If you recently sold your home and plan to relocate to a new address, you may need to pack up your personal belongings. And in some instances, there may be items that you can sell before moving day arrives. These include:
1. Furniture
Although your couch, sofa, loveseat and other furniture may have served you well for many years, there is no guarantee that they will fit in your new residence. Furthermore, even if your current furniture fits perfectly in your new house, there may be a risk that it won't complement your new home's décor.
If you have furniture that you don't want to bring to your new home, there is no need to worry. You can always list furniture online or host a yard sale prior to moving day. Or, you may want to donate your furniture to a local charity.
2. Appliances
A refrigerator, washer, dryer and other home appliances can be large and heavy. Therefore, it sometimes may be beneficial to purchase new appliances when you arrive at your new residence rather than allocate time and energy to transport your existing appliances to your new address.
For those who want to get rid of large appliances before an upcoming move, lots of options are available. In addition to selling or donating your current appliances, you can offer your appliances to the individual who is buying your residence. Also, if you face a time crunch, you can provide your appliances free of charge to the person who is buying your home.
3. Home Decorations
Various decorations may have looked great in your current residence. But if you want to give your new home a fresh look and feel, you may want to sell your current decorations prior to moving day.
Generally, there is no shortage of online buyers or yard sale shoppers who may be willing to purchase your home decorations. You can donate your home decorations to a local charity or give them to family members, friends or other loved ones as well.
As you get ready for an upcoming move, you may have a lot of work ahead. Fortunately, moving companies are available that can help you streamline the moving process.
A moving company employs courteous, knowledgeable moving professionals who are happy to assist you in any way they can. These moving professionals can provide recommendations and tips to help you prepare for moving day. And if you have moving day concerns or questions, moving day professionals are ready to address them.
Lastly, if you need to sell your home so you can quickly move from one address to another, you may want to employ an expert real estate agent. With a real estate agent at your side, you can receive plenty of help during the property selling cycle. Best of all, a real estate agent will make it easy for you to sell your residence, get ready for moving day and ensure you can seamlessly relocate to any location, at any time.
It’s common knowledge that a 20% down payment is key when you buy a home, but is it absolutely necessary? With average home prices continuing to rise, it’s hard to actually save up that sizable of an amount of money. Thinking bout the numbers, buying a home may seem impossible.
There’s good news: The 20% down requirement is actually a myth. If you put less than 20% down, you can still get a mortgage with most banks. There’s a reason why you hear that you need to put 20% down to buy a home. If you don’t put 20% down, you need to get either private mortgage insurance (PMI) or government insurance from the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). These types of mortgage insurance protect the lender if you don’t make your payments and the home is foreclosed on.
When your loan-to-value ratio reaches 80 percent, you’re able to ask your lender to cancel the insurance. Once the loan-to-value ratio reaches 78 percent, the lender has a requirement to cancel the PMI. This type of insurance can be costly, averaging at least a few hundred dollars a month.
Look at financing before you find a house. There’s a few programs that can help you to buy a home without 20% down. There’s different ways to qualify for these programs, so your best bet is to talk to a lender well before you start your home search.
Government programs through places like the US Department of Agriculture and the Federal Housing Administration help people to buy a home with very little down- anywhere from 0-3.5%. Some of these programs can prove to be costly on the backend, due to extra insurance requirements, but they do provide an alternative path to home ownership.
There’s also an option to actually finance the down payment with what's called a subordinate loan. his may make sense for some, however, you are taking out a loan in order to pay for another loan. The process may be counterintuitive for you and your financial situation.
While there’s many different paths to owning a home, there’s no one right answer. Since everyone chooses different properties and has different financial situations, there’s a way for you. Even if saving up a 20% down payment is seemingly impossible, there’s way to get around it. Start with talking to your bank and other lenders to see what types of programs are available to you and discover what your path to homeownership is.
If you've lived in your home for more than a couple years, chances are you've grown rather attached to it. Whether you're selling your house because your family has outgrown it or your company has transferred you to another location, you're probably attaching a lot of sentimental value to the price tag. Unfortunately, sentimental value does not translate into dollars and cents in today's real estate market.
The emotions of prospective buyers will often play a role in their decision to make on offer on your house, but they're probably not going to pay more than the market value for your property -- unless there's a bidding war situation going on. One of the best ways to determine a fair and reasonable asking price for your home is to have it appraised by an experienced real estate agent. Their appraisal will be based on objective data, such as the selling price of comparable homes in your area. The location and condition of your home will have a bearing on pricing your home effectively, as will the prevailing market conditions and other factors. Although online estimates can sometimes give you a ballpark figure of what your house may be worth, a local appraisal is more accurate
A common misconception among homeowners is that a $10,000 home improvement expenditure should justify a $10,000 increase in the selling price of a home. Although that concept may seem logical, it unfortunately doesn't work that way in the real estate market. An updated kitchen, bathroom, or roof may make your house more appealing to prospective buyers and help it sell faster, but it probably won't have a dollar-for-dollar impact on the price buyers would be willing to pay. Since each selling situation is unique, however, your local real estate agent is the best person to consult regarding a fair asking price for your home.
Avoiding Home Seller Mistakes
In addition to overpricing their home, another mistake home sellers make involves three related activities: decorating, staging, and attempting to create curb appeal. In spite of a homeowner's best intentions, their decorating and home staging ideas may clash with those of the house-buying public. When you attempt to tackle home staging on your own, several things could go wrong.
