Construction design trends

Throughout the years, the construction industry, and the trends that it follows, have changed significantly. While some key elements in construction tend to stay more or less the same, in other areas the industry needs to be adaptable to keep up with the changing wants and needs of consumers and other clients. So if you’re considering a change, but aren’t really sure what you want in your home, here are a few of the recent and upcoming construction trends to keep in mind.

Children’s Playrooms

A lot of homeowners with children have come to feel that their kids need a place to play when at home. While children can and will play anywhere, giving them free reign of the house can be nerve-wracking, especially when you have to clean it all up every day. Establishing a dedicated playroom helps to contain the chaos, confining the clutter to a single area within the house. It’s possible to use an existing room as-is for a playroom, but a lot of parents would prefer to do at least a little bit of remodeling to ensure that the room both meets their kids’ needs, and is optimized for safety and storage.

Ditching the Dining Room

Big formal dining rooms have been popular for a long time, though that popularity has waxed and waned over the years. These days, many households aren’t using their dining rooms nearly as much as they did in past decades. As a result, more homeowners are looking for other things to do with that space other than using it to hold a table and chairs. This has led to surge in remodeling to make better use of that dining room area, with homeowners opting instead to create nooks or other smaller dining spaces that can be used much more efficiently at mealtime.

Smart Home Construction

Once a thing of science fiction, smart home technology and home automation are increasingly popular options for homeowners. A lot of smart home automation tech is designed to be plug-and-play, with smart lights, smart thermostats and various sensors being available as aftermarket purchases. For new construction, though, more people are opting for integrated technology. Built-in smart sensors to track things like water leaks, open windows and various aspects of security are all popular. Other construction options such as built-in Ethernet and design that avoids Wi-Fi dead spots are also being requested more and more frequently.

Home Office Spaces

As people work from home more often, they need a dedicated area to do their work in. In some cases, this is as simple as moving a computer into a spare bedroom, but many home workers require more customization for their home office space. This can come in the form of additional storage or custom work areas, improved soundproofing or electrical work such as improved lighting and added outlets. Other home workers may want a custom outbuilding to serve as a “shedquarters” so that they have a work area that’s at home but separate from the house itself.

Smaller Room Designs

While open room designs have been popular for years, there has been a shift recently to smaller and more distinct rooms within the home. This doesn’t apply to every room, of course; for living rooms and some other spaces within the house, bigger and more open continues to be popular. And having other rooms with a more compact design can make these seem bigger by comparison, even when you don’t have a huge amount of floor space to spend on big open areas.

Keeping Up with the Trends

Trends change over time… if they didn’t, they wouldn’t be trends. HomeKeepr can help you keep up with the Joneses and stay on top of the latest trends. Sign up for a free account today and see just how well it can connect you with the pros you need to stay on top.

Are Smart Homes Here to Stay?

There’s been quite a bit of hype about smart homes in recent years. These aren’t the top-to-bottom smart homes that were envisioned by science fiction for years, of course. Those were houses that had a central artificial intelligence that controlled everything and inevitably went rogue at some point. Instead, modern smart homes are usually traditional homes just like the one that you live in. They’ve simply been enhanced with sensors and devices and the occasional digital assistant.

Some people are thrilled with how technology is changing the way we interact with our home environment. Others aren’t quite so happy with the direction that this trend is heading. Love them or hate them, though – there’s one thing that you need to accept: The smart home isn’t going away.

What Makes a Smart Home?

A smart home is one that has a variety of sensors and controls within it that give you additional information or functionality when it comes to your home. This can range from information like whether you left the front door unlocked or what the temperature is in your living room to functions such as controlling your lights with your voice. Some smart homes use a central hub or device to control everything, while others use components that connect via wifi and are controlled by your phone. Some smart homes feature appliances or other major fixtures that have “smart” capabilities while others just use devices or sensors to make day-to-day life more convenient. Because of the device-based nature of modern smart homes, homeowners can choose exactly the components they want to help make the smart home installation meet their specific needs.

Smart Home Devices

There are a wide range of smart home devices available for homeowners. Some of these are fairly well known, such as smart thermostats that feature programmable temperature controls that “learn” how best to keep you comfortable. Others are less common but very handy, such as leak sensors that alert you when your pipes leak or window sensors that let you check to see whether your windows or locked or unlocked. You can get smart lighting that can be controlled remotely and can even change colors, smart locks that you can lock and unlock with your phone or a key fob, smart smoke and CO2 detectors, motion sensors that activate security cameras but that are able to ignore pets and small animals… the list is quite extensive. Most of these devices are programmable so you can automate specific tasks, or can at least be paired with things such as a digital assistant (like Amazon Echo devices or Google Home) to schedule automation and even voice control.

Safety and Privacy

There are a number of advantages to using smart devices, including saving money and increasing convenience in your daily life. However, some people have security and privacy concerns as well. Some smart devices have been exploited in the past, allowing hackers to listen in or speak through the devices to people in a smart home. Some devices featuring video also raise security concerns as people worry that others will be able to record them going throughout their day. While these are valid concerns, security breaches and flaws are taken seriously by manufacturers. The majority of cases where unwanted access has occurred were either due to flaws that have since been patched or due to someone gaining access to the password that secures the devices. This is why it’s important for those who buy smart devices to use strong passwords on their accounts and to make sure that their devices have up-to-date software, as these two actions will mitigate the majority of security concerns.

Get Smart

Whether you already have smart home devices installed or you’re just curious, there are installers and consultants who can help you determine exactly how your home could be a little smarter. If you’re interested, HomeKeepr can help you connect with a consultant in your area that can help you along your way. Sign up now for your free account and get ready for your home to be that much smarter.

Loan options on non-single family homes

Most of the time, if you think about taking out a loan to purchase real estate, you’re likely picturing a single-family home. Depending on your needs and the properties available in the area you’re searching, though, you may find that other property types are actually a closer fit for you. Multi-family properties such as duplexes and similar units might end up being a better choice, or you could wind up shopping for a condo. You might even be in the market for a property that contains both commercial and residential aspects. Regardless of what you’re looking for, though, you should have options for financing your purchase.

Borrowing Differences

None of these property types are exactly rare, but they are outnumbered in the market by single-family dwellings. As such, the loans that you’re likely most familiar with are geared more toward those properties than properties for multiple families or dual-zoned use. Because of this, you need to be prepared for potential hurdles when you start looking for a loan. Lenders may have different requirements for these loans than they would for mortgages on a single-family unit, and some lenders may not offer loans for multi-family units or similar properties. This doesn’t mean that there are no loan options available, but you should be prepared for the possibility of a different borrowing experience.

Loan Options

When it comes down to it, many of the same options are available for purchasing multi-family units, condos and other properties as you would find when shopping for a loan for a single-family dwelling. Organizations such as the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and others that are commonly used for single-family purchases also offer loan programs or insurance to cover these types of dwellings. Most local and national banks offer these loans as well, as do other mortgage lenders. With that said, you may have to meet different qualifications to get these loans than you would if borrowing to purchase a single-family home.

Qualifying for a Loan

Though specific qualifications may vary from one lender or program to the next, some of the most common items that are considered during qualification may include:

Larger down payments than what would typically be used for a single-family purchase
Reserve requirements of at least 2 percent and as high as 6 percent of the unpaid principal balance
For multi-family properties, a cap on the loan amount calculated on a per-unit basis
Minimum or maximum numbers of units within a property
Restrictions on any repairs that may be needed for the property
There are other qualifications that may be required by specific lenders before authorizing a loan for a condominium, multi-family dwelling or other less-common property. Depending on the property and the amount of the loan, higher credit scores, co-signers or other additional requirements may also be necessary.

Finding a Lender

As with any loan, it’s important to spend time looking for the best loan option to meet your needs. This is especially important with these types of loans, as in many cases you’ll be borrowing more than you would with a single-family mortgage and may be subject to more restrictions as well. Taking the time to explore different options and check with different lenders will help ensure that you get the best terms for your loan and will keep you from having to settle when it comes to buying the property you want.

Getting Your Loan

When you’re ready to start your loan search, HomeKeepr can help make sure that you get just the loan you need to finance the property of your dreams. By signing up for a free account you can connect with lenders and other pros who can point you in the right direction for your loan whether you’re buying a condo or an entire apartment building. Create your free account today so you can get started.

Millennials and their home-buying trends

Though there are a number of stereotypes surrounding Millennials, they actually make up a fairly significant part of the economy. More importantly, their economic strength as a group seems to be growing by the day. As of 2019, Millennials make up approximately 37 percent of home buyers… that’s a bigger share than any other generation, including Baby Boomers! So what exactly are these Millennials buying, and what trends are growing along with their increasing representation in the market? Let’s take a closer look and find out.

First-Time Buyers

Approximately 52 percent of Millennials who are buying homes are first-time home buyers. This makes sense for younger Millennials, but even older Millennials who were born in the 80s still see a significant number of first-time buyers. Before buying, a large number of these Millennials were renting homes. By buying homes, they can enjoy the benefits of ownership and build equity for similar amounts (or in some cases, less) than they were paying each month in rent previously.

