results

Thanksgiving is over and the holiday season is in full swing.

You’ve been imaging all the ways you can decorate your new home to celebrate the season, so to keep you and your family safe in your new place we’ve gathered this list of dangerous decorating choices to avoid:

• Don’t over crowd your space. In the same way that you plan which furniture to fit into a room, make sure your decorations fit in the space you have planned for them.
• Make sure there is space between your tree and the wall.
• Keep trees and other décor away from fireplaces.
• Likewise, keep decorations away from heaters and vents.
• Do not overload your circuits. That means not plugging all the lights into one lightweight extension cord. Spread your electrical use among several circuits if you can.
• Hide cords along walls or under furniture so that visitors and family don’t trip over them.
• If you have small children or pets, consider putting a fence or barrier around the tree so that curious little ones or anxious pets cannot tip the tree over.
• Avoid using decorations that look like candy if small children might mistake them for the real thing.
• Keep candles away from greenery or other flammables.
• Don’t use a space heater near where wrapping paper might be discarded.
• If you’re using a ladder to hang lights or decorate the tree, have a second person there to hold the ladder steady.
• When hanging lights from gutters, use gutter clips to avoid damaging your gutters or nailing holes in your roof that might later cause leaks.
• Use outdoor rated extension cords, timers and decorations outdoors.
• Avoid wrapping handrails with prickly decorations. Visitors to your home need to be able to use the railing for safely.
• If you have a fresh tree or plants, keep them watered so that they don’t become over dry and turn into a fire hazard.
• Keep fragile ornaments far out of reach of little hands.
• If using a menorah or kinara in a window, make certain window coverings are tied out of the way. Protect furniture from candle drips and keep flame at least 12 inches away from anything flammable.
• Make sure that older family members keep medicines put away out of sight of smaller family members.
• Keep holiday plants (especially those with bright berries or that might be poisonous) out of reach of pets and children alike.

Since you are new to the neighborhood, if you plan to have lots of guests, check with your new neighbors to make sure they know who belongs and who doesn’t. Make sure your guests have plenty of room to park on cleaned driveways and have dry sidewalks to walk on.

Most of all, have a wonderful holiday.

Compliments of Virtual Results

Turkey. Dressing. Sweet potato casserole. Pumpkin pie with fresh whipped cream.

Yum!

You anticipate the traditional savory Thankgiving menu all year long.

But, this year, your home is on the market. As a very motived seller, you may be planning an open house over the Thanksgiving holiday.

If so, kudos to you … especially if you have family visiting from out of town.

Here are the things you need to be aware of to put your home in the absolute best light for visitors:

1. Don’t plan the open house for Thanksgiving Day

This probably goes without saying, but most people have plans on the day and it’s doubtful they’ll slip away from the table to come visit your home. Of course, even though we really, really, really want to sell your home, we probably won’t host your open house on Thanksgiving either. On the other hand, if a neighbor has guests and they want to take a look at your home … we’ll leave that one up to you, but they’ll get a better view of your home if they come on a different day.

2. Expect series buyers

If a buyer is willing to give up Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, or their Sunday (being the last day of the long weekend) to visit your open house, they are probably serious about looking at your home. So, while you may have less traffic, visitors have taken the time out of their holiday to take a look at your home.

3. Go easy on decorations

Lots of folks spend the Thanksgiving holiday pulling out the Christmas decorations, setting up the tree, hanging lights and generally getting their homes ready for the December holidays. If you’re planning to have an open house, consider delaying your Christmas or other holiday decorating until after the open house. While simple, tasteful seasonal decoration may be appropriate and festive, decking the halls might overwhelm buyers, try to stick to extra large rugs in he living room but don’t go further than that. They need to see your home in as natural a state as possible so that they can make an informed decision.

4. Beware of lingering odors

A full day of roasting and baking is fabulous on the big day … everyone wants to smell freshly prepared delights. But those fragrant aromas can become stuffy, distasteful, off-putting odors than can turn off buyers. Take the time to thoroughly air out your home. Clean up oven spills and hide away leftovers. Spray an odor suppressor around your home too, just to be on the safe side.

