Strange weather conditions...and their problems to your house

Of all of the dramatic and awe-inspiring developments of the modern era, surely climate control is high up there among the most beautiful. It can be a muggy 95 degrees Fahrenheit outside and yet, with a well-maintained air conditioner, it’s amazingly 74 and dry inside. In the winter, you can walk into a cozy 68 degree house after shoveling your -4 degree sidewalk. There truly isn’t much better in the whole world.

That’s why when your climate control system isn’t working, it sort of creates a bit of a panic. After all, you wouldn’t want to actually have to deal with -4 or 95 degree weather. That’s definitely a bummer. Luckily, a lot of the most common reasons for your forced air unit’s failure to do its duty can be easily DIY-ed.

Wielding Power Over Sun and Rain

Hey, there’s nothing unimpressive about what your friendly neighborhood HVAC expert can do when it comes to turning a brutal building into a climate-controlled structure, but you, too, can take a little bit of credit for keeping the weather under wraps. Before you call in your HVAC expert, a bit of troubleshooting can save you money and your repairman time.

Many of the problems with HVAC systems can be corrected at the filter, the condensation line or the breaker box. Let’s take a look at each issue in a bit of depth.

HVAC Filters are Your Worst Frenemy

When your climate control system kicks on, it immediately starts sucking air into the cold air return, pulling it across the air handler, which is either set to heat or cool. After a quick pass, that air is pushed out through the ducts, to be collected again by the cold air return and put through the ringer again.

As your air filter picks up more dust, hair and other airborne particulate, it gets harder for the air handler to suck air into the system. Eventually, you’ll find yourself in a position where the filter is so dirty that there’s almost no air flow and, therefore, no climate control. Strangely enough, most homeowners aren’t ever told how often to change their filters — the three month estimate on a lot of filter packages is a ridiculous overestimation of how long that filter will last.

Instead, HVAC experts recommend you check your filters at least once a month and replace them any time they start to look dirty. The higher your filter’s MERV rating, the more frequently it’ll need to be changed. This doesn’t mean you should seek out a filter with a low MERV rating, though. Too low of a MERV rating will leave your HVAC system vulnerable to dirt and dust collection inside the system, rather than on the filter. For most homes, a MERV of 7 or higher will filter out the stuff you really don’t want in the air, like mold spores, pollen and dust and protect your system.

If it’s been a while since you changed the filter and the system’s still kicking on, just blowing the wrong temperature, start at the filter. Change it, even if it’s only discolored. This can indicate that the tiny passages in the paper are clogged.

Awkward Conversations About Condensation

Plenty of people who are fairly hands-off when it comes to home maintenance don’t realize that their systems have something called a condensation line. This is essentially a tube that moves water from the air handler to a drain or outdoors, depending on the way your system is configured. Sometimes, your system will do something weird like kick on and off again rapidly or simply not cool properly as the only sign that your condensation line needs help.

In a modern HVAC system, the air from your cold air return is pulled across a special tent-shaped coil system that gets really cold when the gases inside are compressed. As that warm air passes and is cooled, it drops much of the liquid it was holding and that water collects in a pan below the coil. From there, the water goes into a dedicated line or vinyl tube, the condensation line, and out of the house.

When the condensation line is blocked, this process is disrupted. Some air handlers are designed to essentially stop working until the standing water is removed from the pan, others will simply spill everything into the floor, which is not a good time. This is why it’s usually recommended that you flush that condensation line every time you change your HVAC filter.

If you suspect a clogged condensation line, flushing it with straight vinegar or a diluted vinegar/ hot water mix can get the water out of the catch pan and restart the air conditioning party.

Have You Tried Turning it Off and Turning it Back On Again?

Hey, if it works for computers, televisions and all manner of electronics, turning it on and turning it off again should work on your air conditioner, should it? The truth is that your HVAC system is not your granddad’s system. There are plenty of computerized parts that are necessary for it to do its job property. When you’ve tried replacing the filter and you’ve cleaned the condensation line until it’s allowing water to flow free and neither of those things worked, it doesn’t hurt anything to reboot the system.

Most HVAC systems have at least two breakers in different parts of the house. Your air conditioner, for example, should have a double-wide breaker inside your main breaker box, as well as a breaker on the outside of the house. This outside breaker is housed in a little box of its own, hanging on the house very close to the outdoor unit.

Both of these need to be reset, since the problem could be anything from a computer that’s simply confused or a partially tripped breaker that was the result of a particularly windy night. Start by flipping the breaker inside your house to the “off” position, then go to the outside breaker box. Depending on the type of electricity interruption technology inside, you may just need to flip a switch, or it may require that you pull the fuse out and put it back in. Once you’ve done that, you can go back inside and turn the power in the main breaker box back to “on.”

De-cluttering 101

Of all the things that you can do to get your home ready for the market, there’s nothing as effective or inexpensive as decluttering. Not only does it allow you to really showcase the best features of your home, it helps you get ready to move and to possibly shed some items you really don’t need anymore anyway. Two birds, one stone.

A proper decluttering can be a big project, though. It’s important to have a plan before you get started.

Decluttering 101: Getting Started

The goal of decluttering for a home sale is to make your house appear as large and functional as is possible within its structural limitations. Obviously you’re not going to turn a 12 foot by 12 foot living room into a massive parlor simply by getting some stuff out of the way, but as with anything you’re looking to sell, it’s a good idea to put the best foot forward possible.

Removing clutter helps rooms feel more open and airy, so make this the hard focus of your life until it’s totally done. Bringing in some friends who will give you an honest opinion can also help you find more things to get out of the house before your Realtor comes to take the photos for your listing.

These tips can help you stay focused:

1. Begin at the beginning. The first thing a potential buyer is going to see is the yard, then the driveway and then the front door. These areas need to be very neat and tidy or else they’ll simply stay in the car and drive away. You don’t want to waste a lot of energy inside for buyers to be turned off because your front porch is covered in shaggy planters and old patio furniture.

2. One room at a time. There are any number of apps for planning big projects like this, so pick one and get to making a list. Every room in the house, even closets and hallways, should have their own entry. Break the effort into the smallest chunks possible to make it easier to accomplish. The more you check off, the better you’ll feel and the more momentum you’re going to build.

3. Do you really need all that furniture? Rooms crammed with furniture are great for get togethers, but they’re terrible for showing a buyer how they can use the same space. All they can see is your furniture, so get as much of it out of the way as possible. Leave the pieces that are the nicest or the newest for the very best first impression.

4. Clean all the counters off. It’s the easiest thing in the world to get into the habit of using your counters for storage, but when buyers see this practice, they just assume you don’t have enough storage. nobody wants a house with not enough storage — that’s probably the reason they’re looking for a new place to begin with.

5. Clean the showers. It’s an incredible hassle and something you probably only do when company is coming, but assume that company will be coming every day until closing from now on. Black mold on shower grout is an huge turn-off. Those buyers won’t know that you haven’t cleaned the back shower stall since 1989, they’ll just see that black mold and leave.

6. Your collections have gotta go. Yes, you have the most amazing collection of paperclip stick figures ever assembled, but they don’t need to be on display. In fact, they’re probably standing between you and a potential buyer right now. Pack them up, get them out of sight, make the room where you keep them look enormous.

7. Declutter the garage and storage buildings, too. Oh, don’t think we’ve forgotten about these guys. They’re great places to dump stuff you don’t want to get rid of, but don’t know where to put, but that potential buyer is going to want to know if their own stuff that they can’t figure out what to do with will fit in that space. Clean that garage and those storage buildings up and, if necessary, install some heavy duty shelves or racks to give them some appearance of organization.

Where Do You Put The Decluttered Clutter?