Family Homes

The majority of home-buying Millennials are buying single-family homes. This is in part because over 50 percent of them are either married or in long-term relationships; in fact, in 2018 there were more married couples among home-buying Millennials than there were in any other generational group that was in the market for a house. A significant number of Millennials also have children under the age of 18 living at home, further increasing the need for a family-friendly home.

Motivation to Buy

The majority of Millennials who have bought homes within the last year did so simply because they wanted to own a home of their own. Some wanted to own a larger home, be closer to friends and family or were moving due to job relocation, but the general desire to own a home was listed as a reason for buying by as many Millennials as ones that gave all other reasons combined. A lot of this came down to the opportunities that were present as well; over 50 percent of Millennials report that it was “just the right time” to buy a home, while the second most common reason (that they didn’t have much choice and had to buy when they did) was only reported by around 10 to 15 percent of Millennials.

Back to the Suburbs

One big trend among Millennial home buyers is that they were buying homes in the suburbs. This wasn’t restricted only to Millennials, either; 51 percent of all homes purchased in 2018 were located in suburban areas or subdivisions. The Millennials fell pretty close to this statistic, with small towns being the second most common location. A vast majority of these homes were previously owned; though there have been a number of new subdivisions built around the country in recent years, only a small percentage of Millennials are buying into them.

Biggest Factors

There are a number of factors that affected the purchasing decisions of Millennials. The presence of public transit or proximity to work was one major factor, with many Millennials trying to minimize commuting costs. Heating and cooling efficiency also played an important role. In general, Millennials were more willing to compromise on price than on a home’s condition, but only around 20 percent were willing to compromise on the distance of their new home from work.

Home Shopping Trends

By far, the majority of Millennials started their home search by looking online to try and find properties for sale. Around 15 percent spent even more time online than that, starting their search by researching the ins and outs of the home buying process before even starting to look at properties. Beyond online sources, Millennials trusted real estate agents and Realtors the most for information about homes for sale. The entire process took about 10 weeks on average before finding the home they wanted to buy, though a real estate agent was involved for the last 7 or so weeks of the search.

In the Market?

Are you a Millennial in the market for a new home? You’re in luck, because HomeKeepr can connect you with a mortgage expert to help you get into the home of your dreams. Sign up for free today to take that first step toward home ownership.

Decoding New Windows

New windows can make a huge impact on your home. Not only can installing new windows make your place look better, but those windows can also make it a lot easier to heat and cool as well. Sure, replacing old windows can eliminate drafts, but that’s only a small part of how installing new windows can increase your home’s energy efficiency.

Information about the efficiency of new windows is printed on a sticker that’s attached right to the glass. Unfortunately, if you don’t know what you’re looking at then these stickers may raise more questions than anything. If you need a little help understanding exactly what you’re looking at on your window sticker, here’s a rundown of everything you need to know.

What’s the U-Factor?

When looking at window stickers, two values are listed as “Energy Performance Ratings.” The first of these is the U-Factor, which provides information about the insulating ability of the window. This is similar to the R-Value that you find on insulation, and the U-Factor value will usually be somewhere between 0.20 and 1.20 on new windows. The lower this value is, the better the window is at insulating your home and preventing heat transfer between the inside and outside. If you want to think about this in terms of R-Value instead, simply divide 1 by your U-Factor value and you’ll end up with the corresponding R-Value (so a U-Factor of 0.20 would correspond to an R-Value of 1 ÷ 0.20 = 5, while a U-Factor of 1.20 would correspond to an R-Value of 1 ÷ 1.20 = 0.83.)

What About Solar Heat Gain Coefficient?

The other value listed under “Energy Performance Ratings” is the Solar Heat Gain Coefficient (SHGC). This measures how much heat is transferred through the window from sunlight (as opposed to the air heat transfer that is indicated by U-Factor.) The SHGC scales between 0 and 1, with lower values indicating a greater ability to block heat transfer from sunlight.

What Is the Visible Transmittance?

Beyond the “Energy Performance Ratings” entries on a window sticker, three other values are also provided to help you choose the window that best fits your needs. One important listing among these additional performance ratings is Visible Transmittance (VT). As with SHGC, the VT of a window scales between 0 and 1. In most cases you will want a high VT, however, as it indicates how much light passes through the window glass to provide daylight for your home.

What’s the Condensation Resistance Rating?

As the name suggests, the Condensation Resistance (CR) rating of a window indicates how well it can resist the formation of condensation on its surface. This not only indicates how likely you are to experience “fogging” and liquid condensation but can also indicate the likelihood of frost formation in the winter as well. This rating ranges from 1 to 100, with higher CR numbers indicating a greater resistance to condensation.

What Does Air Leakage Mean?

Another important performance rating is Air Leakage (AL). As the name implies, this measures how much air can leak through the window and affect the internal climate of your house. These values typically scale between 0.1 and 0.3, with lower values indicating a smaller amount of air leakage. One thing to keep in mind is that this is considered an optional rating, meaning that not all manufacturers will provide AL data; as a result, some window stickers might only have ratings for the other four values.

Need Help Crunching the Numbers?

Even knowing what the numbers on your window stickers mean, finding the window that has the best balance of these values for your home can be tricky. If you aren’t sure which windows to buy, let the pros at HomeKeepr help you find the perfect window for your needs. Because our system is built on recommendations instead of generic ratings, you can rest assured that the professional you choose will be just the right fit.

Your guide to buying a new home

If you’ve been following along, you know that last time around we covered a lot of the important things you should be thinking about when buying an older home. They’re great, but they can also be expensive and needy — definitely not for everybody.

Today, we’re looking at buying a new construction home. Although it’s a chance to get the house you’ve long wanted, buying a brand new house can also be fraught with problems.

New Construction Homes and Their Builders

There are no two ways about it, a new construction home can be the best decision you’ve ever made. Not only are they up to current building codes, they’re well-insulated, nothing needs to be fixed — all you have to do is move in and keep your new house clean.

There are essentially two distinct types of builder: custom and speculative.

Custom home builders wait for a person who wants a house built to come along, then they work closely with the home buyer, architects, electricians and other home pros to create your dream home. That being said, custom home builders tend to be on the upper end of your local housing market, but some also cater to people who want a smaller home.

Speculative builders (also known as production builders) build a bunch of houses and hope someone will come to buy them. These folks are generally responsible for creating whole neighborhoods out of thin air. One day, you’re driving by a field, the next week it’s a 100-lot development with 20 houses already going up. Speculative builders are nothing if not fast. You won’t necessarily get the house of your dreams unless your dreams are pretty vanilla, but you will have a home that’s new, up to code and that will keep you out of the rain. Super important, that.

New Construction Pros and Cons

You may be considering a new house, but aren’t sure you’re totally willing to wait for one to be finished. If only there were a place you could get an overview of the pros and cons of buying new. Wait, there’s a list below!

Pros of New Construction:

Owning a brand new house is a pretty sweet deal for most people. Here’s why:

Low maintenance requirements. A new house is, well, new. From the bottom to the top, everything is yours to break in. What this means for you is that you can expect to have several years to ease into learning how to do home maintenance and the bigger ticket items like your air conditioner condenser won’t need replacing (with normal use) for at least a decade.
Warranties on pretty much everything. Did you know that most new homes come with a warranty? Sometimes it’s a builder’s warranty, meaning the builder themselves will fix any problems that crop up during the specified period. Sometimes it’s a home warranty through a warranty company. Either one will help you sleep better at night knowing that you’re not on your own if something breaks.
Less risk of neighborhood blight. Unless you buy an infill home (a new house that’s built in an older neighborhood), new homes virtually guarantee you won’t have to worry about neighborhood blight for a while. Blight can occur in any neighborhood, but it’s far less likely where most of the occupants are owners and the houses are all the same age. It’s the ultimate in peer pressure, really.
It’s a blank canvas. Your new home has never been lived in by anyone, ever. You probably realize that, but it can still be sort of a shock to know that you are the one who will start this particular home on its road to being a quaint and charming place fifty years down the road.
New House Drawbacks:

Of course, a new house isn’t for everyone. There are a few drawbacks to building from the ground up, including:

Higher monthly costs. Unlike an older home, where you may find an owner who just wants to get out from under their loan so they can move across the country, a brand new house is pretty much priced where it’s priced. You’ll have to pay what the builder is asking if you want it, which may push the price of your house to the top of your price range. If you request any changes to the plan of a home in progress, or one that hasn’t had the ground broken yet, you may be asked for a larger escrow deposit in case something happens to prevent your being able to close when the house is finished.
It’s a blank canvas. As noted above, a new house is a blank canvas. For some people, this is pretty intimidating, since that also means that more often than not, there’s not a lot in the way of storage systems or other handy aftermarket items that houses that have been lived in are generally fitted with. You can ask your builder about closet systems that go beyond a single bar for hanging clothing, but generally you’re better off to install these yourself so you can get exactly what you want.
You’re probably subject to an HOA. There’s nothing inherently wrong with a homeowner’s association, but it’s an additional cost that you may not have budgeted for. The additional amenities that an HOA provides are often worth the extra spend to homeowners, but if you’re already tight, it’s going to make things even tighter.
Flexibility is key. Building a house is an exercise in patience. Sure, you think you’re going to be able to move in on February 1, but sometimes things get in the way and construction is delayed. You’ll need to be flexible, otherwise you’ll drive yourself crazy trying to guess when you’ll have the keys.
New Year, New Home?

