Real Estate Tips For Home Buyers, Home Sellers And Realtors

Spring Landscaping Ideas to Improve Curb Appeal and Sell Your House

They say April showers bring May flowers, but in many parts of the USA May had a lot of rain, so we guess June is the month bringing them…. With that in mind, we have decided to write a post ...

DIY Home Improvement to Increase Your Home Value

We’ve talked about how to increase your home value with some home improvement ideas, but the truth is that they can be quite costly. Sometimes we just don’t have the money to change ...

Increase Your Home Value With These Home Improvement Ideas

It’s a given. Whenever we decided the time to sell a house is getting closer, we think about all the home upgrades we could make in order to spike up our asking price. It’s also a given ...

Furnished Rental Tips for Real Estate Investors

There are a few reasons why real estate investors choose furnished homes instead of “naked” properties when playing the landlord role. Sometimes its because they intend to attract ...

The Ugly Truth About Open Houses

This one is not for the faint-hearted; walk away if you don’t want to hear the truth: the reason a real estate agent throws an open house event is not selling the home. Well, at least not only ...

The Solar Panel Trap: When Renewable Energy Messes up Real Estate

One of the many advertised reasons to get solar panels to a home is the fact that it increases the market value of the property. Although in a broader sense not only solar energy but all type of ...

3 Reasons Why Now Is The Perfect Time To Sell Your Home

Last year, sellers sold 5.45 million existing homes in the United States. This year, projections suggest that number will rise to 5.78 million. With a promising outlook for real estate in 2018, ...

Seller’s Agent vs. Buyer’s Agent: the age-old question

What is the difference between a seller’s agent and a buyer’s agent? Where do their duties collide? Who’s got the most power? Can one agent act as both? Pick your side and place ...

LISTINGS 101: What You Need To Know When You Hire a Real Estate Agent or a Broker

Open Listings, Net listings, Exclusive Right to Sell Listings, Exclusive Agency Listings, Dual Listings… feeling you’re getting drowned by so many different types of Listing ...

Large Real Estate Companies vs Individual Agents or Small Companies

When buying or selling a home, finding a real estate agent is a good way to get the job done quickly, efficiently, and responsibly. Real estate agents are trained to market, sell, and close deals and ...

5 Things Home Sellers Always Forget

  When selling a house, homeowners often follow a ‘checklist’ of sorts to make sure that everything is spic-span to help in wooing potential home buyers. Landscaping, repainting, ...

Top Things to Budget for When Rehabbing a Flip House

Rehabbing a house for sale purposes is an entirely different ball game than renovating a home for living purposes. Where you might have no problem dropping twenty grand to personalize a home how you ...

When to Dispute Your Home Appraisal

When refinancing or selling your home, the lender will want an appraisal to determine the home’s value. Usually it must appraise for at least the amount of the loan. The lender will send an ...

Why Use a Real Estate Agent?

Do you really need a real estate agent to sell your home? Surely going the For Sale by Owner route (FSBO) can save you big – right? You can maximize profits by not having to pay a real estate ...

Getting Ready to Sell? Don't make these DIY Mistakes!

From Dallas to Dubuque, homesellers DIY their way to speedy, satisfactory sales - but what should you focus on and what should you leave to the pros? If you are preparing to sell your home and are ...

What Must I Disclose When Selling My Home?

For decades, buying a home was a home buyer beware business - sellers didn't have to tell the purchaser a thing. Termite damage? Hush hush. Leaky roof? Make sure to show the home when it's dry ...

What Costs Do Buyers and Sellers Pay On Big Day When Escrow Closes?

Many wannabe first-time home buyers and sellers alike wonder who should pay what costs for on the wonderful day that both parties seal the biggest deal of a lifetime. As virtually every item is ...

How to become a real estate agent

Becoming a real estate agent can be a great career move to make, and you may be eager to get started assisting clients with their home buying, selling or renting plans. However, before you can begin ...

Is it better to buy or sell a home first

If you are looking to buy a home and already own one, the age-old question is whether you should sell your home first before you buy a home. There are pros and cons to selling first just as there are ...

Real Estate Open House - The Dos and Don

Homeowners in the market to sell their property will likely engage in hosting an open house. The leading reason is to secure contracts. The next is the opportunity to showcase it to serious home ...

3 tips to ensure your sale goes through

New home buyers to the housing market do not always realize that to buy a home means competing with other interested parties. Placing a contract on a property is one phase in the process. Taking ...

How To Sell Your Home

When it is time for homeowners to sell their property, there are a variety of tactics and strategies to employ. These ideas should secure the most lucrative asking price as well as move the home ...

What do Real Estate Attorneys do?

Buying and selling a home requires the professional services of a real estate attorney to ensure due diligence is used throughout the transaction. This includes filing the appropriate paperwork, ...

Mortgage Loan Types

There are a variety of options available to buy a home. Depending on the home buyer’s financial picture, possibilities exist to save money over the short-term, while long-term options provide ...

What is Hazard Insurance?

If you own real estate, one thing you should absolutely invest in is hazard insurance. Hazard insurance is designed to protect a property owner from the damage that can be incurred by different kinds ...

What is Earnest Money

So, you are ready to take the big step of purchasing a new home. You've met the home buyer, examined the property and neighborhood and decided that you've found the one. You come to an agreement ...

Moving Tips: House Relocation Stress Free

Spring and the beginning of the Summer are widely regarded as The Best Times to Buy a House and we did write an article on How to buy a house quickly so people could benefit from that exciting ...

