5 Home Maintenance Projects to Save You Money

It’s often said that when money is tight, maintenance is the first thing to go. When you own a home, skimping on maintenance in any way can lead to bigger – and much more expensive – problems later. Home maintenance truly comes within the old saying, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of [...]

Could You Use a Short Sale for Your Home?

One of the difficulties that many homeowners still face is the fact that low home values make it harder to sell a home. Even now, with home prices rising a little bit, it’s still difficult to get what you paid in some cases. If you need to sell your home, you might be able to [...]

Is Rental Property a Good Investment for You?

Let’s forget about the last five or six years for a moment – historically, rental property has been one of the best investments available. Not only can you use rental income to pay the carrying expenses on the property, but equity builds up over time creating large future investment windfalls. In addition, rental property can [...]

2 Big Risks Your Homeowners Insurance Probably Doesn’t Cover

Homeowners typically believe that they will be covered by their homeowners insurance no matter what the disaster is. And while it’s true that you will be protected against most disasters, there are two big risks your homeowners insurance policy doesn’t cover: floods and earthquakes. These two threats have such potential for destruction that they are [...]

FHA Loans 101

An FHA loan is one of the tools available if you want to buy a home but don’t have much money for a down payment. I actually bought my home with the help of a FHA loan. However, it is important to consider the pros and cons of a FHA loan before jumping in. What [...]

5 Secrets to Surviving a Short Sale

Thanks to Neal for this guest post on things he learned about surviving a short sale. A generation ago a “short sale” was a special on Capri pants at and the local department store. A decade ago a “short sale” was a stock transaction that bet on failure.And now, it’s something completely different, and depressingly [...]

Angies List Contractor Checklist

Finding the right contractor for the job takes some work but it’s effort that will pay off with quality work and a fair price.  As I’ve mentioned in the past, my approach is to find the top 3 or so contractors or companies on Angies List a get a price estimate from all three. Finding [...]

Buy a House Without Making Big Money Mistakes

Buying a house involves making lots of decisions, many of which are daunting because of the high cost of real estate. I spent 20 minutes on the phone with a friend of mine this morning talking through various options and considerations for selling his home and buying a house in our area.  I could hear the [...]

How to Sell Your House Without a Realtor

One of the advantages of having a real estate agent sell your home is that you have access to their expertise. In addition the agent is working on your behalf so that you don’t have to do as much with the nuts and bolts of selling your home. The biggest downside is the fact that [...]

How to Buy a House in an Expensive Market

Buying a house always seems to cost you more than you planned.  If you live in a city with expensive real estate you might even feel like those high home prices mean you’ll never be able to afford your own home. While some citites in California, New York, and other states across the country have dauntingly expensive [...]

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