5. Find a place to be

While your home is open, make yourself scarce. If you have houseguests or visiting family, plan a place to go. Serious buyers need the opportunity to peek into cupboards, and closets, poke around corners and cubbyholes and most of all, ask probing questions.

Only your real estate professional can advise you about having an open house over the Thanksgiving weekend. Ask us!

Compliments of Virtual Results

You’ve found it!

The home you’ve been searching for is for sale and you want to buy it.

Can you afford it?

How can you tell?

First of all, the Internet is full of ways to calculate how much a mortgage will be. You can click on any mortgage calculator—like this one at Bankrate or this one at the Mortgage Calculator — plug in the potential numbers and check out the results.

What you’ll get is a box to plug in the mortgage amount, interest rate, term (in months) and start date. You’ll get a number that gives you principal and interest payments amortized for the life of the loan.

What you won’t get is what buying the home really costs.

Nor will you learn if you can qualify for the loan.

What the number you get will tell you is if you’re even in the ballpark. In general, if you have decent credit, you should calculate your mortgage payment at no more than 28 percent of your gross income. Of course, if you’re debt-to-income ratio is very high, your mortgage should probably be even less.

The bottom line is that even if you think you can afford higher payments, the people that loan money have lots of facts and figures on their side (called actuary tables) that tell them the risk is high for default if your debt-to-income ratio is high.

You also need to factor in the other costs of buying a home such as homeowners insurance, any association dues (for condominiums or neighborhoods with shared-responsibility common areas), the closing costs, money to set aside for future maintenance (new roof, gutters, paint, etc.) and extra purchases that you might have: think new furniture, a lawn mower, plants for the landscaping, etc.

If you’re truly ready to buy a home (meaning you’ve saved up some money for a down payment and have paid down your credit cards and car payment so that your debt is low) take the time to talk to a mortgage lender to see if you can get pre-approved for a loan. Once they put in the numbers (your income, expenses, debt, etc.) they can give you the actual amount they believe you can afford on a monthly basis.

Additionally, if you have a pre-approval letter, you can be confident that when you submit an offer it will get a serious review!

If you have questions about getting pre-approved for a loan, give us a call. We can point you in the right direction.

Compliments of Virtual Results

Stuffed!

That’s how you feel on Thursday.

Once the turkey is picked clean, the dishes are done and the last bite of pie sitting in a pool of melted ice cream on your dessert plate, most savvy shoppers start thinking about Black Friday. You know the one … long lines, people shoving people out of the way, fighting over that last toy or game!!

Well … we’ve got a better idea!

If you’re thinking of moving to a new neighborhood, now is the time to consider Small Business Saturday as your shopping day of choice. Small Business Saturday is the day after Black Friday and is a great day to get to know the shops, cafés, boutiques and other offerings of your new neighborhood.

Take a leisurely stroll down the streets, duck into a doorway of a store you’ve been meaning to visit but just haven’t gotten around to, and find unique gifts for your family and friends.

Small businesses are what make communities special. When you check out a new neighborhood, you want to know that small businesses can thrive there. It is in the corner café that you meet new friends, find out what’s happening in town and get to know your neighbors.

Planning to check out the small businesses in a neighborhood you plan to move to can give you a sense of connection to that community. Meet the shop owners. Chat with the servers in the restaurant where you have brunch to see what they like about the community. Ask patrons that seem to be regulars where to find the best fresh fruits and vegetables. Look for posters that indicate when schools, recreation centers and local houses of worship have special holiday events.

As you walk around, observe if establishments have Facebook stickers on their doors. Connect with them online to find out about specials, or read what others are saying about them.

While you’re there, post a positive recommendation on Yelp or TripAdvisor. Your new friends and neighbors will appreciate the boost.

If you plan to move a small business into the neighborhood, observing how other local shops and eateries handle the day can give you ideas for planning your own Small Business Saturday next year.

As always, if you have questions about a community, your local real estate professional can give you information and resources to help you connect, learn and become a part of your new neighborhood.

Compliments of Virtual Results

You’ve been collecting ideas to remodel or redecorate your home for years. Now, you’re finally ready to get down to work. You’ve saved up your money and found contractors.

So, which ideas do you do and which are outdated that you should discard?

