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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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4 Signals It Might Be Time To Buy (vs. Rent) Your Home

Interested in buying a home but uncertain about making a move because of the economy? As always, our favorite real estate site, Trulia.com, has tips to help you get over your uncertainty:

To rent or to buy: what used to be a given – that you would buy a home as soon as you could afford to – has become an agonizing conundrum for many a would-be homebuyer, in the face of the housing market’s big bust and super-slow recovery. Low prices seem to create a wide-open window of opportunity, but they also create the concern that prices will keep falling after closing. And that Catch-22 has hundreds of thousands of buyers-to-be stuck on the fence.
Fortunately, there are handful of life, mortgage and local market signals which indicate that the time *might* be right to hop – scratch that – leap off the fence and into homeownership:

Mortgage rates are going up. Home prices have been low for the last several years, and in fact are currently looking like they’re heading back down to the same levels they were at the depths of the real estate recession. During this same time frame, interest rates have also been low – this one-two punch has created record-high affordability for the last four years running, causing buyers to believe that this window of opportunity won’t be closing anytime soon.

While prices don’t look like they’ll be skyrocketing anytime soon, interest rates are another story. Rates have been on a rollercoaster over the past few months, and with inflation and Fed rates set to spike later this year, today’s low interest rates might be as good as they’re going to get for a long time to come. And I mean a very long time – in the next few years, governmental intervention in the mortgage markets is likely to wind down, and that means higher mortgage interest rates are not only inevitable, they’ll probably be here for a long, long time.

Mortgage rates on the rise are one signal that now might be the peak of home affordability, and the peak of the opportunity to buy.

Rents are going up. Rental rates in many areas are also on the rise – in fact, the foreclosure crisis has acted created additional demand on many markets’ rental housing inventory in several different ways. First, former homeowners who lost homes to foreclosure now need to rent; as well, buyers in foreclosure hot spots have been hesitant to buy, many electing to stay renters far beyond when they would have otherwise. On top of all that, super-tight lending guidelines have stopped even some who would like to buy homes from doing so. As a result, rental homes are in high demand – and rents are rising.

Rising rents at a time when the prices of homes for sale are low and, in some places, falling? One more signal that now might just be the time to buy. (Of course, where foreclosures are high, the chances of continued depreciation are, too – to offset this risk, have a long-term plan, to minimize the possibility that you’ll owe more than your home is worth when you need to sell. Read on for more on how to plan for the long term and minimize your homebuying risk.)

Your income and career are stable for the foreseeable future. The smartest homebuyers look to their lives, not just the market, for signals about when the time is right to buy. Homebuying is a long, long-term endeavor these days. The goal is to be able to commit to staying in the same place, geographically-speaking, for 7 to 10 years before you buy (more in a foreclosure-riddled market, less in an area that has been more recession-resistant). Most lenders will require that you’ve been at your job – or in the same general field of work – for at least two years before you buy. But that’s the bare minimum – beyond that, you don’t want to be barely beginning a career in which you think you may need to move sooner than that, nor do you want to buy when you’re advanced in your career, but in an industry which is dying or downsizing the workforce in your region (unless you have a strong Plan B).
When you get to the spot in your career where you can realistically project a stable income 7 to 10 years out, life might be giving you a green light to move forward on your homebuying dreams.

You can reasonably predict the home you’ll need in the years to come. Since successful homeownership requires that you be ready to be in the place for a good number of years, best practice is not just to buy a home with the space and number of rooms you need right now – rather, you should aim to buy the home you’ll need 5, 7 or even 10 years down the road (to the best of your ability to predict, of course). You might be a newlywed with no kids now, but you plan to have them in a few years. Or maybe you’re a newly minted empty nester right now, but can project that you’ll want to retire – and might not want to climb two flights of stairs to get to and from your bedroom – 10 years down the road. Before you buy, you should be in a position to buy the home that meets your future needs – not just your current ones; and that requires that you have a reasonable idea of your life vision and plan for the future.

If you’re able to predict – and afford, at today’s prices – a home with the space, amenity and geographic location you’ll need 7 to 10 years from now, you might be in a good phase of life to get off the rent vs. buy fence.

With that said. . . buying a home is a massive decision and includes multiple, long-term financial and lifestyle obligations, so if one or more of these signals are present for you, that doesn’t mean you have the green light to run out and buy a home tomorrow – rather, it’s a good sign you should begin down that path, if you’re so inclined. You’ll still need to do the work to make sure your personal finances and holistic life picture are also in alignment before you buy, as well of the work it takes to ensure that your real estate and mortgage decisions are sustainable and smart, over the long-term.

It’s not overkill to check in with a mortgage pro, a tax pro, a local real estate broker or agent and a financial planner to make sure all your ducks – not just one – are in a row before you make your move.

