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Affordable Luxuries For Your Home

Most people want a home that feels luxurious, even if it’s a modest priced home in a modest neighborhood. Luckily, the wonderful people over at Trulia.com have a few tips on how to add a few of these luxuries to  your home at a fraction of the cost. Read on and then get to work!

Modest. Affordable. Starter. There is no shortage of words we use to describe a home that cost less than the average in an area. But no matter how “low-priced” your home is or was compared with others’, chances are good that you are spending a good chunk of your hard-earned dollars on it. Think about it: almost no one looks at their monthly mortgage statement and says “Wow – it’s just so cheap!!”

Every owner deserves to come home to a place that is beautiful, comfortable and suitable for the activities that are a part of their life – without going into debt to do it. And even if you haven’t yet become a dyed-in-the-wool homeowner, understanding the champagne-style creature comforts that can be inexpensively added onto a home after closing can provide powerful inspiration for sticking to your beer budget.

Here are a few of those little, affordable luxuries (with links to pics and inspiration throughout!):

1.  Automation.  For your home to automatically anticipate your preferences and living habits, and conduct itself accordingly, is a serious luxury that no longer requires a serious investment. Easily programmable thermostats and smart home systems are now available at very low prices. Check out the Nest  “Learning” Thermostat for one of the most simple-to-use, inexpensive alternatives around. Created by the man who designed the iPod, it “learns” the temperatures you prefer without any complicated programming process, it can detect when no ones home and change the temperature accordingly and it is even remote controllable via wi-fi and mobile app.

In some areas, home cable companies are now bundling temperature automation and smart home features like remote-controlled lighting, temperatures and security systems and even smoke and carbon monoxide monitors right into the same online dashboard you use to pay your bill or order a movie on-demand.  Word of mouth raves from users of these sorts of systems often include delight at money saved on overall more efficient use of electricity, time saved coming home to check that doors are locked and other little daily assists beyond the expected convenience.

These next-gen automations are able to be had in the $200 or less range, up front, though the size of your home and number of devices you require can send costs upward. Look for whether your automation system has a mobile app that allows you to control your home from your smartphone – many do, and it’s a major plus. Shop around, read reviews and make sure you understand any monthly subscription fees, before you buy.

2.  Nature’s Niceties.  Visiting my grandmother recently, I was reminded that there is nothing quite so luxurious as craving a piece of fruit or a particular meal and being able to walk right into your backyard and grab the fixings for it – cost-free, and chemical free. This doesn’t even factor in the beauty of a kitchen garden right outside your window, or the healthfulness of gardening as a habit.

The range of cost for landscaping and creating what many now call outdoor rooms is vast. But there are also dozens of inexpensive projects that can level-up your own home’s nature factor:

  • installing raised vegetable beds in your backyard
  • hanging a vertical garden on your kitchen wall
  • putting in window boxes or outdoor seating
  • installing a bird bath or planting a new tree.

Lush, green anything is a luxury that can cost very little to enjoy for years on end.

3.  Delicious Details.  Customizing, sprucing and even adding little details to your home can make a tract home feel custom, a condo feel personalized and can even take a home with character and imbue it with your character.  These little projects can also be bizarrely high in the aesthetic impact and feeling of polish they add to a home vis-a-vis the relatively low investment of time and money they require.

Walk through your place and see where you can add, improve or tweak the details – consider projects like:

  • Adding crown moldings or baseboards
  • Adding interior or exterior shutters
  • Painting moldings, baseboards, mantles and door trims a contrasting color to the surrounding areas
  • Replacing doors and lighting fixtures (I just replaced the pendant lighting fixture over my own kitchen table and have to say, it looks like a new room!)
  • Replacing dated faucets, sinks, toilets and hardware – even recessed lighting soffits and door handles
  • Painting exterior eaves, doors, trims and fences.

4.  Solar.  A recent survey by Sunrunrevealed that over 40% of Americans believe a solar system cost more than $20,000.  And get this: eight out of 10 homeowners said they would install a solar system at home if cost wasn’t a factor.  Solar is not for everyone, and not even for every home, but in states with sunny, hot summers and energy bills to boot, installing a solar system can create the double luxury of allowing you to run your home on renewable energy and reduce your energy costs in one fell swoop.

Truth is, in some states, cost isn’t a factor. There’s a new generation of companies – solar power service providers – who will pay for a solar system, install it on your home for little or nothing, and pay for its maintenance. In turn, you pay them for the power you use, at a rate that is generally lower than what you were paying the utility.

These arrangements are not available everywhere, but if you’ve always thought you’d go solar if you could afford it, it’s certainly worth investigating whether you can find a solar service provider in your neck of the woods.