Once you’ve sorted out the things you can live without for a while, you have to decide what to do with them. You have a few options. You can sell them, maybe make a little bit of cash at a resale shop or a garage sale. You can keep them, but in a storage unit somewhere away from your home. You can recycle them. You can donate them. Probably, realistically, you’ll do a few of these things, depending on the clutter.

Whatever you do, don’t keep them in the boxes in your house. That defeats the entire purpose of decluttering. Remember, you want to make your house look huge, not like a tightly packed storage unit. So banish the boxes, clear the clutter, make it go far, far away. You’ll also be mostly ready for your move, should you sell that house quickly because of how clean and shiny it is, so that’s nice.

Remodeling surprises...

Congrats! Your fixer-upper is well on its way to be a fixed-upper now that you have a remodeling plan in place and a way to pay for it. You’re almost certainly imagining how lovely a soak in that new bathroom will be after a long day at work or how many family members you’ll be able to pack into your newly opened-up kitchen and dining area. The one thing you’re not thinking about right now is what could possibly go wrong.

That’s ok. We’re here to toss a little storm cloud over your remodeling plans, or at least bring you down to Earth a bit so you’re not blindsided by things you might have never thought to prepare for when redoing your home.

Surprise! Your Remodel Just Got Weird

When you chose your home, you knew it needed work. That wasn’t really a shocker, even as the list from the home inspector seemed to go on and on forever. But now that you’re about to dig in and tackle those projects, now is really the best time to prepare for as much as you can. The older your house, the more surprises you’ll likely find — time has a way of doing that to homes.

Houses constructed more than about 30 years ago were largely built to whatever code seemed fancy in the moment. It wasn’t until 1997 that the International Code Council published the first edition of the International Building Code, which has been updated and reissued every three years since. Before that, many homes were built professionally, but when it came time to remodel anything there were zero standards to hold anyone to. Basically you can kind of think of your home as a time capsule of the most terrifying variety.

Or, you know, it might be totally straightforward. There’s literally no way to know until you get started. So, are you ready?

A Few Surprises to Watch For

No matter how well you think you know your house, you should make sure you’ve got a respirator that can filter both lead paint and asbestos, as well as gloves and work clothing that will protect you from anything before you even think about getting started. These things aren’t a small investment, but if you want to do the work yourself, you need to protect yourself just like a pro would. There are so many things that can jump out and bite you during a remodel, this list contains a few of the most common:

Hidden metal, pipes and wiring. If you’re taking out walls or even taking out tiles with the hopes of replacing them with something more modern, you may discover that your wall interiors are a whole other world. Behind your kitchen’s wet wall, there’s a maze of pipes that snake around to nowhere. Your bathroom has random metal plates just stuck in the wall under some tiles. And, this wire… it goes nowhere. It should go without saying that you should always use tools that have non-conductive handles when you’re working in walls and behind objects that you can’t see through.

Surprise mold and pests. Surprise! You have mold and termites! Wait, that’s a bad thing… hopefully you had a home inspection and a termite inspection that would have found this problem ahead of time, but if you’ve owned your house a few years, pests and mold certainly could have popped up over time. Termites will likely require professional treatment (check the HomeKeepr community for a great pest control pro!), mold is a mixed bag. Some molds are very dangerous for people to breathe, but others are just kind of always in the environment.

At this point, you need to put all the tools away and have a mold test done. While you’re waiting for the results, figure out where the source of moisture that’s keeping this part of your house moist enough to let the various flora and fauna thrive is coming from and repair that problem right away. You may have to adjust your construction budget, but there’s no vessel sink that’s worth ignoring a termite-eaten sill plate.

Dry. Rot. Dry rot comes from similar conditions as mold and pests, but there’s not a pest or mold around. It’s just that your house is sort of rotting. This is not awesome, but it’s an easier fix than some things. Depending on the extent and location, you may want to bring in a structural engineer to assess the amount of repair that’s going to be needed to get your house back into shape.

A really good handyman or general contractor can take it from there. Structural repairs are not really a DIY situation, but if the dry rot is on outside trim pieces or somewhere your engineer doesn’t think is going to influence the way your house functions, go ahead and fix the source of the damage, replace the damaged boards, seal them and get back on track.

Poorly done prior work. This is what you’re hoping to avoid with your current remodel, so take photos as a sad remember that someday, someone else will Instagram your poorly done remodel if you don’t take this seriously. Whatever you uncover, you’ll need to correct it before you move forward. Don’t put good repairs over bad ones, you might as well not bother to remodel your home at all.

Really gross stuff. Homes that have had less than perfect owners or tenants often have less than perfect secrets. Sometimes they verge on the horrific when it comes to the gross out factor. Anything from lively, active pest infestations to evidence of old pest infestations that were completely out of control could be hiding under those layers of wallpaper. It’s alarming what an insect can hide under and still manage to completely disguise itself. (If you find something of this level, you’ll know — call a pest control pro immediately, you do not want to DIY this!)

Really illegal stuff. Sometimes a fixer upper or a repo has had a pretty sketchy history. Illegal activities, especially related to drugs, are not uncommon reasons for someone to lose their home. Most blogs on the topic of surprises in remodels won’t touch on this, but this is a very important consideration if you don’t know anything about the house. The very last thing you want is a needle with an unknown substance and origin falling on you from a drop ceiling you’re taking out piece by piece.

If you find drugs or paraphernalia during your remodel, call your local police department (not 911) for help with proper disposal. Make sure you have all the paperwork with you that proves you just bought the house and make it clear that you want to surrender these things you’ve found during your remodel that are absolutely and in no way related to you. Once it’s all gone, it’s all gone and you can move on like nothing happened. Yet another reason to wear gloves and protective clothing.

Really historical stuff. So as not to send you out on your remodeling adventure on a bad note, let’s talk about something fun you might find. Sometimes, if you’re really lucky, you’ll find some neat historical stuff. You probably won’t see it in an easy to access place, but if you have some built-in cabinets that you’re trying to refinish, for example, make sure you look under and beneath all the drawers. Subfloors might yield coins of unusual age, basements and attics can have all sorts of treasures in them.

These things might not make the Antiques Roadshow, but they’re fun mementos to keep around and they’ll help you tell the story of your home, assuming they’re fit for mixed company.

What stays and what goes in a home sale??

You’ve finally found the home of your dreams. It’s perfect, the price is right, the neighborhood is wonderful (and walkable!) and it has some really awesome appliances. But when you go to your final walk-through, you’re shocked to discover that those awesome appliances have been removed, with absolutely no clue left as to their current whereabouts. Well, that certainly can’t stand! Where are the appliances?

You stop in your tracks. Dead in your tracks. And you utter the words no Realtor ever wants to hear, “I’m not closing.” Your Realtor calmly pulls up the listing information on their phone to check the status of the appliances. Then they have a heart to heart with you about appurtenance.

Appurtenance and Private Property

There are few concepts within the real estate world that bring more tears, screaming and actual legal fights than appurtenance. This is basically a sort of wavy line between where real property (like a house or a piece of land) starts and private property (like a bird feeder or a stove) ends. Because so many homes are shown while occupied, there are usually a lot of things inside that don’t go with the house when it’s sold.

You’d never assume that piano stayed or that the couch was a gimme with the home, those are fairly clear-cut pieces of private property you know not to plan on owning. But there are also things that are a lot hazier. For example, that freestanding range or the neat light over the kitchen bar. These things are less straightforward. After all, every kitchen needs a range, right? And that light fixture, it’s just a light fixture, so whatever — you’ll just replace it with something cheaper when it’s time to move.

That’s not actually how it works, though. Appurtenance means, essentially, that an item belongs to the house. It’s not yours or the new owner’s, but instead it sort of travels with the property. In a very basic example, you could say that a pool and the pool house are appurtenant. They clearly go with the property indefinitely, until they’re destroyed. No question there.

