4 Staging Tips That Have Universal Appeal

Posted on Jan 21 2022 - 3:02pm by Housecall

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By Meghan Belnap

When you're selling your home, you want to do all you can to ensure it sells as quickly as possible and for the highest possible price. While the home itself will be the main attraction, it's still important to consider the small details that buyers will inevitably notice.

Related: Winter Home Staging Tips That Promote Safety and Sales

Some people choose to forego the staging process, thinking it's a waste of time, but it can greatly increase the number of offers you receive. Here are four approaches to take that'll make your home look great when potential buyers come through:

Remove Personal Items

The first thing you want to focus on when staging your home is to make sure to remove any personal affects. Pictures, kids' drawings, certificates or anything else that might identify you needs to be taken down. While there are safety benefits to taking this step, the main reason you want to depersonalize your home is so that any potential buyers can visualize themselves living in your home. If you can capture their imagination, you've already won half the battle.

Go for Neutral

Although you may have a very bold decorating personality, it might be best to mute that somewhat when you're trying to sell your home. Again, buyers want to be able to visualize themselves living in your home, but if your decor is too far from what they enjoy, you might cause them to miss the underlying beauty of your home. This isn't to say, of course, that you can't have a few fun pops of color throughout your home. Instead, just make sure that everything matches and isn't too distracting.

Keep It Simple

When REALTORS® show a home, it makes a world of difference if they can easily explain what a room can be used for. That's why it's important to simplify your decor as much as possible. Try to have only a few main pieces of furniture in each room, and make sure to remove any clutter that makes your home look smaller. This will help potential buyers "catch the vision" of how they can use certain rooms as they tour your home.

Appropriate Exterior

Staging a home starts with the exterior. An attractive exterior will create a strong first impression, making it easier for buyers to overlook other small flaws in your home. Try to coordinate your landscaping with the season, having mums in the fall, flowering plants in the spring and summer, as well as simple, tidy landscaping in the winter.

If you're having trouble figuring out how best to stage your home, it's worth it to ask an expert. Even a few simple tips can help you significantly increase the perceived value of your home. Selling a home is a major financial transaction, so make sure that you don't leave this transaction to chance!

Meghan Belnap is a freelance writer who enjoys spending time with her family. She loves being outdoors and researching new topics that help to expand her horizons. Belnap recommends working with real estate professionals like those at the BHHS Towne Realty for your home listing needs.

Appliance Maintenance for New Homeowners

 

A Guide to Appliance Maintenance for New Homeowners

Posted on Jan 5 2022 - 4:29pm by Housecall

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By Meghan Belnap

Buying home appliances is expensive. From dishwashers and refrigerators to espresso machines and water heaters, once they're fitted into a home, the responsibility of making sure they operate efficiently lies on the homeowner.

Related: How to Avoid Dust Buildup in Household Appliances

Although it may seem like a daunting task for new homeowners, with the right repair tools and regular maintenance, you'll not only prevent the appliances from breaking down, but also keep your home looking its best. Here's a new homeowners' guide to proper and efficient appliance maintenance:

Clean the Dishwasher

As a new homeowner, one of the main appliances you'll use regularly is the dishwasher. While it is a cleaning machine in and of itself, keeping it clean will help it properly do its job. Maintaining your dishwasher ensures that your plates are clean and free from odors, smudges and bacteria. Start by cleaning the spray arm nozzles. Also, if the filters aren’t self-cleaning, be sure to clean them with vinegar, lemon juice or other recommended acidic solutions.

Inspect the Air Conditioner

We all know the value of a working home air conditioner. Unfortunately, AC units require regular maintenance. Occasionally, you'll need to check the air filters and ensure they're cleaned to get rid of clogging and dirt. Clogged filters can cause inefficiency and reduce the lifespan of your appliances. You’ll want to change out these filters several times per year for the best results.

