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Taxes and Your New Home
If you bought a new home in 2015, here are some things to think about as you get ready for tax season: Mortgage Interest One of the biggest perks of owning your own home is the benefit of deducting your…
Dreaming of that New Kitchen or Bath? What Renovations Really Pay
Owners of older homes dream of updating or modernizing kitchens and baths. In fact, before they place their homes on the market, some folks go to all the effort to update the kitchen they’ve been meaning to redo for years…
Selling in Winter
Traditional real estate marketing says homes sell better in the Spring and that if you haven’t sold by the time school starts, you might as well wait until the weather warms again. But these days, real estate is anything but…
Take Advantage of January Appliance Deals
Now that you’ve done all the hard work of qualifying for the loan, securing the mortgage and putting the deal in motion…you can start to shop for the new items you’ll need for your new home. First up are kitchen…
Fitting Your Furniture in Your New Home
It seemed so perfect on the showroom floor… Then you get it home and no matter how you try it, you just can’t make that furniture fit in the space of your new home! What to do? Plan ahead (duh!)…
Buying with Reselling in Mind
If you know that the home you are buying my have to be sold within a few years, you have a few extra items you need to pay attention to prior to purchasing. This is particularly true if you’ll need…
Mortgage Rates and Housing Prices Expected to Rise in 2014
Even though 30-year fixed rates dropped in the first half of January, many analysts expect fixed mortgage rates to go up somewhat in 2014, but to top out at around 5%. What this means for buyers is that while higher…
Wanting to Sell Your Home but Not Quite Ready to Move?
You know that you need to move, and the market is right to sell, but you’re not quite ready to pack up everything. After all, you still have to live in your home until it sells. So how do you…
Do I Need to Paint the Whole House White?
You are getting ready to paint a home you know you will sell within a couple of years. Chances are, a helpful family member or friend reminds you that to sell, everything should be painted white. After all, a buyer…
Design Trends in New Homes
When the housing market rebounded, so did home builders eager to show off their design skills. Buyers expect that newly constructed homes will be safer and more energy efficient, but they’re also looking for homes that meet the needs of…
Favorite Features from 3 Dream Homes
Thanks to those visually stunning video tours, the HGTV Dream Homes have become top-of-mind for buyers looking for the latest and greatest in home design. Each year’s home showcases innovation in concept, layout, building materials and design. Here are three…
Will a Bath Remodel Increase My Home’s Value?
Spring is just around the corner and the lure of a new home has you thinking about putting yours on the market. Your neighbor added a new bathroom last year and you’re wondering if you should upgrade yours before you…
Curb Appeal for Condo Sellers
You know that curb appeal is important to buyers of single-family homes, but you are selling a condominium in a large building full of similar units. How do you make yours stand out? Here are a few tips for prompting…
Capturing Clutter
Whether you’re preparing your home to sell, or your packing up to move to your new home … clutter can be your worst enemy. But, getting chaos under control isn’t always easy. The problem isn’t that you lack resources. In…
Fascinating Home Technology — Run Your House on a Battery
The biggest challenge to solar energy is the inability to both capture it and store it in any meaningful way. In fact, while efficiency in capturing solar power has increased from about 15 percent of most solar panel models to…
Protect Your Home-Buying Budget
You know you love house hunting, and shopping for the perfect home is a fun pastime, but to move from being an open house and model home butterfly requires that big initial financial outlay … the dreaded downpayment. In fact,…
Are You Ready to Buy a Home?
Okay, it’s one of the biggest decisions of your life, so when do you know if you’re ready? Homeownership readiness can come at any age … there are young twenty-somethings that took the plunge, and there are empty-nesters that buy…
The Best Place to Raise a Family
We all have our own idea of the perfect place to raise a family. We want our kids to grow up with all the opportunities available to them. That might mean a large backyard or nearby parks, great schools, sports…