Sellers and the Home Buyer Credit

In the upcoming months, many buyers will be looking to take advantage of the recently extended and expanded home buyer credit. In order to qualify for the credit, buyers must have a fully signed and accepted contract in place by April 30, 2010 and must close on the property no later than June 30, 2010. If you’re thinking about selling your home in 2010, how does this credit affect you? 1. Expect to see the

Nice Chimney!

Home inspectors almost always find something wrong with chimneys. They’re just not a part of the home that owners think about on a regular basis, so routine maintenance is often ignored. Sometimes they simply need to be cleaned, other times the outside needs repointing, and on occasion there are major structural issues. So when representing buyers, we’ll always sneak a quick peek at the outside of the chimney to see if it might lead to

Existing Homeowners and the Tax Credit

I’ve been getting a lot of phone calls and emails from existing homeowners during the last two weeks. They want to know if they qualify for the $6,500 home buying tax credit that was recently signed into law. The new rules for current homeowners regarding this credit are: 1. You must have lived in your current home consecutively for 5 of the last 8 years. 2. You must have a written, fully accepted contract on

What To Do With That Koi Pond

You bought a house. As part of the landscaping, it has a Koi pond in the back yard. It’s nice and all, but you’re really not that interested in taking care of the Koi and you’ve got small kids that are going to use it alternatively as a swimming pool. Not good. So, what are you going to do with these fish? And then what are you going to do with the resulting hole that’s

Real Estate Karma

“You reap what you sow.” “What goes around comes around.” “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” And my personal favorite, “You’ll get yours…” Before I got into real estate, I never really gave much thought to these sayings. Karma was something that I was aware of, but didn’t pay much attention to. I mean, I watched Earl on Thursday nights. That was my level of involvement with giving thought to