Real Estate Options: Owner-Financing a Home

If you are thinking about buying a new home, it has surely crossed your mind that perhaps you should have one built just for you instead. For many families, building a new home is the most desirable option available. If you are still on the fence, consider these benefits to having a home built with your intentions and desires in mind.

The Benefits of Building Your Own Home

One of the biggest benefits to building your own home is that you get to be the first owner. You know exactly what has happened in the house as well as how to work everything. You are never living in a house that has been abused by previous residents.

When you create a home for yourself, you also get to select modern features and details that work best with your intentions. You get to show off your personal style. The light fixtures, the color of the walls, and the type of landscaping all speak to your desires.

Many modern homes are designed to be as energy efficient as possible. This means you spend less on utilities later on. It also means that you contribute to a more eco-friendly environment.

Finally, you will be able to rest assured knowing that you are not on the line for big repairs right away. You are not forced to fix up the lawn or change the carpet immediately. You are presented with a house you have already selected.

The Cons of Building Your Own Home

A major consequence of designing and building your own home is that you may have to wait a while before you can make your move. Once you decide you want to move, you might want to get out quickly. For many people, it is essential that they move in with a loved one until the house is completed. You have to line up the end of your lease or sell of your former home just right.

Additionally, you may not be able to negotiate as much on pricing when you build a home rather than buy one. You may have to discuss options like these with your builder.

Ultimately, buying a home is a fantastic choice. If you are looking for a truly customized option that leaves you in a comfortable and luxurious setting, building is fantastic. Even if you are concerned about your budget, it is a good idea to at least talk to a builder such as Zicka Homes about your wishes.

Open houses are a great way to expand the potential buyer market for your home without having to invest time in multiple showings. If you’ve decided to host an open house yourself, your real-estate agent will probably have some advice to help you. Here are a few more tips to help you plan a successful open house.

Use the Web to Your Advantage

When you’re looking to cast a wide net over potential buyers, the Internet is a great place to start. Use social media to your advantage. Join some communities online, schedule an event on the social-media platforms you frequent, and look into using a mailing-list service to send out an email notice.

Ask that your friends and family help you spread the word about the event. The more places you can post about it, including through online classified sites and other sources, the better your chances are of a good turnout.

Invest in the Services of a Printer

Create some flyers and large signs to put up in a large radius around your neighborhood. Putting up signs will allow you to capitalize on the impulse visitors. Those are the ones who are thinking about looking for a home but not actively pursuing it yet. These people are more likely to stop by when they see the sign than they are to seek the information out online.

Offer Refreshments

Provide a refreshment table at your open house. Include some lemonade, iced tea, or water as well as some pastries and simple snacks. This encourages people to linger and chat, looking around the house while they’re at it. You may actually have a buyer who is on the fence about the property determine that they’re interested in the home after hanging out for a little while.

Consider Working with a Lender and a Sales Agent

If possible, have a local lender send a representative to your home for the days of the open house. This allows prospective buyers to explore their financing opportunities while they’re on-site, and this may increase the chances of securing an offer from a pre-approved buyer.

Having an additional sales agent onsite is a great way to provide support for the buyer. Many buyers want to work with a real-estate agent to help protect their interests and get more information about the property.

With these tips, you can host an open house that will draw as many people as possible and encourage buyers to seek financing options. Talk with your real-estate agent today about other services you might want to offer during the process. Contact a company like South Florida Property Team for more ideas.

Luxury homes give you more room to enjoy the finer things in life. In addition to standard bathrooms, luxury homes also include special rooms and features that make them stand out from the crowd. If you’re on the market for a luxury home, make sure you request a viewing to see if the homes offer the following 3 types of rooms. These rooms will completely change your life around.

Exercise Rooms

The U.S. government recommends getting at least 2.5 hours of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise or 1.25 hours of vigorous-intensity exercise mixed in with some weight lifting exercises each week. Finding time to go to the gym can be difficult, and 80% of American adults fail to get the exercise that they need. Because of these facts, one of the best features of most luxury homes is the exercise room.

When going on a tour of the house, determine whether or not the previous owner will leave all of the exercise equipment you see behind. In particular, you should determine whether the exercise rooms have built-in wireless speakers and televisions, as these tend to be the most important. Installing it by yourself at a later time will be costly.

Game and Theater Rooms

To fully enjoy the comfort of the home, look for game and theater rooms in the luxury homes that you visit. Make sure the type of amenities offered mirror your interests. For example, if you love to watch movies, you should definitely look for luxury homes with movie theater rooms that include built-in surround sound systems. If you enjoy swimming, look for indoor pools.