If you think a new home is for you, your Realtor can recommend some great home builders in your area. Just log into the HomeKeepr app and ask for a connection! Your HomeKeepr community can also help you connect to home pros like interior decorators and architects, the kind of people who will help you and your builder turn pile of lumber into a home you’ll love for a long time.

3 Reasons You Need A Permit

It all started with a shelf.

You just bought your home and, though it needed a little surface work, you were pretty proud of it. It was yours, to do with as you wanted. So the first thing you did was run out and bought some lumber to construct a custom, built-in shelf system in your living room.

Oh, man, that was a breeze, you thought to yourself as you sat watching television and admiring the shelving. That was when you realized how much your house would benefit from knocking the wall out between the kitchen and the living room. After all, if Vanilla Ice can do it, surely you can.

If you had to look back and pick the moment when everything went south for you, that would be it. Thanks, Vanilla Ice. Thank you.

Instead of getting a permit for this major structural modification to your home, you just started smashing. After all, they don’t get permits for this stuff on television, so why bother with it?

Now you know why. Oh, now you know.

Many DIY Jobs Require a Permit

Whether you’re a trained carpenter or a DIYer that binges HGTV, there are certain kinds of home remodeling that will always require a permit. This ensures that someone is looking over your shoulder to make sure that you’re doing the work correctly.

Advanced jobs in plumbing, electrical, HVAC and other specialty fields always require a permit to ensure that the home is and will remain safe for the occupants. Other jobs, like those that involve making structural changes, may or may not need a permit. That’s usually at the discretion of the permitting body.

You’ll want to speak to your municipal planning and zoning department to determine whether or not your job needs to be permitted. Typically, getting a permit requires that you describe the work you plan to do and pay a small fee that covers, in part, the cost of having expert inspectors ensure that your worksite is safe and your repairs are done correctly.

This is Why You Need a Permit

It can be a pain to go down to P&Z (or planning and development in some areas), but it’s really worth the effort in the long run. Despite the amount of documentation these can require, depending on the complexity of your project, you’ll find that going through the process properly will force you to really think about each step in your process.

Of course, that’s just one reason to get a permit, there are plenty more, like:

1. Avoiding serious legal ramifications. In any municipality that requires permits, there’s some kind of severe punishment for not getting one.

For example, in Dallas, Texas, the ordinance reads like this: “Punishment. Any person who knowingly violates a provision of this chapter or the codes is guilty of a separate offense for each day or portion of a day during which the violation is committed, continued, or permitted, and each offense is punishable by a fine not to exceed $2,000. (Ord. 26029; 26286).”

Or, if you’re in St. Paul, Minnesota, you can be charged with a misdemeanor — along with a stiff fine — for any work exceeding $500 that hasn’t been permitted first. Do you really want a criminal record because you wanted to install a bay window where two tiny windows used to be?

2. Being confident the work you’ve done is done right. Unless you have an expertise in construction, you probably have a lot of gaps in your knowledge base, including how to tell if a wall is a load-bearing (aka. structural) wall. This sort of mistake is more common than you might imagine and can be devastating to a home.

For example, when you pulled that wall down in the opening scenario, you didn’t know it was a structural wall. Now, months later, you’ve been noticing an increasingly deep sag where the wall used to be and the floor tiles are cracking here and there. The reason? Your house is under a lot more stress now because you took out a wall it needed and didn’t replace it with something to help carry the weight.

Had you sought a building permit, a housing inspector would have come by to check your work and advised you to put a 10-inch header up to make the project work without compromising the house’s structure. Inspectors aren’t always there to bust your chops, they can actually help.

In addition, when you go to sell your home, you will now have to disclose that you did this work without a permit and that it has caused some pretty serious problems. It’s a complete no-win and it’s going to be costly to have an expert come in and fix what your demo saw or sledge destroyed for peanuts..

3. Ensuring that all work is safe and up to code. If home pros shared some of the most terrifying things they’ve ever seen in homes, you would understand in an instant why permits keep you and your neighbors safe. These are the times when you can’t do much besides shake your head and laugh, because human ingenuity plus human sloth makes some really crazy work arounds.

Had these creative types of work been inspected, of course they wouldn’t have passed. Today’s building inspector and the permit office attached can prevent tomorrow’s house fire, ceiling collapse, or rapid structural degradation.

Not Sure If You Need a Permit…?

If you don’t know if you need a permit, call the authorities that issue building permits for your area. This is typically Planning and Zoning or Planning and Development within your city or county’s offices. They can explain what’s permitted and what isn’t, or at very least, send you some literature.

When the permit process seems impossible, the actual work you have planned may be more than you really are ready to handle. This is a great time to reach out to your HomeKeepr community for help. Recommended pros like general contractors, electricians and HVAC experts are ready to take up the torch, including getting that permit you need.

You don’t need more stress in your life. Relax while trusted pros make your house into a home.

Buying Land with A Mortgage

Sure, owning a house is pretty cool, but sometimes you feel like you could do better. Take your hall closet, for example. It’s small, there’s no place to put linens and barely enough room for heavy winter coats. What’s it even good for? Your house has served you well, but you had no idea how awkward the little (and almost impossible to fix) things, like that closet, could be.

Maybe it’s time to consider buying some land and starting over.

Borrowing Money for a Land Purchase

Strictly speaking, buying land is rarely done with a traditional mortgage. Instead, a commercial loan, in one of many forms, is utilized. From where you’re sitting, though, the two will look nearly identical. It all depends on what kind of land you’re buying and what it is that you intend to do with it. The kind of land that homeowners tend to choose will likely fall into one of these categories:

Raw land, that is, land without any major improvements like electricity, water, sewer or gas lines, is the most difficult to borrow against. The reason is simple: it’s generally pretty easy to walk away from this kind of property if you get tired of making payments or suddenly develop a serious allergy to oak trees. The bank’s left with a parcel of land that may take years to resell. It’s a big bummer for them.

Improved land has many or most of those above-listed improvements already installed on it. There may even be a potential building site already prepped and ready to go. It’s important to note that land that has a mobile home without a permanent foundation is also considered “improved.” Because mobile homes are considered personal property, that specific land configuration is still just a land transaction.

Home on an acreage. A permanent, safe and liveable home on an acreage is treated like a home sale, so you could theoretically buy a reasonable sized home on a small acreage using an FHA loan or a mansion on a hundred acres with a jumbo. It’s basically just a house with a really big yard. This is only the case for private homes, not for farms. That’s a whole other blog.

Examples of Loans Based on Land Usage

Again, the type of loan you may be able to secure depends heavily on the type of land and what you plan to do with it. Here are a couple of examples:

Example 1. You’re an avid bird watcher and want to buy an extremely rural, 40ish acre parcel to turn into your own personal campground and bird paradise. You don’t plan to add any utilities to the raw land.

This is the hardest of situations, which is why we started with it. Because an undeveloped piece of land like this is likely to have a smaller purchase point, your local bank may be willing to write a 10 or 15 year portfolio loan for for the buy, with the land as at least part of the collateral. You may need to bring as much as 50 percent down, however, to mitigate the risk you represent. Qualifying won’t be a cake walk, but if you have ample income and seem like a good risk, a local bank will loan to you at their own discretion. Same song applies to a credit union you may belong to.

Other options for financing your bird paradise include asking the owner to finance it (you’ll still need a downpayment, usually 10 percent is plenty) or borrowing against something else you have that has enough value. This might mean you’re taking out a home equity loan or borrowing against your retirement plan.

Example 2. That hall closet has finally driven you far enough out of your mind that you’re hatching a plan to build your own home, with the help of a professional contractor. As soon as the land is acquired, you’re going to start on the construction phase of your life.

This is the kind of land transaction that lenders like. Using the plans for that future home, the value of homes like it nearby and detailed information about the materials you want to use, your bank can determine a reasonable final value for your construction project. This is where they start when determining how much to loan out.

Usually, you have to bring 10 to 20 percent to the table at closing, but these types of land loans are considerably easier to get than a raw land loan. This type of loan usually starts out as a construction loan that you or your contractor can treat like a credit line, taking out money for specific parts of the project as you go. When it comes time to lay the tile in the house, you or the contractor need only request the funds that it takes to cover supplies and the bank will cut you a check.

Once the house is totally done and a certificate of occupancy (where applicable) is issued, your bank will convert the loan into a true mortgage, per the terms you discussed when you applied for it in the first place. You won’t see most of this stuff happening, but it’s definitely going on in the background. With a loan of this sort, it’s good to understand what’s happening when that much money is at stake.

Do You Know a General Contractor…?

If you’ve decided to build a house, the relationship you have with your general contractor is really important. You don’t want someone that’s hard to get along with or can’t be counted on to complete work on time. That’s why your HomeKeepr community only recommends the best of the best.