Source: Trulia

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Five Mortgage And Foreclosure Myths

In the last three years thousands of homes nationwide underwent foreclosure, and according to recent real estate reports the best is yet of come. This means that there are still deals out there for new homebuyers interested in getting in the market – and new opportunites available for home owners in danger of foreclosure. If you find yourself in either of these catagories, the following mortage and foreclosure myths from Trulia.com just might apply to you:

In a mortgage market that changes as quickly as this one, today’s fact is tomorrow’s fiction.  For buyers, misinformation can be the difference between qualifying for a home loan or not. Sellers and owners, knowledge is foreclosure-preventing, smart decision-making power! Without further ado, let’s correct some common mortgage misconceptions.

1.       Myth: Buyers with bad credit can’t qualify for home loans. Obviously, mortgage guidelines have tightened up, big time, since the housing bubble burst, and they seem likely to tighten even further over the long-term. But just this moment, they have relaxed a bit.  In the last couple of weeks, two of the nation’s largest lenders of FHA loans announced that they’ve dropped the minimum FICO score guideline from 620 (which allows for some credit imperfections) to 580, which is actually a fairly low score.

At a FICO score of 620, buyers can qualify for FHA loans at many lenders with only 3.5 percent down. With a score of 580, the lenders are looking for more like 5 to 10 percent down – they want to see you put more of your own skin in the game, and the higher down payment lowers the risk that you’ll default.  However, if your credit has taken a recessionary hit, like that of so many Americans, this might create a glimmer of hope that you’ll be able to take advantage of low prices and interest rates without needing years of credit repair.

2.     Myth: The Mortgage Interest Deduction isn’t long for this world. Homeowners saved over $85 billion in 2008 by deducting their mortgage interest on their income tax returns. A few months ago, the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform caused a massive wave of fear to ripple throughout the world of real estate consumers and professionals when they recommended Mortgage Interest Deduction (MID) reform, which would dramatically reduce the size of the deduction.

Fact is, the Commission made a sweeping set of deficit-busting recommendations to Congress, a few of which are likely to be adopted.  Fortunately for buyers and sellers, MID reform is not one of them.  Very powerful industry groups and economists have been working with Congress to plead the case that MID reform any time in the near future would only handicap the housing recovery.  Congress-folk aren’t interested in stopping the stabilization of the real estate market.  As such, the MID is nearly universally thought of as safe – even by those who disagree that it should be.

3.       Myth:  It’s just a matter of time before loan guidelines loosen up. The US Treasury Department recently recommended the elimination of mortgage industry giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I won’t get into the eye-glazing details of it here, but the long and the short is that (a) this is highly likely to happen, and (b) it will make mortgage loans much harder and costlier to get, for both buyers and homeowners.   It’s possible that loans are as easy to get as they’re going to get.  So don’t expect that if you hold out, zero-down mortgages will c

4.       Myth: If you don’t have equity, you can’t refi. Much ado is being made about how stuck so many people are in their bad loans, because they don’t have the equity to refinance their way out of them.  If you’re severely upside down (meaning you own much, much more than your home is worth), stuck may be the situation. But there are actually a couple of ways homeowners can refi their underwater home loans.  If your loan is held by Fannie or Freddie (which you can find out, here), they will actually refinance it up to 125% of its current value, assuming you otherwise qualify for the loan.  That means, if your home is worth $100,000, you could refinance a loan up to $125,000, despite the fact that your home can’t secure the full amount of the loan.

If your loan is not owned by Fannie or Freddie, you might be a candidate for the FHA “Short Refi” program. While most mortgage workout plans are only available to people who are behind on their loans, the Short Refi program is only available to homeowners who are current on their mortgages and need to refinance up to 115 percent of their homes’ value.  So, if you owe $250,000 on your home, you can refinance via an FHA Short Refi even if your home’s value is as low as $217,000. If you think you’re a good candidate for a short refi, contact your mortgage broker, stat – there are some in Congress who think that this program is so underutilized (only 245 applications have been submitted since it rolled out in September – no typo!) that its funding should be diverted to other needy programs.

5.       Myth: If you’ve lost your job and can’t make your mortgage payment, you might as well mail your keys in.  Until recently, this was essentially true – virtually every loan modification and refinancing opportunity required that your economic hardship be over before you could qualify. And documenting income has always been high on the requirements checklist. But there are some new funds available in the states with the hardest hit housing and job markets, which have been designated specifically for out-of-work homeowners.

The US Treasury Department’s Hardest Hit Fund allocated $7.6 billion to the states listed below – all of which are now using some portion of these funds to offer up to $3,000 per month for up to 36 months in mortgage payment assistance to help unemployed homeowners avoid foreclosure.  Contact the state agency listed below if you need this sort of help:

Source: Trulia