The game and theater rooms of each luxury home is rather unique. Most of the time, the amount of effort put into constructing these rooms will cause you to lean towards keeping them. In short, make sure that these amenities align with your interests, as you want to find homes with built-in rooms that will allow you to do what you love.

Spa Bathrooms

End a stressful day or start up your mornings by enjoying time in the spa bathrooms. One of the main perks of purchasing luxury homes is being able to indulge in the spa features found in the bathrooms. In particular, you want to look for massive walk-in showers, floors with radiant heat, bathtubs with water jet features, and even towel warmers. These features will change your life around and will help relieve stress from your life.

Having these features and rooms in your house can help you better enjoy your life. You’ll be able to indulge in amenities and features that make your day a lot more relaxing and entertaining. For more information, contact local professionals like Remo Paul Group.

Luxury home builders operate on two construction models of luxury home building–size/room and aesthetics. As someone who wants to build and own a luxury home, you have to decide what kind of luxury homeowner you want to be. Here is a little more information on how these two types of luxury homes are typically constructed and/or designed. It should help you decide which type of luxury home to pursue with your luxury home builder.

Aesthetics

Aesthetic luxury homeowners are those people who want their homes to be absolutely gorgeous. They want people to be in awe with both the exterior and interior visual features of the home. Homeowners who are more concerned with aesthetics request and demand that their home designers and architects create the most visually stunning home possible, or the most unique-looking luxury home possible. If this sounds like you and what you want out of a luxury home, you are probably an “aesthetics luxury home” person.

Size/Room

Homeowners who request luxury homes with massive dimensions are more concerned with getting a house with an immense size and massive amounts of room in every area of the house. They want a great room to be really great, and a grand foyer to be jaw-droppingly grand. Cathedral ceilings, multiple stories, and rooms that make the furniture look diminished in size is what this type of luxury home is about. This approach is all about air, light, and room to stretch out, as well as tons of room for someone that enjoys collecting items and filling spaces.

For example, you might build a luxury home that has a single open turret that is lined with shelves for the hundreds of books you own and collect. That would be just one of the many massive rooms in your home. These homeowners are less concerned with aesthetics because they will just hire an interior decorator to make the home look gorgeous and fill out the massive rooms with innumerable decorative touches.

So Which One Are You?

If you feel that you are both aesthetics and room/size, there is a middle ground. You simply design and build a luxury home for room/size, then hire an interior decorator to cover all of the aesthetics part inside the home. Not a whole lot can be done to the exterior of the home (unless you build a modern gothic castle), but the interior decorator can give the interior that “wow” factor visually. If you would prefer everything to be a little bit smaller and cozier, then you can focus more on constructing an aesthetic luxury home, adding details all over.

For more information, talk to a professional like Adobe Homes Florida.

Whether you’re a homeowner looking to sell your house, or a real estate agent working hard to help a client find a buyer for their home, staging is of the utmost importance. Below you will discover exactly why staging the home is the most crucial step of the selling process.

Helps Buyers See Themselves in the Home

When staging a home, all personal items are removed. This includes family photos, team sport memorabilia, and anything else that speaks to a specific group of individuals. The reason for this is that you want buyers to see themselves in the home when they take the walk through. If, for example, the buyers are Miami Dolphins fans and you have Dallas Cowboys items throughout the home, this may prevent them from feeling like the house is their home. The can result in a lost sale.

Gives a Good Impression

Taking the time to stage homes for sale involves removing all clutter and organizing the rooms so that they have the most amount of space. When a client goes to buy a home, he or she will form a good or bad impression from the moment they walk in the front door. A de-cluttered and organized spaces is not only inviting, but it also gives the potential buyer the vibe that the house has been well cared for. 

Gets the House Sold Faster

The first place a buyer will see your home is on the realtor’s website. Images of a staged home are going to attract more attention, which means a higher than average number of showings. At the showing, the interested parties will have the chance to see the beauty of the staging up close. A large number of showings is bound to result in an offer early on in the listing, which means homeowners will be able to sell their properties much faster than had they not used a staging strategy. 

Generates a Higher Price

There’s a very good chance that the additional showings end up producing multiple offers. Sellers can use this to their advantage to actually sell their homes for more than what they were asking. The seller can counter back with a higher offer, or the realtor can allow a bidding war to ensue. The extra money may even be enough to cover the closing costs. 