Did you know you can find both a building contractor and a loan officer within the HomeKeepr system? It’s true! Your Realtor has really set you up for success with their recommendations — maybe you should send them a muffin basket…

Mortgage Brokers vs. Mortgage Bankers

You’re just swinging in your hammock on a sunny summer day when an ad pops up on YouTube for home equity loans. It sounds like a pretty good deal and you have been wanting to put a pool in for years, but it’s a bank you’ve never heard of, and a quick message to your group chat reveals that no one you know has, either.

What you might have witnessed was an advertisement for a mortgage broker. Like a mortgage banker, a mortgage broker can find a mortgage loan for your situation, but that’s where the two start to diverge.

Brokers and Bankers and Mortgages, Oh My!

Let’s start with some simple explanations just so we’re all on the same page.

Mortgage Bankers are people who work for a specific bank, like Main Street Bank USA, and help customers of the bank (and potential customers) apply for mortgages that Main Street Bank USA funds. They only write loans for their employer, except in a few special cases. They’re typically paid a salary by the bank they work for, whether your loan is $50k or $500k.

Mortgage Brokers, on the other hand, have permission to sell loans from a portfolio of wholesale investing clients. These may be traditional banks like Big Bank USA (these are fake banks, just so we’re clear), or they may be investment groups like In It For The Interest, LLC. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this, but because a broker makes their money solely on commission, unscrupulous ones may be tempted to put their own interests above yours. Always vet any type of lender, for peace of mind, if nothing else.

How Mortgage Bankers Work

Mortgage bankers may have a more limited product line they can use to finance your home-related loan, but they have a great deal more control over them because all the underwriting is done within the bank itself. Your local branch might not originate loans, but there’s someone nearby that your banker can call to check status and collaborate with to solve problems like a loan that you’re all by a hair’s width from being able to qualify for.

When a banker takes your application, they may literally forward it to the next room, where local people get to work to verify your income, length of employment and so forth. If you have your checking account with the same bank, you can often skip the tedious submission of income document after income document, since they can pull a lot of information from that checking account.

When the underwriter is comfortable that you’re able to qualify for the loan you’re seeking, they call the title company that you (or you and the seller, in the case of a purchase) agreed to use. They probably already have a relationship with this company since it’s nearby. When they send documents over, the title company doesn’t wonder what to expect from your closing.

How Mortgage Brokers Work

Mortgage Brokers take your application up front, then shop their lenders to see who can make you the best loan based on your credit history, income and desired loan amount. Often, brokers can do things that bankers can’t, even though a banker knows the loan originator by their first name. For example, helping people with troublesome credit is sometimes an area of specialization for brokers. They have access to all sorts of unusual loans that can turn a hopeful into a homeowner, or at least a pool owner.

This is both bad and good. On one hand, you got a loan — woohoo! — but on the other, you’re going to pay for it. These kinds of loans are rarely cheap because the broker’s fees have to be figured into the equation somewhere. Remember, they get paid on commission, not on salary. A normal broker fee can be as much as two percent of your loan amount.

When a mortgage broker pulls off a miracle you were really counting on, though, that two percent seems pretty cheap. Really, it’s all relative to your needs and what’s realistic for your financial situation. Before you choose a broker, make sure that you’ve really vetted them because each company and broker can be as wildly varied as the portfolios they have to sell. Ask around, check online reviews, ask your Realtor their opinion. Chances are good that someone knows a reputable broker that they can set you up with rather than letting you jump in blind.

Which to Choose… and Where to Find Them?

If you’ve decided that you’re absolutely committed to putting in that pool this summer, you’ll need a reputable lender to help you finance all the cement and whatnot. Luckily, both mortgage bankers and mortgage brokers are members of the HomeKeepr community! Log in to see who your Realtor recommends and then give them a call. You’ll save time in lender meet and greets, letting you trade that hammock in for a pizza slice shaped raft sooner.

Four Mortgage Programs to Consider

Whether you’re thinking about buying your first home or you’ve been contemplating an upgrade, you probably already know that there are several different kinds of home mortgages, some that seem pretty much alike at face value. FHA, VA, USDA — what does it all mean?! We’re about to take all the stress out of choosing the mortgage that’s right for you and your family (even if that family is just you and Spot the cat).

Mortgage Basics in a Nutshell

There are a few different elements of a mortgage that are important to understand before we move forward in this process. You already know stuff like interest rates and what your payment and interest payments are, but there are other things that might not be quite so well settled in your mind. Most homeowners have questions about the following mortgage related definitions:

Loan features. When you get a mortgage, it often has other stuff that comes with it. After all, this isn’t the same as borrowing money from your mom, banks have fancy lawyers who make sure they earn their keep. You may notice features like “assumability” and “prepayment penalty” listed on your initial loan form.

Assumable loans are loans that you can literally transfer to another person when they buy your house. This is useful when interest rates are climbing, sometimes people will pay more for a lower interest rate mortgage they can take over.

Prepayment penalties are very bad and you don’t want this. Basically, you’re punished for paying your loan off early. Typically, they’re part of subprime lending, but you never know when one might pop up elsewhere. Since “prepayment” includes the payoff from selling your home, there’s no winning with this one.

Mortgage insurance. There’s been a lot of talk about mortgage insurance, both for better and worse. To put it simply, mortgage insurance makes it possible for you to bring a downpayment as little as about three percent to closing with FHA or conventional type mortgages. It’s a type of insurance that you pay for in case you were to default on the loan. If you do, the insurance company pays out your coverage to your bank, reducing the amount you may be responsible for if the house can’t bring enough at the foreclosure sale to cover your remaining note.

Down payment. Down payments are your initial investment in your home. Many times, home buyers are surprised to see that they have to bring both closing costs and a down payment, having assumed the two were the same. The down payment goes to the bank as proof of your commitment. We’ll get to closing costs.

Closing costs. Closing costs are the bane of buyers everywhere. They can seriously mount as things like appraisals, title insurance, fees to the bank (separate from your down payment) and prepaid items like taxes and homeowner’s insurance add up. Some programs will allow you to ask the seller to pay these on your behalf, but the amount you can ask for is limited to a percentage of the sales price and based on the program you’re using. For many homeowners, closing costs will be similar in price to their down payment, which is where the confusion typically starts.

Pick Your Poison: The Four Basic Home Mortgage Types

Understand that these are not the only mortgages out there, but they are the ones that you’re most likely to use in order to buy a home. Each has its own set of benefits and drawbacks, which we’ll discuss briefly.

Conventional Conforming

If you’ve heard of Sallie Mae or Freddie Mac, you know the family of conventional loans. These loans are written by a wide range of banks, from your hometown locally owned to the fanciest mortgage broker. “Conforming” loans meet Sallie and Freddie’s high requirements, including maximum sales price.

Pros: Generally, you’ll get a better deal on mortgage insurance that automatically drops off (meaning you no longer have to pay it) once your home reaches a 78 percent loan to value ratio. Also, you’ll pay less in closing costs and your debt to income ratio can be somewhat flexible as long as look really good on paper.

Cons: These are generally the hardest loans to qualify for. Even though there are now three to five percent down payment options, your credit score will need to be around 700 (better is better) and your other ducks should be lined up nice and straight. Consistent employment, savings that can be designated as “reserve funds” and few to no scabs on your credit report are helpful.

Federal Housing Authority

The FHA started insuring loans after the Great Depression as a way of helping people get back into owned property. It basically created the 30 year fixed interest mortgage and continues to carefully oversee which homes can and cannot be purchased in its name.

Pros: Good option for first time buyers because of low down payment and credit requirements. FHA will accept “soft” credit lines for people who haven’t established credit yet or have very little, so keep that utility bill paid on time. The program allows up to six percent of your closing costs to be financed into your loan, as “seller paid items,” which can help reduce the actual cash you need to close.

Cons: FHA requires a lot more in closing costs because of the additional upfront mortgage insurance deposit. In addition, if you have less than a 10 percent down payment, under the current programs you’ll be forced to keep paying mortgage insurance for the life of the loan, giving you no options but to refinance or sell down the line if you want rid of it (it’s costly, you want rid of it). Not every banker wants to deal with FHA loans because they can be time consuming to write, so you may have to shop a bit to find a good bank.

Veterans Administration

As part of the benefits that active military members and veterans receive from the government, VA loans are built on a merit-based system. Career military and those honorably discharged early are generally eligible, but short-term members or Reserves may have to meet additional requirements. Anyone who can get this loan will need to bring a Certificate of Eligibility in order to get the ball rolling with an approved lender.

Pros: Favorable interest rates, extremely flexible guidelines and absolutely nothing required as a downpayment (often little to nothing required at closing!) There’s no mortgage insurance, just a one time “funding fee” that varies with your service type, downpayment and times you’ve used your Eligibility.

Cons: Really, there aren’t any. You can’t get this if you’re not military, though, so that could be a con if you really wanted this most excellent loan type.

US Department of Agriculture

In rural areas, the US Department of Agriculture will offer mortgage lending as a way of helping to keep the local economy flowing. Homes don’t have to be on an acreage, but they do need to be located in communities with under 35,000 inhabitants.

Pros: Like VA, USDA are fairly easy to qualify for as the buyer. They can also be zero down loans, though the more you can bring to closing the better. Payment assistance and other types of help are sometimes available for very low income borrowers.

