A leaky or blocked gutter can divert damaging water into your home's walls.
Whether you live in rainy Oregon or snowy Vermont, winters are hard on homes. With spring winds and showers and a long hot summer coming, now is the time to perform a thorough spring maintenance to keep your home safe, beautiful, and at its highest possible value.
As you go through your regular maintenance routine, be sure to include checks of these five trouble areas.
Gutters
Debris-choked gutters are a leading cause of water damage. Even a single clog of leaves can redirect water out of gutters and into your home’s walls. Be sure to follow proper safety precautions when inspecting your gutters, and when you’re in doubt, hire a professional. Continue reading →
Expect substantial repairs with any foreclosure purchase.
If you’ve decided that foreclosures are right for you, here are some simple tips to ensure that you get the right deal and don’t risk over-leveraging yourself.
Work out a budget
Map out your current financial assets and liabilities. Factor in recreation, savings, and other planned expenses, plus enough of a cushion to give you some security. The remainder is your available budget. Remember that even after the sale, a foreclosure will cost money before making it. You should expect repairs before the home is livable, followed by a period of vacancy while you shop the home to buyers or renters.
Line up financing
Foreclosures move fast–very fast. In some cases, a few minutes can make the difference between buying the house of your dreams. Now that you know what you can spend, you need to have a bank’s permission to spend it. Cash is king, but pre-approved financing is pretty close, and just the process of applying for financing will provide a good gut check of your budget estimates from step 1. Continue reading →
A home is the single biggest investment most Americans will ever make. Protecting that investment is not just a legal responsibility, but the smartest move you can make. Here are 7 tips for getting the most out of your homeowners insurance for the smallest premium.
1. Research Early and Often
Shop around. Too many homebuyers treat insurance as an afterthought and go with the first policy they find. They might get lucky, but chances are, they’re paying too much or covering too little. Insurance is critical to your long-term happiness, and it can be a substantial part of your monthly home-related expenses. The more research you do, the greater the odds that you’ll find a policy that fits your needs and your wallet.
Over the last few years, home prices have dropped by as much as 50 percent. Unsold home inventories are still near record highs, and mortgage rates remain low. With the economy starting to turn around, there’s never been a better time to buy a house.
But maybe you’re still on the fence.
There’s no denying the numbers. It is a great time to buy, if buying is right for you. To decide if you should be in the market, ask yourself these questions:
Rental property deductions can make this trip a bit less grim.
It’s tax time again, and we could all use an extra deduction. The tax advantages of owning a primary residence are well-documented, but there’s also an upside to renting properties. Here’s an overview of the types of tax benefits landlords can expect.
While the tax implications of renting a home are quite different than those for a primary residence, there are plenty of deductions to be found. Maintenance costs, lost rental costs from vacancies, marketing costs (including fees paid to brokerages, if you use them), and other business-related expenses such as travel and document processing can usually be written off to some degree. Home improvements can also qualify as deductions, though most will have to be realized over time as depreciation.
Whether you’re buying your first home or refinancing your existing home, you have a host of financing options available. But before you start talking about points, fees, and closing costs, you need to decide whether to choose a fixed-rate or adjustable-rate mortgage.
Adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) earned a bad reputation leading up to the housing bust, and with good reason, but that was largely the fault of predatory lenders who oversold houses to underqualified buyers with artificially low initial payments. Still, ARMs are a bit of a gamble, and they are absolutely the wrong tool for homeowners trying to squeeze into the most house they can afford.
If you've been waiting to buy, 2012 might be your time.
Home values took a universal dive in 2008, but for most markets, it looks like the worst is behind us. While certain metropolitan areas continued to bleed in 2011 (some cities in Southern California saw a dip of more than 20 percent from 2010), others stabilized, and quite a few saw modest improvements. The national unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent in January, interest rates remain low, market fluctuations have smoothed, and we may be turning a corner toward a slow-but-persistent recovery.
Still, even those declining unemployment numbers are near historical highs, and the financial crisis in Europe continues to loom, and no one can ever call the market bottom with complete accuracy. So if you’ve been on the fence, will 2012 be your year to buy?
Electronic budgeting software will remove the grunt work and show you where your money goes.
Your first home purchase is exciting, but it can also be stressful. Here are some tips to limit the trauma and help you find the home of your dreams the first time around.
1. Set your budget
The most important step in selecting a home is knowing how much you can spend. If you already use an electronic budgeting system, you’re ahead of the game. If not, track your expenses for the past several months to a year. Try to quantify the “gray areas” of cash withdrawals that disappear on small purchases. Now add up your current rent and other related expenses. If you’ve been saving money toward your down payment, note that, as well. Finally, ask yourself where you can tighten your belt with your existing discretionary purchases. This is the maximum amount you could pay per month. Continue reading →
You’ve found the home of your dreams. It’s expensive, but it’s beautiful, it has room to grow, and you can just squeak by if you’re careful–maybe.
This is a common situation, and all too frequently, it ends poorly–just look at the number of foreclosures on the market. Buying a home is an emotionally loaded process. Deciding how much home you can afford shouldn’t be.
As a general rule of thumb, a home that costs more than three times your gross income is too much of a stretch. Twice to 2.5 times your gross income is generally a safer bet, though that may be difficult to find in high-priced areas like California or the northeast.
To get a more specific estimate, you’ll need to include credit score, interest rate, closing costs, and taxes into your calculations, and these vary by location, and even day of the week. There are a number of mortgage calculators online, and they can be a great resource for examining different scenarios. To examine your situation in more detail, visit BankRate or another calculator, and input today’ states. If you’re unsure of which loan type to choose, stick with a 30-year fixed rate. Continue reading →
Obama's new housing proposal extends refinancing to underwater mortgage holders.
On Wednesday, February 1, President Obama presented a series of housing proposals. The primary proposal aimed at making mortgage payments more affordable for existing homeowners–particularly those struggling with underwater mortgages. It’s still a long way from approval, but if the package passes, how will it affect you?
If you’re underwater, have good credit, and are currently paying an interest rate over the current rate, you’re in good shape. The program will extend refinancing at today’s rates to almost all homeowners, including those with negative equity.
As with any law, there are guidelines and standards. These refinance packages are available only to homeowners with a FICO score of at least 580, apply only to primary-residence, single-family homes, and the size of your loan must be within FHA conforming loan limits. Still, that covers the majority of the country’s existing home mortgages, and the government expects an average savings of $3000 per year, per refi.
The proposal also includes a plan to convert foreclosed properties into rentals to reduce downward pressure on housing prices. You can read the full text of the proposal here.
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A home is the single biggest investment most Americans will ever make. Protecting that investment is not just a legal responsibility, but the smartest move you can make. Here are 7 tips for getting the most out of your homeowners insurance for the smallest premium.
Over the last few years, home prices have dropped by as much as 50 percent. Unsold home inventories are still near record highs, and mortgage rates remain low. With the economy starting to turn around, there’s never been a better time to buy a house.
Whether you’re buying your first home or refinancing your existing home, you have a host of financing options available. But before you start talking about points, fees, and closing costs, you need to decide whether to choose a fixed-rate or adjustable-rate mortgage.
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