Maintain the Water Heater

Water heaters also require a lot of maintenance. First, confirm that the pressure relief valve is working efficiently by trapping excess pressure created by hot water. Also, check any clogging in the waterway that may be caused by calcium buildup. Most importantly, develop the habit of draining water completely out of the heater tanks to release any settled sediments. If your water heater has technical problems, you should contact a professional water heater repair technician.

Clean the Refrigerator Coils

Refrigerators can be expensive to purchase and repair. Therefore, the last thing you would want is to have them break down. As a homeowner, you need to ensure the refrigerator coils are cleaned regularly and water filters changed to increase the cooling efficiency. Usually, you'll find the instructions for cleaning coils and changing filters on the manual pamphlet.

Oven and Stove Maintenance

You don't have much to worry about when it comes to oven and stove maintenance. The only responsibility you have is to ensure they are properly cleaned. This is particularly true on stove igniters which can be affected by food spills. You should also confirm that the oven doors are tightly sealed to increase energy efficiency and faster cooking.

Conclusion

Proper maintenance of your home appliances goes a long way in improving their efficiency and lifespan. As a new homeowner, the above-mentioned tips will ensure your appliances serve you best and for an extended period. For more technical maintenance, you can always contact experts in your area.

Meghan Belnap is a freelance writer who enjoys spending time with her family. She loves being outdoors and researching new topics that help to expand her horizons. Belnap recommends working with professionals like those at the Plumb Doctors for your water heater repair needs.

 

10 Worst Things to Carry in Your Wallet

With identity theft rampant, keep only the essentials in your pocket or purse

by Katherine Skiba, AARP, December 7, 2021

KATHYDEWAR/GETTYIMAGES

In an episode of “Seinfeld,” Jerry's neurotic friend George Costanza has so much stuff jam-packed into his wallet that it’s ridiculed as a “filing cabinet.” The wallet bulges with everything from Irish currency to a coupon redeemable at Orlando, Florida-area Exxons to filched packets of Sweet’N Low. Walking down the street, Costanza the pack rat tries to stuff one more thing inside and the billfold explodes, scattering its contents to the wind.

Jon Clay, vice president of threat intelligence for Trend Micro, a global cybersecurity firm, mentions the episode when talking about what consumers should not carry in their wallets lest they lose valuable information. In an era in which identity theft is epidemic, the lessons of the old sitcom remain timely.

TREND MICRO

Cybersecurity expert Jon Clay of Trend Micro urges consumers to keep the bare minimum in their wallets.

Pickpockets — and ne’er-do-wells who say “finders keepers” when they stumble on a lost wallet — aren’t after just your cash. When it comes to personally identifiable information, it may be that the original crook profits by reselling it, Clay says.

Worse, the crook may bring in accomplices and share the loot. After a lost wallet was pocketed in June at a casino in Davenport, Iowa, the thief kept the $800 inside and an ID card. Later, the rightful owner’s name and personal information was exploited to set up an online bank account to obtain a debit card and checks, and with accomplices, the first crook and his cohorts went on a spending spree at a half dozen merchants, later peddling some of their $5,600 in purchases on Facebook Marketplace, authorities said.

“We all think we are being careful, but it takes one second for a criminal to steal our wallet or purse,” says AARP’s Amy Nofziger, who oversees its Fraud Watch Network helpline, 877-908-3360.

“Limit what you carry to ensure you don’t put yourself at a greater risk,” she says. “Even though we hear about online crime every day, there are still many criminals waiting to get ahold of your personal belongings. They look for your wallet and purses at gyms, grocery stores and your car.”

How to keep your wallet safe

Since many merchants accept digital wallets, Clay says he’s apt to carry just a single credit card because he’s only encountered some gas stations that won’t let you pay with a digital wallet. These contain digital versions of your credit and debit cards, and you pay with a smartphone. Examples include Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Google Pay.

A resident of Colorado, Clay also relies on the myColorado mobile app to store his driver’s license, vaccination record, vehicle registration and proof of auto insurance. So unless he’s traveling out of state, he avoids carrying those.

