FSBO Jane

For some home buyers, the condition and price of a particular house is what matters. For others, the general location is what matters. For the home buyers who are searching for a particular dream destination, this post is for you.

After conducting some research, I found Web sites that specialize in just about every type of location that one might want to live in. Whether you’re looking to move into a loft that overlooks a city, or a log cabin that overlooks a mountain, you’ll surely find one site from this list that fits your area of interest.

For golf enthusiasts who want nothing more but a championship golf course in their backyard: www.golfcourserealty.com/features/.

For boaters/fishers/water lovers who want nothing more than to live on a lake, ocean or river: www.lakehomesusa.com/, www.oceanhomesusa.com/, www.riverhomesusa.com/.

For nature lovers who only want the rural countryside to surround them: www.unitedcountry.com/.

For city lovers who can’t get enough of the hustle and bustle: www.cityrealty.com for New York, www.windycityliving.com for Chicago and www.losangeles.com/realestate/ for Los Angeles.

For investors or travelers who are looking to purchase a second home: www.escapehomes.com/.

For current or upcoming retirees who want to surround themselves with amenities, convenience and others in their age group: www.senioroutlet.com.

Even if your dream destination isn’t quite in your financial grasp as of late, you can still browse the sites and scrounge up ideas for the future! Still not sure what location best suits your needs and interests? Answer these eight simple questions from Kiplinger.com to see what area suits you most: http://www.kiplinger.com/tools/bestcities/index.php.

Came across a fantastic list of tips at Free From Broke, written a few months ago and directed towards home selling.

With most of the ideas coming from Twitter users, the post not only gives you tips but also first-hand experiences, which are excellent to read.

Example: Clean Carpets/Wax Floors (@thepassivedad) - Renting a machine for the day to clean your carpets can be inexpensive. Same is true for a floor buffer. There’s also less expensive cleaners you can use that may require more elbow grease but can be as effective. If you’re able add no base board molding. Basically give a buyer the thought that they don’t have to do any work on the floors if they don’t want to!

An extra bonus? More Twitter friends to follow! Go check the article out!

Given that the title of my site is FSBO Jane, maybe a better title for this post would be: What is the big deal with commission?

After all, the most basic argument I’m making here (over and over again, it may seem) is pretty simple. Selling your home by yourself makes financial sense because, here comes the buzz word, you save commission.

If you know anything about real estate, you probably already know how commission works. Commission is the part of your home sale that goes to the involved agents. So, let’s say I’m your agent and we agree on a 6% commission. When we sell your $200,000 home, 6% of that total (so $12,000 in this case) goes to the agents.

But Don’t Agents Deserve it?
One major point of confusion on my site has been that I’m bashing agents. Please understand: I think there are many quality real estate agents out there who earn their full commission, no question. And, to be fair, you should know that your one agent doesn’t get the full 6%. Part goes to the buyer’s agent. Part to brokers (if your agent is under a broker such as Remax or Coldwell Banker, etc.). While there are freak cases of agents making big $ for little work, those occurances aren’t as common in today’s market.

So Why Not Use an Agent?
My whole point is this: you can do what an agent does. I’m not saying agents don’t do anything. I’m not saying agents don’t work hard. I’m saying you can work hard to keep the commission, right? You can research and market and show your home, at least if it means you’ll make a greater return, right?

Here at FSBO Jane, I’m a big believer in keeping the commission, in exchange for some effort on your part. For a $200K home, a $12K reward is worth it, don’t you think?

If you’ve got a kitchen, bathroom or piece of furniture with outdated cabinets that you aren’t ready to replace completely, whether for financial reasons or otherwise, consider painting them instead! Painting your cabinets can give them a totally fresh, like-new appearance that is as good as replacement.

Here are some examples of transformation that I liked online:

Kitchen: (part of larger remodel) dated ‘80s to sleek modern! Source: L.A. Times.

Kitchen: boring wood to beautiful black! Source: Chatting at the Sky.

Furniture: dark to light! Source: Design Sponge.

Caught this recent post at the Buy Owner Blog, about how to sell in today’s buyers’ market, and I thought their advice was interesting: essentially, they recommend that you lower your price by $5000.

What do you think about this?

My first reaction is to say, honestly, I know how hard it is as a seller to want to lower your asking price. However, as someone who has been on the buying side (and haven’t we all?), I also know there are a lot of homes available right now, for very low prices, and if you don’t price competitively, you’ll be left behind.

To read the rest of the article, click here.

If you don’t have the time (or the money) to make major renovations to your kitchen, don’t even worry about it! There are tons of ways you can spruce up the cooking/dining space in your home. Here are five quick tips:

1. Replace the hardware on the cabinets. Getting brand-new cabinets can be an expensive project. It could even take as long as a few months to demolish the existing cabinets and to install new ones. Instead, why not choose new knobs or handles? Before you shop around, though, make sure you know how the knobs/handles are screwed into the door. They’re usually held in place by one screw. Make sure to check, though, just in case.

2. Appeal to the senses. You don’t always have to be cooking something amazing in the kitchen to get sweet aromas to fill your house. Try lighting ginger-scented candles or placing decorative bowls of potpourri on one of the counters. And if you want to appeal to visitors or family members’ stomachs, you could also decorate with a bowl of fruit or a basket of vegetables. That way, the food is also right at your fingertips whenever you do decide to cook!

