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Letter from the Editors This month’s issue was fun because we covered many topics that should relate to everyone! Whether you are a homeowner, buyer or seller, you’ll find interesting ideas and suggestions to help you with your endeavor. Would you like to know the value of your property? Even when you’re not planning to sell sometimes it’s good to know your home’s value. This can be difficult and truly requires the expertise of a trained professional real estate agent, but we offer some tips on how you can go about getting an estimation. We offer decorating secrets that can help sell your home faster and even enhance the feeling of your living space. These details are easy to overlook, but when applied, can make a huge difference when showing your home to it’s fullest potential. Moving to a neighborhood can be daunting and exhilarating at the same time. It’s not the time to be timid considering the size of the investment when purchasing a home. Our suggestions help you dig into a neighborhood before settling on the home of your dreams because the two go hand in hand. For many people, moving is a pain. Packing and unpacking, sometimes years of residing at the same property, can be overbearing. Some homeowners want to move to a new home but the fear of moving keeps them stagnated. We help you break the moving process into pieces so it becomes manageable. If you think you know a lot about plants just wait until you read our article highlighting the impact plants have in our homes. Through research and studies, plants demonstrated how much they help us inside our house and improve our quality of living. Finally, we share some basics about matching color and your personality. If you’ve been thinking of painting some interior walls consider the advice we offer for choosing the right colors based on your personality and expectation for that particular living space. Feel free to contact us if you have questions or would like your friends and family added to our distribution list.
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CONTENTS 4. How to Estimate the Value of Your Home
6. 4 Decorating Secrets for Selling Your House
8. 5 Things You Should Do Before Choosing a Neighborhood
10. 5-Step House Moving Plan Designed to Reduce Stress
12. 5 Ways Plants Make Your House Healthier
14 A Guide for Matching Your Home Paint Colors with Your Personality
This magazine is published monthly. Entire contents are copyright protected under law where applicable. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction or use of content in any manner without permission is strictly prohibited. All images are copyright protection of 123RF.com and its photographers.
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How to Estimate the Value of Your Home Finding the market value of your home is the first step you need to take before you consider listing your home for sale. Unfortunately, it is not an exact science. But the more you come to understand the factors involved in putting a monetary value on your home, the easier it will be for you to list and sell your property. If you do a simple Google search on how to value your home, instant home value sites such as www.zillow.com or http://www. redfin.com come up. While these sites are good for giving you a starting point on how to value your home, the comparisons they offer you are not exact. That’s because the houses they show might have three bedrooms, while your house has four. The homes they show may have few amenities, while your home has many. In order to get the fairest market value from your home, you need to first learn how to adjust your price to comparable homes based on several factors, the first one being square footage.
Square Footage Counts Square footage comparisons are important because they give you an easy way to compare the value of your home with similar larger or smaller homes in your neighborhood. Simply take the price of the house you are reviewing and divide it by the square feet of the home. Then take that figure and multiply it by the square 4
footage of your house and you have completed the first step in estimating the market value of your home. However, even if two houses have the exact same square footage, the house with three bedrooms should be priced higher than the one with two bedrooms. It’s a fact that more homebuyers prefer three bedrooms. Similarly, if two houses of the same square footage are constructed differently, it also affects the value. For example, if one of the properties is a single-story home, its square footage value would be higher than a two-story home because it costs less to construct.
Age Matters It’s a general rule that new home values are more than the value of older comparable homes. However, there is no exact formula for calculating the difference. The easiest way to determine the age factor on homes for sale in your neighborhood is to go to one of the online real estate sites, like the ones we mentioned earlier in this article, and review the differences between the prices of comparable homes of different ages. You could find that homes 10 years old, sell for 6% less than homes that are only five years old. The point
of the exercise is to get a ballpark estimate, so that when you do sit down with a real estate agent, you will have a pretty good idea of your home’s current market value.
waterfront or mountain view can increase the value. However, it can be difficult to figure out exactly how much value these amenities really add.
Other Factors
That’s because different buyers have different perceptions. Some buyers may consider new appliances or hardwood floors as a standard fare and not put much value in them. So, again, the best way to determine the value of your home’s amenities is to review the prices of different comparable listings selling with the amenities to those selling without them.