While each item is subject to your own desires, some trends just don’t make as much sense as they did in the past.

The kitchen desk — At one time, designers thought adding a desk to the kitchen area would be a great idea. At the far end of a counter, they would drop the counter surface down to desk height, have a cabinet for a printer and space for computer wires and a telephone. The idea was that cooks could file recipes, householders could pay bills or students could do homework there.

These days, hardly anyone has a landline phone in the kitchen and smart shoppers keep their recipes on an iPad or tablet that sits in a special holder near their workspace. Kids tend to need more space than a kitchen desk typically provided to spread out homework and projects and bills are more often than not received and paid online.

Ditch the kitchen desk and keep the extra counter space for food prep. And while we’re talking about counter space … some designers have seen a trend of moving away from difficult to care for surfaces like granite into more maintenance-free engineered solid surfaces.

Faux wall paint — You’ve been wanting to try that faux finish on your walls ever since you got hooked on the DIY home improvement shows three summers ago and now you finally have a wall and the time. Should you do it?

Well, if you’re planning to sell your home, don’t. Faux finishes are personal touches that typically get painted over during preparations to sell a home. If the finish will be difficult to cover, or has to be scraped off in order to make a smooth wall, consider doing it on paintable wallpaper instead and then just removing the wallpaper.

Whirlpool and garden tubs — Another trend you should ditch is the extra large tub that dominates the bathroom. Once a staple of the upscale home, larger tubs take up space in busy households and become collectors of the laundry, plants or other items that need the space.

Instead, think about form and function. If your family takes showers … make the shower awesome. Spend money on surfaces that are easier to keep up in a busy household like easy care luxury vinyl flooring or marble flooring.

Finally, whatever you do, don’t forget about the big picture. Consider how the walls, surfaces, cabinets and hardware has to work together. If in doubt, seek advice from your local real estate professional as to what items are selling in your area.

Compliments of Virtual Results

“To cancel or not to cancel … that is the question.”

When selling your home in the fall, and as the weather becomes decidedly more winterish, you may question if having that open house is a good idea after all.

Here are some things to consider before cancelling your open house.

• Buyers that venture out in the rain are more likely to be serious buyers and not simply curious lookers.
• Buyers will know that your home is warm and cozy in bad weathers.
• Your property’s solid structure will come shining through
• If you cancel, buyers might be concerned that your home has leaks in windows, roofs or basement areas or that your drainage is less than optimal. Drain Unblocking Service In Blackpool will make sure your drainage is performing good.
• And, if you cancel after someone made all the effort to come out in the rain to see your house, it might deter them from trying to see it another time

So what do you do to compensate for the weather?

Be prepared to make the experience as pleasant as possible:

• Turn on all the lights. You want your home to be as bright as possible so that potentials buyers sense your home is warm and inviting.
• Open up all the drapes, shutters and blinds.
• Make sure your gutters are clear of debris and that water is flowing freely from gutter to downspout and diverted away from sidewalks
• Provide doormats for people to wipe their feet and towels to dry off with
• Provide an umbrella stand so that their wet umbrellas have a home
• Recognize that odors may seem stronger on damp days, remove pet beds to the garage and use lightly-scented fabric refreshing sprays like Febreze to eliminate odors in carpets, drapes or furniture

In addition, you might have coffee and to-go cups on hand so your real estate professional can send them on their way with a warm cup of brew.

When a large number of real estate professionals were polled about cancelling an open house because of rain, a large number claimed they had sold several homes on rainy days.

If you have questions about having an open house during the late fall and winter months, consult your real estate professionals. They know your market, and they know the kinds of people that will take the time — rain or shine — to visit their potential new home.

Compliments of Virtual Results

“The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation.”
— George Washington

Appreciation

During the Veterans Day celebrations we want to let those who served know how much we appreciate them by sharing some good news: According to the Department of Veteran Affairs, the number of VA loans guaranteed under the G.I. Bill by its Loan Guaranty Program is now 630,000. This means that more than 300% more veterans are purchasing home with their V.A. loans since the housing downturn.

V.A. Loans are sitting between three and four percent and allow for up to 100% financing of your home loan. Translated that means … NO DOWN PAYMENT. This no-money down feature allows military borrowers to buy instead of rent without having to save up that large chunk of money first.