Cons: The house you’re buying will undergo significant scrutiny in order to be approved for the program. In all loan programs, your house has to qualify, but the hurdles USDA puts in front of the building are much larger than most other programs. This is good for you, because it means you’re getting a great house, but it makes the process take a lot longer and can be scary for sellers. In addition, there’s a cap on income for potential borrowers.

Need a Mortgage? Who Ya Gonna Call?

HomeKeepr! Wait, that’s a different thing. But, seriously, whether you’re looking for more answers to your burning lending questions, need a plumber to fix your leaky faucet or a party planner to celebrate your finally closing on that loan, your HomeKeepr community has contact information for them all. Just log in and check out all the specialties your HomeKeepr family has to offer — they’re recommended by your Realtor, so you know you can count on these experts.

What's The Value of A Green Home?

Green homes are becoming a really big deal these days. Whether that means that an older home is being retrofitted with energy-saving equipment or a brand spanking new one is growing up green, it is apparently much easier to be green than we’ve been led to believe.

The Numbers Are Coming In

A long-term study of homes in the Austin-Round Rock, Texas, area found that homes built between 2008 and 2016 got a significant value boost from their efforts. Homes that held the gold standard Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification were worth, on average, eight percent more than traditionally built homes.

That might not sound like a lot, but when you consider the average new home in that market sells for $311,000, and eight percent of that is $24,888, it’s kind of a big deal. Even homes built to a more generic “green” standard saw a six percent price boost. That’s a lot of green for being green.

Elements of a LEED-Certified Green Home

So great, green houses are worth a lot more than their counterparts. What does it even mean to be “green?” This is a great question that has been asked again and again. Green homes are more than skin-deep. When you’re talking about new construction, these are homes that were designed from the ground up to be the least disruptive to the environment and very energy efficient.

These six items are necessities for any green housing certification:

* Site planning and development. Although we don’t really consider it much, we’re major disruptions to native plant and animal life, what with all of our house-building and whatnot. Site planning starts with a site that’s not located near protected spaces like wetlands. Then the house is placed on the plan with an orientation such that it can take maximum advantage of green technology like solar panels and wind turbines.
* Material origin and longevity. Your green home is made of materials that were each carefully considered and chosen for a particular reason (and not because they were the cheapest!). Factors that are taken into account include the manufacturing process, distance to transport the materials and even what the material is made of. The goal is to increase durability so you don’t have to replace anything soon and reduce overall resource consumption.
* Smart water use. Not only are green buildings designed to waste as little water as possible, with low-flow faucets, shower heads and toilets, they should even be built to help prevent runoff. Gray water is often rerouted to landscape and rainwater is collected and either sent into the ground through a trench, pit or well to prevent erosion around the house or it’s used to water landscape.
* A high level of energy efficiency. Each and every item in a green home is meant to keep the entire system as efficient as possible. This means high R-rated insulation, highly efficient HVAC systems, low energy use light bulbs and even those solar panels or wind turbines that were taken into consideration in the site plan.
* Excellent indoor air quality. Hey, it’s not all about saving money, green homes are also homes that are easier to live in. When your house vents combusting appliances properly, has minimal off-gassing from Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) and plenty of ventilation to purge any fumes that may linger, you can be sure you’re breathing crystal-clear air in a greener home.
* Proper operation and maintenance. When the home is built and sold, the real challenge begins. How a homeowner maintains and runs their equipment has a huge impact on how green their home truly is. By leaving a breadcrumb trail of tools like smart thermostats, water-saving fixtures and highly efficient appliances, a green builder is doing what they can to ensure homeowners stick to the plan.

Even if you own an older home, you can bring it up to LEED standards with a great deal of effort. Adding green elements bit by bit is less of an overwhelming process, which is why so many people are green remodeling these days.

That could mean anything from installing a new HVAC system and vents that better disburse that highly efficient climate control to adding solar panels to help with electricity usage or just working on one conservation effort at a time, like water consumption. It doesn’t have to be an all or nothing situation.

Greening Up My Home Is Too Overwhelming…

It’s ok, that’s why you have your HomeKeepr community! Just search the home pros your Realtor has recommended and you’ll quickly find an expert that can get started turning your home into a lean, green machine. Whether it’s a Jolly Green Giant of a job or a little sprig, you’ll find the green and LEED-certified experts you need inside.

Fences...

Humans have been enclosing things in fences since there were fences and things to enclose. It’s natural that you’d want to build one eventually. After all, with a good fence you could better defend your property from wiley raccoons and urban foxes or maybe to keep your squirrely goat herd from wandering into the neighbor’s yard. It’s your fence, you have your reasons.

But, building a fence isn’t just a matter of nailing a few boards together. Even though it’s a good project for new homeowners, there are a few things to keep in mind before taking the plunge.

The Before You Build Boogie

If you’ve read any of these blogs, you know that the planning and prep are keys to success with any sort of project, whether that’s repainting your house, sealing your driveway or, in this case, building a fence. The legwork involved in fence building is nearly as involved as the actual fence building, but doing it right means a fence that will last and last.

Do these things before you even start to think about digging the first post hole:

Find Your Neighborhood’s Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions

The Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions dictate what can and cannot be done to property belonging to a particular homeowners’ association. If you have HOA fees or commonly owned property (playgrounds, pools, etc) in your neighborhood, you probably have a CC&R somewhere that you need to read.

Understand that you are legally obligated to this agreement since you signed what amounts to a contract to abide by the rules at closing. They can literally dictate anything, from how tall the fence can be to what type of materials are allowed (or required). If you can’t find your copy in your closing documents, call your closing company, they can get you a new copy.

Go Visit Planning and Zoning

Your city’s Planning & Zoning department makes lots of rules about things you’d never imagine there needed to be a rule made about. Things like sign setbacks, minimum sizes for new homes and minimum required green space per residential lot are a few that drive real estate pros up the wall.

The P&Z rules that will get you are going to be related to the height of your fencing, how far it has to be off of the road and, like in your CC&R, the materials the fence is made of. In areas with high winds or other regularly destructive forces, there may be specific requirements for construction style in order to minimize the chances your fence becomes a weapon in the next big disaster.

Get Your Permit!

Not every municipality will require that you have a permit to build a fence, especially if you’re just replacing an existing fence with a new one, but some do. This is not something to take a chance on, just go to the city and apply for one. The chances are great that you’ll be granted an approval, but an inspector will still come by to make sure your fence is sturdy and sound. This is good in the longer term, don’t be confused. If you built the fence wrong, you’re really just wasting your money on a structure that won’t last.

Invite a Surveyor Over

Surveyors have a tough job. They know where the property lines are supposed to be, and too often, they’re forced to have to tell a homeowner that the lines aren’t exactly where they thought they should be. Breaking the bad news is basically their job, so along with having great working knowledge of surveying, they also have to be good at telling people they’ve been wrong all this time.

Now, this may not be the case for you, but before you even think about putting in a fence, have a survey. You don’t want your neighbor to sue you because the fence was put in the wrong place, forcing you to do it all over again, or buy them out of the land that should have not been fenced in.

Actual, Factual Fence Construction

Now that you’ve managed the details, you can start thinking about your fence. It’s ok. Do it. You know what materials are allowed and which aren’t, plus the heights and setback requirements. You are a fully loaded fence-building machine now.

When you choose those fencing materials, you’ll have a few important choices to make. It’s important at this stage of the game to figure out the purpose for your fence. Do you like having company over and don’t want to disturb the neighbors? Are you putting in a pool? Does your dog need a place to romp?

Although all three can be serviced by a fairly generic fence type, there might be more specific advantages to particular fence styles whether you’re trying to keep the noise level down or want to make sure neighborhood kids don’t sneak into your pool at night. The pool is better protected by a sturdy wooden fence or tall metal fence, where your noisy parties can be dampened with a lower maintenance PVC or vinyl fence. Focusing on your intent makes it easier to narrow the huge field of fencing materials and styles.

Once you know what you’re going to use to make that fence, the rest is a piece of cake. It goes something like this:

1. Plan your post positions ahead of time so you don’t end up with some weird little section of fence at the end. Recommended spacing of posts will depend on your fence style, height and materials.
2. With the posts planned, it’s time to dig. Depending on your location, holes as deep as 30 inches are recommended. You’ll want to backfill the hole with cement or crushed angular gravel until it’s tightly packed. Leave the posts a day or two for your material of choice to set and settle in place.
3. Run your horizontal rails across the fence posts, either on your side of the fence (so you have the nice side of the fence facing you) or on your neighbor’s side (so the nice side is facing them). Generally speaking, it’s a good idea to have wooden fence pickets face an area you will always have access to in case any need to be replaced or treated.
4. Once you’ve chosen a side and installed the rails, you can put on the pickets. At this point, you’re done, save sealing wooden fences. You should wait a few days after installation for sealing.

Fences are Time Consuming Projects

Now that you know the basics of building a fence, you may be rethinking your plan for isolation. Don’t panic, there are plenty of experts in the HomeKeepr community that can help you turn your backyard into an island of solitude.

Maybe fence building isn’t your thing, but that doesn’t mean you have to give up having a glorious fence of your very own. Just reach out to a pro that your Realtor has already given the thumbs up to and you’re ready for breezy evening entertaining or long games of fetch with Fido’s favorite ball.

