You saw its potential. You designed, bought, plumbed, wired and painted it. Now that you are thinking of selling your house, why not do it on your own?
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Author Archives: Joanne Y. Cleaver
- Buying & Selling Homes >
- Contain the Commission to 3%
- Buying & Selling Homes >
- Scrapbooking for Fun and Profit
Documenting your project makes for great before-and-after photos to impress friends. A scrapbook can also validate your financial records. So while you’re busy taking photos for fun, take some for profit, too.
Photo: Shutterstock
- Buying & Selling Homes >
- How To: Sleuth an Open House
Traditional real estate wisdom dictates that you should never buy the nicest house on the block. Calibrate potential return on your improvement projects by ensuring that your house is one of the best in the area but still in sync with local preferences. Tour open houses to keep an eye on neighborhood norms.
Original Staircase Spindles. Photo: Shutterstock
- Buying & Selling Homes >
- See Your House Through Appraisal Goggles
Photo: Shutterstock
Good news! Real estate prices are firming up, and sales are on an upswing. You may soon be able to cash in on your home improvements. But before you try to impress buyers, you have to impress an appraiser.
- Buying & Selling Homes >
- Heat Up Kitchen Resale Value
Kitchens sell houses. That’s still true. But if you are remodeling your kitchen with an eye towards recapturing your investment, you’ll want to concentrate money on the elements that deliver the best return.
Photo: myinteriorarchitecture.com
- Buying & Selling Homes >
- 3 Ways Your Neighbors Affect Your Home’s Value
Here’s some context for the old adage that home values are based on location, location, location: We identify three ways in which your neighborhood affects your home’s value, and how you can turn those factors to your favor.
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- Managing Construction >
- Your Insurance Punch List
It’s a home improvement project. What could go wrong?
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Better not to think about it. That’s really a job for the agent who handles your homeowners’ insurance. Before you get going on your project, review your policy to make sure coverage includes these hope-they-don’t-happen factors:
- Buying & Selling Homes >
- Kitchen Trends to Bank On
Photo: National Kitchen & Bath Association
Baked-in obsolescence is the last thing you want in your kitchen remodel. Classic layouts, finishes, and styles are much more likely to appeal to tomorrow’s buyers, even if that tomorrow is a decade away. Based on ongoing research by the National Kitchen and Bath Association, here’s what to include and what to avoid if you’re undertaking a kitchen renovation:
- Buying & Selling Homes >
- Leap Over the Top 3 Market Obstacles
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Whether you are selling or buying a house, your plans are likely to be derailed by one of three factors that are tripping up thousands of real estate deals this year, according to a recent survey by the National Association of Realtors:
- Bathroom >
- Biggest Bang for Your Buck? The Bath
If you only have so much time and money to spend on a remodeling project, you’ll stay more on trend by investing in the bath.
