Signs That You May Need a New Roof

We often take the roof above our heads for granted because we know it will protect us from the outside elements. Ultimately, we face the harsh reality that it will eventually age and need to be replaced. A worn and damaged roof can cause significant interior and exterior damage to your home if left unattended. Some roofs last longer than others, but with time, weather patterns, and unexpected circumstances, eventually, it will be time to replace this major protectant. Knowing the early signs or what to look for is the first step in determining whether it’s time to replace your roof. Accordingly, you will be able to minimize repair costs, injury, or property damage by noting the indicators, then taking action.

The following are some major signs that you may need to fix or replace your roof.

Leaks

Water leaking from the ceiling or light coming through the top of the house or your attic is one of the most obvious signs of roof decay or damage. If you don’t yet detect a leak, it will eventually make itself known through water stains, peeling paint, disintegrated insulation, or mold growth. If unsure, check for weakened seals around vents that could also lead to seepage, or you can test for leakage during dry weather by spraying the roof with water from a garden hose.

Damage to Shingles, Flashing, and Gutter Guards

Shingles in decent shape will lie flat against the roof. If patches are cracked, buckling, curled, sparse, or missing, this could be a sign that your roof is at the end of its durable life. Some other signs could be that you spot grit or fragments in your gutters and downspouts or the roof surface sagging from trapped moisture. Moss can also indicate trapped moisture, which can ruin the roof. You can carefully remove moss with a stiff brush, but addressing any underlying problems is important.

Roof Age

Check records to see how old your roof is and if it’s time to be replaced. A typical asphalt roof lasts between 20 and 25 years, while metal and slate last much longer. If the top is younger than 15 or 20 years and there are only a few damaged shingles, it may only need repair. When in doubt, consult with a licensed roofing contractor. Another good indicator is that your neighbors with similarly aged homes as yours may be having their roofs replaced around the same time. That may tell you it’s time to replace yours.

High Heating Bills

If you’ve seen a steady increase in your bills every winter, this could indicate a poorly insulated roof. Once a roof begins to deteriorate with age, so does the home’s energy efficiency.

If you are good and attentive with inspecting your home for these telltale signs, this saves you time and frustration with guesswork. However, if you are unsure whether your roof needs a simple repair or major replacement, have a roof specialist provide a thorough inspection. If you need a replacement or even a patchwork repair, a professional can guide you by explaining all the options regarding durability, style, and cost.

Should You Sell Your Home in the Fall?

Spring is the most popular time to sell a home, yet there are some advantages to getting your house on the market in the autumn months. Although you may feel you have missed out by not putting your house on the market in the spring, the fall months for selling your home could be a feather in your cap. Look at the following four benefits to selling your home in the fall, along with tips for leveraging those to find a buyer.

Demographics Most Likely to Buy in the Fall

Serious homebuyers for this time are often millennials, empty-nesters, or relocated employees without children. Without having to consider a new school year, they are more apt to buy before the end of the year to lock in mortgage rates, avoid the hassle of a move in the winter weather, or get settled in a new location for their job before the start of a new year.

Less Inventory—Less Competition

Homes listed for sale are generally lower in autumn, so you are not competing as much with other buyers. While sellers are more susceptible to the pressure of buyers’ demands during the peak season, you have a better chance of attracting buyers to your home and getting them to accept your selling price during a slower period.

TIP: Get professional assistance with pricing your home and the right strategy for selling during the off-season

Seasonal Attractiveness

The fall brings vibrant colors, a cooler temperature, and more choices for décor. The heat and humidity of summer have mostly passed, and the new season of harvest and festivals lures people out into the environment. It is a time when people may want to make a big purchasing decision before the rush of the holidays and the end of the year.

Improve the curb appeal of your home and stage the inside. You can do this in the following ways:
1. Clean and De-clutter
2. Replace dim lighting
3. Add flowers
4. Paint and caulk
5. Purchase new pillows, curtains, and candles
6. Re-arrange your furniture for better social interaction
7. Use gas or electric fireplaces for ambiance
8. Don’t overdo decorations.
9. Photograph the property while you still have natural lighting.

Quicker Closing

Since the fall tends to be an off-peak season with fewer home sales and real estate transactions, your closing should go quicker and with less stress. You should be able to book with mortgage lenders, home inspectors, attorneys, and other vendors related to your home’s sale without delay or hassle.