5.  Built-ins (or faux ones).  Built-ins like desks, book shelves, closet systems and even kitchen recycling centers feel particularly luxurious because they offer a polished approach to efficient use of the space you have, and often eliminate the need for bulky pieces of furniture.  When you initiate the installation of built-ins, though, they have the added luxury of being customized to the way you want to use your home, the activities you prefer to do in a given room and even the gear you have to use to do it!

If you’re handy, DIY-interested or even have a good local handyperson or carpenter contact, you might be surprised to realize how affordable it can be to build a desk or closet organizer into your existing space.

If you haven’t a handy bone in your body, or you’d prefer to keep the space flexible, you should get up to speed on all the off-the-shelf built-in alternatives that are on the market, like a kitchen nook dining set in lieu of a built-in banquette. Think creatively: placing a day bed under a window with a bookcase on each end is a fantastic alternative to building a window seat between built-in shelves. You might even be able to score the built-in alternatives on Craigslist or Freecycle, then have it painted or reupholstered, to get a luxe, custom look at a very low price.

6.  Dedicated spaces.  Like custom built-ins, dedicating a space to a particular favorite activity is a special luxury, even if your home is not otherwise especially luxurious. Why not let every member of the family custom-tailor a corner of your home to whatever they love to do, or spend a lot of time doing?  The idea here is to simply dedicate a space to an activity, painting it, installing the appropriate furniture and carving out a place for all the supplies that are involved in that activity.  At my house, I just painted the office in bright colors that researchers have found to boost creativity, installing new project tables and bookshelves to facilitate the organization and stand-up work style I prefer. My friend AG has turned one bedroom into a room for her menagerie of pets – dogs and birds alike!

At your house, this could include:

  • carving out a mudroom with storage racks for your family’s sports equipment
  • doubling-down on kitchen area entertaining by putting up a pot rack and adding extra seating and serving spaces
  • turning a corner of your great room into a screened meditation spot or homework area for the kids
  • creating a 2-, 3- or 4-person office space out of your dining room, so every member of the family has a place for all their study, work and bill-paying tasks.

 

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5 Things To Do NOW If You Want to Buy A Home In 2012

As always, the good people over at Trulia.com offer us sound advice about the ever-so-shaky real estate market. Bay Area real estate agent Tara-Nicholle Nelson has this to say for those who are thinking of taking the big leap in 2012:

At this point in December, it can start to feel like the New Year – along with all our hopes, dreams, wishes and expectations for it – are barreling down on us. Personally, I’m a rabid Resolution-setter, and I have a pretty strong track record of making New Year’s changes actually happen – and stick.  But what I know after years of using the New Year as a great excuse to set and meet some goals is that it’s very, very helpful to get a head start, ramping-up to new habits, behaviors and target goals achievements starting in December.

If you’re one of the millions who has an eye on 2012 as the year in which you’ll buy a home (first or not), here are five things you can do now to put yourself on the right path:

1.    Check your credit. Take my word for it: there is no bad surprise worse than a bad credit surprise. Okay, maybe there is one thing worse – a credit surprise you receive while you’re in the midst of trying to buy a home!

Recent studies have revealed that a record high number of real estate transactions are falling out of escrow, and that credit “issues” are a leading cause of these dead deals. Your best chance at catching and correcting score-lowering errors and other derogatory items before they destroy your personal American Dream is to start checking and correcting while you still have time on your side.

2.    Do your research. The more rapidly the real estate market changes, the more it behooves smart buyers to study up before they jump in.  And now’s the time – you can start doing online and in-person research into topics ranging from:

·    Target states, cities and neighborhoods. Whether you’re relocating or simply trying to narrow down the local districts to focus on during your 2012 house hunt, December is a great time to start your online research into decision-driving factors like tax rates, school districts, neighborhood character and even prices in various areas. Resident ratings and reviews sites like Trulia and NabeWise can help you make the neighborhood-lifestyle match.

Once you narrow things down and start speaking to local agents, ask them to brief you on the local market dynamics, including how long homes typically stay on the market and whether they generally go for more or less than the asking price, so you can be smart about how you search. (And yes, Virginia, there are areas where homes sell for more than asking, even as we speak!)

·    Real estate and mortgage pros. If you don’t already have your pros picked out, now is the time to get on the horn or drop an email or Facebook message to your circle of contacts, asking them for a referral to a broker or agent they love.  Follow up by: checking whether these pros are active in answering questions on Trulia Voices, searching for their name and seeing what sort of feedback on them you can cull from the web, then giving them a ring and launching a conversation about whether you and they might be a good partnership.

·    Short sales and REOs. Distressed property sales are not for the unwary. If you want to target upside down or foreclosed homes, or are planning to house hunt in an area where many of the listings are described as short sales or foreclosures, get educated about what you can expect from a distressed property purchase transaction before you get your heart set on a short sale.

·    What you get for the money. Online house hunting is a powerful tool – especially when it’s cold and wet! But there comes a point in your house hunt where you’ve got to just get out into the actual physical homes you’re seeing online in order to get a strong, accurate sense of what home features, aesthetics and location characteristics correlate with what price points.

