Buying a Short Sale Home? Keep This in Mind

One of the greatest myths in the world of real estate is that buying a home that’s in a pre-foreclosure state, or one that has already been foreclosed upon, will get you the very best deal possible. This is inaccurate for a number of reasons, though if you know what you’re looking at you can sometimes snag a bargain. There are a few things you need to know before making that leap the first time.

What is a Short Sale?

Short sales happen because a homeowner is in big trouble financially and needs to unload their house. They may be in a negative equity position (underwater) or simply lack the equity to sell their home. There was a time when homeowners had to miss a few payments before lenders would consider a short sale, but today there are conditions, like a sudden loss of income, that can make a short sale possible faster.

Short sales save the homeowner from a long and potentially credit damaging foreclosure. They save the bank from having to get lawyers involved to collect the home that’s collateral for the mortgage that’s in default. They don’t do anything for a buyer by design (that’s not to say that you can’t benefit from them, they just didn’t really consider buyers when creating this out for homeowners in trouble).

Buying a Short Sale Home: The Basics

To successfully navigate a short sale, you’re going to need a few things:

1. An experienced real estate agent. Writing a contract for a short sale is not like writing a contract for a standard home. There are usually a variety of clauses that must be included, as well as knowledge of what will and won’t be accepted in said contract to consider. Your interests have to be protected, which can really bloat a standard purchase agreement with a lot of extra verbiage.
2. A really good home inspector. When people ask their banks for permission to sell short, they’re not doing it because they’ve been spending all their extra money fixing up the place. Often, these homes are in some amount of disrepair due to neglect. When finances are tight enough to get a short sale approved, you can bet home improvements are far from the current owner’s mind.
3. Patience. It can take a very long time to get a short sale approved. If you’re looking to buy one as an investment, that wait might not matter, but if you want a place to call home, it’s going to be frustratingly long. This is because not only does the homeowner approve the contract, the bank has to, as well. If there are two or more banks involved, so much more the trouble. Buckle in, because it can take six weeks – six months — to close.
4. Liquid or liquidatable assets. Depending on the state of the home, you will likely have to put some money into it right away. A leaky roof and HVAC with issues aren’t cheap to fix.

It is highly recommended that you use a real estate agent to purchase a short sale. This point cannot be stressed enough. Short sales are not always deals, as stated above, because banks know what their property is worth — they’re not going to let you steal that house for a song. The banks involved are also unlikely to make repairs or give you any sort of concessions.

How Can Banks Afford to Do This?

The next time someone tells you that mortgage insurance is a waste and does nothing for anyone but the bank, remind them that MI is what makes short sales possible and often prevent long-term credit damage during a foreclosure. When a home qualifies to be a short sale, the bank is using proceeds from a claim against the mortgage insurance to make up the difference between what the sellers owe and what a buyer is giving.

MI can help prevent something known as a “bleeding foreclosure.” This is a foreclosure (or short sale) that has sold, but has a balance remaining that cannot be forgiven. Not all homes sold short will “bleed,” but it’s a potential in many states, especially if you’re not carrying MI on your mortgage. So, rather than pay extra every month for MI, you’ll be paying monthly for the outstanding balance on a house you no longer own.

Ready to Shop for Short Sale Homes?

Check out your local service providers in the HomeKeepr community. Not only can you find the best home inspectors, but you can be connected to electricians, HVAC installers, roofers, even bankers. You’ll know they’re good by the recommendations that your and other real estate agents have provided. Get your short sale team ready today at HomeKeepr!

Tips For Running a Successful Garage Sale

Awww, springtime. It’s a great time to go through the closets and find anything you’re not using. But what do you do with all that junk that’s no longer in your trunk? For lots of homeowners, the choice is clear: it’s garage sale time. Or it’s yard sale time. A garage is not a prerequisite for the sale part.

