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Simple Things You Can Do To Make Your House Stand Out

This summer is a tough time to sell your house. But it's important to recognize that some homes are, in fact, selling. The National Association of Realtors is estimating that more than five million homes will change hands this year, and yours can be one of them.

One of the ways to make your home more appealing is to dress it up a little bit. Last week we talked about the importance of your home's condition in the selling process. This week I want to give you some quick and easy ways to make your home stand out from the rest:

* Buy a couple of pots of blooming yellow daiseies at the hardware store and place a pot on each side of your front door. Keep them well watered.

* Paint your handrails and the entire front door area to give your entry a fresh, clean look. And buy a new entry mat while you're at it. This is the easiest way to improve the first impression your home gives to visitors.

* Install a bright brass kickkplate at the base of your front door, and attach large brass house numbers to the door or entry area. Also, clean and polish door hardware, or replace, if necessary.

* Trim back all shubbery to well below the base of your window frames. It looks better from the street and lets more light into the house. Get all your shubbery under control.

* Clean out gutters and make sure there is nothing growing in them, such as seedling trees or volunteer vines. Make sure gutters drain away from the house by installing splash blocks if needed.

* Edge your yard deeply all the way around. That includes the driveway, street curb, and walkway to your front door. It gives your yard a manicured look.

* Seal or repair any cracks in your drive or walkway. If your drive is concrete, have it pressure washed. If it is asphalt, apply a "black top" preservative coating.

* Upgrade your mailbox and post. Replace what you got with a 6"x6" cross-post and an oversized shiny black mailbox. Add shiny new numbers to the post. Remember that your mailbox is making a statement before they ever see your house.

* I know this sounds obvious, but make sure the front yard is free of old newspaper and debris, and keep kids big wheels and bicycles out of the view of visitors.

And here are some quick improvements for inside your home:

* Walk through every room in your house and see what furniture you can do away with to make that room feel less crowded. Half empty rooms appear larger, while overstuffed rooms appear smaller than they really are.

* Store furniture and belongings that you can live without in a storage facility. Empty your closets of everything except the bare essentials for you to live there. Closets floors and shelves should be visible and largely empty.

* Avoid the trap of  moving your excess and oversized furniture from your house into the garage. Your garage should be clear of storage items, and should not have cars parked in it. An occupied garage looks and feels much smaller than it really is. Park your car around the corner and walk home if you have to.

* Consider painting the garage floor with floor enamel. Also, look at the new two-step garage flooring kits that create a durable and attractive epoxy finish with a minimum of cost and effort. They are available at home improvement stores.

* If you have any sort of basement, it should be very well lit and smell fresh and dry. Again, remove unnecessary boxes and store items so the area appears as large as possilbe. Install plastic sheeting over any exposed dirt to minimize moisture gain, and add a time exhaust fan if basement area smells like a hole in the ground.

* De-personalize your home by removing any decorations or personal items that might generate a negative responds from a visitor. I once showed a house where the owner had taken part in the liberation of a town during WWII. Appropriately proud of his service, this owner had the captured Nazi flag displayed on his den wall. Unfortunately, my buyers were put off, and chose to look elsewhere.

* In my experience, it's just best to remove all family photos, political mementos and religious symbols, regardless of their source or reason of being. Your goal is to neutralize your home for selling purposes.

* Make sure every lightbulb in your house is the maximum safe wattage for that fixture. It is important that your home appear bright and illuminated. And look for areas, such as your kitchen, where it might be worthwhile to replace an older fixture with a 2 or 4 bulb fluorescent fixture.

* In the bath, buy a new shower curtain. And if you have a small mirror over the medicine cabinet, replace it with a large wall mirror, maybe 36"x48", from the home improvement store. It will make the bath look and feel much larger.

These are some of the least expensive ideas that have worked for me over the years. You probadly won't want to implement every one of these tips, but just a few can make a positive impact in your potential buyer's experience.

John Adams, Atlanta Journal Constitution

  

  

Time To Lock in Your Mortgage Rate

Home buyers may find big savings in locking in mortgage interest rates.

Since mortgage interest rates are on the rise, home buyers can save considerable cash by locking in a reasonable rate.

During the housing boom, interest rates were extremely low-generally between 5.5% and 6.5% - and very stable. So borrowers often didn't bother to ask lenders to lock in their rates regardless of market fluctuations. If one good interest rate deal disappeared, another one was generally right around the corner.

But today the mortgage market is very volatile, and rates are trending upwards. So losing out on a good deal may mean it's gone forever. If a buyer sees a bargain, say experts, they should pounce.

"If you hear of a rate that seems to be much better than the rest of the market, get it in writing and lock it in," said Steve Habetz, a veteran mortgage broker in Connecticut.

Mortgage giant Freddie Mac (FRE, Fortune 500) reported Thursday that the average rate for a 30-year fixed stood at 6.25%, up from less than 6% in May.

Rates on the rise

A panel of analysts surveyed by Bankrate.com - including Cameron Findlay, the chief economist for Lending Tree.com; Mark Larson, real estate analyst at Weiss Research; and Dan Dowling, president of United Mortgage Capital Corp. - expect rates to go up in the next six weeks.

With the threat of inflation growing and investors wary of buying mortgage secutities, other forecasters have predicted will hit at least 7% by the end of the year.

For every half point interest rate increase, the monthly payment on a typical mortgage of $200,000 jumps nearly $70. That adds up to more than $800 a year, and in the first 10 years of a 30-year mortgage alone.

Locking in a rate is easy, as long as you have a contract or at least a binder on a home. Just tell your mortgage broker and he or she will give you a commitment in writing. Locks are available for as long as 60 days, according to Habetz, at a very low cost.

Locking in for 60 days may cost only an eighth of a point extra, turning a 6.5%?loan into a 6.625% one. Paying that extra eighth of a percent makes sense if the locked rate is below market, or if you expect rates to rise.?

"More than 60 days and the lender is usually looking for cash up front," said Habetz.

Habetz has an offer from Wells Fargo (WFC, Fortune 500) several weeks ago that beat anything else available. It was for a 5-year adjustable rate mortgage with an introductory rate of 4.875% - at least a full percentage point lower than competing offers.

"It lasted only two or three days," he said, "and all we had time to do was to get the customers we were already working with into the loan."

Those customers probadly saved themselves $5,000 or so for every $100,000 they borrowed over the first five years. The amazing part of this story, to Habetz, was that not all his clients took advantage of the offer.

Some of my customers said, 'That's an attractive offer. If it's that good, it will probadly get better," he said.

Wrong. It only got worse, and those people locked themselves out of a great deal.

But locking in your rate isn't entirely risk-free. After all, rates might actually go down.

"When rates go down," said Habetz, "most lenders won't take (your rate) down with them unless rates drop substantially. Then they may give you the new rate plus an eighth of a point."?

Certainty in an uncertain market, but that scenario appears unlikely.

Concerns about inflation are helping to push rate higher."Inflation has gone from the back burner to the front," said Greg McBride, a senior financial analyst for Bankrate.com.

At the same time, nervous investors in mortgage backed securities, are demanding higher rates for buying these bonds in what they deem a very risky market. That translates into higher rates for borrowers.

So locking in a good deal now should mean a lower rate for most borrowers. And besides saving them money, a lock should take some of the uncertainty out of financing a home purchase, since buyers can determine exactly what their monthly home ownership expenses will be several weeks before closing.

There are times in your financial life when you should be aggressive and there are times when you should be conservative," said McBride. "When you're buying a house and looking at mortage rates, that's a time to be conservative."