·    Mortgage musts. You can read a bunch of articles about mortgages and get yourself pretty far down the path toward qualifying for a home loan, but you can only get a personalized action plan for a smooth road ‘home’ by talking with a local mortgage broker and having them assess your basic financials.  They might say you need to move funds around, pay a bill down or off or produce some sort of documentation from your employer.  And the time to start all that is now.

3.    Fluff up your cash cushion. So, you’ve saved up your 3.5 percent down payment. Perhaps you saved a little extra for closing costs.  Or maybe you’re even one of those uber-aggressive 20-percent-down-ers.  No matter how much you’ve saved, you’ll find that you could use more once you activate your home buying action plan. Mark my words – after closing, you’ll crave extra cash to do some repairs, upgrade a couple of things, buy appliances or even just to hold onto in order to minimize your anxiety about depleting your savings!

So, if homebuying is on your personal 2012 action plan, don’t go hog wild on holiday gifts. Instead, wait until next year and give yourself the gift of a home.

4.    Shed some stuff. Sell it. Donate it. Give it to relatives who’ve always coveted it.  Just get rid of it. If you do it before year’s end, you can kill three birds with one stone: (a) getting some cold hard cash to go toward your savings, (b) getting some tax receipts so you can deduct the value of your donations in January, (c) minimizing money spent on holiday gifts for loved ones and these two bonus birds – clearing the mental clutter that physical clutter creates and prepping for your move in advance.

5.    Sit very, very still. Sometimes, the best way to further our goals is to stop tripping ourselves up.  In that vein, commit right now to refrain from making any major financial moves until you buy your home.  Don’t quit your job to start that personal chef business (yet), don’t pull a bunch of cash out of your savings account (without getting clearance form your mortgage pro first), and don’t start buying cars and boats on credit – even if you do love the idea of putting the red bow on the car you give your wife, like in the commercials.

I assure you, the bow you’ll be able to put on that house or condo will be much bigger, redder and more tax-advantaged!

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Top 3 Real Estate Deal Killers

As always, the good people over at Trulia are on top of what is working – and what is not working in today’s shaky real estate market.

Once upon a time, homebuying was a much less dramatic affair then it is today.  The house hunt was fun, if suspenseful, and then there was another exciting whirlwind of inspections, closing and moving in. Today, though, as soon as buyers get the gumption to jump off the rent vs. buy fence, they find themselves on another edge – the edge of their seats, through the entire escrow process waiting to see what obstacle will emerge next, and whether their transaction will survive it.

Deals get killed all the time, and buyers can’t relax until they have keys actually in hand.  Here are three of the most common real estate deal-killers, and some steps buyers can take to deactivate them.

1.  Appraisal too low. Some buyers incorrectly believe that the best thing that could happen to them is for the property to appraise below the agreed-upon purchase price, expecting that a low appraisal forces the seller to bring the price down.  In fact, so many of today’s sellers are barely breaking even, that a low appraisal is probably the most common deal-killer around. If an appraisal comes in just a tad bit lower than the contract price, usually the seller will come down if they can, or the buyer will kick in a few extra bucks. But when it comes in 5, 10 or even 20 percent low, most sellers can’t – and most buyers won’t .

Low appraisals also seem like the most difficult deal-killer to avoid, as this process is entirely out of both buyer’s and seller’s control. But there are two things buyers can do to minimize the risk.  First, check the comps – i.e., recent comparable homes that have sold in the area – before making an offer; your agent will help you do this. Then, don’t make an offer bizarrely above the average range of the comparables, even if the property has multiple offers, unless you’re prepared to deal with a low appraisal a couple of weeks out.

Also, consider working with a local mortgage broker who also originates loans through its own bank (vs. walking into a large bank’s branch off the street); these lenders have the ability to choose from a smaller pool of appraisers that they know are qualified and knowledgeable about your area.

2.    Property condition dramas. When the market melted down, lenders found themselves with a lot of decrepit homes on their hands. This explains two things: (1) why lenders are more concerned about property condition now than ever, and (2) the raggedy condition of so many of the “distressed’ homes on the market.  Homes that have extensive wood rot, dangerous decks or electrical systems, or peeling paint and missing systems (sinks, stoves and the like) are highly unlikely to pass muster when the appraiser walks through, even if they do qualify as being worth the purchase price.  And while an individual seller might be willing to do some work, many just can’t afford to; short sale and REO sellers simply refuse to make fixes, 9 times out of 10.

Prevention is the best medicine for curing this transaction ailment.  If you are buying a short sale or REO property, be aware that when the selling bank says as-is, it really means as-is.  Ask your mortgage broker and agent to brief you on what sort of shape your lender will require your home to be in, at minimum, and keep that standard in mind during your house hunt.  Your agent can help manage your expectations about which properties will and won’t likely pass muster.