Running a Successful Garage Sale is Simple

There are so many things in life that people will remark, “if it was easy, everybody would be doing it….” when presented with a related struggle. This is not the case with a yard sale. They’re a lot of work, but they’re not all that tricky to pull off. If this is your first yard sale or you simply want to be sure you’re doing all you can to make it a success, these are tips just for you:

Check your insurance policy. Hey, it seems innocent enough until someone slips and falls and breaks a bone. Suddenly you’re on the hook for their medical expenses. Do you have enough coverage for this? Check with your agent before you start that big sale.

Label everything. It can be tempting to simply put things in bins that are labeled with prices, but it’s much better to label everything so no one is confused. Your kids can be great helpers here, it’s a low risk job that will keep them busy for hours.

Group like items. When you set things out, group them by use or some other common theme. After all, if you sell someone a bucket, they might also want to buy that hose.

Pretend you have an outside store. Everything in a store is for sale for the right price, so make sure that you clear the area of anything you’d rather not sell (or at least put a sign on it). Also, keep your money in a safe place like a money box, keep records on sales, and while you’re at it, get a credit card reader that will work with your phone (many companies offer these for low or no cost swipe fee).

Line up plenty of help. Buying stuff at a yard sale can be fun, but running said yard sale is generally pretty boring. Make sure you’ve got plenty of help so that you’re not forced to spend the whole weekend sitting all alone at the check-out table.

Advertise liberally. If you want to sell something, you have to tell people it’s for sale. Advertise liberally, using social media, local media like newspapers and signs that you’ll post a day or two before the big day.

Donating to Charity

Many people make arrangements with a local charity to collect the items that did not sell. You can do this, too, just keep in mind that most charities will not allow their volunteers inside your home. In these cases, you’ll have to be present in order to donate stuff. It might be just as easy to box up the remains and toss them in the back of your vehicle for a ride to the Goodwill.

Not Sure If You’re Insured Enough for Yard Sales?

Don’t worry, your HomeKeepr family has you covered. The insurance agents that are part of this exclusive network can quickly assess your needs and write you the policy required to ensure that if someone is injured on your property, you’ll be covered. Just log in and ask your real estate agent to recommend the professional that’s best for you. It couldn’t be easier!

Buying a Home at County Auction Post-Foreclosure

What’s two stories tall, covered in long green fur and smells like old, wet dogs? For a lot of people, that would be their mental image of an investment house. The truth of the matter, though, is much more complicated. Certainly, there are investment properties so dilapidated that it’s hard to imagine anyone living in them, but many, many more are in fairly decent shape.

You can use a real estate agent to help scope the good ones out, but frankly, you’ll get first dibs at a lot of the best units if you spend some time haunting the post-foreclosure auctions held both online and off. No more green shag for you!

How a Home Ends Up On the Auction Block

When it comes to a foreclosure auction, there’s really just one way that a property ends up on the block: someone doesn’t make their payments and the bank seizes the real estate securing their mortgage. For most mortgages, this means the former owners were more than 90 days past due. This could be because they couldn’t afford the house anymore due to some major life change, or maybe they just sent their bank “jingle mail”.

Jingle mail was really common during the Great Recession and the steep decline in real estate values that resulted. Homeowners would realize they couldn’t afford their adjustable rate mortgage when its interest rate reset and since they couldn’t refinance, they’d end up there sooner or later. Others just knew how far underwater they were and weren’t willing or able to hang on until they were righted.

The point of all of that was to demonstrate that just because a house goes to foreclosure auction doesn’t mean that it’s going to be a total nightmare. There are lots of nice properties that have been thoughtfully and strategically abandoned. The trick is figuring out how to tell them apart from those that are basically ready to be pushed over with a bulldozer (and a real estate or appraisal expert can help you with this in a big way).

Getting the Most Out of a Foreclosure Auction

There’s a lot to learn about buying houses at post-foreclosure auctions, but if there were just three pieces of advice to offer, these are probably the most important:

• Bring cash or a cash equivalent. You can’t walk into an auction like this and expect to be able to spend a month arranging financing. Most will require at least five percent down on the day of the sale with the balance due soon after. Anywhere from a day to a week is pretty normal. This is why investors are generally the only people at these auctions. They often have credit lines that make it easy to buy on the fly.