The Appurtenance Litmus Test

A pool is one thing, but that stove, that light fixture, even a satellite dish, these are quite different questions. How do you know when they stay or go? First, you should always check the listing carefully — often your answers are spelled out right there. But if they aren’t, there’s a litmus test you can use to help better understand what “belongs.”

Ask yourself, “Is this item meant to be permanently attached to the house, and if so, will it damage the property if it’s removed?” It’s a two-part question that is always in the same two parts. First, it has to have been attached with the intent of being permanent. Secondly, it has to cause cosmetic or structural damage if it’s taken out.

This means that the freestanding stove, which is only plugged in and pushed between two cabinets, is in no way appurtenant. The light fixture, however, was installed in a permanent fashion, so it is appurtenant. The piano is still completely off-limits.

It’s not that this concept by itself is so difficult to understand on the surface, it’s more that some people have different ideas of what “permanent” and “damage” mean. Let’s look at another example. Say there’s a really cool television mounted above the fireplace in the house you’re interested in buying. You assume it’s appurtenant because it’s attached, right? It’s mounted in the brick, so taking it down would damage the fireplace.

Yet, the seller takes that television when they move, but they kindly leave you the brackets so you can install your own television in the same spot. You scream bloody murder. Your Realtor points out that there’s no damage and the bracket is still attached to the fireplace. In this case, the television itself wasn’t actually appurtenant, but the bracket was.

A Few Tips for Determining What Stays

Buying a house is stressful, and there’s nothing good about making it more stressful by introducing concepts like appurtenance, but it’s also no fun to be blindsided at your final walk-through, either. Even if you’ve never done a single DIY project in your life, these questions should help you figure out if that thing you really hope is staying will actually hang around after closing:

Is it plugged in? Obviously, there are exceptions to this rule, but for the most part, if something’s plugged into the wall, it’s not appurtenant. Garbage disposals break this rule because they are often plugged in, but they’re also permanently attached in other ways, so you can generally assume they’re going to be waiting for you like a puppy dog after a long day at work.

Was the surface material broken to install it? Let’s say the thing you’re now worried about is a satellite dish and it’s installed on the chimney. You can see from the ground that it’s just strapped up there with sturdy plastic straps. Because the method of attachment is considered non-permanent (aka. It doesn’t damage the surface material), that satellite can be removed by the seller. If they leave it, you should seriously think about having one of your HomeKeepr pros attach it more solidly, though.

Is the item required to make the property function? This is a little weirder of a question, unless you’re already thinking about your house as one giant thing made up of lots of little systems. All those little systems have to be in balance to make it work, from the gutters to the soffit vents. Let’s say that your sellers ran off with all the downspouts from the gutter system (this would also be a weird thing to take, but this is a very fictitious example). Although they’re not permanently affixed to the house, they are a part of the gutter system, which is required to keep water from running under your house and into the basement. Those downspouts could be argued to be appurtenant since they’re part of a necessary system.

You can think about this concept in terms of items that belong to your house, if that makes it easier, but you have to keep in mind the intent and damage aspects, too. If you’re going to try to fight a seller for an appurtenant item, however, make sure it’s worth the cost. These battles can literally take years and cost much more than it would to simply replace the item. Sometimes it’s worth the effort, sometimes it’s not. Your agent can give you advice on what to do if your walk-through turns into an alarming episode of cataloging missing pieces.

What to Do After Storm Damage

There’s little worse than waking up in the morning after a big storm, only to discover that your house (and probably a few trees) aren’t exactly in the same condition you left them when you went to bed. You probably even let out an audible groan, since you just know it’s going to be a whole day of making calls and explaining over and over again what’s happened in order to get the right help out to your house.

If you’ve never handled a storm damage claim (or other homeowner claim), you know it can be incredibly intimidating. There are things you can do to help yourself and other things that will seriously hinder you. But, armed with the right information, your claim and clean up will be a (relative) breeze.

What to do Immediately After a Storm

Your first instinct after a storm is probably to start cleaning up and making repairs. It’s a natural next step, there’s no doubt about it. But, the problem with this is that if you start to clear the problem away, it’s going to be very difficult for your insurance adjuster to figure out what actually happened in the night. Here are some dos and don’ts for the hours to days after a storm:

Do take lots of photos of the damage as soon as possible. Anything can happen between the time when you realize you have damage and when the adjuster shows up. So document, document, document. Get lots of photos from lots of angles so they can put together a complete picture of the situation. Every detail helps.

Don’t remove anything that isn’t going to contribute more damage to the house. If there’s a tree on your roof and it’s poking through the attic, you’re going to have to clear some of that away. If there’s a tree on your roof, but it’s small and just sort of lying there, it’s probably not hurting anything. The same goes for any sort of debris that might be hanging around. Don’t touch anything you don’t have to.

Do stabilize serious problems like leaking roofs. The tree that’s punched into the attic is a big deal. You’re going to have to act on this to prevent further damage. Either call one of your HomeKeepr home pros or grab the chainsaw and clear it carefully from the roof. Then cover the hole with a tarp or take other temporary measures. The key here is temporary. You should not attempt to fix this permanently now. Again, the insurance adjuster needs to look at it first.

Don’t hire any roofers or other repair companies that are canvassing your neighborhood. If your whole neighborhood was hit by high winds or other severe weather, expect to be almost immediately mobbed by canvassing roofers and handymen. It’s not that they’re terrible people, but you need to know what your insurance is prepared to cover before you hire anyone. You generally have the option to choose your own repair people, within a reasonable price range, so do collect all the cards they bring by.

Once the Insurance Adjuster Arrives

When the adjuster lands at your house, be kind. Remember that they’re probably severely overworked at the moment, since your whole town was ravaged by the same storm. They do want you to get back to normal as soon as possible, but they’re just not physically able to help everyone at once. It’s no fun to suffer a storm gladly, but patience is a virtue.

They’ll take a look at the damage, possibly bring in a home pro to do a more detailed evaluation and then you’ll wait some more. Make sure that you show them everything you have while they’re at your doorstep, from the photos you took right after the storm to the measures you had to take to stabilize the damage. The more complete the details, the easier it is for them to figure out how much it’s going to cost to fix your house.

Get their phone number, just in case you have anything else to send them. An email might also be appropriate. Staying in touch at this point is going to be vital, since there could be things you’ll need to do to keep the process moving along. This might include meeting home repair experts at your home to provide quotes, sending those quotes over to the adjuster and so forth.

A Few Things That Can Go Wrong

Dealing with storm damage is stressful. There’s just something intrinsically awful about being so inconvenienced by random acts of nature, but chances are good that you’ll have to go through it once or twice. Depending on where you live, however, it can become a much bigger problem than just a basic hassle. Your insurance may not cover your damage because you weren’t carrying the right type of coverage. This is a good place for a dramatic gasp.

If you’ve not had a storm yet, you’re going to want to check your policies to see if the following items are included or if you have a separate policy or rider to cover them:

Sewage backups. Yes, it’s true that your basic homeowner’s policy probably won’t cover a sewage backup, even if it’s caused by surging storm drain water. Not only is this about the worst thing to clean up ever, it can be costly if you have a finished basement or other area that would need to be completely gutted in order to repair.

Flooding. Most flood insurance policies are issued through FEMA via the National Flood Insurance Program. The cost is relatively minimal, but because so many people assume they’re covered against floods under their homeowner’s, they don’t bother to look into this at all. The odds are good that your basic homeowner’s policy is not going to cover any water that seeps in from outside, though. You should call your agent to verify this information, but certainly don’t blindly trust you’re good to go.

Wind damage. In states where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plains (or where hurricanes are common), you may not have enough wind coverage with just a basic insurance policy. Often, there are serious restrictions on how much your policy will pay (usually as a percentage of the policy, not the actual cost of damage) and on what kind of damage it’ll pay it. Make sure you’ve got wind damage coverage that will pay out enough if you ever had to use it.

