I just wanted to take a moment today and wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. My team and I hope you enjoy and cherish the time spent with loved ones this time of year.
For our military personnel, we continue to pray for your safe return home to your families. For our public safety personnel, stay safe out there and come home at night.
From the entire Donaldson Team, we wish you the happiest of holidays, and look forward to connecting with you in the new year!
Last time we covered how to prepare for winter on the inside of your home, and in this episode we're going to discuss how you can winterize the outside of your property.
You can start by performing some preventative yard maintenance. This will include raking your leaves, clearing your gutters, fertilizing your lawn, and perhaps even mowing the lawn one last time. Clearing your gutters is important for keeping snowmelt away from your foundation in the spring.
It's also crucial that you drain your sprinkler pipes so that they don't burst during a hard freeze. You might need to hire someone to blow out your pipes if you cannot do so yourself. Right now is also a good time to touch up on the paint covering your siding, decks, and patio.
Something else that is often overlooked is replacing or adding caulk and weather stripping to your doors and windows. This will help insulate your home and will even save you money on your energy bill.
If you have a real chimney or fireplace, have it checked by a professional to ensure that you won't encounter a problem during the middle of a blizzard.
If you have any questions about these issues, please don't hesitate to contact me. I look forward to speaking with you!
Today’s topic is preparing your home for the winter, the indoors edition. This is part one of a two part series, and we’ll cover the outside of your home on the next video. It may not feel like winter now, but it will be here before you know it. To make sure you are prepared for the weather and all that it brings with it, we want to give you some tips today for getting the inside of your home all ready for winter.
Right now is a great time to go through and thoroughly clean the interior of your home. We’re talking sweeping, vacuuming, dusting, and even hiring a carpet cleaning service to steam clean or shampoo your floor. We recommend mopping and sweeping those hardwood, tile, or linoleum floors as well.
One area of your home you should pay special attention to is the bathrooms and the kitchen. Deep clean the countertops to refresh them for the season and get rid of those lingering cold germs.
Now is also a great time to perform preventative maintenance on your heating system. It’s not a bad idea to have a service contract with a company to check your heater a few times a year, which will help prolong its life.
Finally, make sure you check those smoke and carbon monoxide detectors and replace their batteries. Also, check and purge your closets, cabinets, and garage of any unnecessary items and donate them to charity.
If you have any questions for us about winterizing your home, give us a call or send us an email. We’ll be back with part two next time, and we look forward to hearing from you soon!
Before you even start looking at homes, the first thing you need to do is get pre-qualified. You simply call your lender, talkto them about what you want to do, and then they will take your personal information, income, and assets to figure out what kind of loan you will qualify for.
A pre-qualification is different from a pre-approval. The pre-qualification is more of a preliminary step. A pre-approval is when the lender goes through and verifies the information you provided during the pre-qualification.
The documents you need to provide to the lender include 30 days worth of paystubs, your W-2s from the last two years, two years of tax returns if you have investment income or are self-employed, bank statements from the last two months, and a photo ID.
The whole process lasts about 30 days from getting approved to taking the loan to closing. You may even qualify for more than what you can afford. The lender allows you to borrow as much as their guidelines will allow, but that might be more than you can afford. Budget out your monthly mortgage payments in order to know what you can actually afford to spend on a home.
If you have any questions for Tim, you can call him at 703.930.1765 or email him at T.Curtin@Americorp-HomeMortgage.com. As always, if you have any real estate questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to me. I look forward to hearing from you!
Today we have got the latest market update for you for Northern Virginia, and we are excited to share the great numbers we have been seeing. Here’s what’s been happening in the Northern Virginia real estate market:
New pending contracts increased 14% from August of 2014
Inventory was up as well, for the 25th consecutive month.
There were 4,418 new listings added in August, a 1.5% increase over last August
Our current active inventory in Northern Virginia is high, and sits at 10,599
The median sale price of $430,000 stayed pretty similar to last year
The average days on market is up 8.89%
So, we are entering the fall market with high inventory and the days on market increasing. However, buyer demand in Northern Virginia continues to increase, while significant gains in new contracts and closed sales continues to be a trend.