In addition, unlike other government guaranteed loans, the V.A. loan does not require mortgage insurance (also known as PMI or Private Mortgage Insurance), which reduces your monthly outgo.

You can use your V.A. loan to purchase your primary residents (the home you live in for most of the year). So, if you plan to spend more than six months in the warmer southern states, you can use your V.A. loan to purchase the home you plan to retire to.

There’s good news for Reservists too!

Those Reservists or men and women in the National Guard having completed six years of service are eligible for this benefit. In fact, if you served on active duty during wartime, your eligibility might be even shorter … as few as 90 days. This means that many more veterans might be able to get into a home sooner than they think.

Reduce your interest rates

If you’ve already used your Veterans Affairs Home Loan benefits, you might be eligible for a reduction in your interest rates. Check out the Interest Rate Reduction Refinance Loan (also available through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, to see if refinancing your loan might be useful to you. Some special features of the IRRRL are that it doesn’t require an appraisal or credit underwriting package and the fees and other costs of the loan can be absorbed into the loan or by accepting a high enough interest rate to allow the lender to take care of the costs.

Another advantage of the IRRRL is that you do not need to be living in the home now. You only need to certify that you lived in the home previously (when you obtained the original V.A. loan on the home). That means that if you’ve turned it into a rental or are allowing your children to live in it, you can still refinance it with this loan.

If you have questions about buying a home or need information about a lender that handles V.A. loans, your real estate professional can help. Just give us a call.

“On this Veterans Day, let us remember the service of our veterans, and let us renew our national promise to fulfill our sacred obligations to our veterans and their families who have sacrificed so much so that we can live free.”
—Dan Lipinski

Compliments of Virtual Results

The Feds have been pretty indecisive about moving interest rates up, but the down-low is that they plan to make the move upwards in December.

No matter where you are in the market, whether you’re buying or selling, or just saving up a downpayment, interest rates can inversely affect your transactions.

Here are some ways to prepare for a potential rate hike:

Buyers

Get Pre-Approved – If you’re in the market for a home now, DO NOT HESITATE … get pre-approved by your lender. Different from “Pre-Qualified” (which just means that you have the potential to be approved if there are no hidden skeletons in your credit closed), a pre-approval means that a lender has investigated your background and credit history and is willing to loan you money. At the end of the pre-approval process, the lender will give you a Pre-Approval Letter indicating the amount they are willing to loan you and the most likely interest rate in current conditions.

What this does for you – Having a pre-approval letter means that you know what price home you can afford. It allows you to shop for homes at that price or lower. It also gives you bargaining power with an anxious seller. He may be willing to reduce his price for a sure thing rather than wait for a better offer and miss his chance.

When you have a pre-approval letter, your real estate agent knows you are serious about buying now and might be able to negotiate some extras for you in the transaction, too.

If you wait for interest rates to go up, you may have to settle for less house for the same payments.

Sellers

Require Pre-Approval to Accept an Offer – After you go through all the effort to negotiate and meet the requests and demands of the buyer, you don’t want the transaction to fall through just because the buyer couldn’t get financing. Many real estate professionals will advise you not to accept an offer, or even entertain one, without a pre-approval. The challenge for sellers is that once you accept an offer, you can’t reject it in favor of a better offer that might come along. It just makes sense to protect yourself from offers falling through from lack of funding.

Not Great for Current Sales– Prepare yourself for the rate hike by knowing how much you can adjust your asking price to compensate for a higher rate. Discuss these variables with your real estate professional and have a plan of action in place.

Terrific for Future Sales – If you plan to sell your home in the future, the rate increases will be in your favor because home prices will begin to rise and you can ask more for your property than you can today. The Feds resist raising rates until they think the overall economy is improving.

Savers

Good News – Higher interest rates are good news for savers because over time the compounded interest will give you more money for that down-payment. Just make sure to keep investing in your savings plan because rate hikes typically signify that prices in all areas of the economy will rise, so you’ll need a bigger downpayment for the same house.

If you need advice on buying, selling or saving for a home, let your local real estate professional guide you.

Compliments of Virtual Results