Author: Marie Graham

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Tips for Increasing Curb Appeal

There are many reasons people decide to sell their home. For some it might be a growing family or just a need for more space or perhaps the owners are just moving to another area. Whatever the reason, when it comes to time to sell you should ensure you are everything you can to get what you need out of it.

It’s important that potential buyers know you mean business right away. Generally this is called creating curb appeal. What curb appeal means is that when someone drives by your house, from the curb it looks like a nice place to live. Over time, while you may not see the changes the look of the front of your home may need a bit of a refresh.Don’t think that means breaking the bank, you can make your front yard and your home look much better for a lot less than you are thinking. A good place to start is with the landscaping, cut back shrubs and trees, if you were considering replacing the lawn with sod, you may consider just tilling it up and reseeding it. If you have flower beds, ensure they are clean well maintained, replacing things like beauty bark as needed.

If you have shrubs that don’t look as good as they used to you might just choose to dig them up and replace them. If painting your entire house is too expensive or out of the questions there are other ways to help make it pop. In many cases just painting the trim can save a lot of money and in most cases it is fairly easy to do it yourself. If that is still out of your budget think about renting a pressure washer and cleaning things. Make sure you start with the lowest setting and work your way up you do not want to accidentally remove paint from the exterior of the home.

Try installing outdoor lighting in most cases illuminating your home will make it look better and you never really know when a potential client may come by your home for sale.

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Getting Help Selling Home

If you are a home owner and you are thinking about selling your property, then there are definitely many considerations that you are going to want to make. Here are some important tips for getting help selling home. You are going to want to consider all of these and the big picture when selling your home.

* Put away the clutter. Clean your house up and make sure everything is neat and tidy when you are bringing people in to look at your home. You want your home to look lived in, but also somewhat like a blank slate so that families can see how they would use the space. This is going to help them “see themselves” in your home, which will help you sell it.

* Consider curb appeal. Curb appeal is vitally essential, especially when it comes to drive-by and walk-by home buyers. People may drive by the house, see the for sale sign and decide that they want to check out the house. This means that your house should look fantastic on the outside. Put your trash cans away, make sure that the yard is groomed, give the windows a cleaning and do whatever you can to make sure that your house looks fantastic and this could go a long way in selling your home quickly and effectively.

* Fix things up if possible. If there are rooms that need some renovation or remodeling prior to selling, make it happen. Some home renovations, such as bathrooms and kitchens, can lift the value of a properly quickly and effectively without a lot of work or money. Do some research about home renovating and redecorating to find out what you can do to lift up the value of your property before you sell it and you may end up with a lot more money for your property than you imagined you could get.

These three tips will go a long way in giving you the home price that you seek when selling your property, so make sure that you start early and implement as many of these tips as you possibly can before selling.

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Getting Out From Under a Huge Mortgage, and Into a Better Financial Situation

They say that owning a home is “The American Dream”. And owning a home really can be a dream – as long as you aren’t suffocating under a huge mortgage payment. In cases like this, “The American Dream” can turn into something that’s more like a nightmare. And when you’re in this situation, what do you do? It really depends on the person. Some decide to stick it out and do whatever it takes to pay their mortgage. And others decide to get out from under their dream turned nightmare by selling their home and moving.

But what a scary decision! Most of us have been taught that a home is the most important investment to make, and so making the decision to sell can be really hard. This is why it’s so important to do your homework before you decide to sell. First and most importantly, you’ll want to find out how much your home is worth, and compare that to how much is left on your mortgage. This is something you can do on your own, by getting a comparative market analysis. Most real estate agents are licensed to do these, and generally charge around $150.

What a comparative market analysis does is tell you what you can expect your house to sell for, based on different things like where you live, what other homes in the area have sold for, and what else is on the market. A realtor will use one of these to help you decide how much to list your house for anyway, so by getting one done yourself, you can decide if selling your house will actually help your finances. To figure this out, compare the expected selling price (which comes from the comparative market analysis) to the pay off statement for your mortgage.

If the expected selling price is enough to get you out of your mortgage, plus pay for closing costs and realtor fees, then selling is a good option. But what comes next? If and when you decide to sell, before doing anything you need to decide what you want your housing situation to look like once your house sells. Do you want to buy a home that will have a more affordable mortgage payment? Do you want to rent for a few years while saving money or looking for a better job? Do you want to live with family for a while you figure things out? Before you put your house on the market, you really need to have a place in plan for what will happen once it sells.

Once you decide what on a plan, the next step is getting your house on the market. Here you have two options. You can sell your home on your own, and save yourself from paying a realtor 5% in commission fees (or more). Or you can get help selling your home from a realtor. Both options have good and bad points. Realtors are experts at selling homes, but you pay a lot for that expertise. And selling your house yourself can save you a lot of money, but it takes a lot more work too. But if you’ve done your homework and have a follow-up plan for when your house sells, either option can help you achieve your goal. And the goal is to get out from under a huge mortgage payment that you can’t afford, and into a better financial situation.