The how, when, what of planting a new tree...

Being a homeowner means more than just cleaning, decorating and maintaining your house. It’s also your responsibility to take care of whatever land is yours. For a lot of people, this means putting their own mark with landscaping like perennials, shrubs and trees. Unfortunately for those trees, many are planted in the wrong place and end up being cut down in their prime. It’s a great loss to the neighborhood and to your yard. Next time you plant a tree, you’ll need to be more careful about where you put it.

Tree Things to Know About Trees (Get It?)

Planting a tree is a commitment, don’t ever think otherwise. You’re placing a sapling that has the potential to spread to enormous heights, overshadowing your house, your neighbor’s cars, and maybe even getting tangled in power lines or uprooting sidewalks. This is why it’s vital that you choose the right tree and put it in the right place the first time. So let’s talk about trees!

If you choose a tree from a nursery or home improvement center, it’s a good bet that the tree will succeed in your climate. After all, they’re not going to stock trees that will die over the summer or winter (though certainly ask if you’re not entirely confident). There are other things to pay extremely close attention to, though, like:

Size. Trees get big, even the little ones. You can expect even the smallest ornamentals, known as understory trees, to grow to be 15 to 25 feet high when they’re fully mature. In the forest, these trees are found growing on the edge of groupings of taller trees. Those bigger trees can grow to be 80 to 100 feet tall and just as wide, depending on the tree’s natural shape. Ultimately, there’s a lot of difference between the space required for a dogwood than a white oak.

Water needs. Just because a tree can theoretically survive in your area doesn’t mean that it can do it alone. During establishment (the baby years), that tree will need a lot of regular waterings to keep it going, no matter the species. Obviously, you won’t need to water on days that it’s raining, but as it starts to warm up and during the heat of the summer definitely plan to be on watering duty. Keep the tag around because you’ll need to know how to care for the tree as it ages. If it needs more water than naturally occurs, you’ll want to set up a sprinkler, drip irrigation system or get fancy and redirect gray water to it to keep it alive.

Spacing. This is where the rubber meets the road. Or rather, where the tree roots get under the sidewalk and your foundation and start breaking stuff. It says right on the tag how far to place your tree from anything else. When there’s a range, like 10 to 15 feet, go as far away as you can. This is the hardest part of tree planting, honestly, because other elements in the yard have to be considered. It’s 10 feet from the house, but only seven from the mailbox and not quite 11 from the sidewalk (weird yard, I know). Best to choose your tree, then check spacing requirements and stand out in your yard with a tape measure to ensure that tree will work where you want to put it. It’ll look a little sparse the first year or two, but you’ll be glad you took the time when it’s bigger.

Tree Roots and You

Some of the most serious issues a house or cement pad can experience are caused by tree roots. Big, glorious trees are amazing to have in your yard, they provide shade and protection for wildlife, but it comes at a cost. This is why spacing matters.

Many trees will put out roots that are as far across as their canopies. A tree with a 25 foot wide canopy has the potential to send roots out 12 ½ feet from the trunk. A tree with a 60 foot canopy is often surrounded by a 30 foot root zone.

Besides considering the above ground elements, you need to know where your gas, water and sewer lines run. Deep rooted trees can get into sewer lines, causing the line to fail or wrap around utility lines, slowly shifting them out of place. But deep roots aren’t the only issue, shallow rooted trees create a nightmare when you’re mowing, since you have to somehow deal with them as you go along. Landscaping is a good option here, but also keep in mind that a good stiff breeze may cause that shallow rooted tree to uproot.

Choosing trees is tricky, but that’s why you ask a lot of questions before you leave with your new baby. The very best trees for your home are trees that are native to the area (so they can handle the climate without extra care), grow relatively quickly to let you can start reaping the benefits of a nice tree in your yard sooner and fit in the space properly, keeping all those roots away from anything they can break.

Upgrading to GREEN

Sometimes, it ain’t easy bein’ green, but other times, like when you’re trying to outfit your house with money and energy saving components, it’s a piece of key lime pie. The demand for retrofitted green homes is only growing while the green home industry is busy developing new ways to save from every angle. Whether you live in Death Valley or Nome, Alaska, there’s something you can be doing to improve your home’s green appeal.

Start Your Green Home Upgrade Here

Before you can improve your home’s efficiency, you’re going to have to know where your home is under performing. Is the attic lacking insulation? Are the windows leaking? How many cracks and crevices need to be caulked or otherwise sealed?

It’s not easy to see these things with your naked eye, otherwise someone else would have already caught them long ago. Instead, an energy auditor will use specialized tools like infrared cameras to find the hidden energy loss you’re trying to correct. Often, you can have an energy audit completed by your utility company at low or no cost, but even if you need to find your own pro, it’s worth the minimal cost.

After all, how can you begin to know what green upgrades are appropriate for your home if you don’t know where the leaks are? The US Department of Energy made a short video that explains what an energy auditor does, it’ll help you know what to expect from your own audit.

Spending Green on Green Upgrades

With energy audit in hand, you get to decide what upgrades, if any, are in your budget today or tomorrow. Some upgrades you’ll be able to tackle on your own with no problem, others will require a home pro to do them right.

Common DIY green upgrades include:

Sealing air leaks. Grab a caulk gun, a can of spray foam and get to it. Your energy auditor identified the areas that are leaking, now you only need to seal them up. Caulk is good for small, consistent gaps no more than about ¼ inch wide, like areas where trim meets the wall. Spray foam is awesome for big holes where cables and wiring go into the living area. Caution: if you’ve never used spray foam before, practice a little bit ahead of time. It can be tricky to gauge just how much is appropriate because of the incredible way it expands.

Installing insulation. When your energy audit says you don’t have enough insulation, you need to get more. It’s really pretty simple. Batt insulation, the type that comes in a bag or on a roll, is the easiest for homeowners to DIY, especially in an attic. You just buy the roll, unroll the roll and secure it. All done! Mind the wires and recessed lighting.

Adding a smart thermostat. Your home is getting smarter, but your thermostat is still a C student. That’s ok, it’s not too late to improve the efficiency of your HVAC system with better climate management. Choose any of a wide range of smart thermostats from manufacturers like Honeywell, EcoBee and Nest, then follow the simple installation instructions. As these thermostats are taught your schedule, they can raise or lower the temp in your home to reduce energy usage when no one is home. They’re also handy for those chilly mornings when you don’t want to get out of bed because it’s cold. Just grab your smartphone and raise the temperature accordingly!

Repairing air ducts. This is a slightly more challenging procedure, depending on where your air ducts are located. If they’re in your crawlspace, the tight turnarounds and feats of acrobatics required to find each duct and check it could make it worthwhile to call a pro for help. Once you reach the duct, though, it’s all pretty straightforward. Check all the joints and connections along each run of duct, tightening screws, taping joints with duct tape (the silver kind, don’t go designer) and replacing any sections that are damaged as you go. Air that’s going into your crawlspace is just warming the outside. The process is the same in your basement or attic, there’s just less dirt and fewer obstacles.

Buying new appliances. There’s really no question that older appliances use a lot more energy and water than newer ones — especially when the older appliance is not an Energy Star rated unit. From refrigerators to washers and dryers, each and every appliance in your home contributes to your overall energy usage. In fact, you may be able to get rebates or credits from your utility company for upgrading particular appliances, since your contribution helps reduce the strain on already overtaxed power plants and sometimes limited water supplies.

Swapping out light bulbs. Changing out your lightbulbs is a small thing, but it’s also additive in nature. If one incandescent light bulb costs $4.80 per year to power, then swapping it for a much more expensive LED that costs $1.00 per year to operate seems like not much of a savings. But if you consider the 10 recessed bulbs in your kitchen alone, plus the five in your bedroom ceiling fan, four in the living room, two in the dining room and so forth, the savings can really add up. Also, keep in mind that LEDs are rated for a 25,000 hour lifetime, where old fashioned incandescents are only expected to live for about 1,000 hours.

Now for the Big Projects

All the small projects together will make a big dent in your energy costs and help your house save the planet one day at a time, but there are also big upgrades you can make that will take a significant bite out of your utility usage immediately. You’ll need a home pro to help with these, but you can find your perfect match in the HomeKeepr community.

Among the big energy savers, these are right at the top:

Upgrading Your HVAC System. According to the US Department of Energy, homeowners like you spend about $11 billion every year on air conditioning alone. That’s a lot of beans, especially when you consider that heating isn’t included in that figure. Upgrading your HVAC can cut your utility costs sharply, even if you go with one of the less expensive options with SEER ratings near the minimum required by law (that’s anywhere from 12 to 15 SEER depending on your location and configuration). If you can afford a higher SEER rating, go for it.

The better your Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio, the better for the environment and the less energy you’ll use staying cool. If you have a heat pump or upgrade to one, you’ll save a bundle on heating, too! The minimum SEER rating for residential homes was 10 until 2006, any upgrade to air conditioners installed prior to the change will be dramatic.