• Base your top bid on the value of the home minus any repairs you anticipate. If this is your first home auction, find out long ahead of time if you will be allowed to inspect the property prior to the big day. If no, keep that bid low because you never know what may crop up. If yes, take a licensed home inspector with you and let them do their job on the day the house will be open. They’ll be able to estimate what the visible, necessary repairs will cost so you’re not going into the auction blind.

• Remember that the owner can still redeem that home within a set period. It’s a common misconception that when you buy a home at a county auction, either for non-payment of taxes or foreclosure, that it’s yours. Said and done. It’s not. Most states allow a redemption period for the former owner. Should they be able to get enough money together to solve the financial issue that landed their home in this state to begin with, within the provided window, your rights to the property will be terminated. So, whatever you do, hold off on any work or spending on the property until that window has expired.

Don’t Go Unprepared, Let Your HomeKeepr Family Get You Ready for Auction Day

When you’re walking into a new venture, like buying homes at auction, it’s important to surround yourself with experts who can help guide your first few transactions. After all, learning the hard way is a lot more expensive than learning from people who deal with homes for a living. Where would you find someone like this? Look no further than your HomeKeepr community. All the experts you could ever need are there, housed together, under the same digital roof. Just ask your real estate agent for their recommendations. Happy bidding!

U.S. Homeowner Vacancy Rate: It’s back to the 90s

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Garbage Disposal Care – Tips and Tricks

The modern world has so much to offer, from microwaves that can talk to your favorite smart home assistant to refrigerators that can remind you you’re out of milk. It’s amazing that something as innocuous as the garbage disposal remains relatively unchanged since its inception.

Time marches ever on, leaving the garbage disposal essentially untouched and easily ignored. This is why it’s so important to take proper care of the indispensable kitchen appliance that spends most of its time being wholly overlooked.

Garbage Disposals: Safety First

Before you begin to do anything with your garbage disposal, it’s important to understand how much potential for disaster it represents. You can grind bone, ice and other hard objects with this appliance, don’t think for a second that it will somehow spare your fingers and hands should you stick them inside.

Instead of risking digits, always use tongs or other long grabbing tools to retrieve things that have fallen inside. It doesn’t matter if it’s your wedding band or your keys, your garbage disposal can become a very seriously dangerous machine if you just go poking around in there.

Caring for Your Garbage Disposal

After that cautionary section, you may be wondering if your garbage disposal deserves to be maintained, especially if it’s just going to turn on you. Garbage disposal accidents are generally the result of a lack of care and improper use. So, go on, check out these tips for keeping it in prime shape:

• A clean disposal is a happy disposal. When you’ve run your disposal, put a little dish soap inside and run the cold water. This will help keep smells down and also flush out any remaining food particles. Dropping citrus peels inside and grinding can also improve the situation.
• Only put food in it. Only biodegradable items should go inside the disposal. Really, only food and not even every type of food. Lots of fats, for example, will clog the disposal faster than anything. Pasta, rice and other expanding foods can also be a problem for your disposal and plumbing.
• Grind some hard things to keep the blade sharp. Bones and ice are hard enough to sharpen the blades, so don’t forget to toss a few in from time to time. Do not feed your disposal fibrous foods like celery, even though they are sometimes thought of as hard food items. The fibers can tangle around the moving parts and interfere with function.
• Always use cold water. Flushing with hot water will melt fats inside, making it hard for your disposal to do much with them. Instead, always use cold water, which will cause those fats to solidify, so they can be broken up and flushed away. A little fat in the disposal is ok, don’t pour lots of fat into the plumbing, though, unless you want to call a plumber.
• Avoid harsh chemicals. Although a degreaser can help your disposal stay clean and live longer, other harsh chemicals should be avoided. Drain cleaners in particular are very hard on disposals, They can and will damage your disposal. Best to use a plunger or hand crank the disposal to break up jams. If that won’t do it, call in a pro.

Need More Garbage Disposal Help?