In addition to square footage, the construction and age of your home, there are other factors that will affect its market value – such as amenities. For instance, a home with a built-in pool or sauna will have a higher value than a home that doesn’t have these amenities. Such improvements as hardwood floors, updated kitchens with granite countertops and new appliances, or upgraded landscapes all add value to your home. In addition, a great
Foreclosed Homes Finally, another factor that can affect the value of your home that you have no control over is the sale of foreclosed properties
in your neighborhood. According to RealtyTrac, the median price of a distressed residential property, in foreclosure or bank owned, was $110,500 in November 2013, or 39% below the median price of $181,500 for a non-distressed residential property. According to the BankForeclosureSale.com, a distressed property sells for about 30% less than a home not in foreclosure. So, if you live in a neighborhood where there are some recent foreclosure sales, it will tend to bring down the value of your property and force you to price your home lower. However, the good news is that foreclosure sales are slowing down and there’s a chance your area will not be hit as hard, or affected at all.
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4 Decorating Secrets for Selling Your House How you decorate the exterior and interior of your home is one of the most important factors in the selling process, according to real estate agents. Moreover, it is the only factor home sellers have complete control over that can help a home sell quickly, and at a good price. Here are 4 decorating secrets that will help you present your home in its best light:
1.Instantly Expand Your Closet Space – If you don’t know it by now, closet space is high on the list of wants that prospective homebuyers insist is most important to them in any home they consider purchasing. Real estate agents can tell you many horror stories of showing the perfect house only to have the deal die because of stuffed-to-the-ceiling closets. So, the first secret for selling your house is to remove a minimum of one-half of what’s currently in your closet and make sure what’s left is neat, clean, uncluttered and enhances 6
the feel of plenty of closet space. Store what you’ve removed outside your home until you sell it. Also, just before the house is going to be showed, open the closet doors, showing off all of their magnificent space.
2. Let There Be Light – Next to location, good light is the most important feature homebuyers say influences their decision to purchase a home. Therefore, you should maximize the light outside and inside your house when showing it. For example, on the exterior make sure you have a high wattage bulb in your porch light and have it on, day and night. Also, rows of solar lights outlining your shrubbery are always good for a dusk or nighttime showing. To lighten the inside of your house, take down the drapes, clean your windows and increase the wattage of all of your lights and keep them turned on. It also makes sense to change your lampshades to the kind that let the bright light shine through.
3. The Kitchen Is The Heart of Your Home – Many real estate agents believe that the kitchen is the heart of the house and every sale is made or lost as a result of how a potential homebuyer views your kitchen. That’s why if you are going to invest in upgrading your home, the kitchen is the first place to start. Statistics from the home improvement industry show that you’ll get on average 85% of the money you have invested in adding new countertops, appliances or tiles to your kitchen when you sell your home. Conversely, when a kitchen is dated and looks like it’s a remnant of the disco era, homebuyers will cut $10,000 off your asking price to compensate for the updates they will have to pay for to bring the kitchen up to their standards. Still, you can add thousands to the value of your home and greatly improve your chances of selling it, by making inexpensive improvements to your kitchen as well. Adding new cabinets, cabinet fronts or paint will pay huge
dividends. However, when you do paint the kitchen, interior decorators suggest that you use neutral colors in order to present potential buyers with an empty canvas they can envision improving with their favorite colors and style.
4. Take Yourself Out of Your House – According to real estate staging experts, this is one of the most important yet overlooked decorating secrets of selling your home. It’s called de-personalizing your home. Here’s how it works: Commit to getting rid of one-third of your personal possessions, including personal keepsakes, photographs and any collections of memorabilia. Put them in storage.
Why do this? Because industry experts say the more personal stuff you have in your house, the more difficult it is for a potential homebuyer to envision themselves in it. Once you’ve completed this step, it’s time to stage your house to look roomier by arranging your furniture in the best way to accentuate the potential of your home. You may even have to remove some large pieces of furniture like the credenza grandmother left you. That way, the homebuyer can easily imagine themselves living in the spacious home you are now showing. Because of the work you’ve done, it won’t be on the market for long!