Down Payment: Everything You Wanted to Know

Down payments, or “front money”, seem like a pretty straightforward thing, right? You want to buy something pricey without damaging your cash flow, so you ask the seller to pay in monthly ...

How to Buy a House Quickly

  It is fair to say that once a new house hits the real estate market – especially good ones -  it’s always a race to see who gets it first, but considering the still shrinking ...

What is a Credit Score and How Does it Impact Real Estate?

Although our Dollar bills bring the phrase “In God we trust”, it is fair to say that our financial system is actually based on trusting of another thing: credit. Yes, credit is the creed ...

Acts of God House Flipper Investing: Is This a Thing?

The mind of the real estate investor works with one goal in mind: making a profit. So, with the Atlantic Hurricane Season Coming, the bold real estate investor sees not only a dangerous scenario, ...

The First-time Home Buyers Guide to Home Insurance

  We’ve seen this film several times: the first-time home buyer is thrilled with the chase of finding his dream home and puts all his strength and focus on this challenging and ...

Is a Home Equity Loan Right For Me?

A question homeowners often contemplate is whether a home equity loan is right for them. While there are both benefits and pitfalls to opening loans, home equity loans don’t differ. The only ...

Understanding the Housing Market on Your Own: How to Predict Local Real Estate Market Trends With no Help from an Agent

Agents have all the tools to predict local real estate market trends. They have that fantastic Multiple Listing Service (MLS) not only to put houses on the market but to do a good Market ...

How to Defray the Hidden Costs of Home Ownership

While homeownership is a good way to save money and keep you from getting caught in the rent cycle, it comes with an entirely new set of problems and expenses that you may not expect. Home ...

Why Right Now is a Good Time for Millennials to Buy a Home

Many young people are beginning to enter the next stages of their lives, and those stages can include more permanent jobs, children, marriage, and even home ownership. While many millennials are ...

Build or Buy? That’s the Big Question

Buying or building a house can be one of the biggest investments of your life, especially if you are making the decision with a loved one or family and plan on it being a “forever home”. ...

5 U.S. Cities with the Best Public Transportation

Not everyone can own a car, and in some parts of the country it’s actually cheaper (and sometimes easier) to use public transport instead of a personal vehicle. Many cities are offering better ...

7 Things to Consider Before Moving to a New City

Moving to a new city brings about big decisions, lifestyle changes, and new experiences. Not all of these things may be good, but life is constantly shifting, so you should be too. Before you begin ...

Should you Buy a Home with Cash?

While paying cash for a home makes sense in some ways, it's not ideal in all situations. Here are the pros and cons of buying a home with cash. Pros A cash home buyer is an attractive buyer. Home ...

What is the Best Time of Year to Buy a Home?

Deciding to buy a home often comes with caveats - the location, availability, job requirements, and commute may come far ahead of scheduling a move to a new location. However, many people seek to buy ...

Top Five Reasons Your Home Offer was Rejected

If you made an offer on a home and it was rejected, here are the most common reasons why. Wrong Market You are looking in the wrong market. If you have a home loan approved for $400,000, look in ...

Tax Breaks for the First Time Home Buyer

Buying your first home? Where your down payment comes from can affect your taxes. First-time home buyers can take out up to $10,000 from traditional and Roth IRAs penalty-free to use as a down ...

How is Square Footage Determined?

If you are buying a home, you may be wondering about square footage. Is the home you are looking at really that big – or that small? The answer to why square footage assessments can vary wildly ...

What is Escrow and how does it Work?

  You may not have heard the word “escrow” before you stepped into the world of home buying, but you’ve heard it now. “Escrow” is part of what makes buying and ...

How Does The Home Loan Underwriting Process Work?

Most homebuyers know it’s a lot easier to go house hunting with an approved loan in hand. However, the initial visit to the lending institution is just the first step; while you are looking at ...

7 Tips for a First Time Homebuyer

The most expensive purchase you'll ever make will be a home. Buying property allows you to build wealth through equity accumulation and tax write-offs. However, the process of buying your first home ...

Home Prices - The Extra Costs

Gone are the days when buying a home was a priceless feat. Most banks want down-payments even for those who have perfect credit or who are first-time home-buyers. While you may be thinking about the ...

5 signs of house foundation problems

Unless there is a known problem with a home’s foundation, most homeowners don’t give it a second thought. That could be dangerous and costly. Ignoring the signs of foundation problems ...

10 Real Estate Tips for Homebuyers

Purchasing a home especially the first one is a rite of passage. It comes with responsibilities from the moment the decision is made. Due diligence is a requisite to ensure an exciting experience. ...

Rent or Buy - the pros and cons

There are times when it is advantageous to rent a house instead of making a purchase. The reasons vary based on several factors. In contrast, certain conditions point to best time to buy a home. It ...

When to buy a house

  Purchasing a home is the biggest investment that anyone can make. Did you know there's actually the best and worst times to buy a home? To get the best ROI, there are several variables to ...

How To Choose A Realtor®

Buying a house is a personal business transaction that requires signatures on legal documents such as a promissory note. Services of professional providers will also require a contract such as a ...

Foreclosure - The Pros and Cons of Buying

You may have heard that pursuing foreclosure sales is the best way to get a good deal in real estate. While it is true that foreclosure sales can be sold below value, it is important to be aware of ...

How To Get A Loan with Bad Credit

Bad credit does not preclude you from becoming a homeowner. In fact, there are several options available for those interested in home ownership that have bad credit. Being prepared with information ...

Short Sales Homes

There are negative connotations to a short sale transaction in real estate. One is owners fail to meet the original mortgage obligation. This could be due to several reasons such as job loss and ...