Vehicle damage. If a tree falls on your car during a windstorm and no one is around to see it, is it covered by your homeowner’s insurance? No. Not usually, anyway. That would be a job for your car insurance, so make sure it’s ample if you’re in a storm-heavy area. The only cases where you could pretty much count on the car being covered by your homeowner’s is if the car were inside the garage and then the garage fell on it. Even then there may be some limits.

April Steve & Jack's Home News

Happy Spring...I think. This past weekend just wasn't even funny. With people on spring break and spring officially here (at least on the calendar), getting dumped on this weekend was not how we wanted to start spring.

We hope, if you are going on spring break that you are going somewhere warm and sunny and bring some back with you to get us firmly into spring. We are headed to Brigid's parents' place in St. Pete for a few days with the girls and that will be a welcome respite.

Our BIG news is that Jack and Mary Anne have sold their house!! After almost 40-years there, they finally decided they didn't need the space or upkeep and are building a ranch home in Fishers just down the street from Michelle. We sold it to a family who attends St. Pius X Church where Jack and Mary Anne attend before it even went on the market. This is a nice family and Jack and Mary Anne feel very comfortable with them buying the house. This is all very bittersweet. Selling the family homestead after all of these years is hard, but it was the right decision, no question. There are so many memories we have had in that house. So many memories... It certainly makes a real estate agent even more empathetic toward selling his clients' houses after so many years. While not having emotional involvement is certainly a very good thing, having empathy is so important. This underscores that, to be sure.

Mary Anne continues to recover very well from her knee replacement surgery and is walking without any assistance or pain. She still has more recovery to go, but is well on the downhill.

Brigid has been traveling a lot more with her job and position as Region Analyst. She is working very hard, but really enjoys the challenge and working with all of the managers. Ana is continuing to work on her music with some huge Indianapolis Children's Choir concerts behind her. Her Night in Rome concert was absolutely stunning. She continues to practice her music for her 3-week trip to Europe this summer and has finally learned all 17 songs. Tali has just one meet left of her gymnastics' season. She placed 1st on floor, 2nd on bars, and 6th on vault and 5th All-Around at her State meet last weekend, which qualifies her for Nationals. We are very proud of her accomplishments and look forward to another great season next year.

**One of Steve's friends and clients is directing a play at The Attic Theater at the Elwood Opera House. We are one of the sponsors and have 4 FREE tickets to give away to one of the shows on April 4-7. See the link for more information.
The first two people to contact us about these tickets and mentions 'Our Town' will win a pair of tickets to a show of your choosing.

We are sending out again a limited number of printed newsletters each month. If you would like to receive one, please let us know and we would be happy to add you to the snail mail list.

The real estate market is white hot right now! We are seeing record-low inventory and lots of buyers. See below stats for February 2018 vs. February 2017:

New Listings-2,850 units-DOWN 8.7%
Pending Sales-2,519 units-DOWN 1.2%
Closed Sales-2,146 units-UP 8.2%
Median Sales Price-$167,500-UP 10.2%
Average Sales Price-$196,729-UP 4.7%
Percent of Original List Price Received at Sale-95.2%-UP 1.3%
Total Active Listings Available at Month-End-6,845-DOWN 19.4%
Months Supply of Inventory-2.2 months-DOWN 24.1%

Prices are up and inventory is at record lows. If you are even THINKING of selling your home, please call us so we can consult with you and provide you with your options.

Finally, we are hosting a Recycle/Shred Day at our office at 11550 N. Meridian Street, Carmel, IN 46032 on April 28th. We will accept just about anything, so if you have anything you wish to recycle or shred, please stop by. It is absolutely FREE!!

Our newest team member Julia is doing absolutely fantastic!!! We are so happy to have her helping our clients. We hope you will meet her soon. She usually attends our Happy Hours, so please stop by to say hello at our next one on Wednesday, April 18th from 5-6:30PM at Matt The Miller's in Carmel. We had a fun group last week and hope you can join us in April.

Check out our April newsletter here

Check out our real estate app here

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Improving Your Home's Appeal...

When you’re thinking about selling your home, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with the details. Should you paint the front door? How about changing out that fixture in the dining room? Do you need to redo the floors or will a good deep cleaning be enough? So many questions, so many tasks that you suddenly feel are each the most important thing that must be done right away.

Anyone who has ever staged a home for sale, however, will tell you that the number one thing that you should do to get your home ready — before you start tearing out carpet or painting doors — is to make it feel light, bright and airy.

Buyers Are Always Looking for More Light

We’re creatures of the woods and savannahs, there’s an animal part of every person that wants more light, more light. It’s the same reason that people suffer from things like seasonal affective disorder: we need more light in our lives. Light also makes your home feel bigger when compared to other houses with the same basic square footage, so it’s sort of a win-win here.

Too many sellers overlook this simple notion, instead opting to choose trendy colors to try to appeal to buyers. They paint their dining rooms a dark scarlet, or choose lighting that isn’t nearly bright enough, creating a home that’s more cave-like than house-like. These same sellers wonder why they can’t find a buyer for their enclave, as potential after potential comes in for a look and immediately runs for the door.

But you’re not one of these sellers. You’ve come to the right place for some tips to make your home more appealing by bringing in more light, both real and artificial. These simple tricks can make a huge difference to your home’s first impression.

Let’s Let in the Light!

There are three kinds of light you need to be aware of when you’re looking to brighten your home: the natural light that comes from windows, doors and skylights, the artificial light that comes from your light fixtures and that light that’s bouncing off the walls and around the room.

Natural light is simple to harness, just:

* Clean your windows until they sparkle. Even those fine layers of dust and dirt can block light transmission, making your home feel dark and dreary.
* Remove heavy drapes. If you must have curtains, opt for sheers or lace panels. Sheers will still set off the windows like a heavy drape, but let most of the light from outside come inside.
* Leave every window blind open once your house is on the market. This is a huge mistake a lot of sellers make. Instead of leaving their windows open so that the first thing a potential buyer sees when they walk through the door is a bright and beautiful home, they close the blinds for fear that people will look into their home since it’s for sale.

Artificial light isn’t too tough to get a handle on when you:

* Clean the globes on all your light fixtures. The glass globes on ceiling lights and those glass shades on your ceiling fans can be run through the dishwasher on the top rack. They’ll come out clean as a whistle and able to let more light pass through.
* Replace dim bulbs with much brighter ones. You’ll be surprised how much different your living room looks when you replace the four 40 watt bulbs in your ceiling fan with four 75 watt bulbs. You can certainly overdo this, but it’s hard in rooms of any substantial size.
* Choose blue. Replacing those orange-tinted light bulbs with full spectrum bulbs may seem like a pointless hassle, but this small modification will make your interior feel like it’s full of more of the natural light that’s coming in through the windows. More natural light is almost always better.
* Consider the room size. There are times that choosing the brightest bulb in the box is the wrong way to go. Rooms that are small or narrow, like bathrooms, may be better served with slightly less lighting. You’ll have to use your judgement on that, but keep in mind that no one wants to walk into a small space and be blinded by the artificial light inside.

Light that’s bouncing around the room needs to keep bouncing, so:

* Choose brighter colors to reflect more of the ultraviolet spectrum. The more white involved, the more light it reflects, which then bounces off the other light colored walls, making the room seem big and airy. Stark white is not a great choice, it often makes a home feel too institutional, but a buttercream, barely gray or other almost-not-tinted color can really brighten up a room and get that light moving.
* Minimize dark design elements. It’s not just the walls that can absorb too much of the light in your home, making it feel like an underground bunker. The floors, ceilings and even the furniture in the room all affect how much light is moving around. Again, you don’t want to go totally white, but if you have a dark floor or your ceiling could stand to be painted, definitely make an effort there. Ceilings should be flat white for best results.
* Use mirrors strategically. Mirrors were way overdone in the 1980s and have kind of fallen out of favor since. It’s unfortunate, since they’re a great way to help direct light exactly where it’s needed. When you’re confronted with a dark room that seems to have no good solutions for light, try adding a mirror. For example, a mirrored closet door in a small bedroom with a single window can have a huge impact on the room, plus it’s a handy accessory.