Swapping Out Older Windows. Sure, they’re still transparent and let in light and air, but your windows could probably be doing more. Newer windows are loaded with treatments and special characteristics that allow you to control how much heat and cold transfers from outside. When choosing windows, these are the most important items to consider:

U-Factor. This is a measure of the rate of heat transfer of your window. It basically tells you how well the window will insulate overall. U-factors range from 0.25 to 1.25 btu/h*ft2. The lower value, the higher the ability of the window to insulate.

Solar Heat Gain Coefficient (SHGC). With sunlight comes heat, and with too much heat comes higher utility bills. You can choose windows that block a lot of sunlight to reduce air conditioning needs, or go the other way and choose one with a higher SHGC in order to take advantage of passive solar heat. The scale goes from 0 to 1, with typical values falling between 0.25 and 0.80. Mixing and matching SHGCs may be your best answer if you’re in an area that gets warm summers and cold winters.

Air Leakage (AL). You don’t want your windows to leak, but it’s inevitable that they will a bit. This tiny amount of leakage is the AL and you want to keep it as low as possible.

If you’re on a budget, you might consider replacing those windows that contribute the most heat gain or loss first. Make sure you ask your energy auditor which windows are the worst and having them indicate it on the report..

Chilling Your Roofing Out. Your roof contributes a huge amount of heat gain to your home, in both summer and winter. In the winter, you’re probably not too worried about it, but in the summer your roofing material can easily reach 150 degrees Fahrenheit. Your attic absorbs that heat, and ultimately, your air conditioner runs a lot harder than it should have to. Cool roofing absorbs less of the sun’s heat, keeping your attic and your home cooler. These roofs take many forms, with common types including metal roofing coated with white paint containing special reflective pigments and roofs with heat-absorbing layers sandwiched against the decking. Choosing a cool roof over a standard roof install raises the price minimally, it’s an easy decision if you already need a new roof.

How to Start to Find A Home...

Buying a house is a confusing process. Not only is there a lot of material to process, you really have to do a lot of introspection to find the house that’s right for you and your family. It’s about more than just ceiling treatments and square footage, there’s something else, too.

Irish poet Thomas Moore may have captured that little bit of something else best when he penned these lines:

Sometimes, the spirit of a place is so strong, you may think you see its face and glimpse it gamboling over a field or peeking out of a forest. This spirit we sense in each locality would once have been described as the scintilla or spark of its soul, the pearl in the oyster. It accounts for the magic of a region, and, without it, an acute sense of place dissipates into a vague and lazy feeling of nowhere.

Maybe you’ve not started your home search yet, so you’ve yet to experience this strange phenomenon, or maybe you’ve just seen a few homes and they just didn’t strike you. Either way, it’s important to take stock of what it is that really moves you so that you can narrow your list of prospective homes and get the perfect fit sooner rather than later.

Home Is Where the Investment Is?

Home buyers should never think of their primary home as an investment first, but you should keep in mind that you might need to sell one day. Because of that, you need to think a little bit like an investor and a little bit like a love-struck teenager. It’s ok to be both. Before you step foot into a single house, figure out where you need to buy.

If you live in a large metro area, this may mean narrowing to within a few suburbs or choosing some urban neighborhoods that you really feel drawn to (and are holding their value). Some people go one step further and narrow by schools, especially if they have children. Even people without kids can benefit from the extra value good schools bring to the immediate neighborhoods surrounding them, though.

Now that you’ve narrowed the initial list, you can create a checklist to help you decide what it is that you want in a house so you don’t waste time with homes where you’ll never feel the spirit of the place.

Your Home Buying Scorecard

This exercise is meant to help focus your home search, but you should also realize that it’s highly unlikely you’ll be able to get everything you want out of one house without an incredible budget or very low standards. To the scorecard!

When shopping for a home, it’s useful to start your search online for houses in your price range to see what sort of features they usually have. For example, if a $250k house in your area tends to have a fireplace or a ceiling treatment or a two car garage, you know you can reasonably expect that. You’ll probably also realize about 20 houses in that your expectation of acreage or a private movie theater is a little out of reach.

Grab your tablet or a piece of paper (if you’re into that sort of thing) and draw four columns. Label them like this: Definitely Need, Want, Can Live Without and Definitely Don’t Want. If you have a spouse or other person you’re buying with, make sure they make their own scorecard — no sharing answers, please.

Now for the really hard part. You need to fill those columns in.

This isn’t an exercise that you should finish in five minutes or ten minutes. You should spend a good week or two really working on it. Think deeply and about the long term. A few questions you may want to ask yourself include:

* Do I intend to age in place? In this case, you might want to put stairs in your “don’t want” column, since it can be difficult to navigate them as you age.
* Am I planning to start a family? You’ll want a bigger house, make sure there are enough bedrooms for all your future kids.
* Is there a style of house I’m attracted to? Open floor plans are big right now, but they’re not for everybody. If you hate them, write it down!
* Would I use a fireplace if I had one? Fireplaces can be nice, but they can also be huge pains to maintain and keep safe. If you won’t be using it, you might as well not pay extra for a house that features one.
* Do I plan to have pets? Hard surfaces are a must for pet owners. Carpet is cleanable, but it will never hold up like a tile, hardwood or laminate floor when pets are involved.
* How close can I tolerate my neighbors? For many people, it’s no big deal to be piled on top of the next house, but for others it gets downright uncomfortable. If you need room to roam, a cul-de-sac lot or other irregularly shaped lot may give you some elbow room without the added expense and upkeep of buying an acreage.

As you start to take inventory of your actual wants and needs, you’ll also be eliminating huge swaths of houses in single blows. This makes your home search a lot easier, believe it or not. Don’t narrow so much that only that house at 123 Marigold Lane will do, but do spend some time really thinking about your perfect home.

When your scorecard feels pretty complete, make sure to compare notes with your spouse (wait until they’re done, of course). You may have some compromising to do, especially if you’re dead set on a house with a pool and they want a small yard with nothing in it. With all of the details decided, you can finally call your Realtor and declare that you know what you want! They’ll appreciate the effort you’ve taken to doing the homework ahead of time.

Are you really ready to buy that home?

When that rent check leaves your hand every month (or, more likely, you click the button on the website), you feel a little lighter in the wallet and a bit more empty inside. Every month, that money goes into your landlord’s pocket, pays down their principal, helps them increase their net worth and you get what? A roof over your head that hasn’t been updated since the Reagan administration and neighbors that seem to not realize that while their band is lovely, 2 am is not the time to crank it up to 11.

No, you’ve had it! It’s time to move.

It’s time to buy your own house. You’re ready to have some control over your own living situation. Aren’t you?

Spend Some Time Soul-Searching Before You Pre-Qualify

There are far too many articles out there that discuss homebuying readiness in terms of dollars and cents, neglecting all the other things that are involved in a truly successful homeownership experience. So, we’re going to assume you’re able to qualify for a loan and just skip that part. You’ve read enough of that by now, that’s old news.

Anyone who tells you that buying and owning a house isn’t a deeply emotional experience is someone who has never done it. People become strangely attached to their homes, they experience deep heartbreak when a contract falls through at the last minute, they feel almost rapturous when they finally sign on the dotted line. The first problem their home develops gives them a sick feeling in their gut. There’s a huge emotional and social component to homeownership, but no one ever talks about it.

What even drives us to buy? Two main things: an urge to increase our social standing and a hope to give ourselves some kind of financial security. Theoretically, right? At the end of the day, that’s what it amounts to. In some economies one or both of those may be on pretty shakey ground, but they’re always beneath it all. Before you get there, let’s do a reality check.

Reality Check: Are You Really Ready?

You’re qualified, you’re flush with cash, but you may or may not be really ready to buy a home. After all, these are untested waters for you. It’s not as if no one has gone this way before, plenty have and even lived to tell the tale. But for you to really get off on a good foot, you should dig deep and make sure you have these items in check:

Wanderlust. Think of buying a house a little like getting a tattoo. It’s not a thing that’s easily undone. Even if you just walk away, you have a foreclosure hanging over your head for years and years, your credit’s damaged, you could even owe some balance from the sale of that house (depending on the local laws). If you have wanderlust left in you, get it out now. Go live in Nepal while you can, because once you buy, you’re going to have to live in it for a while. That’s not to say you can’t visit Nepal, but you can’t stay around for months on end once you have a mortgage that has to be paid.

Emotional Maturity. Living in a neighborhood with people you can’t easily move away from also requires a bit of emotional maturity. The guy across the street may drive you nuts because he loves bright, annoying Christmas lights. Don’t punch him in the face, just hang some blinds. In addition, learn to tame your inner worrier. All houses have problems, every single one, even the brand new ones. So when you notice that the air conditioner’s condensation line is backed up, take a deep breath and get to flushing it or call in a pro. In short, don’t panic, there’s a solution to everything.

Career Security. All jokes aside, it’s really very important that your career is fairly secure before you jump into a mortgage that’s 30 years long. If you hate what you do or you’re not really sure you want to do it over the long term, you may not want to commit to a mortgage just yet. Maybe wait until you get that first year under your belt and see if what you learned in class is anything like what the field really is in practice. If you would need to return to school or move out of state to find a new opportunity, it could be very difficult while trying to maintain a mortgage.