There is never a right or wrong season to sell your home. Although spring may lure many enthusiastic families into wanting to buy in the warm weather, the fall can be equally enticing for others. You’ll find that many are motivated during this time to buy because they want to settle in before the winter and holiday season. Still, whatever season you decide to sell, it’s always important to prepare your home adequately and know the strategies to attract the aptest buyers.

Is Your Home Ready for Climate Change?

With the planet growing increasingly warm, the climate is changing rapidly. It’s not just getting hotter, it’s also getting colder, and stormier, and drier, and more extreme in every dimension. As a homeowner, you’re going to have to make sure your house can keep up with all that nature is trying to throw at it, no matter where you live. Is your home ready? Here’s a short list to check.

Do You Know Your Climate Risks?

Before you can get your house ready for the weather, you need to know what risks you face. The normal weather hazards you grew up with may be changing dramatically as some areas get warmer and wetter. If you were once in an area that was prone to dramatic weather shifts, watch for even more dramatic weather, and keep track of the new challenges that seem to repeat. These are the hazards to prepare for. Long-term weather forecasting can help somewhat, but those models can’t always account for things like drought and wildfires.

Insulate and Weatherproof Your Home

No matter what kinds of climate shifts your area experiences, there’s absolutely a benefit to adding insulation and sealing the cracks in your home. Insulation works both ways: it keeps the warm in where it’s cool and it keeps the cool in where it’s warm. Sealing and weatherproofing further help you spend less on energy on extreme weather days and can help keep pests out of your home too.

Consider a Household Generator

When the weather gets dramatic, the true fragility of the power grid starts to show. Whether it’s an ice storm in January that pulls down branches and power lines, extreme heat that taxes the power grid so much that rolling blackouts are required to keep things going, or wildfires or hurricanes that temporarily, and unpredictably, cause power outages, a household generator can be a good solution.

Because they run on propane or natural gas, you don’t need electricity to keep your house powered through the worst kinds of weather, just enough gas to run the motor and generate electricity for your home.

Add Big Drains for Big Rains

If you’re seeing more rain than usual, a quick and dirty solution can be adding a sump pump under your home or in your basement. Even if you never use it, having a sump pump and a drain to match will ensure that you’re not going to be underwater when torrential rains dump inches and inches of water on the ground.

Sump pumps might be no match for dramatic flash flooding, but adding yard drains and ensuring that your yard is properly graded can help you move water away from your home faster, no matter how much is pouring from the sky.

Protect From Wind and Flying Debris

Tornadoes and hurricanes are terrifying, especially in areas that don’t normally see these kinds of wind events. If you’re starting to hear more about high winds in your area, it’s time to protect your home from flying debris. Although covering windows with plywood will work in a pinch, permanently installed storm shutters are even better. You can close them over your windows in no time, and reopen them when the threat has passed.

A storm shelter can also be a good thing to have around if you’re in a storm-prone area. Although storm shutters are great to protect glass from flying debris, in case the roof comes off in a storm or a tree falls on your house, you still need to be somewhere safe. Storm shelters are great for homes without basements, especially where tornadoes and fast-moving but short-lasting, winds are a problem.

Considering Adding a Firepit This Year?

There are few things that carry the feel of fall like sitting by a fire on a cool autumn night. Of course, not everyone lives somewhere where they can just build a bonfire or even set up a little campfire at a moment’s notice. Fortunately, there are options available for those who want the ambiance and experience of sitting by the fire without the hassle and liabilities that go along with building bigger fires. The best option is installing a firepit in your yard or even on your deck for those days you want to just relax by the fire.

Not all firepits are created equal, however. While you could pick up a cheap firepit somewhere and just set it up, if you really want to maximize the experience and get the most out of it, then you’ll want to do a bit more planning and create an area where you can really enjoy it. This will also help to ensure that the firepit is set up safely, so you don’t accidentally create a fire hazard or other dangerous situation in your yard.

Firepit Considerations

First and foremost, you need to make sure that your firepit is safe. This involves not only installing a firepit unit that is structurally sound, but also installing it in a place that is stable so that the firepit won’t tip or shift in such a way that it could spill its contents or fall over. Regardless of whether the firepit is being installed on a deck, on your yard, or buried in the ground, safety and stability should be your primary concerns.

This could mean that you’ll have to do a bit of construction around the firepit or add stone or concrete underneath it to create a solid and stable surface for it to sit on. Once the firepit is in place, you’ll want to try moving it in different directions to make sure that it doesn’t shift or wobble. You should also inspect it for dents, cracks, or other signs of damage that could become a bigger problem down the road; you’ll want the firepit to be structurally sound before it’s installed, and if you see signs of damage now then you’ll want to get those repaired before you finish the installation.