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.

How to Pay for Unexpected Repairs

It was a dark and stormy night. The lights flickered once, twice and then BOOM! Everything went dark. As it turns out, it’s because a tree fell on your house and pulled down the weatherhead and, accordingly, the main power feed to your home.

That’s gonna hurt, right in the pocketbook. Although your insurance will almost certainly cover some of the cost, you’re still going to have to come up with the deductible and other related expenses (like meals) until it’s sorted. How’s that rainy day fund?

If it’s not awesome, you’re not alone. According to the Federal Reserve’s most recent “Report on the Economic Well-Being of US Households,” 44 percent of Americans can’t cover a $400 emergency without borrowing from elsewhere. While that’s a serious problem for the economy, we’re talking about you right now. One problem at a time.

Show Me The Money! Sources to Check for Emergency Funds

You’ve exhausted your couch cushions, checked all the pay phones for quarters (what’s a pay phone? Nevermind!), done some odd jobs for the neighbors and you’re still nowhere near having the cash to fix the gaping non-electrified hole in your life. This is getting unbearable and your boss is about to send you outside to give you a garden hose shower.

Something has to be done! But what? You can’t get blood from a stone, as they say. But sometimes you can get money from, you know, people. As it turns out, there are procedures in place for loans and grants that can help you rebuild and save you from the cold, icy experience of being sprayed down like livestock.

Loans are the Most Likely Source of Funding

Look, this isn’t going to be pretty, but it will get you by. You’re probably going to have to borrow from someone, somewhere. There are several different sources that will provide you with funds to help with problems like major home repairs, these are listed below in order from overall best option to the least. But even the least among these options is better than nothing.

Home equity loans. There are two types of home equity loans available, the original home equity loan and a loan that’s more like a credit line, called a HELOC. Both have fairly good interest rates as of the writing of this blog, assuming you have decent credit, and can be secured pretty easily. The one caveat is that you generally can’t tap more than 80 percent of your home’s total equity, so if your mortgage is already taking up 75 percent of that, you may not have enough equity left to fix the weatherhead. Your home will act as security for the home equity loan, just like with your mortgage, so make sure you can cover it every month.

If you can get a home equity loan of either type, they’ll have the longest terms and thus the smallest payments. As long as yours doesn’t have a prepayment penalty, you can always pay extra, but you’ll never be in a position where you’re scrambling to find the money to make a stretch payment. Talk to your credit union or the bank where you have your checking account or mortgage to get started with one of these loans.

Personal loans. Personal loans can be difficult to qualify for because there’s not generally any security involved, but if you can get one, they’ll do in a pinch. Since there isn’t any collateral, they process much faster than a home equity loan, getting that power turned back on faster. The downside is that you’re likely going to be paying a much higher rate than you would with a secured form of credit and the term will be much shorter, but you also don’t risk losing your home if you miss a payment.

401(k) loan. Oh ye of little faith, you thought that 401(k) was never going to do anything for you, didn’t you? Today it’s going to prove you wrong. Depending on how much of your funds are vested and how your specific 401(k) is set up, you can likely either take a loan out against your retirement fund or take a tax-free withdrawal based on a hardship exemption (consult with your financial advisor first).

Now, keep in mind that doing this means that you’re literally stealing from your future in order to have cold beer in the fridge. But, sometimes you have to do what you have to do. Make it up later by increasing your contribution by a percent or two, then maybe you won’t be sitting around eating pork and beans from a can when you’re in your 70s while reminding yourself that it was really important that you caught “American Idol” the week after the big storm.

Borrowing from family. Hey, don’t skip this one. Read all the way through. It’s no fun to ask family for money, but sometimes, you’re caught between a rock and hard spot. Or your bacon pops out of the frying pan into the fire. Or something. When things are rough, sometimes you have to go back to your people and grovel. You can probably think of a long list of cons for this one, but the pros include having someone who probably won’t foreclose and also your family member gets some interest, so that’s nice for them.

If you do borrow from family or friends who are like family, make sure to draw up a formal loan agreement. You can find something pretty basic online, you just need to make sure it includes the payment amount, the payment due date, the number of payments, the interest rate and the total amount borrowed so that everyone’s covered. Even though your parents would never sue you for the amount due, that loan’s a little more real when the pen goes to paper.

What About Free Grant Money That’s Free?

There are some grant programs out there, but they are very few and far between. Primarily, they go to people who are elderly, very impoverished and live in rural areas, but if there’s a grant program in your area, apply. It can’t hurt anything.

The biggest downside to grant money for a repair like yours is that they’re rarely in any hurry to get things done. Grants can be achingly slow, even if you’re approved right away. You probably can’t afford that kind of time investment. Just because it’s free doesn’t mean it’s not going to cost you a fortune.

One Last Stab: Service Provider Credit

Contractors across the country are stepping up their games and partnering with financial institutions to be able to offer you credit programs to help pay for those big and unexpected expenses. Just like doctors and veterinarians have teamed with Care Credit, there are specific partners for roofers, electricians and their kin. Not every contractor is taking advantage of these programs, nor does every construction expert have the staff or interest to even look into them, but it’s worth asking about.

A simple, “Hey, do you have any sort of credit program available?” can help you determine if you have to start selling excess organs on the black market to get the lights turned back on (don’t actually do that #NotADoctor). You might try calling a few different providers to see if you can find someone with a lender in place if you’re kind of out of options. You will very likely pay more for the service itself, since a contractor at that level will have more staff to pay, more overhead to cover and so forth, but it’s a trade-off. You pay for the additional customer support and you get back to life as you knew it before that dark and stormy night.

Look at Your Home through A Buyer's Eyes...

Selling your home is one of the most tricky parts of owning a home, really. There are always little projects that you meant to get to and didn’t, and things that probably weren’t perfect, but didn’t bother you enough to fix. You can’t possibly do everything to make your house like new before putting it on the market, but there’s a minimum level that most buyers will expect.

How many of those things left on your “to do” list absolutely need to become “to dones?”

Getting Ready to Sell that Home Sweet Home

Before you get too serious about selling, it’s a good idea to have your Realtor over for a quick walkthrough. They can give you a punch list of items they think should be updated, fixed or addressed in some other way before you sell your home. You never know when the right buyer will walk through the door, your house needs to be ready to go from the moment you put it on the market. Putting your best foot forward is key to sales success.

That doesn’t mean you need to completely gut and remodel your home, but you should make sure everything is in proper working order and ready for a new occupant. That can be a lot to wrap your head around, though. If you get overwhelmed, start with the list below.

Entry / Living Room

For most homes, the living room and foyer are a combo unit, but if yours are separate understand that this same advice applies to both. The moment that door opens, and even before it does, your potential buyers are forming an opinion of your home. What the open door reveals had better pack a punch (or at least not terrify them).

Make sure that the windows are very clean to let in as much light as possible, that all your light bulbs are in good working order, the flooring is clean and in good shape, any tile grout is intact and the walls are flawless. A neutral color is always a good idea, but white is kind of a turn-off for a lot of buyers. Blues, light grays, beige and creams are all good choices for paint colors.

Dining Room

Your dining room should follow the same advice as your living room, with one exception. Since there’s probably some amount of eating that happens in this part of the house, you’ll want to check the flooring to ensure there’s no staining or spots under the table.