3. Add curtains to a window above the sink. If you have ever watched Leave It to Beaver or Lassie, you’ll notice that there’s always some kind of cute café curtains adorning the window in the kitchen. Add some country charm to the space. It also adds some femininity to the room, reminding people of their momma’s home cookin’.

4. Make your own wall decorations. How many times have you read a magazine, and a food photo made your mouth water? Cut out the picture, stick it in a frame and hang it up on a wall in your kitchen. Make the kitchen all about food. You don’t just have to cook and eat in there. You can enjoy looking at it, too!

5. Declutter! I’ve said this all along, for any room. It’s not very attractive when you have piles of paper or other loose ends piling up on/falling off counters. You’ll even want to raid the cabinets for expired food and items you don’t even use. Do you really need two can openers, seven bottle openers or 50 different Tupperware containers? Get rid of the mess and your kitchen will look much better (inside and out).

If you’re moving to a new city or town, you want to conduct intense research on the area before you start calling it home. Whether it’s a city of skyscrapers or a rural countryside, you want your home to be surrounded with a low crime rate, highly rated schools and nearby medical facilities. But there’s so much more to consider, such as the number of car accidents that occur on the local streets, the amount of employment that is available in the surrounding cities, the number of cell phone towers, the number of sex offenders and so much more! With everything considered, learning about a new town can become overwhelming.

Not anymore. With a couple clicks at City-Data.com, you can find out all of that and more about every city in the U.S. that has a population over 6,000! You can also look up recent home sales, home value estimators, maps, satellite photos and more. You can even find out if the city was the birthplace to anyone famous. This site has it all.

According to City-Data.com, it has been featured in 60 books and was mentioned on CNN and numerous local news stations. In one month alone, 11.7 millions web browsers visited this site to learn more about their city or a city that they were traveling or moving to. Join the millions as you check out recent news headlines and read recent forum posts written by people just like you. In about six minutes on this site, I tripled the knowledge that I contain on my own town!

As summer winds down over the next month, and we pay our higher electricity bills for air-conditioning, it’s more tempting than ever to examine ways to cut cooling costs.

I came across a helpful article at Lyved.com recently, which provides eight ideas for dealing with summer heat without breaking your budget.

My favorite tip:

“Go green with more green
Don’t forget the area surrounding your house! Trees and other plants are nature’s own way of keeping us cool. Planting shade-providing plants around windows and air-conditioning units (without blocking airflow) can reduce utility bills by over $100 per year. ”

Read the rest of the article, and all seven additional tips, here.

Attention, current and former military personnel! If you are buying a home, you could qualify for a V.A. Mortgage Loan.

What is a V.A. Mortgage Loan?

This loan became available to military personnel back in 1944 when the G.I. Bill (formally known as the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act) was signed into law by President Roosevelt. The idea behind the loan was to provide guaranteed housing assistance to veterans and their families so they could afford to live in a house after times of war.

Why would I need a V.A. loan?

First of all, you can get a V.A. loan with no money down! Secondly, if you want to buy a townhome or a condo, it must be in a V.A.-approved project. You might also want to buy a fixer-upper, a manufactured home or even a vacant lot. You can use this loan to purchase virtually any type of home, as long as all regulations are met.

Am I really guaranteed a loan?

Yes and no. You have to meet a set of requirements, with a good credit rating being the number one stipulation.

Where can I get more detailed info?

Visit the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs website. You will be able to download documents that explain the eligibility.

Decorating your house can get pretty expensive, especially if you want some really high-end accents. Chandeliers, for example, can run you several thousand dollars! Vintage, crystal, sterling silver, etc. They all look amazing, but they can be quite costly. This is why you should make finding a chandelier into a do-it-yourself project. Now, I am not saying that you’ll end up with a boutique-like light fixture (unless you are a great artist), but you will end up with something unique and beautiful. And… you’ll save a ton of money!

Option 1: Buy an inexpensive chandelier and decorate it.

A plain Williamsburg-style chandelier will run you between $100 and $250. Some home improvement stores even sell them for under $100. The more plain-looking it is, the cheaper it will be. Once you get the chandelier home, you’ll have to decide how you want to decorate it. This is when you hit up your craft store for colorful beads and crystals.
Tip: You may be able to buy strands of crystals from old broken chandeliers at a lighting store.

Option 2: Buy a lamp kit and create a “paper mache” shade.

This option takes a bit of work. Some Web sites sell you each individual part of the lamp. You will want to use plaster-embedded gauze to make the shade. This is the same material used to forge casts for broken bones, so you will need to make sure your shade is not too heavy for the ceiling fixture. Before painting the plaster, pre-treat the surface. Choose an acrylic paint so that the chandelier is easy to clean. Tip: If you want to make your own creative shade, then don’t buy the one offered with the kit.

Option 3: Make your own from scratch.

This involves careful preparation and research. You’ll most likely be working with some kind of piping (metal or PVC), in addition to wiring. You might even want to enlist the help of an electrician, at least for the wiring part. Tip: Check out this Web site to find some really cool chandelier decorations!

***IMPORTANT – When you are embellishing your chandelier, make sure that you do not use anything flammable. Some materials might melt if they are near a hot light bulb for a long time. So, for example, while plastic glow-in-the-dark stars seem great for a night-themed chandelier in a bedroom, consider the placement of the stars. You don’t want them to melt, and you most certainly do not want to start a fire.