Although the living room, kitchen, and master bedroom tend to be the most important rooms to stage, keep in mind that buyers will check every nook and cranny of your home for sale. That means you’ll also want to organize closets, basements, and even your attic space. 

For more information, contact Stacy Sells or a similar company.

Having someone break into your home can make you feel very violated and unsafe. It gives you a sense of insecurity that can be very hard to shake. If you have recently had someone break into your home, use the guide below to learn what steps to take to restore your feeling of security and keep your home as safe as possible at all times.

Hire a Contractor

The first thing you need to do is you need to hire a contractor to repair any damage that the criminal did when they broke into your home. Sometimes windows are shattered or door jambs are broken in order for someone to gain access to your home. Leaving the damage in disrepair will leave your home vulnerable to another attack and could put your family at risk. It is best to hire a professional to do the repairs, to ensure that they are done properly and quickly.

Hire a Locksmith

Next, you need to hire a locksmith to remove the locks that are on your door and replace them with better locks. There are many different types of locks that are now available on the market. You may want to choose a lock that has a small camera built into it that will film anyone who comes up to the door. This ensures that if anyone does try to break into your home again, they will be caught on film that can be given to the police. The locksmith will not only know how to install the locks for you, but he or she will also be able to help you set them up properly, if need be. It is best to have multiple locks on your doors to create as safe of a home as possible.

Get a Home Security System

Finally, a home security system can be a great way to keep your home safe and secure at all times. Home security systems are now very affordable and will give you peace of mind that your home is secure, even when you are away from it. Be sure to consider if you want a security system that includes video cameras or one that simply alerts authorities if any suspicious activity occurs within the home when the alarm is activated.

There will always be criminals breaking into homes so securing yours as well as you can is important. Being able to restore the peace of mind that you lost will take time, but accomplishing these three steps will make you feel safer right away.

When selling your home, you’ll be taking the time to stage your house so that it is shown in the best way possible. While you have many options for rearranging furniture in other rooms, you may not think there is much that can be done with a bathroom. These tips will help you stage a bathroom so that it is looking its best.

Perform A Deep Cleaning

The cleanliness of your home is a reflection on how you have taken care of it. That’s why it’s so important to spend time giving the bathroom a deep cleaning prior to any showing or open house. This even means cleaning between the vents on your bathroom exhaust fan, which is most likely filthy from years of neglect.

Pay attention to areas where you have potential mold growth. You may not be able to clean the white caulk around a shower door, so you will be better off replacing it completely so it looks its best to a potential buyer.

Brighten Up The Room

You should replace the light bulbs with the brightest wattage bulbs that your fixture allows. Bathrooms may not get the most natural light, especially if you have frosted windows, so adding more light in this way can be key to making it not seem dark and gloomy. It also helps to install more mirrors that will reflect light around your bathroom.

Remove Your Personal Items

Potential buyers will be going through your cabinets and drawers to see the storage you have in your bathroom. You should take time to remove all your personal items from the bathroom. Not only will it remove that bit of personalization that can be off-putting to a buyer, but it will also make the space look clean and roomy. For example, removing prescription bottles from a medicine cabinet will make it look like you are not running out of space. Just put everything away in a closet, and put them back when the showing is over.

Decorate Using Towels

Remember all those decorative towels that you have stashed away that are supposed to look nice and never be used? Now is the time to get them out of storage. Placing these nice-looking towels in the places where your every day towels typically go is a great way to decorate a bathroom with the limited options that you have.

For more bathroom staging tips, speak with your agent.

Click here for houses for sale, or do an online search. 

For new homes buyers and sellers, one important item to think about is contingencies. Contingencies are requests made by the buyer in order to finalize the sale. The following are some things you should know about contingencies before purchasing or selling a house:

Contingencies Defined

A contingency is the aspect of a home sale contract that protects buyers and sellers of home from different issues that could cause a contract to fail. They can often provide the buyer or seller a way to exit the contract if specific conditions are not met by a certain deadline.

Different Types of Contingencies

There are a variety of contingencies that can be added to a home sale contract. The following are among the most commonly seen in many home purchases:

Finance Contingency- This contingency says that the purchaser of the house will have a guaranteed way to finance the sale. A finance contingency is a crucial aspect to a sales contract. If the purchaser does not have a solidified method of paying for the house, many man-hours will be wasted on the sale. Not only will a pre-approval be necessary, but proof of an approved loan may also be required before the sale can move ahead. Additional financial contingencies can be added, such as a cash offer, down payment contingencies, and any other method that can provide proof that the buyer can pay for the house.