This is a particular problem if there’s carpet. Do not attempt to cover spots with a rug, this could be considered a “hidden, latent defect.” Basically, it means that you’re hiding damage from a potential buyer. That’s a big fat no go.

Instead, call a professional carpet cleaner (you can meet one in the HomeKeepr community!) or just own it and try not to panic if the buyer asks for the carpet to be replaced or cleaned before closing.

Kitchen

The list of things in your kitchen can be long, but we’ll try to make it reasonable. Check all the items on this list, one at a time:

Appliances that stay with the home
• Are they fully functional?
• Do they have an attractive appearance?
• Do they match one another?
• Are they clean?

Kitchen sink area:
• Is the sink free of damage?
• Does it drain well?
• Does the disposal work?
• Does the sprayer work?
• Is the faucet leaking?

Counters, backsplash and cabinets:
• Do the counters have worn or burned spots?
• Are there grouted areas that are needing regrouted?
• Do the cabinet doors open and close properly?
• Is there water damage anywhere?
• Is everything clean and not tacky to touch?
• Do the cabinets have worn finish?

Bedrooms

Bedrooms are by far the hardest, especially if you have kids. If you’re going to have to live in the house until you find a buyer, invest in some storage systems — they’ll pay off in the long run. Organize everything as best you can to give the rooms the appearance of more space, clean the windows, install the lightbulbs, clean the carpets and instruct everyone to keep it tidy. If anything can be moved out to a storage unit, do it.

Bathrooms

Bathrooms are much like kitchens, they have a lot of wet, moving parts. That being said, they also have basically the same punch list. The only addition would be the shower or tub units. Check the faucets and showerheads for leakage and make sure there’s no mold on your tub or shower surrounds. Clean that stuff within an inch of its life and if you can’t get rid of the stains, recaulk. It’s an easy way to make that tub or shower look like you’ve never even used it.

Garage

There’s not a lot to do in the garage, but do make sure your door opener is functioning properly, that the wheels on the door are lubricated if it’s making a terrible sound when you open it or close it and that you’ve tidied the things inside as best as you can. If you don’t really use your garage, you can dress it up a lot by applying an epoxy coating to the floor. The DIY kits run around $100 and, although they don’t add any value to your home, they’re far more impressive than an old, stained concrete floor.

General Indoors

Overall, it’ll help a lot if you run around your house and make sure that all your lightbulbs are fresh, all the windows are cleaned, you remember to leave the blinds open during the day and that the paint makes each room feel bigger. The key is to bring in more light and then use lighter colors to keep it bouncing around the room. A new coat of white ceiling paint won’t hurt your efforts, either.

Paint is great for a lot of reasons. It can seal in smells you might have never noticed, as well as giving the house the scent of fresh construction. That smell paints a picture for a buyer that says this house has been taken care of and they can trust that it’s in great shape!

General Outdoors

When it comes to the great outdoors, keep your lawn mowed, trim your hedges, clean up any projects that you started and never finished. Landscapers, trash haulers and metal scrappers can help a lot with these tasks. You’ll also want to check out your roof and gutters to make sure they’re in good shape because your potential buyers will be doing the same thing.

The first thing a buyer sees is the view from the street, make sure you run out there during the outdoor prep work to check your look. When you start to wonder if you should actually sell this amazing house at all, you’ve probably got the curb appeal knocked out.

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!

Homeowner's Insurance...

Whether you’re buying a house or even thinking about it, you’re probably hearing a lot about insurance and how you need it. But there are so many kinds and you’re not really even sure which ones do what and if you actually need them all.

Car insurance was a breeze, there’s only the one kind — it’s either going to fix the car you run into or that car and yours, too (basically), but with home-related insurance, there are a lot of strange specialties, and other things that aren’t quite insurance, but act like insurance.

How will you know which you really need to protect your home and which are just a waste of your hard-earned cash? Let us walk you through it.

Insurance for Your House and Your Stuff: Homeowner’s Policies 101

If you rented a house before you bought, you may have had a watered-down version of this policy, often called a renter’s policy. These are meant to cover your things, should the house burn down or a tornado carry it off into the sunset. Renter’s policies are relatively inexpensive, running about $15 a month in most areas, so more landlords are making them mandatory parts of rental agreements. You’ll see a few similarities between your renter’s policies of the past and a homeowner’s policy.

A homeowner’s policy is designed to protect you, your family, your dwelling and your personal property from damage, both physical and financial, to some extent. Most policies are essentially the same, containing these components:

Dwelling coverage. Your lender will require that if your property is severely damaged, it’s able to recover the amount of the loan you’ve borrowed. This is what dwelling coverage is for, when it comes down to it. In the case that your house were a total loss, you’d have the option to either rebuild with those insurance funds or give them to the bank and own the lot free and clear (then you could rebuild with cash or sell the lot off).

Oh, but it gets better! Dwelling coverage will also cover major damage to your home, like when a bad wind or hail storm comes through and causes your roof to spring a leak. You will likely have a deductible around $1,000 or higher to deter you from making too many claims, but it is handy to have when big issues crop up.

It’s extremely important to note that while many acts of nature (tornadoes, fires, wind storms, etc.) are covered by your dwelling coverage, most policies specifically exclude floods, earthquakes and sinkholes. Check your policy carefully and ask your agent about additional coverage if you’re in a flood-, quake- or sinkhole-prone area.

Other structure coverage. Other structure coverage does exactly what it says it does: covers other structures. There’s usually a dollar cap, which is a percentage of the value of your home, but it can be applied to major damage to sheds, detached garages, fences, greenhouses and any other permanent structure you have on your property.

Personal property coverage. This is the part of the insurance policy that’s just exactly like renter’s insurance. If your property is damaged during a storm, stolen during a robbery or severely damaged by something out of your control, you can file a claim and possibly have some kind of reimbursement. Replacement cost coverage provides the amount necessary to replace your items, so if this is an option, choose it. Again, though, there is probably not coverage for flooding, earthquakes or sinkholes, so be ready to ask about it.

Personal liability coverage. If the neighbor pops by to bring you a pie and accidentally slips and is injured, you don’t have to worry about how much her hospital bills are going to be. Your insurance will cover it (to a specified amount). The same applies if your tree drops a limb on the neighbor’s roof and they sue you for the costs. Accidents happen, that’s what insurance is for.

Other things that are covered by this part of the policy may include dog bites that occur on your property, if you were honest with the agent and your dog wasn’t on a prohibited dog list (some insurance companies won’t insure homes with “pitbull” type dogs, German shepherd, rottweilers, and others). It’s essentially a general liability policy tied to your home, so if you can imagine an accident stemming from your family, it’ll probably cover it.

Loss of use coverage. Many homeowner policies will also pay for you to live elsewhere while your home is being repaired after major damage. This is the loss of use coverage portion of the policy. It, of course, comes with a cap, so don’t get too cozy at the Ritz. Your dollars — and days — are limited.

Additional Coverage. You can choose from a number of additional coverages, from extra coverage for valuable collectables to coverage for identity fraud, at an additional cost. Most of these extra coverages won’t apply to most buyers, but there’s one that you may want to consider if you’re buying a house with a basement or in an area with a high water table.

That’s the “Water Backup and Sump Pump Discharge or Overflow” coverage. Now, this still won’t cover flooding, but it will cover any water that’s forced back into your house through the sewer system due to excessive ground- or wastewater causing backflow in the sewage system. So, it’s not for flood waters that enter your house the normal way, but if they come in through the sump pump, you’re gold.

If you’re in an area where this is a possibility and the coverage isn’t much extra, definitely get this. The sheer nightmare that is water backup from a basement drain due to oversaturation is unspeakable and the smell unforgettable. You’re going to be happy to leave that one to the pros.