Whether you need a new garbage disposal because your old one has given up the ghost or you just need help with a unit that won’t do its job quite right, the home pros in the HomeKeepr community have your back. Just login and ask your real estate agent to recommend a plumber who can help you get your disposal game back on track.

Popcorn Ceilings: What They Are, How to Get Rid of Them & Are They a Health Hazard?

Popcorn is great for lots of stuff. You can enjoy a big bucket with family and friends while at the movies, string it on a thread to give Christmas that old-fashioned touch and even turn it into questionable “treats” for Halloween. One place that it’s a lot less welcome is on the ceiling.

Unfortunately, too many homes still have popcorn ceilings. They often create a lot more questions than they answer.

What Is a Popcorn Ceiling?

Back in the day, someone had a brilliant idea.

What would happen if there was a cheaper alternative to meticulously applied plaster ceiling coating and decoration for homes? This person asked themselves. Well, that would be just lovely!

And that person wasn’t wrong in concept. It was practice that turned out to really be the killer.

Popcorn ceilings, the solution to the problem, are still around, largely haunting homes built between the 1930s and 1990s. The ceiling texture that oddly resembles cottage cheese far more than it does popcorn, was popular for its ease of application and, at the time, low maintenance requirement.

Popcorn Ceilings: The Kicker

Even if you don’t object to the generally dated appearance of a popcorn ceiling (hey, maybe retro’s your thing, we’re not judging), think twice before going all in because that house you’re looking at has one that’s still intact.

So many popcorn ceilings contain some amount of friable asbestos that they are generally not a great idea to keep around. Even though popcorn ceiling mixtures containing asbestos were banned under the Clean Air Act in 1979, the remaining mixes that hadn’t been purchased were still allowed to be sold. In some areas, this means that new installations of potentially hazardous popcorn ceilings lingered well into the 1980s.

If the asbestos wasn’t enough, many popcorn ceilings have been painted since they were installed, or were installed using paint as part of the initial mix. Lead-based paint was the norm until it was banned in 1978. It’s kind of a double-whammy.

Friable Versus Non-Friable Asbestos

There are two kinds of asbestos: friable and non-friable. Friable asbestos is the most dangerous kind, since any amount of disturbance can result in particles floating around in the air and being inhaled. This is not good news. Risks of free-floating asbestos can range from lung scarring to mesothelioma, an insidious and heartbreaking form of cancer. This is the kind in popcorn ceilings.

While non-friable asbestos isn’t a picnic, it’s a lot safer because the asbestos is encapsulated within another material. For example, older homes often have siding made of cement fiber-board tiles. These often contain asbestos, but unless you’re cutting the tiles, it’s safely contained.

There are very specific laws about dealing with both types of asbestos, but those surrounding friable asbestos are as much about protecting humans around the material as the environment. In most areas, homeowners are legally allowed to remove popcorn ceilings from their own homes, but it’s still a really good idea to at least have a test for asbestos before you try it.

Before You Even Think About Scraping That Ceiling

There are few things easier than removing a popcorn ceiling. A scraper and a lot of time will do the job, but the hazard to someone who goes in blindly cannot be understated. So, before you even think about scraping that ceiling, take some samples. Carefully.

Send one to a lab for testing for asbestos. Send another for testing for lead based paint (or use a high-quality at-home test kit). Wait until you have results to move forward.

If you test positive for either or both, consider calling in a pro. They have all the right equipment to ensure that asbestos doesn’t get loose in your home, where you, your family and your pets will be at risk of exposure. If you DIY this one, do not skimp on ventilators and other filters to keep any friable asbestos contained.

This is Definitely One for Your HomeKeepr Community

Usually, easy jobs are a slam dunk for DIY, but when it comes to one that can create such a significant risk to health and home, it’s really best to call on a home pro with the right kind of equipment to keep everyone safe.

Your HomeKeepr community is full of people who can help you with your popcorn ceiling woes. They can even recommend someone who can refinish that ceiling if your removal contractor doesn’t handle both. Just log in and your real estate agent will be more than happy to point you in the right direction with a recommendation from their extensive network of home pros.