Buyers + ??? = Deals

We just got back from the Tuesday broker’s open house tour in West Hartford. It’s always fun to see the new listings and talk with the other agents about what is going on in the market. One of the common themes right now seems to be that there are more buyers actively looking for homes than there are sellers. Many agents reported having trouble finding homes that their buyer clients are interested in purchasing. We

Designing a Kitchen

We thought that designing a new kitchen would be relatively straightforward. Really, how hard could it be? Pick a cabinet design, choose the appliances, then the finish details, and away we’d go. We already had a good idea of what we wanted in a kitchen, so we thought the design part would be easy. As it turned out, there were a number of challenges that we did not foresee. The shape of the room was

Looking for a Past Owner

We’ve been getting a lot of calls to our home phone number in the last few months. We don’t really give out, or even use, our land line very much, so we’re always suspicious of who’s calling us when it rings. We typically think it’s a telemarketer, even though we’re on the Do Not Call list. But recently it’s not telemarketers on the line. It’s collections agencies. And the people calling us are looking for

Crappy New Construction

Many new buyers are intrigued by new or newer (say built since 1995) construction. Looking at older homes depresses them because they often need updating or don’t have more modern layouts with open floor plans and family rooms. Some buyers don’t want to take the time or have the money to put in updates immediately, so they lean towards newer construction in their search. I’ve even come across a few buyers that believe older homes

Budgeting for a Kitchen Remodel

This spring we’re embarking on a “fun” project, a kitchen remodel. As I mentioned last month, this is something we’ve been wanting to do for several years. Since it’s been on our radar, we’ve been saving up. As with anything, there are varying cost levels when remodeling a kitchen. You can have a budget of $5,000, $50,000, $150,000 or anywhere in between. Several sources cited that kitchen remodels shouldn’t be more than 15% of the