Flood Insurance: What’s That All About?

Flood insurance primarily comes up when you’re looking to buy a house sitting on a piece of land that has even a tiny corner poking into a floodplain. The fact that most homeowners don’t know they can buy flood insurance no matter where they live is a serious disservice to all of them, especially considering how many homes have been flooded in recent years without being located in flood plains. The issue usually comes up when your bank requires a flood insurance certification to process your home loan for a house in a flood plain, otherwise, figuring flood insurance out is in your court — and most people would rather skip the additional $600ish dollars a year.

That’s right. For $50 a month, your $250k home can be insured against flood damage. Or thereabouts, the price varies with your risk. Some homes are less, some are a bit more. This is the coverage that fills in the flood gap that your homeowner’s leaves totally open. It only pays on flood damage, and there are plenty of exclusions, including anything located in a basement or other room that’s below the level of the ground, but it’s a lot better than the nothing you’ll have otherwise. Ask your agent about optional flood insurance while you’re discussing homeowner’s.

The Seller Provided a Home Warranty, How Does This Figure In?

Getting a home warranty at closing is a good move. Although the companies behind them can sometimes be slow to get the wheels moving, they can protect you from major repair expenses in your early homeownership years. But, they can also be a little confusing because they sort of work like insurance, even though they aren’t technically insurance.

Home warranties help you cover the cost of repairs for common small household issues, like leaky plumbing, air conditioning hiccups and electrical shenanigans. You pay a portion of the cost of the service call, depending on what level of plan was purchased, and the warranty company pays the rest.

In this way, it behaves a bit like health insurance. Everyone pays into one big pot and the money is used where it’s needed. Not everyone will need to use their home warranty, but those people who do need it may require a considerably larger chunk than they contribute. Everybody understands that’s the deal when they sign up, though. They know they may not actually use the coverage, so it’s all on the up-and-up.



Wrap Your Home in a Warm Layer of Insurance Bubble Wrap

A lot of home buyers and homeowners think that insurance is a waste of money. After all, it’s designed so that you never use it. While that may be true, the fact remains that if you do need it, you’re really going to need it and there’s no take-backs. You can’t change your mind and load up on coverage after that giant tree has fallen through your bathroom ceiling.

For the relatively small cost (when compared to your house payment) of the right insurance coverages, it’s nice to be able to sleep at night without having to worry about what you’ll do if water comes in under the front door from the storm that’s brewing. Getting good insurance is a snap, too.

Cost vs. Value

You’ve lived in your home a little while and you think you sort of understand how it should flow. You’re starting to see the warts and little bits of rough that people tend to gloss over when the neighbors pop by to borrow the lawnmower. It’s not that these things make your home flawed — all homes are flawed, they’re made from flawed materials, after all — it’s just that your home could be better and like a skilled craftsman, you’re starting to see places where you could bring out greater potential.

But, which projects make the most sense to do first? Will any of them actually pay for themselves in gained home equity, or are these changes things you’ll have to consider sunk costs in your home and investments strictly in your own enjoyment? And furthermore, are there even changes you can make yourself that will be worth the bother? (Check out our downloadable guide for help in determining which projects are best left to the pros!)

Say Hello to Renovation Magazine’s Cost Vs. Value Report

For the past 31 years, Renovation Magazine has been trying to answer these and other questions by performing a national survey about home renovations and the resell values that tended to accompany them. It comes out early in the new year, giving everyone in the industry something to look forward to after the holiday season. The 2018 report was no less exciting than any other year has been, though there were few surprises.

For example, the top returns in 2016 and 2017 came from midrange fiberglass attic insulation, at 116.9 percent and 107.7 percent, respectively. This year, the number one spot went to another small project: upscale garage door replacements, recouping 98.3 percent of the job cost. In fact, this year’s Top 10 is almost entirely made up of smaller, more simple projects, just like the last two years have been, many of them the same projects, just in different slots.

There’s a helpful chart below to show what I mean.

What does this mean? Well, it means two things, especially if you dig deeper into the data. As a national average, the same projects have been worth making the investment in for the last few years and secondly, there are very few things you can do to your home and get the full cost back out.

Your home is like a piggy bank, but it has some sort of containment issue. You put in a dollar, it only manages to hold on to 90 cents. But, you can think of that loss as the price you pay for getting to use all that cool new stuff while you’re there. Maybe that’ll soften the blow a bit.

Ok, So What Bigger Projects Will Help My Home’s Value?

Again, according to the data provided by Remodeling Magazine’s well-respected survey, bigger projects that should get you some attention (and recoup decently on their own costs) this year include:

#4. Adding on a wooden deck. (82.8 percent)
#5. A minor midrange kitchen remodel. (81.1 percent)
#7. Replacing your windows with vinyl thermopanes. (74.3 percent)
#8. Upgrading your bathroom to a universal design. (70.6 percent)
#9. Just upgrading your bathroom, period. (70.1 percent)

You may notice a trend here. Kitchens and bathrooms are a big deal. They’re always a big deal. In fact, for most houses, it’s the kitchen and the bathroom that really sell the house. You can have the best curb appeal possible, but if your bathroom is difficult to use or your kitchen has no cabinets or non-functional work spaces, you put your money in the wrong places.

Curb appeal does matter, otherwise, that garage door and the stone veneer wouldn’t appear in the chart above so many times. People want to buy a nice looking home, which is what your home values are really based on. An appraisal is nothing more than a complicated calculation that determines what an average buyer would give for your house in its current condition in the current market, after all.

When you’re thinking about putting money into your home to increase the equity you hold or to improve its value for a sale down the line, just ask yourself if the thing you’re about to do is something that a random person off the street could appreciate. For example, do not paint your ceiling blood red. No matter what HDTV says. Do paint an accent wall red if you really need to paint something.

How Do I Get Started on Bigger Projects?

If you’ve never been part of a larger remodeling project, you will most definitely need the guidance of a pro, at minimum. There’s a lot of planning and a whole box of tools (both literal and metaphorical) that it takes to put together an effort like that. After all, you want your project to look like it does in your mind’s eye, don’t you?

The New Personal Assistant...

Having a personal assistant is great. You have someone to set your appointments, find directions to your next meeting, even order a pizza for you. If you have the right kind of assistant, they’ll even turn on your television, open the shades, adjust the thermostat and turn on the lights. Once in a while they may think you’re asking for “pickled gallows” when you’re trying to have them add “pico de gallo” to your shopping list, but all and all, they’re pretty helpful.

There are at least nine ways that a smart assistant can make your life easier — we know because we put that many in our freebie companion download. Check it out while you’re here.

Personal assistants are so helpful that, according to our friends at Pew Research, 46 percent of Americans today take advantage of digital voice assistants like Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri. And why not? They work cheap, they don’t ask for bathroom breaks and they can make life a whole lot easier one little voice command at a time.

But which is the one to have? Who is properly suited to your smart home configuration?

Breaking It Down: Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri

The best minds of tech and business have put Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri head-to-head and each came back with the same results. There is no clear winner in the digital assistant world. There are some things that Alexa does phenomenally that Siri can’t and vice versa. Often, the best digital assistant is the one you like the most or that fits into your budget best.

So, instead of wasting your time with yet another face-off, let’s just talk about what each brings to the table so you can decide for yourself what you really want your digital assistant to do. Sound fair?

Alexa: Great for Shopping, Smart Home, Helping Out

Alexa wasn’t the first voice assistant, but she was the first to have smart home capability in mind, so it’s no surprise that she’s a big winner when it comes to integration with everything from light bulbs to home security systems and even those smart ovens and refrigerators. Alexa has 15,000 skills that you can enable, giving her the ability to do just about anything you can imagine.