Our market is still very strong and continues to improve every year. If you are on the fence about buying now, just know that an impending increase in interest rates could push you out of the price point that you could afford today.
So don’t wait, get prequalified today. If you don’t have a trusted lender, we have plenty that we can refer to you. If you have any questions for us at all, give us a call or send us an email. We look forward to hearing from you!
If you're thinking of buying a home in the next three
months or so, I'm going to give you three questions you need to ask yourself before
you dive into the home search.
Why
am I buying in the first place? This is the most
important question. For most people, the reason has nothing to do with
finances whatsoever. People want a safe place to raise their kids. They
want more space for their family, and they want control of the space that
they have.
Where
are home values headed? When looking at
future values, the Home Prices Expectation Survey provides a fair
assessment. Every quarter, a nationwide panel of economists and real
estate experts make projections for the next five years. Home values will
appreciate by 4% through 2015. Even the more conservative experts project
an accumulative appreciation of 15.1% by 2019.
Where
are mortgage rates headed? A buyer must be
concerned about more than just home price. The long-term cost of a home
could be dramatically impacted by an increase in mortgage rates. Mortgage
rates will increase by one percentage point over the next twelve months,
so keep that in mind.
The bottom line is that only you and your
family can determine the best time to buy a home. These
three questions will guide you with that decision. If you have any questions
for me, give me a call or send me an email. I'd be happy to help you.
Today, I want to discuss what a home appraisal is and why
they are needed when purchasing a house.
An appraisal is an unbiased professional opinion of a
home's value. In a purchase and sale transaction, an appraisal is used to
determine whether a home's contract price is appropriate given the home's
conditions, location, and features.
Lenders want to make sure that homeowners are
not over-borrowing for the property because the home serves
as collateral for the mortgage. If the borrower defaults on the mortgage and
forecloses, the lender can recoup the money by selling the home.
Because the appraisal primarily protects the lender's
interest, the lender will usually order the appraisal. The value found by the
appraisal is influenced by recent sales of similar homes, current market
trends, the home's amenities, floor plan, and accessibility. The
appraiser must do a complete visual inspection of the interior and exterior and
note any condition that might adversely affect the property's value, such as
needed repairs.
Next, the appraiser provides a comprehensive report that
includes an analysis and conclusions about the property's value. An appraisal
typically costs between $400-$500, and generally, the borrower pays the fee.
When you're buying a home and you're under contract, the
appraisal will be one of the first steps in the closing process. If the
appraisal comes in at or above the contract price, the transaction proceeds as
planned. On the other hand, if the appraisal comes in below the
contract price, it can delay or derail the transaction. Chances are, neither
you nor the seller want the transaction to fall through, and as a buyer, you
have an advantage in that a low appraisal can serve as a negotiating tool to
convince the seller to lower the price so the transaction can move forward.
If you're a seller, it might be a good idea to
get an appraisal before you list your home to get a better
idea of what the current market value of your home is from a third-party
perspective. When everything goes smoothly, the home appraisal is just another
box to check on a loan closing checklist, which is the goal for buyers, sellers,
and lenders in the transaction process.
If you have any questions about this topic, or if you need
real estate assistance of any kind, don't hesitate to reach out to us. We would
love to hear from you!
Buying a home is one of the biggest investments you can make in your life. You want to make sure it's protected in the event of a disaster or accident. For a home, you will need dwelling coverage, which covers the bricks, mortar, and everything attached to the house. In the event of a fire or total loss, you can rebuild and get back into your home with this type of insurance. However, dwelling insurance doesn't cover detached garages, outdoor sheds, or any other standalone structures on your property.
For your personal property, you want to make sure you're covered under your homeowner's insurance policy. Think of your home as a dollhouse. If you picked it up and shook it, everything that falls out would be your personal property. Watches and jewelry are covered, but you may need endorsements or additional coverage based on your collection. When you're trying to figure out where to start, talk to a real person like an insurance adviser or real estate agent. We can help put you on the right path to success. If you have any questions, feel free to give us a call or send us an email. We look forward to hearing from you!
