At Home With Valerie

With the nice weather upon us, I thought I would pass along a few green gardening tips that I thought you may find useful.   I hear from so many of my clients that making their homes more environmentally friendly is important to them, and it can even help increase the value of their property. We all want our yards and gardens to be beautiful, green, and inviting, but also making them good for the environment is just as important.  Whether you have just moved in, or are looking to make your existing outdoor living space an earth-friendly place, here are a few tips that can help! Expand your garden, shrink your yard.   Grass yards take a lot of time and resources to maintain; replacing them with wildflower gardens or gravel living spaces can reduce your water and fuel consumption. Replace your gas or electric mower with a reel lawn mower.   They do take more work, buy it's a great way to get in a workout! Purchase a rain barrel.   Colle...

Getting out of town soon for some R&R? What steps are you taking to protect your home while you’re gone?  Here are my 10 tips that will help ensure everything is safe and sound when you return. I hope you all have  a safe and relaxing time during your vacation this summer.  It’s crucial that we all have time to recharge and recognize what’s important in life.  We only go around once, so it’s important to savor what we have. Before you leave town, I thought you might be interested in a few precautionary safety tips to keep your home and your possessions safe while you’re gone.  Often in the run-up to a vacation, people neglect to take simple steps to protect themselves from becoming a victim of theft or vandalism. You’ve probably covered your bases, but just in case, here are 10 basic precautions you can take: 1.       Have someone collect your mail and newspaper daily. 2.       Leav...

Thank you to my client, a very special lady whose home I just sold recently.  Here is what she had to say:

A lot of people seem to think waiting for home pricing to bottom out is the way to buy. But what happens to those low prices if interest rates change? Here's what you should consider. Which do you think matters more when waiting for the right time to buy a home? Is it securing a low purchase price, or locking in a great financing rate? Most buyers become focused on purchase price when they’re considering whether or not to buy. The question you often hear is the same: “Has the market bottomed out yet?” The idea of getting “the best deal” on a home is paramount to these price shoppers, and indeed for cash buyers, this may be the primary concern. While negotiating a great price is an important part of the equation, the value of securing great financing terms cannot be overstated. The inherent risk in waiting for the market to hit bottom is that you’ll also miss out on the best interest rates available. Imagine, for example, you’re waiting for homes to drop an addi...

Home staging is a wonderful way to help your home sell more quickly!   Buyers are more motivated to consider purchasing a home that suits their family size, budget, and location requirements, but also one that appeals to their senses.   What will a buyer see, smell, hear, and touch when they tour your home for the first time? Contrary to what you may have heard, staging your home to sell doesn't have to be expensive.  Sure, you can hire a decorator or invest in new furniture or renovations.  However, if you're like many sellers I work with, high-end staging may not be in your plan or budget. That's why I put together the best staging tips for the do-it-your-selfer.  The list I've included has been useful to lots of other happy clients.  I hope you'll find it helpful, too! Potted Plants , small or large, are one of the easiest and least expensive ways to create visual appeal.   Home Fragrance such as scented candles, s...

Sometimes clients ask me what my secret weapon is to help sell a home faster. The devil is in the cosmetic details.  For your future reference, 10 little fixes that put your home ahead of the competition on the market. The devil is really in the details when buyers look at a home. Lots of everyday wear and tear that you don’t even notice can ding your home in the eyes of potential buyers. Here’s my list of ten simple improvements you can do to help your home sell faster: 1.  Spruce up your baseboards: Pets, kids, and stumbling husbands in the dark can make a mess of your baseboards. Repainting baseboards after repairing scratches with putty can make the border of any room look new. 2.  Fill in nail holes: Part of interior repainting should be careful attention to those errant nail holes from pictures, shelves, and other wall-mounted baubles. Putty, smooth, sand and paint! 3. Sniff for smokers: Filter replacement is a must if someone’s been puffing in...