Since she’s linked to Amazon’s massive shopping database, she’s also great at helping you find deals on items you may be interested in, reordering supplies you buy on the regular and keeping track of your shopping lists. A few clicks in the Alexa app gives her access to your Google calendar, allowing her to add or recite the day’s events.

As an added bonus, the standard Amazon Echo is a solid speaker for music or audio books. There’s even a second generation model available with a device hub already integrated to make connecting smart home devices easier. The price point on these two devices ranges from $99.99 to $149.99.

Google Assistant: Full of Answers, Gets Your Pizza Right

Google Assistant will work with some of the most popular smart home devices, with more being added all the time, but this isn’t really its bag. Like its parent, Google, Google Assistant is all about finding answers to everything and anything. If that’s the kind of assistant you need, then this is the one you want. Reviewers have proclaimed, hands down, that Google Assistant has the best voice recognition overall (and I can believe this because sometimes I wonder if Alexa needs her hearing checked), which leads to a lot less frustration in general.

Ordering food is a breeze with Google Assistant, provided it supports the food app you’re trying to use. Again, the third party support isn’t as huge as it is for Alexa, but Alexa had a two-year headstart, so in time there may literally be very little difference between the two as far as expandability goes. Google Assistant has a lot of the same features as Alexa, including a morning news briefing.

If you’re all about Google stuff and don’t mind to wait for Google Assistant to catch up to Alexa, the full size speaker has good sound quality and, of course, access to the Google Play store plus streaming services like Spotify for those spur of the moment dance parties. Priced around $129.99 for the standard Google Home speaker, you’ll be able to grow with the Google ecosystem.

Siri: The New Kid on the Block

Siri’s just now moving into the Apple HomePod, so what she’ll be capable of is anyone’s guess. She was finally freed from the confines of the smartphone on February 9, 2018. Now, you need only hand over $349 to Apple and you can have your very own speaker version. Like Google Assistant, Siri can do some smart home stuff, but she’s limited to Apple Homekit compatible devices. Because she grew up inside a telephone, though, she’s still pretty great at connecting you to friends and family, making her an awesome tool for hands-free calling from anywhere in your home.

Apple HomePod does a few things that no other voice assistant enabled speaker can do. First, it requires almost no setup, since it auto-detects where it is in the room by sending out audio blasts and listening for them to bounce back. That’s a pretty slick trick and ideal for anyone who struggles with technology.

Secondly, the folks at Apple have given a lot of thought to security and decided their best response was to untangle your searches from your account. Instead of associating your data with your name, Apple HomePod associates your data with random numbers, then deletes the associated data every six months. That way if the government were to request your data for some reason (like they think you’re the Scranton Strangler), Apple can honestly say they don’t know what data is yours and refuse to comply. This has roots in an old dispute with the federal government over the creation of a backdoor into the iPhone for surveillance purposes.

Make Your Home Smarter, Any Way You Can

Hey, it doesn’t matter which digital home assistant you choose in the end. They’re all going to make your life a lot easier in the end. (Did you download the article about how to get more out of these devices yet?)

Choose the one with the features you’re going to use the most. If you’re an Apple person, go with the HomePod, if you’re all in on Google, Google Assistant is going to just get smarter and better. If you’re a fan of all things Amazon, Alexa’s already pretty mature and has lots to offer a busy person who can’t always make it to the store.

When you’re ready to expand your smart home offerings to include things like security cameras, thermostats or that smart refrigerator, just open up HomeKeepr and you’ll find the right professional to help. They all come recommended, so you know you can trust that they’ll set you up with the right smart home equipment for the job you want to do.

Steve & Jack's March Home News

We are one month closer to spring!!! Apparently, the real estate market has gotten wind of this and has started 2018 with a BANG! We hope you are staying well, which this year, it seems is more of a challenge than ever!

Thank you to all of our friends, clients, and referral partners for attending our monthly Happy Hour last night at Matt The Miller's. We had a great time and always enjoy seeing you. Please join us for our next Happy Hour on March 21st from 5-6:30PM. We are looking for some sponsors this year as well, so if you are looking to get some additional exposure for your business at a very low cost, please let us know. We are filling spots now.

Our biggest and most exciting news is that we have an addition to our family! We are proud to announce that Julia Hayes has joined our team as a buyer/seller specialist. Julia has helped us several times when we have been out of town and has worked in our office for some time. She worked previously for a builder, so she is acutely aware of the building process and will be a great asset to our clients. Julia grew up in Carmel and swam for their record-setting State Championship Girls Swim Team and then also was a scholarship swimmer for IUPUI. Julia brings so much talent to our team and we are excited to have her helping us deliver an even higher level of service to our clients. Julia lives in Fishers and has two children. Please welcome Julia as you connect with her. Her e-mail is Julia@Welcome2Indy.com.

Kylie is simply amazing and keeps our team running so smoothly. She is the most organized person I know and our clients love how she keeps things on track. She is doing well and so are both of her boys, who keep her busy while not at work.

Jack and Mary Anne are doing great and we are so proud to announce that Mary Anne's knee replacement surgery was a complete success! She is recovering well and has exceeded all of her PT goals. She is walking around pain-free, but still has more work to do on healing before she is back to 100%. She would appreciate any continued thoughts and prayers.

Steve & Brigid are keeping busy, as usual. Brigid is very busy with work, not only doing pharmaceutical sales, but also is her region data analyst for her regional manager, which takes her out of town more often and adds quite a bit to her workload. She enjoys it and the opportunities it is providing. Ana and Tali are both doing great in school. Ana is enjoying singing in the Indianapolis Children's Choir and preparing for their next concert in March. She is also preparing for her 3-week European Tour this summer and has to learn 17-songs on which she is diligently working! Tali has continued to excel in gymnastics with several first-place finishes and is looking forward to going to her first out-of-town meet next weekend. We are all looking forward to a short vacation to Disney leaving today. A little sun and fun will go a long way!

The market is white hot right now with inventory at an all-time low. If you or someone you care about are thinking about moving, please call us. There is a lot of information we can share to educate you about your options, so you make the best decision possible. Check out the January stats from MIBOR comparing January 2018 to January 2017:

New Listings-2,483 units-DOWN 3.8%
Pending Sales-2,216 units-UP 3.1%
Closed Sales-1,901 units-UP 5.3%
Median Sales Price-$158,000-UP 10%
Average Sales Price-$192,732-UP 5.6%
Percent of Original List Price Received at Sale-94.7%-UP 1.3%
Total Active Listings Available at Month End-7,070 units-DOWN 18.4%!!!
Months Supply of Inventory/Absorption Rate-2.3 months-DOWN 20.7%!!!

Look at those last two lines above. Those are HUGE declines in inventory. We need more! Now is the time to sell before interest rates continue to go up. They have increased 50-basis points since January to 4.687%, the fastest increase since January 2006.

Thank you to all of our clients for your reviews on Angie's List!!! We have once again been honored for the 3rd consecutive year as a Super Service Award winner. We have also been honored for the 5th consecutive year as a 5-Star Real Estate Agent. Those are both the Top 5% of agents in the city. Thank you for your reviews and your trust and confidence in us. We will continue to work hard to earn it! Be on the lookout for a new referral-reward program for some cool new prizes!! So, send in those referrals. :-)

Do you like to golf? We are Corporate Partners with Heritage Place, which is a not-for-profit organization that services seniors through education and activities. We have been on the planning committee for the golf outing for 3-years now and sponsor a hole as well. We need more golfers! It is at Broadmoor Country Club on Thursday, June 28th and the fun begins at 9:30AM. It is a scramble, so more fun than serious. This is a private course, so if you have wanted to play, now is the time. Please contact me if you would like more information.

Please enjoy this month's newsletter and check out our next Builder Video Series video. Good info!

Click here to read our March Newsletter

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Your Friends in Real Estate,

Steve, Jack, Kylie, & Julia

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!