Small Changes Make a Difference

I showed a house recently that had a great open floor plan. The kitchen was huge and opened into a family room. There was plenty of space to socialize, lots of storage areas and a large lot. Many of the floors were hardwood. The carpet was neutral and in good shape.

But I feel there are a few easy changes that the sellers could make that would help them sell their house faster and for more money. First, neutralize the wall colors with earth colors. There was sponge painting and ragged walls in three rooms. While they were done well, ragged walls are an individual taste and not appreciated by all buyers. It would be better to paint over them or at least better not to have so many ragged walls.

Second, the kitchen had two appliances that were brushed nickel and two that were not. It is better to have matching appliances. The brushed nickel choice is great, but it is better to buy all of the appliances with the same surfaces.

Lastly, the knobs on the kitchen cabinets needed simple modernizing. It would be inexpensive to unscrew the porcelain knobs and replace with brushed nickel.

It's amazing what simple changes can be made and can make a difference.
Cost:
Paint, about $50
Knobs for the kitchen, approximately $2/each, so less than $100
New stove and microwave: Depends on the brand and the bells and whistles, and these items would be the biggest investment, probably about $800 for both.

So, all these changes would be less than $1,000. If you can't afford them, consider buying at Lowe's or Home Depot and charge with their program that offers 12 to 18 months to repay. Then when your house closes, pay off the bill. I really feel this investment would help you get a higher sales price for your house and pay back your investment.

Preapproval Letters

In order to be taken seriously by a seller, buyers need preapproval letters to show their ability to buy a house. The process is easy and painless.

I suggest starting with the banking institution that you currently do business with. They can easily access all your financial information.Make an appointment to sit down with a loan officer but find out ahead of time what information they will want you to bring. Often they want a recent pay check and your most recent tax return in addition to three months of bank statements. You will need to give permission for the loan officer to run credit, so they will need your social security number.

There are many great lenders in the area. We are happy to give you names of companies we have worked with. You also might want to ask a friend who recently purchased a home and liked working with his or her mortgage company. Referrals are a great way to find a good loan officer.

Some lenders will do a preapproval over the phone, taking your information about your salary verbally. They still will need to run a credit check and will verify your salary and banking information later.

The best thing for you to do is to get preapproved before you start looking for new homes. That way you know what you can afford, are comfortable with the monthly payment and you won't look for houses that are out of your price range. Doing that will be disappointing to you and a waste of many people's time, including your own.

So, get preapproved, call us and we'll sit down with you and find out what you are looking for. We'll ask you for your "wish list" and "must haves" and then we'll go out to look at houses or condos. Getting preapproved is a good example of doing "first things first."

Looking at Future Needs When Buying

We've been showing houses to many different age groups and noticing that buyers are doing a good job looking at their future needs before choosing a house. The house might be perfect for where they are in their lives now, but they have to reject the house because it doesn't offer what they know they will need in the future.

Take the case of a recent buyer in her mid-fifties. She wants her next purchase to be her last home. While she is very able bodied now and kayaks, walks, and does yoga, she is looking to a time when as she ages, she might not be able to climb stairs. She is also thinking that her mother may need to live with her some day and wants to accommodate her if that day comes. Thinking further into the future, if one of them ever needs to be in a wheelchair, the doors have to be wide enough for a wheelchair to fit through or the doors will need to be retro-fitted.

The house therefore must be on one level. The bathroom should have a low threshold shower, if possible. And if the door is not wide enough, there has to be a way to widen it.

We found the exact house for her although it took looking at about 20 first -- because it's not just about future, but it's about present needs too. It's a balance. And she also had location requirements. The price obviously has to work also! Oh, and she did not want to have to put in a ton of money to fix it up, so condition had to be satisfactory.

I surfed the MLS for listings one day and the perfect house came on while I was on the computer. Just popped right up! I called her, we saw it within the hour, wrote the offer and got it accepted!

One level, wide doors and hallways, great condition, right price, and the perfect location!

Space Heaters

Many condominiums and some houses are heated by space heaters. You might be thinking about the portable electric kind that you carry from room to room. No, the space heaters I refer to are permanently fixed to a wall and heat a large space.

The fuels that fire these space heaters vary from natural gas, propane (LP), or kerosene. The source is either piped directly to the unit in the case of natural gas, or is stored in a large bottle-like structure that stores about 100 gallons in the case of LP gas. The storage tank is always outside. If the source is kerosene, it is stored in a tank outside. Regular heating oil cannot be stored outside but kerosene can.

The heaters are made from different manufacturers, of course, and come in different shapes and sizes. The most common ones we see are made by Rinnai or Monitor and take up the space of a large, thin suitcase! They sit against the wall in the living room, usually, and heat the air. They have economy settings or full blast heat. They can be set up to come on and off with a timer or set with a thermostat.

