For Sale By Owner – How to Prove Your Home is Worth Your Asking Price
June 18, 2008
If you were a home buyer and the property owner told you all about how wonderful the house was and all the reasons it was a great place to live, would you believe them? Homeowners Are BiasedAfter all, they’re just trying to sell their home and might say anything to close the deal. Not that most […]
For Sale By Owner – Tips for Selling Your House Without a Realtor
June 17, 2008
A home for sale by owner can save you thousands of dollars in real estate commissions but it also gives you the job of unofficial realtor and requires you to learn many different selling skills if you want your house to sell for what it’s worth. Our neighbors recently put their home up for sale […]
Home Owners Insurance Can Offer Comfort During Tornados & Floods
May 2, 2008
Home owners insurance and flood insurance are a burden 99% of the time and a blessing the other 1%. Needless to say, I have a love/hate relationship with insurance. The majority of the time I’m not real pleased with it, watching the premiums come out of our paycheck every month. However, it’s those moments when […]
Quick & Easy Energy Saving Tips
February 22, 2008
As energy costs continue to rise the monetary payback for time, effort, & money spent on energy conservation goes up as well. This was brought to my attention as I looked over our latest heating bill and realized that the only place energy costs have to go is up. I started doing some research and decided to […]
Flood Insurance, Flood Plains, & Elevation Certificates
February 15, 2008
I wrote last fall about our flood insurance saga, we’ve had some new activity in the flood insurance arena recently. As a recap, the government redrew the flood maps a while back so it appears our house which didn’t use to be in a flood zone, is now considered to be in a 100 year […]
Personal Finance Review – Do It Yourself Edition
December 16, 2007
If something needs maintenance or repair in your home or apartment do you hire someone to do the work or do it yourself? A lot of it probably depends on what your skills are and how much time you have. As Trent observes, if your time is valuable and you’re looking to maximize it then […]
Three Easy Ways to Lower Your Heating & Cooling Expenses
May 21, 2007
How long has it been since you’ve had your HVAC serviced? It had been six years for me until last week when I hired a local heating & cooling company to stop by for a tune-up visit. The friendly tech went over three simple things that can save us thousands of dollars. Check Your Air […]
The Costs of Being a Homeowner
May 12, 2007
The costs of owning your home seem to come in groups for some reason. A leaky roof, no central air, and impending flooding hit us all at once this week. No Air Conditioning On Sunday night my wife announced it was too hot for comfort and that she was turning on the air conditioner for […]
How Absentee Landlords can Save Thousands of Dollars with One Simple Change
March 24, 2007
Managing a rental property from a distance can be a challenge for an absentee landlord. An important tip is to make sure the company that holds the mortgage for the rental property has your home mailing address on record as point of contact. If that’s not the case, make the change and avoid the unfortunate […]
How to Save Money by Preventing & Treating Frozen Pipes
February 17, 2007
One of the fastest ways to blow a few hundred or even a few thousand dollars on home repairs is a burst water pipe. Below are tips on preventing and dealing with frozen water pipes that I ran across yesterday as we hassled with two of them in our house. Prevention It’s not surprising we […]