3.    Loan approval takes too long. Every buyer knows they must get preapproved for a mortgage before they start house hunting, but many don’t know that preapproval is just the first in a long list of steps that have to happen before the loan becomes a sure thing.  In fact, it’s common now for buyers to get their loan preapproval many months before they end up in contract, and lots can change in the interim – further extending the time it may take for their loan approval to come in.

It’s common for contracts to include a standard loan contingency period of 17 days, give or take a few.  But the appraisal might take longer than that to come in, or the underwriter might have lots of questions and seemingly random nitpicks about the appraisal, or about you: they want to see your driver’s license, then your marriage license, then your divorce decree, and after that, a letter from your employer agreeing that you’ll be keeping your job even though you’re moving an hour away. It never seems like they ask for everything at once, thus it can take longer than 17 days to obtain all the requested items, turn them in and get the underwriter to sign off on them.

Until you get that green light, it’s foolhardy to remove your loan contingency, as that step renders your earnest money deposit non-refundable, under most contracts.  Many a buyer is forced to either secure an extension from the seller or to let the transaction die, rather than forfeiting their deposit funds.  And again, some sellers understand and will play ball, but bank sellers can be particularly resistant to loan contingency extensions, especially if there are backup offers on the table.

Best practice for buyers to minimize the chances of an overtime loan approval process killing the deal? Be ready: be ready for lots of bizarre documentation requests, be ready to provide things you’ve already been asked for, and be ready to do so quick-like – without pushing back.  The faster you can turn around the things the underwriter wants, the better.

Also, it can be very helpful to work with a mortgage broker and agent that have worked together before and have close communications, so that your agent can stay abreast of any and all loan process glitches and keep the listing agent apprised of the legitimate reasons you may need an extension throughout the contingency period, rather than assuring them everything’s speeding along then having to ask for a last-minute extension.

Source: Trulia

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A Love Still Supreme, But a House in Ruins

There is a ranch house out in the middle of Long Island, just south of the expressway in Dix Hills, where the saxophonist John Coltrane lived, started a family and composed “A Love Supreme” in the spare bedroom. The album is a hymn of praise and thanksgiving by a man who found peace and God after alcohol and heroin. It is the work that helped make Coltrane a jazz immortal.

While it will live on, the house is another story. It has been empty about seven years. The bricks are crumbling. The raccoons have been evicted, but not the termites. Lexan panels cover the windows; a fan blows futilely to keep down the mold. That’s about as far as the restoration goes.

In 2003, a local jazz lover, Steve Fulgoni, helped wrest the house away from developers who coveted its three and a half woodsy acres. Thanks to his efforts, the Town of Huntington preserved the land. A foundation owns the house, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, but the National Trust for Historic Preservation just put it on its most-endangered list.

Mr. Fulgoni, an engineer, is teaching himself to be a historian and preservationist. He dreams of creating a cultural destination like Louis Armstrong’s house in Queens. There is no great enthusiasm in Dix Hills; some neighbors hate the idea of school buses and concerts on the lawn.

Long Island has lots of history, but does not do memory well. Walt Whitman’s birthplace is lost in the shadow of the Walt Whitman Mall. There are very few landmarks of its African-American history, beyond Booker T. Washington’s summer home in Fort Salonga and some cemeteries.

It is easy to share Mr. Fulgoni’s enthusiasm when you see the faded lime-green shag carpet in the practice room, and the living room’s fancy wood paneling. He estimates that he needs about a million dollars to do it. Meanwhile, if there are masons or carpenters who love jazz and could help fix things, he says, he would love the help.

Source: New York Times

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First-Time Home-buyer Tax Credit Extended

If  you are buying a home and are currently in escrow, but thought you missed the deadline for the $8,000 tax credit, you are in luck. At the beginning of the month, Congress voted to extend the tax credit to September 30 for buyers who had signed a purchase contract by April 30th. The push for this extension was lobbied by the National Association of Realtors. The extension is beneficial to those buyers who are taking advantage of short sale transactions which take much longer than the average 30 days to close.

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Foreclosure Myths

I’ve always had an interest in real estate, thanks to my grandfathers being investors. They shared how important it was for everyone to invest in property and own their own home; but they always stressed the fact that it was the quickest way for a person of color to build wealth. After a two-year home shopping extravagnza, I’ve not only become extremely informed about the process, but I can’t read enough information about it and passing it on. My hope is that more people of color will get informed and invest in property. With the downturn in the economy, those that have stayed afloat or have never invested should take advantage of all the properties in distress.

With that being said, here is a list of foreclosure myths compiled from one of my favorite real estate websites, Trulia:

http://www.trulia.com/blog/taranelson/2010/05/top_10_myths_about_buying_a_foreclosure

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