Often, these space heaters can heat the downstairs of a two story condo, but the upstairs is heated with electric baseboard. The entire condo would have had electric at one point and the space heater was an upgrade.

Sometimes condos will be heated with a gas stove that has a decorative front and fake logs. I think these are great as they look nice and heat a large space.

No matter what kind of space heater is used, make sure a certified specialist installs the unit or if it is already in place, make sure a specialist inspects it to make sure it is vented properly.

It is a state law that upon sale for single family homes that there is a Photo-electric type smoke detector on every living level and a carbon monoxide detector outside bedrooms. Condominiums have similar regulations and many more. Attorneys are requiring fire and safety inspections of condos to be to the Vermont code prior to closing. But why wait? All homes should have smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors up to safety standards. Check out this site to be safe! http://firesafety.vermont.gov/

Space heaters are a good substitute for electric baseboard heat although with the cost of some fuels these days, I've been wondering how electric heat compares! Never store anything on top of the heater nor cover it at any time. And space heaters are a great source of heat if you build a small addition and want to save the expense of adding onto your central heat system.

Knob and Tube Wiring

You might see what is called "knob-and-tube" wiring in an old house. Typically, you'll see it in the basement or attic space. It is an antiquated system that will need to be updated at what could be a major expense.

The way to notice it is if you see surface mounted individual conductors held in place with round white ceramic insulators. Sometimes you will see this set up, say in a basement, running along the floor joists. But with close examination, it looks like the system is no longer active -- it might have been cut and disconnected, but the materials are still there. A qualified inspector or electrician can tell you if the knob-and-tube wiring is still active.

We had some knob-and-tube at our duplex in St. Albans when we bought it. Updating the wiring was our #1 priority. Dave was an insurance agent at the time and knew we would have trouble getting a standard insurance policy with active knob-and-tube wiring. He said whatever policy we could get if the old wiring was in place would be very expensive unless we replaced the wiring. In our case, the cost was $5,000 in 2005.

We looked at a multi-family in Burlington the other day that had knob-and-tube wiring. In order for the building to get a certificate of compliance, the city required that the owners "Provide written documentation to this office from licensed electrician (sic) that the wiring is not overloaded and that the condition of the conductors and insulators is sound and substantially without defect or hazard." Many cities and towns are working hard to make sure multi-family dwellings are safe for their occupants.

For that reason, we decided to get rid of our knob and tube in our duplex -- an upgrade we were happy to make.

Broken Seals in Windows

Do you have a foggy window that will not wipe clean with Windex? You wipe the glass on the inside and outside and the moisture is still there. That's because the seal between the two panes of glass is gone. Many windows are argon gas filled -- the seal fails, the gas escapes, and moisture enters. There is a change in temperature between inside and outside of the home and the glass fogs. It's ugly.

What should you do? Inspectors will tell you that the insulating value does not change significantly when the glass fogs. However, most people do not like looking through fogged glass. We have had great luck bringing windows to a glass store (in Burlingon, VT, we use Able Paint and Glass). They can replace the glass only. I don't think they replace the gas, but the glass itself looks better when they are finished. For an average size double hung windows, the cost was about $75 to $100 per section of window.

If you are talking about a fogged sliding door, the cost will of course, be higher. You might even investigate whether it is more cost effective to replace the door itself -- the glass is bound to be less than a new door but if the door is old, it might make more sense to spend your money getting a new door.

If you are selling your house, buyers make a bigger deal of the fogged glass than is needed. They "horriblize" the situation and think it will cost a fortune to fix. So before you put your house on the market, fix fogged windows. While you are at it, cracked storm windows (triple track type) are also easy to fix at the same glass store.

Easy Mudroom Details

Most Vermont houses have a mudroom -- Mud is the Fifth season in Vermont! You many have to be creative finding a space. Or, if you already have one, make it organized and neat. We have a small mudroom, so we put a board horizontally across the space in our entryway. We screwed in knobs that you would use for cupboards in a kitchen, ones that stick out far enough to be able to hold a coat. Then we screwed the board into the space.

You can build a simple open bench in the space. Put baskets under the bench (you can get great rectangular baskets at Michael's.) Put mittens, hats, boots, lunchboxes, etc. in the baskets. Or, you could leave an area open, cut a boot tray to fit. Perfect for snowy boots.

A mudroom is not only good for organization, it's something buyers want. If you don't have one, make one out of any usuable space. If there is no space in an entryway, make it in a section of the garage by the stairs into the house. It doesn't have to be a separate room, a dedicated space will do.