Relationship Security. The thing no one wants to say to you is the thing this blog is going to say right now. Is your relationship really sure enough to be buying a house with that person? No, really. This is on the level of having a child with someone, it’s a huge financial commitment and one that could obliterate you for years and years if things soured quickly. Whether you’re married or not, make sure this person is one you can count on for the rest of the term of that loan, as romantic as that notion may be. You’re in this mortgage together, make sure it’s an equal partnership.

These are really important parts of your life to examine before you decide to buy a house. It also helps to be a good saver and a little handy (or at least brave enough to try to fix the small stuff). Not every problem will be one your can handle on your own, but you should at least be able to stabilize your issue so it doesn’t get worse before you call the experts in!

Flooring options...

Your new house is pretty awesome, otherwise you would never have considered buying it. But, there are some things about it that are a lot more awesome than others. Take, for example, that kitchen floor. You wouldn’t say it’s ugly, but you’ve seen better design harmony in a restaurant trash bin.

It’s gotta go.

Your bedroom carpet is pretty hairy, too, but your agent assured you that these things are fairly easy to deal with, especially if you have the flooring replaced before you start moving in. And it’s true, replacing flooring is easy. Choosing the new flooring, well, that’s tough.

Your Flooring Options: A Journey Underfoot

Whether you’ve owned your house for a day, a year or a decade, picking the flooring you’re going to have to live with for a while can be stressful. There are so many materials available and within those, a huge array of colors and designs. It’s the paradox of choice at work, you have so many options you may literally freeze. That’s why we’re going to break it down for you, in hopes that the overwhelm is minimized when your time comes.

Next time you’re in the mood to look at flooring patterns online or in your home improvement stores, here are some things to consider about the most common flooring options available.

Carpet

The fuzzy stand-by for living areas and bedrooms, wall-to-wall carpet has been a popular flooring choice for a century. The materials may have changed, but the basic configuration is the same. All carpets are just a series of fibers woven onto a flexible grid, topping a uniformly thick padding.

When choosing a carpet, look for one with a face weight of at least 30 ounces. These are just above builder grade and should last six to 12 years. Always choose the best mid-grade carpet you can afford, you can’t go wrong that way. It’s where value and durability meet. Don’t skimp on carpet pad, either. Let the carpet shop match a pad to the carpet you’ve chosen so that you get the most life out of them both.

Best places for carpet in your home:
– Bedrooms
– Living rooms (excluding the traffic zones)
– Offices
– Formal living rooms
– Dens
Tile

Today’s tile comes in a huge range of colors, shapes, sizes and materials, but it all shares one thing in common: it’s nearly indestructible when installed properly and should be considered a permanent decision. It’s not that you can’t untile your entryway, but it’s going to be a difficult job, so take this decision carefully and skip the trendy stuff.

There are several grades of tile, but in general, they’re divided into two camps: wall tile and floor tile. While you can use floor tile on the wall with the right adhesive and a lot of patience, you should never use wall tile on the floor. It’s simply not hard enough and will end up cracking or otherwise failing.

The other major consideration is your floor. Is it a perfectly smooth, flat floor, or does it have some minor bumps and ridges? Even minor settling needs to be kept in mind when you’re choosing a tile size. Small tiles are far more forgiving of uneven floors than huge tiles. When a tile doesn’t make full contact with the mortar bed, it will come loose, then others will follow.

Popping tiles can become a major problem in older homes that are built on crawl spaces or basements, and although there’s a certain amount of compensation offered by cement board, it’s just better to hedge your bets by choosing smaller tiles.

Best places for tile in your home:
– High traffic areas
– Kitchens
– Bathrooms
– Dining rooms
– Mudrooms
– Laundry rooms
– Sunrooms
Wood

Wood floors are timeless and sturdy, and these days, come in both solid wood and engineered formats. Solid wood floors will give you a floor that’s more or less just like those floors of yesteryear, completely seamless and total class all the way. Many people choose prefinished wood floors to make installation easier, but unfinished wood floors are still available and make a vibrant, albeit expensive, statement.

Engineered wood floors, on the other hand, are made from layers of wood and plywood. They look just like finished solid wood floors, but are not as durable overall. Most people won’t be able to tell the difference, however, and engineered wood floors can perform better than solid wood floors in wet places, so you’ll just have to strike a balance between your needs and the materials that are available.

Best places for wood flooring in your home:
– Living room
– Bedroom
– Dining room
– Staircases
– Entryways
– Offices
– Kitchens (engineered, with proper precautions)
Laminate

Laminate flooring is a very durable, flexible and affordable hard surface for all sorts of homes and situations. Like engineered wood flooring, it consists of several layers of material, including a clear wear layer, a design layer that can simulate wood, stone and a variety of other patterns, an inner core that provides the majority of the structural stability of the product and a backing layer that helps to protect from warpage.

Unlike a wood floor, laminate floors are installed without glue or nails, which is why some people still refer to them as “floating floors.” They don’t actually float, but walking on one for the first time can be interesting if you’re very sensitive to that sort of thing (many of them are also very slick, just something to keep in mind). Because the material is designed as tongue and groove boards, everything fits tightly as your jigsaw puzzle of a floor is constructed. When it’s done, all that’s required to hold it in place is properly installed trim.

It’s an easy floor. In fact, this is one flooring option you might even want to DIY if you’re the handy type.

Best places for laminate flooring in your home:
– Living room
– Bedrooms
– Bathrooms (choose one that’s water resistant)
– Kitchen
– Foyer
– Office
– Pretty much anywhere
Vinyl

It wasn’t that long ago that vinyl flooring meant tired patterns on reliable, but boring sheet material that had to be painstakingly glued to the floor. One bubble, one wrong cut, and the whole install might be ruined. Today’s vinyl is anything but fussy, with sturdier and more attractive tiles, planks and glue-free sheet goods. Vinyl is also an affordable solution that can be DIYed fairly easily.

It’s naturally water-resistant, making it a great match for basements and places that get damp. Unlike many other types of non-carpet floorings, however, vinyl can be fairly soft, so if you’re putting it in an area like a dining room, you’ll have to take a lot of care not to gouge it when you’re moving chairs under the table. Overall, vinyl provides a good bang for your buck, and since it’s time-tested, you know exactly what you can expect from it: a long, useful life provided you give it the minimal care it needs.

Best places for vinyl flooring in your home:
– Kitchen
– Laundry room
– Basement
– Mudroom
– Foyer
Time to Get Your Flooring On!

December Steve & Jack's Home News

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

We hope you are able to take some time off to spend with friends and family and reflect on everything for which we have to be thankful. It is easy to complain about what we don't have instead of being grateful for what we DO have.

Our family is traveling to Williamsburg, VA to meet up with Brigid's family to celebrate Thanksgiving. This will be the first time we have all been together for Thanksgiving in many years and Williamsburg is a central location for everyone. It is so beautiful for Christmas and we are looking forward to visiting Colonial Williamsburg again. Jack & Mary Anne will be staying in Indy with Michelle and her family and will celebrate together.

THANK YOU to all of our clients who came out yesterday to enjoy Photos with Santa!! We had a great turnout and almost everyone enjoyed sitting with Santa and sharing with him their Christmas list. A couple kiddos weren't quite sure about Santa yet! For those of you who attended, we will be sending out those photos via e-mail later this week. We hope you can join us again next year.

Have you RSVP'd to Kylie (Kylie@Welcome2Indy.com) for our 5th Annual VIP Client Appreciation Movie on Saturday, December 2nd? If not, please do so today with the number of adults and number of children in your group so we can plan accordingly for our food. The fun starts at 8:30AM with registration and continental breakfast. The movie will start promptly at 9:30AM and we should conclude around 11AM. We are back up at the Hamilton 16 IMAX theater at Hamilton Town Center. The movie this year will be the just-released Disney film Coco. Check out the trailer here.

Due to our Photos with Santa and Client Appreciation event as well as the holidays, we will not be hosting our monthly Happy Hour for November or December. We will pick back up again in January on the 17th from 5-6:30PM at Matt The Miller's. The official e-vite will be sent out again next month. We hope you can join us!

Housing numbers for October haven't been released yet, so we will send those out with next month's newsletter. Generally, however inventory is still extremely low and activity in the under $300,000 price range is still brisk, relatively speaking. Historically, our market slows down a bit for the holidays and then picks back up for spring the weekend after Super Bowl (mid-February). There are still quite a few buyers out there looking for houses, so if you are on the market, we are recommending staying on the market over the holidays due solely to higher-than normal demand in a market with historically-low inventory. Call us if you have any questions at all.

Finally, we just launched the first installment of 10 in our New Construction video series. We interviewed 10 different builders from all price ranges and broke down the building process into 10 easy-to-follow interviews (steps) in the building process. We will be adding a new video approximately every month. Feel comfortable sharing these with people you care about who are thinking about building a new home and aren't sure where to begin or how the process works. As always, we are happy to answer any questions at any time. Here is a link to the first video in the series. Please let us know what you think!

Check out December's newsletter here. There are some very interesting and entertaining stories in store for you this month, including one about Warren Buffett. Don't miss out!

Want to see an interactive market data report complete with a summary video? Click here to check out our new market update video for October.

Want to save money at places you shop every day? Click here.

Want the most powerful real estate app available? Click here.

From our family to yours, we wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Steve, Jack & Kylie