Even if you’re not as tech-savvy as Clay, your wallet can be leaner, and with respect to cybercrooks, meaner. Take some time to declutter and potentially spare yourself from some time and trouble cancelling accounts and obtaining new cards. First, consumer advocates say, make photocopies (or take smartphone photos) of the front and back of all your cards, so you know whom to contact if they go missing.

Here are the 10 things that he suggests you remove from your wallet and store in a safe place, such as a fireproof lock box or a safe deposit box depending on how often you need to access them:

• Social Security card.

• COVID-19 vaccination record card, which carries your date of birth and hints at where you live.
  
  
• Multiple credit cards and credit-card receipts.
  
  
• Checkbook, or even one blank check.

• Work ID card.

• Passport or passport card.

• List of your passwords.

• Gift card not fully redeemed.

•  Birth certificate.

• Library card. It sounds benign, but a crook can always check out lots of books and sell them for a buck or two apiece, Clay warns.

​“We all think we are being careful, but it takes one second for a criminal to steal our wallet or purse.” ​

—Amy Nofziger, AARP's director of fraud victim support

Year End Outlook

Editor’s Note: RISMedia’s Year-End Outlook series provides an in-depth analysis of the housing market’s leading indicators for economic health, and showcases expert insights on what’s to come in 2022. 

Depending on whom you ask, the past year of home price gains may have been a boon or a bust. Home prices rose by nearly 20% over the past year under a perfect storm of a widening supply and demand gap in addition to pandemic-induced influences.

On the one hand, sellers have benefited from heated competition that drove property value through the roof during the second half of 2021. On the other, surging price tags have continued to exacerbate long standing affordability issues, with more people being priced out of the market.

Housing affordability dipped in 2021 as tight inventory and high demand contributed to record-setting price surges, according to Gay Cororaton, senior economist and director of Housing and Commercial Research at the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR).

“Even before the pandemic, we had a tight supply because of lack of labor, and then when the pandemic hit, people didn’t seem too interested in listing their homes,” she says.

When the COVID-19 pandemic first appeared in March 2020, many people anticipated the housing market’s demise, says Matthew Gardner, chief economist at Seattle-based Windermere Real Estate.

“What we found was that demand not only came back, but it came back in an even more robust manner than had been seen before the pandemic hit,” Gardner says. “That was boosted even more by the work-from-home paradigm.”

The success and uncanny market behavior resulted from a series of factors, including razor-thin supply and mortgage rates, which began declining in January 2020 and ultimately landed at historically low levels—2.68%—by December of that year.

With a month left in 2021, real estate experts tell RISMedia that they expect home prices to continue climbing in 2022, albeit at a slower pace than 2021.

The days of double-digit price appreciation are gone, according to Gardner who suggests price gains to hit just above 7% in 2022.

“That is certainly not a number to be sniffed at,” Gardner says, adding that the growth will still be above the long-term average but will “come off of the sugar high that we saw this year.”

“We are going to see headwinds relative to price growth, but it’s going to be predominantly a function of two things: wages not keeping up affordability and mortgage rates rising,” Gardner warns.

In previous conversations with RISMedia, Gardner said he expected 30-year fixed mortgage rates to approach but not break 4% next year. While he maintains those predictions, he notes that it will still be up by an entire percentage point from the lows in 2021, which will squeeze more buyers out of the market.

Another factor likely to add to the cooldown in price gains is the addition of new supply. Cororaton suggests that new construction is poised to improve next year.

Despite expected improvements in new construction, Cororaton says there is still a long way to go before the industry makes a substantial dent in the market’s 5.8 million housing unit needs.

“We’re just estimating an increase of 100,000 housing starts right now, so supply will continue to remain tight as it has been since 2012,” she says.

Brokers and industry leaders say they are keeping a close eye on how many homes come on the market next year, especially as seller confidence picks up under continued progress in vaccinations.

“There are likely many that sat on the sidelines in 2021 because of the pandemic,” says Sherry Chris, president and CEO of Realogy Expansion Brands.