Cozy On Up

Once you’ve got the perfect place to put your firepit and you’ve confirmed that it’s safe to operate there, you’ll want to build out the area around it. While you could just use folding chairs or other temporary seating, it’s almost a shame to go through all the trouble of setting up a firepit just to then skimp on the seating. A better option is to get matched seating to go around the firepit to help add ambiance to the location while also giving you somewhere to sit.

This can come in a wide range of forms. You could go with nice wooden seating, Adirondack chairs, metal seats with cushions, or even wicker seating to go around the firepit. Rounded benches or other connected seating are also a good idea, giving you multiple seating options, while also being stylish and literally making the firepit the center of attention. Regardless of the type of seating you go with, try to match the colors and style of the firepit to your seating, and you’ll really be able to tie it all together.

Setting Up Your Firepit

After you get everything else sorted, setting up your firepit is largely a matter of getting it in place and securing it or otherwise ensuring that it’s stable. If you have a firepit that runs on propane or other gas, then you’ll also have to run pipes to feed it; this is a less common scenario, though, since many people who want a firepit want the smell and experience of burning wood.

If all of this seems like more work than you’re comfortable taking on, though, you can always call in a professional.

Home Appraisal Myths Busted

Most things to do with buying or selling a home can be pretty stressful, from finding the house of your dreams, to securing the financing, all the way through to closing. But for most transactions, everything, absolutely everything, hinges on the home appraisal. This is probably why so many myths and misconceptions have grown up around the process. We’re here to help you sort the truth from the stories.

Myth #1: Home Appraisals and Home Inspections Are the Same

This couldn’t be further from the truth. The sole purpose of a home appraisal is to determine the value of the home, in that moment, in those market conditions, in the shape that home is currently in. A home inspection, on the other hand, determines the condition of the home, along with any major defects, in the moment when it’s being inspected.

The waters get muddied when buyers are securing FHA or USDA loans, which require an additional loan-specific inspection be performed by the appraiser. This particular kind of inspection is there to ensure that the home meets the loan’s minimum standards, not to determine the overall condition of the home. Always have a home inspection, it’s a much different thing.

Myth #2: Home Appraisers Create Market Values

Although the home appraiser will assign your home a rough value, the work they do is actually based on a thorough study of the current real estate market’s conditions, the condition of the home, the value of each component of the home, the value the neighborhood contributes, and a myriad of other factors, as well as the fact that a buyer was willing to pay the amount of your contract for the home.

So, while any individual home appraiser could be considered to be contributing to market values, they in no way set them. You can think of them more like a reporter, simply telling the story of your home and the things in it, for better or for worse. They see homes every day and understand what a dollar will buy in their particular markets.

Myth #3: If You’ve Had an Assessment, You Don’t Need an Appraisal

While an assessment is a type of valuation of a home for the purposes of determining tax responsibility, they don’t go into the kind of depth an appraisal does. Do you remember the last time someone went onto your property and into your home to perform a tax assessment? Of course not, because they’re simply not that thorough. Tax assessments have to be done quickly due to the sheer number performed at once, so they are often painted with a very broad brush.

Appraisals, on the other hand, can each take several hours, including the time the appraiser is on site examining the home’s interior. This is why when someone believes their assessment to be incorrect, they can challenge it using a home appraisal. The appraisal is simply more accurate. Never use an assessment for sales or purchase purposes, you’ll be sorely disappointed.

Myth #4: The Appraiser Is on the Bank’s Side

An appraiser is a neutral third-party expert who is contracted by banks to determine the value of your home so they can use this figure in making your loan. This doesn’t mean that appraisers are working on behalf of the bank or that they’re simply there to make the numbers work out every time. Sometimes, appraisers come back with very bad news about homes, determining that they absolutely cannot be appraised for the transaction price, or that there’s something about them that means they cannot meet the minimum requirements of a given loan type.

 

Choosing Better Paint Colors

Painting can be a great way to customize your house and make it into a home. Whether you’re just adding a splash of color or redoing entire rooms to match your favorites, a fresh coat of paint is a great way to take a home that you bought and really make it yours. Unfortunately, not everyone is great at picking the best colors for their home. After some unfortunate paint jobs, some homeowners may even wonder why they were allowed to go near a paint store at all. This doesn’t have to be the case, however.

