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Taking Care of Your Home

The Value of Curb Appeal

When attempting to sell your home, you might be amazed at what a little change in your landscaping can do to make your home attractive to prospective buyers. Even if your home is immaculate on the inside, the buyer’s first impression will be set in stone before they even enter the home. If your bushes are overgrown or your grass needs a good trimming, it can quickly turn away most buyers.

However, one type of real-estate investor makes a habit of looking for homes with poor curb appeal. These are typically flippers who are looking to pay pennies on the dollar, improve the property’s cosmetic value, and double their money in a matter of months. By neglecting your lawn and shrubbery, you not only attract this type of individual, but you also lower your property value.

Creating a lovely exterior doesn’t have to be expensive. Just like you removed the clutter from inside your home, get rid of anything that looks out of place or junky on your lawn. Clean your windows, repaint your trim, rake your leaves, and trim your bushes. Buy some attractive potted plants and arrange them on your front steps. If you can’t judge whether it’s enough, ask your real-estate agent for an opinion.

Your goal is to create a welcoming atmosphere that makes people feel like they’ve arrived a well-cared for home instead of a neglected, vacant property. Without this feeling, they may wonder what else has been neglected in the home in addition to the landscaping.

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Filed Under: Exterior, Real Estate Tagged With: Buyer, Major League Soccer, Real estate broker/agent

It’s a Great Time to Invest

 

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If you’ve always wanted to invest in rental properties, there’s no better time than the present. The real-estate market is definitely geared towards the buyer with low prices and low interest rates. Although the numbers are dropping, the market is filled with foreclosures and short sales. And, rental prices are actually going up while home prices are going down. This is because the people that are losing their homes have to live somewhere.

 

When looking for a good investment property, check the records at your local courthouse. Some banks will provide a list of foreclosures, but many won’t. However, every foreclosure has to go through the court system. Many real-estate agents specialize in bank-owned properties, short sales, and other types of bargains. Ask around to find out who can find a real deal and give them a call. If you have the money or the credit to make a purchase, you might be surprised at just what you can find.

Once you have a rental property in your portfolio, make sure that it is in good repair before you advertise it for rent. Carefully review each application before choosing a tenant. To make this a profitable venture, you’ll want the rental relationship to last as long as possible. Look for renters who have a stable employment background and a good credit rating. It doesn’t hurt to ask if they’re planning on a long-term rental or if they’re planning on making a real-estate purchase of their own in the near future.

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Filed Under: Real Estate, Rentals Tagged With: Foreclosure, Real estate, Renting

Don’t Skip the Home Inspection

 

5–20R T-slot receptacle mounted with the groun...

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Now that you’ve found the home of your dreams and settled on a price that fits your budget, you’re determined to move forward, close the sale, and take possession of the property. Along the way, don’t forget to have the home checked out by a professional home inspector. This step is very affordable considering how much you’re spending, and it can point out any defect in the home from a non-working electrical outlet to a rotten support beam.

 

The home inspector will look at every part of the home from the top to the bottom as well as some parts of the yard. If you want, you can meet him at the home and observe the inspection. Afterwards, the inspector will give you a detailed report showing everything that is currently wrong with the home as well as what may need to be done over the next few years.

 

With this report in hand, you can go back to the negotiation table with the buyer. For each item, they have three choices. They can say they won’t fix the problem, they will fix the defect, or they’ll take a specific dollar amount off the sales price. Depending on how you feel about each choice, it may be grounds to cancel the contract depending on how it was written. If the defect is bad enough, you might want to cancel the sale no matter what. Forfeiting your deposit at this point would still be better than wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars on a real money pit.

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Filed Under: Real Estate Tagged With: Buyer, Inspection, United States

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