Chris suggests that the increase in supply and rising mortgage rates could influence the number of potential buyers. “Should this occur, we might see a decrease in multiple-bid offers, and prices might stabilize,” says Chris.

Another factor that could inject additional homes into the market is increasing foreclosure activity, says Ashley Bowers, president of HomeSmart International.

“If we start to see more foreclosures, I think it will slow down the price increase and probably shake up affordability too for people who want to do more of the fixer-uppers,” Bowers says.

The market hasn’t had to wait long to see foreclosure activity pick up since the moratorium lifted in July 2021.

While experts and brokers have been unconvinced that the market will see a deluge of foreclosed homes on the market, Bowers notes that a sizable increase could slow price gains a bit further.

“We’ve seen a little bit of an increase already, but I think it depends quite honestly on the administration and what happens with decisions that they are making as it relates to moratoriums and things like that,” she says.

Christina Pappas, VP of the Keyes Company, thinks brokers and agents looking to meet the coming market conditions head-on should prioritize their client-facing messaging regarding home-buying and affordability challenges.

“The misconception of the expensiveness of the down payment is one of those topics where we think about how we help our agents become valuable to the consumers,” Pappas says.

She adds that the value will come from agents showing deep knowledge and understanding of the programs offered in their neighborhood and what is affordable.

“The other catch when you look at affordability is that many people look at prices, and those are great headlines, but what matters is my monthly payment, and that’s the story that we need to talk about,” Pappas continues.

Despite the current trajectory of mortgage rates, they are still relatively low when compared with pre-pandemic levels. Pappas indicates that millennials and first-time homebuyers will still try to take advantage of the lower rates next year.

Jordan Grice is RISMedia’s associate online editor. Email him your real estate news ideas to jgrice@rismedia.com.

 

4 Ways to Keep Your Home’s Air Quality at Its Best

Posted on Nov 17 2021 - 3:18pm by Housecall

By Kara Masterson

Your home’s air quality can have a big impact on your family’s respiratory health. This is just one of the many reasons why you should ensure that your house isn’t filled with airborne contaminants. Luckily, with a little bit of preventative maintenance and a few upgrades, such as the ones listed below, you can make sure that your home’s air remains fresh and healthy.

Regularly Change the Air Filters

Changing the air filters is one important maintenance task that many homeowners often forget about for months at a time. Unfortunately, your filter is going to be your first line of defense against a wide variety of toxins and irritants, and it must be changed frequently. Every home is different, but you should plan on replacing all of the filters in your home every 30 to 60 days.

Keep Your Home Clean

It should come as no surprise that a clean home is much less likely to have unwanted airborne contaminants. Dust and other debris will eventually get kicked into the air whenever it is allowed to settle on surfaces for extended periods of time. When it comes to air quality, some of the worst offenders are fabric curtains, runners and rugs. You should also make sure that you always use HEPA filters whenever you're vacuuming any surfaces in your home.

Service the HVAC System

Over time, debris can make its way into your HVAC system. Even if you're regularly changing the filter, some contaminants are still going to get in through small pinholes and cracks. As a general rule, you should schedule a service call with your HVAC contractor at least twice a year to inspect and clean the entire system. This will prolong your unit’s life and insure you get the very best results from your system.

Invest in Air Purifiers

There are a few different types of air purifiers, and each option has its own pros and cons. A whole-house air purifier is a highly effective device that is usually attached to the HVAC system, but it can be pricey depending on the size of the home and which model is installed. For those who only want to purify the air in a single room, a smaller air filter might be a better option.

While these few tips and tricks should have a big impact on your indoor air quality, there might still be some contaminants lingering in the air. If you or a family member ever develops unusual respiratory problems, then you must contact a doctor right away to schedule a checkup.

Kara Masterson is a freelance writer from West Jordan, Utah. She graduated from the University of Utah and enjoys writing and spending time with her dog, Max. Masterson recommends working with ZAP Cooling and Heating if you're looking for an HVAC contractor.