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5 Things You Should Do Before Choosing a Neighborhood It’s not uncommon for homebuyers to spend months pouring over hundreds of real estate listings until they find the perfect home that they can afford and that will fulfill their quest for a better lifestyle.
neighborhood doesn’t have the amenities, recreational facilities, schools and other lifestyle factors you expected, then your American dream could soon become a nightmare.
Yet, the surprising fact is that by focusing mostly on a house, many homebuyers end up buying a property in a neighborhood they know little about even though they will probably live there for a decade or longer.
That’s why it makes sense to choose the neighborhood where you want to live before you focus in on a specific property. Here are 5 things you should do before choosing a neighborhood that will ensure you’ll enjoy the home you buy there:
The reality is that even if you have purchased a perfect house with everything you wanted in it and more, but you discover your
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1. Do Your Own Research – Many homebuyers naturally consult their friends, relatives and
co-workers when they begin their neighborhood research. However, the flaw in this approach is that a widowed aunt is unlikely to know about the schools in an area just as a co-worker with babies in diapers probably won’t know if the area has a jazz club or an art gallery that has afternoon single gatherings. It always best to do your own research, and if you are going to ask someone about a particular neighborhood, make sure the individual’s circumstances are similar to yours and that they are interested in the same lifestyle you are. You also can go online and research neighborhoods
on such sites as http://www. neighborhoodscout.com/. You can use a series of keywords like “young families,” upwardly mobile” and “young singles” to find areas that make sense for you. Such sites will also give you crime statistics of a neighborhood and the schools in the area.
2. Trust But Verify – While talking to people and checking out stats on Web sites are good sources of information as far as they go, the information they give needs to be verified. After all, if someone you spoke to hasn’t lived in the neighborhood for five years and the crime stats on the Web site are a year old, it makes sense for you to go to the primary sources to check their accuracy. Go to the local police station and ask to see the latest crime stats. Are there any upward trends? Call a couple members of the local school board. Most of the time they are accessible. If not, talk to their aides and get the latest info on area schools.
a neighborhood of your choosing, drive from your workplace to the property during both morning and evening rush hours. This is the only way you can truly measure what your commute would be like, if you purchased the home.
4. Check Out Your Neighbors – When you move into a new home your neighbors will have a profound effect on your quality of life. Yet many people purchase a house without knowing anything about their neighbors. Before you buy a house in a neighborhood try getting out of your car, taking a walk and touring it objectively. Is there a lot of noise? Are there a lot of barking dogs chained to fences? If you see someone outside working in their yard or walking their dog, approach them and ask them how they like the area and tell them that you’re thinking of moving there. Most people you meet will be helpful and truthful.
5. Consider The Neighborhood’s Amenities – By this time you have decided that the new neighborhood is great and you fit in with the neighbors. Now the question becomes what amenities are in the immediate area? Are there a wide variety of restaurants and stores, or just a few strip malls with sub shops and stores selling brands you never heard of? One good way to find out what the area has to offer in the way of amenities is to spend a weekend at a motel or hotel in the area before you purchase the home. This way you can explore and see for yourself everything the area has or doesn’t have in the way of amenities.
3. Don’t Underestimate Your Commute - If you find the perfect neighborhood in a rural area, before you buy a house there, make sure you didn’t underestimate the commute. It is a common error made by buyers that when they view a home on a weekend or during the day, they assume the amount of time it took to reach the property will be the same when they commute to and from work. This is never the case, because rush hour traffic can turn a commute that is normally 30 minutes during the day into a 1-1/2-hour tension-filled drive. So before you purchase a house in 9
5-Step House Moving Plan Designed to Reduce Stress
Moving is the most stressful life event a person can experience other than a divorce or the death of a spouse. That’s why it is critical to have a plan of action in place that will breakdown what can seem to be an insurmountable task into incremental actions that are quite doable. Here is a 5-step house moving plan designed to reduce the stress:
1. Remove the Clutter Depending upon how long you’ve lived at your present home and how great your propensity is for holding on to items you don’t use or need, removing the clutter from your home can be a daunting job.