There are a number of things that you can do to find paint colors that better match your home. You can pick up paint swatches, get some small cans to test in different colors, or even use software to see how different colors will look in your rooms. The big thing is making sure that you know how to take what you’ve learned and make your rooms look their best. Here are a few tips that may help with that.

Things to Consider

There are several things that you should think about before picking out a specific paint. One of the big considerations that many people overlook is stopping to look at the colors of your existing décor. Even if you don’t have a specific theme to your furniture and decorations, there may be predominant colors that you should keep in mind when choosing paint. Even thinking about whether most of the décor is on the darker side or the lighter side can affect your color decision.

You should also consider the type of finish you want on your walls. Depending on the paint options you’re considering, you might find colors in everything from flat and eggshell to the high-gloss paints that are typically used for trim and accents. The finish affects the shininess or flatness of the colors and can produce significantly different effects with similar colors. It can also affect how resistant the paint is to stains and dirt, with flatter colors being harder to clean while higher sheen paints are easier.

Finding the Right Color

There are a few considerations to be mindful of when it comes to actually choosing a color, too. Ideally, you should pick up swatches of multiple colors that you like and bring them home to see how each one looks with your lighting and home environment. Once you’ve narrowed it down to a few, get a few samples of the colors you like the most and actually put some paint on the walls to see how each one looks once dried. Don’t put these sample bits too close together, though, as it might be harder to tell which you actually like when you’re distracted by a number of samples right next to each other. Larger areas are better than small spots, and if you’re doing the entire room, you should try different colors on different walls.

Bring Your Walls to Life

When it comes time to paint, it may be tempting to just grab a brush or roller and go for it. That may not be the best approach, however. First you should make sure that you have everything that you need, including enough paint to cover the entire area and tools of high enough quality that they aren’t going to leave streaks or fuzz in your paint as you go. You should also go over your plans one last time, especially if you’re doing one wall in a different color as an offset or otherwise trying to use accent colors. A bit of prep time before you actually start painting can make a huge difference in the end result.

Of course, if you’re concerned about the scope of the job, you can always hire professional painters to come in and get the job done. This can take a lot of the stress off you, and they can usually offer suggestions on colors, textures, and other elements that you might not have even considered. 

 

Going Down: 4 Ways to Destroy Your Home’s Value

You’re a homeowner now, you can kiss bland uniformity goodbye the moment you turn your apartment keys over to your now-former landlord. The world is your canvas — at least, that part of the world that you now are obligated to pay a monthly mortgage payment on — and you’re the artist that’ll mold it into a shape that tantalizes and delights the senses.

You may have big dreams for that new home, but cool your jets. This is a time for careful consideration, not for hastily scribbled modern design notes on cocktail napkins. Although there are certainly changes you can make that will update or upgrade your new home, there are others that can potentially devastate its value. This is no small thing.

If you thought that ugly entryway light fixture was a real turn-off, just read on to learn about things potential buyers will find extremely unappealing down the road.

There’s Good, There’s Bad and There’s Ugly

Every homeowner will leave a mark on the homes they own, this is an inevitable fact of life. The only question you need to ask yourself is if your mark will be a good one. Will you be the homeowner who planted the gorgeous maple tree that eventually turns into a beloved climbing tree or are you the one that glued neon green shag carpet to the hardwood floors?

We’ve made a short list of some of the most dramatic ways to destroy your home’s value without even trying all that hard so you can, hopefully, avoid these problems when you go to sell. Now, this is an important point to note: if you’re in your forever home, go hog wild. If you don’t need to sell that puppy ever, feel free to do whatever thrills you. Just be aware that your outlandish choices could prevent things like refinances and even reverse mortgages down the road.

Having made those disclosures, let’s talk about home value-destroying projects!

4 Things That Can Lower Your Home’s Resell Value

Now that you own a house, people will be giving you all sorts of weird advice. You’re going to have to learn to tune it out, because generally, random people don’t know. Most people own two or three homes in their lives, which doesn’t give them a whole lot of experience with market values and making upgrades that will make a house really pop.

Realtors, general contractors and other home pros, on the other hand, make it their business to know what’s just in vogue and what’s a classic, evergreen sort of modification that will stand the test of time. These are the people to ask when you really need a second set of eyes.

But, before you even get that far, let’s count down some of the worst ideas for your new home.