 

Should I Sell My Home Now or Wait Until the Spring?

 

There are many questions homeowners ask themselves during the selling process. "How much will my home sell for?"  "How much should I list my home for?"  "Who should I select as a real estate agent to sell my home?"  "What if the real estate agent overprices my home?"  Last but not least, "Is this a good time to be selling a home?" is also a very common question that real estate agents are asked.

As with every decision in life, there are pros and cons, and choosing when to sell a home is no different. There are many factors that need to be taken into consideration before deciding when to sell a home. Many homeowners believe selling a home during the fall or winter months is not a good idea and that the spring is the only time a house should be sold. This is the furthest from the truth. Certainly most real estate markets across the United States experience a "spring market rush" every year. There is no doubt that the "spring market" is a great time to be selling and buying real estate, however, the fall and winter seasons may be the best fit for you for many reasons.

Here are several reasons why choosing to sell your home now may be a better decision than waiting until the spring:

Less Competition
One way that you can tell the spring real estate market has arrived is by driving down a street in your local community. In all likelihood there will be For Sale signs up all over the neighborhood! One great reason to sell your home now and not wait until the spring market is there is sure to be less competition.  The fewer number of comparable homes for sale, the greater the probability that a buyer will look at your home.

Simply put, it’s the supply and demand theory. If there are less homes for sale, there are less homes that a potential buyer can choose from, therefore increasing the demand for your home. Not only will less competition increase the probability for showings, but it will also increase the probability that an offer will be received and you will get the maximum amount of money for your home.

Serious Buyers Are Out There
Homes are sold and bought 365 days a year, period!  Many homeowners believe that buyers aren't out there during the fall and winter months. This simply is not the case. Serious buyers are always out there!  Some buyers may stop their home search because it is the fall or winter, but serious buyers will continue to look at homes, no matter what time of year it is.

The fall and winter months are also a great time for a potential buyer to see what a specific neighborhood is like.  Do your neighbors have pumpkins on their front step?  Are there lots of Trick-or-Treaters wandering the neighborhood on Halloween?  Do any of your neighbors have any light displays for the holidays?  There are buyers out there who will look at these types of things when determining whether your home is in the right neighborhood for them or not.

The Best Agents Are Always Up To The Challenge
Any real estate agent who tells you that the fall or winter months are a bad time to sell is not someone you want selling your home! A great real estate agent will know how to adapt to the current season and market their listings to reflect that.  A great real estate agent can make suggestions and give some of their tips on how to sell a home during the fall or winter seasons. If a real estate agent doesn't have any suggestions on making your home more desirable for the current season, you should be concerned about the creativity they are going to use when marketing your home.

Staging For The Holiday Season
Many sellers believe staging a home is the main reason a home sells.  While staging certainly helps sell homes, some buyers have a difficult time envisioning themselves in a home no matter what you do. However, there are some buyers who can easily be "sold" on a home because it is staged.  Simple “seasonal” staging such as adjusting the color of the decor or having an aroma in the air that is relative to the time of year can go a long way with some potential buyers and possibly be the difference between a home selling or not.

Quicker Transactions
Right now, there are fewer real estate transactions than there will be in the spring.  The fewer number of transactions means the mortgage lenders have less loans to process, attorneys have less closings to do, and home inspectors have fewer inspections to do.  All of these factors should lead to a quicker transaction and closing for all the parties involved.  One of the most frustrating things for a seller to deal with while selling their home is not getting answers in a reasonable amount of time. A quicker transaction is going to be less stress for you.

By considering all of the reasons above, you will be able to determine whether now is a good time to sell or if you should wait until the spring.

Kyle Hiscock is a top producing Webster, N.Y. real estate agent with Nothnagle Realtors, based out of Rochester, N.Y. He has helped hundreds of buyers and sellers move in and out of the Greater Rochester, N.Y. area. In addition to his vast real estate knowledge, Kyle is very active on many different social media websites. Connect with Kyle on Google+.