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But if you approach it systematically by (1) gathering all the stuff together, (2) auctioning the best items off on eBay and/or holding a garage sale and (3) either hauling off or hiring someone to haul off what’s left to the second hand stores or county dump, then you can complete the first step in a weekend or two.
2. Packing and a Packing List – Decluttering your home is easier than packing up all of your belongings for a move. But the principles behind them are the same. You must be systematic and organized. You can usually obtain free boxes at a local food store, or you can order them online for a reasonable price. Either way, it’s important to have enough boxes, magic markers,
tape and labels to complete the job, once you get started. Whatever you do, don’t wait to the last minute to pack. This can fuel unnecessary tensions and also cause you to make packing mistakes. Give yourself plenty of time and make sure you pack the items you don’t use very often first. It makes sense for you to pack the items you use daily last. Some boxes might only need a general label such as “books,” while others may require you to be more specific, such as kitchen coffee pot and kitchen tool box. In addition to labeling the boxes they should also be numbered. To make sure all is accounted for, it is important to create a separate packing list that describes what is packed in each
numbered box. That way on moving day, you can unpack the essentials first when you arrive at your new home. Tip: Make several copies of the packing list.
3. Choose and Schedule a Mover – Once you have finished packing your boxes, you should take a couple of days and shop for a reputable and insured mover. The Internet is a perfect place to start your search. When you narrow it down to three movers, contact each of them and solicit a quote. Compare all the variables in order to make the best choice for you. When you do, call them and schedule the move.
4. Cancel and Transfer Your Utilities – A minimum of three weeks before you move, you should contact your cable company, gas-and-electric company, water department and telephone company to notify them of your move. If you don’t, you could be getting bills for months to come, which is not only confusing but expensive. If you are not moving out of an area being served by these utilities, this is also the time you should schedule these services to be turned on in your new home.
relatives, the banks and companies you do business with and advise them of your new address. This will give them time to make sure your important snail mail continues to be delivered to you once you move. Finally, you should go to your local post office and have any mail that might fall through the cracks forwarded to your new address. While there is no guarantee that your move will be totally stress free, if you follow these five steps you will keep it at a minimum.
5. Change Your Postal Address – Last but not least, one to two weeks before you move, you should contact your friends and
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5 Ways Plants Make Your House Healthier In addition to the aesthetic value of having lots of plants in your house, they also contribute to your emotional and physical health, according to recent scientific studies. Here are just 5 ways plants make your house a healthier place in which to live:
Plants Purify the Air According to NASA research, plants in the home actually remove up to 87% of volatile organic compounds every 24 hours. These include such harmful substances as formaldehyde found in carpet and grocery bags and trichloroethylene and benzene both found in paint and printed paper in books.
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Homes today are pretty air tight, so these types of harmful chemicals are trapped inside with you and your family. A NASA study found that plants purify such air by capturing contaminates and pulling them into their soil.
Make Breathing Easier You probably know that when you breathe in, your body takes in oxygen and releases carbon dioxide when you exhale. Through the process known as photosynthesis plants absorb harmful carbon dioxide and return oxygen to the air. That’s why adding plants to areas in your home increases oxygen levels and makes breathing easier. But did you know that at night
photosynthesis ceases and most plants become like humans in that they absorb oxygen and release carbon dioxide? Still, there are some plants like succulents and orchids that continue taking carbon dioxide out of the air and returning it with oxygen even at night. These are the kinds of plants you should place in your bedroom to make breathing easier, day and night.
Improve Your Physical Health Did you know that studies show that plants actually improve your health and overall well-being? According to researchers at Kanas State University, placing plants in hospital rooms improves recovery rates of surgical patents. The study showed that patients in rooms with plants
had lower heart rates, lower blood pressure and asked for less pain medication than patents in rooms without plants. Moreover, adding plants to offices and other work environments lessened the number of colds, headaches, sore throats and fatigue being reported by employees, according to a study conducted by the Dutch Product Board for Horticulture. In a similar study conducted by the Agricultural University of Norway, rates of employee sickness dropped by more than 60% in offices with plenty of plants.