#4 Really Personalizing the Place

Look, we know you’re eager to make your house your own. But step away from the lime green wallpaper and the orange tiles. Just for a minute. Think this through. Some buyers can see past over-personalization, others simply cannot. There’s a reason Realtors used to advise sellers to paint everything beige, it creates a blank pallet for a buyer to start from.

If you want to use quirky wallpaper, choose something that’s easy to remove when you go to sell. You may want to choose a tile that is mostly neutral and scatter those orange ones in just here and there like confetti. In short, tone it down a bit. However, feel free to paint to your heart’s desire — just plan to repaint before you put the house on the market.

When a buyer walks into your home, the first impression they have informs every other thought they have as they walk through. They’re simultaneously calculating two things in their heads: “How much can I afford to pay for this house?” and “How much will I have to pay to fix this place?” Each intolerable thing they encounter, like that orange tile, is another thing that goes in the repair budget. As it grows, the price they’re willing to pay shrinks.

Oh, you left the flamingo wallpaper in your bedroom? The repair budget’s getting pretty heavy. And these are just the immediately visible things, they haven’t yet gotten to the inspection period. The point here is: do you, but do it in a way that can be reversed before anyone shows the house.

#3. Converting the Garage to Anything Else

There’s a difference between using your garage as a gym and making it a gym permanently. When it’s a permanent gym, you can’t push some stuff out of the way and pull the car in real quick to get it out of the rain. In fact, you probably don’t even have a garage door anymore!

Many people have made this hasty decision, turning their garages into master suites, home gyms, playrooms and home offices, not considering the long term ramifications. Then, after dumping thousands of dollars into the project, they find out that it’s extremely difficult to resell their home.

No matter how professionally the conversion was done (and some are done very well), the buyer says to themselves, “Where am I going to stash my lawnmower?” Even if the yard’s a postage stamp, it’s a valid question.

Buyers come into a transaction with a certain set of expectations and, frankly, when they’re looking at houses in certain areas or certain prices that typically come with garages, it sort of breaks their brains to find one that doesn’t quite fit the model. That’s the beginning of the price chopping spiral. Eventually you’ll discount the house much more than you ever intended or just give up on selling and rent it out or not move at all.

#2. Tearing Down (Some) Walls

This one is actually not a hard and fast rule. There are sometimes walls that should come out. But don’t make this call without consulting with an architect or a general contractor because there are several things to consider, including the structural integrity and flow of the home.

The walls that you definitely should never tear out are the ones that reduce bathroom or bedroom number, unless you have something like five or more beds and three or more baths. At that point, you have a little wiggle room. As long as you maintain the American standard of a three bedroom, two bath home (or whatever is standard in your neighborhood), you’re probably ok.

However, turning a three bedroom home into a two bedroom home because you wanted to expand a bedroom is a value killer. If you think about it from a market perspective, it might make a bit more sense. A larger, or more mature, family is most likely to buy a three bedroom home. They’re going to have a bigger budget because there are two incomes, they need more partitioned spaces because there are possibly teenagers involved.

The same house with the same square footage, but with two bedrooms, is more likely to be shown to young families with small children, possibly only one income while one parent stays home to raise the toddlers, or even single people. Their budgets are smaller, which means that the two bedroom market simply doesn’t support the higher prices of the three bedroom market.

When your home is appraised, your appraiser will be pulling comparable homes based on things like neighborhood, square footage and numbers of bedrooms and baths. So, if the other two bedroom homes are selling for $30k less than three bedrooms, that means yours is going to appraise somewhere well below where you might expect, maybe even below what you paid for it.

Bottom line: Don’t knock out walls without professional consultations with your Realtor and an architect or general contractor at minimum so you can understand the full impact of this decision.

#1. Unprofessional DIY Repairs

There are two kinds of DIYers: those with significant trade experience and those without. If your main qualifications involve eighth grade shop class, you probably should not try to handle any big jobs on your own. Start small and work your way up, watch lots of YouTube videos, practice on test materials that don’t affect your home and for the sake of your house and your financial future, recognize and accept when you’re in over your head.

A home pro is often less expensive than you might imagine if you just call them in first. When they’re asked to clean up a bad repair and still make the original correction, it can cost a lot extra.

Finding these sorts of obvious DIY repairs in a home is a terrifying prospect for potential buyers. When they see them, they wonder what else you’ve tried to repair on your own. Did you rewire the electrical box? Is the house going to burn down in the night because you did something to the HVAC?

Because they don’t know you or your level of competency, they just see that one botched repair and hyperfocus on it until they either run away or submit an offer significantly lower than what you were expecting.