Insurance Contingency- This is not always a requirement but they are becoming increasingly popular. For homes that can be hard to insure, this can make the buying of the home more difficult. A homebuyer can create a contract that is contingent on the ability to properly insure the house. Homes that have endured major issues, such as flooding or mold infestation can be hard to insure unless specific and expansive repairs are made and can be proven.

Escrow Contingency- Escrow is the amount of time between the start of the sale and the end. This type of contingency will be necessary if the seller of the house needs a set amount of time to leave the property.

If you are going to be dealing in a home sales transaction, be sure to get all of your contingencies in writing. This can be a problem for those who are buying and selling from friends and relatives. While you want to have faith that the acquaintance will make good on their word regarding contingencies, it can leave you with a halted sale if someone tries to take advantage of you. Work carefully with your realtor and attorney to ensure that nothing will bar the sales process.

One thing that can really turn off potential buyers who look at your home for sale is bad odors. When people walk in, they will notice bad odors instantly, and this can be a big factor that plays a role in what they think of your home. It can be hard to tell if your house stinks when you live there, simply because you can get used to the smell of your own house, but you could ask other people what they think. If you believe your house contains bad odors, here are some tips to help you eliminate the smells so potential buyers do not get distracted by them.

Replace Your Carpet

If you have carpeting in your home, the bad odors might be coming from your carpet. Cleaning carpet is one way to freshen up the smell of a house, but this method does not always completely eliminate the bad smells in a house. It might take ripping out your old carpeting and replacing it. If the bad odors are due to pet accidents, you might also need to clean the wood floor underneath your carpet before putting new carpet in. If you do not do this, the bad odors could work their way back into your house.

Clean Your Ductwork

Another source of odors in a home can be from the ductwork. Ductwork is used to transfer cooled and heated air throughout a house, and these air ducts can contain contaminants that are causing your home to smell bad. If you hire an HVAC company, they can clean these for you, and they may also be able to sanitize them with chemicals that will help get rid of any odors that are trapped inside.

Clean All The Floors And Upholstery In Your Home

The other thing you can do is really deep clean your house. Scrubbing the floors with a cleaner that contains bleach can help with any trapped odors on floors, but you should use caution because certain floors might not react well with bleach.

In addition, you should clean all the furniture in your home, and you should clean all the curtains and anything else that is made of fabric. Upholstered items lock in smells, and the only way to get rid of the smells is through cleaning them.

If you want to sell your house quickly, you may need to find a way to get rid of the bad smells you have trapped inside your home. If you would like to learn more about selling your home quickly, contact a real estate agent like one from Central Virginia Realty.  

Whether you live in an apartment, condo, or single-family home, you should keep the place clean. Sometimes this only involves cleaning the interior, but it can also include exterior cleaning. In an apartment, these tasks are typically minimal, so it is easy to handle as someone who is a meticulous cleaner. Becoming a homeowner can have quite the impact because of the increased load of cleaning. So, it is best to look at features that will ensure you have an easier time maintaining a spotless home.

Countertops

The kitchen countertops will likely receive a great deal of wear and tear over time, especially when you cook most of your meals at home and from scratch. It is crucial to prioritize kitchen countertops that are not going to cause you a lot of trouble in regard to cleaning and keeping it from being a germ hazard. Polished granite and concrete are two countertop materials that you can rely on for ease of cleaning.

Flooring

The flooring in your home can have a substantial impact on how much time you spend with floor care. The areas that are most susceptible to problems include the kitchen and bathrooms, so you should prioritize the type of flooring in these rooms compared to the rest of the home. Some all-around winners are linoleum and ceramic tile, which gives you an inexpensive and luxurious option to choose from.

For the rest of the home, you should at least try to stay away from carpeting. Tile, hardwood, concrete, or laminate are all easier to maintain. Carpet requires vacuuming and deodorizing, and you have to be very careful of children, pets, and your own accidents as liquid spills and stains are common issues.

Windows

To keep your home clean, you can either work hard or work smarter. Working hard could include taking on any home, regardless of its cleanliness levels and keeping it hygienic through sheer effort alone. The windows may not seem that related, but they play a huge role in your home’s sanitation. Old and drafty windows are naturally going to let dust and other particles into the home. Even with new windows, some types are most likely to have air leakage, which is all the space dust needs to get inside. The smart way to work is to look for windows known for minimal leakage in awning, hopper, and casement style.

When looking at homes, knowing what will allow for easy cleaning can ensure a happy ending.