Add Moisture to the Air Through photosynthesis plants add moisture vapor to the air, which
increases the humidity of a room. In fact, did you know that plants actually release into the air 97% of the water they take in? When you put a couple of plants together in a room, you significantly increase the moisture in the air, which means there will be lower incidents of dry skin, colds and dry coughs.
Improve Your Focus Of all living things, plants rank up there as being helpful to humans. For example, a recent study by the Royal College of Agriculture in the United Kingdom, found that students are 70% more attentive when they are instructed in plantfilled rooms. In addition, the same study found that attendance was also higher in lecture halls with plants.
Suggested Plant Plans • For air purification, plant experts suggest using 15 to 18 plants in pots with 6-to-8-inch diameter for a 1,800-square-foot home. That works out to about one plant for every 100-square feet. • To reduce fatigue, improve health and lower stress, plant experts suggest one large plant for every 129 square feet. The plants should be placed in such a way that everyone in the home can see some greenery.
5 of the Best Plants for Indoor Use: 1. Boston fern 2. English ivy 3. Gerbera daisy 4. Dracaena marginata 5. Spider plant
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A Guide for Matching Your Home Paint Colors with Your Personality Colors make the world come alive from the drab and dreary universe of black and white. Different colors and their shades can strike an upbeat mood in a room, or a reflective, calm feeling in a foyer. Colors definitely influence and can be tied to different personality types. Before you decide to repaint a room or your entire home, why not consider matching them with the colors of your personality, or what you’d like your guests to feel when they enter a specific room? In order to explore the relationship between colors and personalities, we have to go back to the origin of such theories, which were discovered by Galen, the ancient Greek physician.
Personalities First Linked to Colors of Bodily Fluids Galen came up with four different types of personalities based on, believe it or not, the following bodily fluids: • Sanguine (upbeat, positive) - Based on blood. • Melancholic (sad, melancholy) – Based on black bile. • Choleric (cranky, bad-tempered) – Based on yellow bile. • Phlegmatic (calm, cool) - Based on phlegm.
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Modern Theory Linking Colors to Personalities Let’s fast forward to modern times. One of the most popular color-connected-to-personality theories of today is the Hartman Personality Profile, or Color Code. It, like Galen’s, puts people into four different categories, which identify certain common traits of each color personality profile. They are as follows: • Blues – Do-Gooders. • Whites –Peacekeepers. • Yellow – Fun Lovers. • Red – Power Brokers.
Use Colors to Show off Your Personality You can put these theories to work in revealing your personality in how
you decorate your home. If you are an independent thinker and have a will of your own, then you might like bolder shades. While most people won’t paint their living room red, why not try a wine color instead? If you happen to like serene and placid surroundings, try earth tones, such as rich greens, light blues or lush browns. If you have an energetic and upbeat personality, display a color choice of yellows and various shades of orange. Such warm colors are a way you can show your outgoing personality, while cooler colors underscore your more reserved and calmer self.
Consider How Colors Affect Moods
5 Tips on Decorating With Colors
When you are selecting colors for rooms, start by figuring out how much time you’ll be spending in each of the rooms. Different colors have the power to inspire you, increase your focus – or even make you sleepy. That’s why it makes sense to match the color of each room with what you will be doing in that space.
1. Red walls bring down the brightness of a room’s surroundings. They make neutral furniture stand out.
For example, lemony colors would not be good for your home office because they tend to distract your attention. For productivity, use light blue. That’s because blue generates a sense of calm and purpose, which some color experts claim can even curb appetites. Pale yellows work well for kitchens, because they tend to invoke feelings of warmth and cheerfulness. Yellow is also credited with making people feel more energetic, so it would be great color for your exercise room. On the other hand, lavender is a perfect color for living rooms or dens because it creates and atmosphere of relaxation and informality.
2. Dark to medium colors make a room look larger not smaller. 3. The secret to painting walls bright yellow is choosing upholstery and accessories that match the walls. 4. Dark green walls blend well with mahogany chairs and tables. These contrasting colors work because they’re found in nature. 5. To see how a color will look in a particular room, paint big pieces of cardboard and prop them up against the walls of the room in question. By doing so, you can decide whether the color will work well for the room before making a commitment.
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