Mature Resources - Real Estate / Relocation

Bright And Airy Homes Sell Better

By Justin Lee

Home selling, while time consuming can be intensely rewarding when the final offer finally comes in. There is nothing like the feeling of selling your home for an amount that males you happy and makes you some money. However in achieving this goal you may want to make a few changes to your home so that it shows better when listed, Homes that have dark and morose colors do not show too well as the dreary feeling of the dark paint is not really conducive to a selling environment. Buyers like to feel welcomed and warm when they arrive at a home and a gloomy atmosphere is the worst thing they can arrive to.

In keeping a home bright and airy it does not mean that you have to fore go those darker colors that you like so much, simply that for the home to sell right you may want to save those darker colors for your new home and put something warm on the walls before the show. Also, in preparing for the showing, make sure to take down and art that might not be to the taste of the masses. It is likely that there could be people of all ages viewing your home from children to seniors and it's a safe bet that they will not all share your taste in decorations or art. Anything questionable or risky should go. This is especially true if you have teenage kids as they have a tendency to put loud posters and clippings on the walls.

5 Tips For Making A Home Attractive To The Empty Nester

By Robert Palmer

In today's marketplace, people don't just purchase one home in their lifetime. They are buying several homes over the years, trading one for another at different points in their lives.

As a college graduate, you moved into your first home, usually an apartment or condo. As a young married couple, you moved into a starter home. As your family grew, you moved into a large, sprawling house in the suburbs.

Now that the kids have all left for college, careers, and lives on their own, what are you going to do with all of that space?

Many baby boomers are faced with this question every day. In some cases, it may not be the space that's the concern. It may be location, amenities, or even proximity that creates a desire to choose a new home.

Today's baby boomers are quickly moving into one of the top positions for buying and selling real estate. According to a report put out by the Research Institute for Housing America, 87.2 percent of all retirement age households are homeowners. And with this high percentage of people owning homes comes the power of being able to use some of their growing equity to change houses, and buy something that suits their lifestyle at this point in their lives.

Top 3 Tips for Moving Scams

by Jennifer Connolly

Sell everything you own!

Burn what's left over from the garage sale!

Buy all new stuff for your new place!

Okay, I'm kidding, kind of. In the past 20 years I've moved about 15 times, twice overseas and then twice back to the US. As much as I've really come to loathe the moving process, I love to travel so I do what I must.

On my last move from Los Angeles to Boston, I actually attempted Tip No. 1 -- Sell Everything You Own -- and as successful as I was at disposing of so many of my worldly goods, it was truly astonishing to me just how much I had left over. In fact, I didn't quite realize just how much "stuff" I still had to deal with until the night I was packing my car for the drive cross-country and found myself taping up boxes at FedEx Kinko's at 2 o'clock in the morning so I could ship them back to Boston because there wasn't an ounce left of room in my car. I was at Kinko's again at 6 a.m. (24 hour service is wonderful, isn't it?) before I finally had to admit defeat and spend another day in Los Angeles instead of getting on the road.

Property Viewing: Take Your Time

By Mark Hostetler

So often in today's high-speed world, things get rushed. This is understandable as for most people time is money and there is precious little of it about. There are certain things that are typically rushed through, the shopping, exercising and so on. However, when it comes to major financial decisions and purchases it pays to take your time. Home purchases are definitely something that fall into this category. When viewing a home there are so many things to consider that it cannot possibly be done all at once. And if it is, then it is certain that some important things will get missed or overlooked. When this happens it can lead to buyer's remorse and with a purchase as large as a home that's a good amount of remorse.

Taking your time to explore a home is really the best way to make sure that you are getting what you want and what you need in a home. Impulse purchasing has it's place, (in the lineup at the supermarket for example) but when dealing with hundreds of thousands of dollars a buyer will need to make an educated purchase based on the homes assets. So when you look at a home, start making a list of what stands out to you. Positives and negatives should both be listed and those lists should be compared against one another and to the other homes you are looking at.

How Bad Is Today's Lending Crisis?

By Sam Chapman,

I went to a very interesting meeting yesterday at which Joe Brown, founder of Milestone Mortgage, who walked us through the start and what he sees as the finish of the current lending crisis. The following comes from notes I took.

After the crash of the tech sector and 9-11, our economy was in a world of hurt. The Fed started cutting the discount rate and continued cutting until the discount rate came down over 5% over a relatively short period of time. What resulted was more people buying homes as the cost of money was less expensive.

Out came home buyers - they were just about everywhere. The cost of money was low and some lenders saw an opportunity that looked too good to be true. Not only were buyers everywhere, but they were driving up the price of homes in many markets around the country. What came next was a gap. Prices were skyrocketing while wages were relatively stable.

Lenders saw another opportunity - home equity loans. In markets where home prices were going up in excess of 25% a year, people who bought homes saw the value of their homes 50% or more higher. Many saw the ease of getting home equity loans as a means to pay off credit card debt or invest in rental property or even buy a boat or a new car for cash. Can you smell what was over the horizon yet?