As the economy recovers, many people are looking to real estate to diversify their investment portfolio - and for good reason. Investing in real estate offers long-term financial security in ways that other investment strategies may not. The right plan, ample capital, and an eye for a diamond in the rough is sage advice if you’re a first-timer. Here are five more tips to help you find, buy, and rent houses for wealth.  1. Nail Down Your Numbers. Investing in real estate is all about the return. To understand it you’ll want to know what you can buy the home for, what it will cost to rehab it, and what you will sell or rent it for. Once you’ve bought the property, it’s important to have enough reserves to pay the mortgage whenever there’s a vacancy. Many seasoned investors recommend saving six-months worth of rent.  2. Determine Your Strategy. In addition to capital, you’ll need to determine how much time  you’re willing to invest. Do you want to become a land...

Before you sell, you must make sure your house is appealing to buyers. This means decluttering! Follow these handy tips to make the chore less of a burden. Preparing your home to sell means presenting a home which is attractive to buyers. If you’re going to be living in the home while it’s on the market, and you’re choosing not to stage it, you absolutely must go through a decluttering process. It can feel overwhelming at first, but I assure you the process can be broken down into manageable steps which will help your home sell potentially faster and for a better price. 1. Take photos of what you’re up against. You might think things look pretty good until you see your home with the unflinching eye of the camera. Photograph every room from multiple angles and you’ll begin to see what buyers will see. Don’t forget to snap the closets, laundry rooms, and garage. 2. Plan a room-by-room attack. This doesn’t have to be done in a day, a weekend, or even a week. Depending on yo...

An open house is an important part of showing and selling your home, but it’s vital to understand that you will be essentially inviting strangers into your house. Here are some things you’ll want to secure beforehand. For many, the open house is a make-or-break event for marketing a home. The mix of people stopping by can lead to an offer or a quality referral. With the directionals pointing your way, the balloons bumping off the sign posts, and the house looking its best, a successful open house creates a network of awareness around your listing. A lot of cleaning and preparation goes into an open house, and it can be easy to forget some crucial elements which might impact the safety of the event or even make the difference between an offer or no interest. Before the doors open, be absolutely sure you’ve secured the following items in a safe, alternate location: 1. Drugs. No, we’re not (necessarily) talking about the sort of stuff you’d see on Law & Order. We’re ta...

Thinking of buying a home, but you’re not sure about the best way to break your current rental lease? Here are some tips to make the break-up amicable. If you’ve been thinking of buying a home, but the prospect of breaking your apartment lease has you holding back, you might be glad to know there are options available to you as a renter. A lease isn’t always an iron-clad agreement with all the rights on the side of your landlord. Of course, buying a home isn’t the only reason to break a lease. There are many reasons to break a lease: Your job may have changed, you might find the rent too steep, or you may have lost a loved one who used to share the space with you. Here are a few things you can do to help extract yourself from the situation: 1. Find the opt-out clause. You may not have read your lease very carefully when you were excited to move in, and now is the time to go back and pick it apart with a fine-toothed comb. Many leases will have clauses which allow you to lega...

Find something on your credit history that’s inaccurate? You may need to write a dispute letter to get the item resolved. Here’s what needs to go in your letter. Discovering an error on your credit history can be a rude surprise when you’re attempting to get pre-approved for a mortgage. Though most people don’t think about the details of their credit report until the need to secure a loan, it’s a good idea to check your report for inaccuracies periodically. If you do find an error, the best way to attempt a correction is through a dispute letter. Dispute letters allow you to formally request a fix by the reporting agency. Though it may take a little time to get the errors removed, cleaning up these mistakes can have a direct (and favorable!) effect on your credit score, helping you secure lower interest rates and better terms. Here’s what you’ll need to include for each mistake you find: 1. Which account shows the mistake. 2. Specifically what’s incorrect about t...

Moving day can be a hectic time, and often families misplace important items during the transition. I put together this blog post on six things you won’t want to forget on moving day. The chaos of moving day is a prime time to forget or misplace essential items.  When you’re preparing for the big move to your new home, the following items are some of the most overlooked (and the most sorely missed in a time of need!). To prevent the hassle and heartbreak of forgotten possessions and lost information, make a check list containing the following items: 1. Jewelry, watches, and small valuables:   These small, expensive and often irreplaceable items are best kept in a safe deposit box or kept with trustworthy friends or relatives on moving day. 2. Garage door opener:   The old one won’t be of much use at your new house, will it? Be sure to leave it behind for the new owners.  Also, make sure the old owners of your new house give you theirs! 3. Spare...