Northern Virginia Real Estate Blog

Neutralizing home odors is an important part of preparing a home for sale but it’s not always so easy. Every home has a unique odor that’s ground into carpets, walls, fabrics. Cooking at home plays a big role, too.

But just because a home is listed for sale doesn’t mean that the kitchen is off-limits.

This 2-minute video from About.com offers a bunch of smell-related kitchen tips, including:

• Removing “the fish smell”
• Fighting the aroma from deep-fried foods
• Getting stubborn smells from hands

When your home for sale, the last thing you want buyers paying attention to is your dinner from the night before. Watch the video, read the transcript, and cook fear-free in your own home — listed for sale or just planning on company.

A Home Equity Line of Credit is bank product that grants homeowners access to the equity in their home at anytime, usually using checks.

Often called a HELOC, these equity-based credit lines function very much like credit cards:

• The rate is adjustable, tied to Prime Rate
• There is a minimum monthly payment
• There is a pre-set spending/credit limit

But different from credit cards is that a HELOC is “guaranteed” by real estate and with real estate values in question nationwide, many banks are exercising a little-known clause in the HELOC contract.

With alarming frequency, banks are reducing the pre-set spending limits on their active equity lines. Via USPS, lenders are notifying homeowner with $100,000 HELOCs that their new HELOC limit is $25,000, for example.

And the banks aren’t being discriminate based on payment history or local real estate conditions, either — it’s happening everywhere with equal force.

The good news is that banks will accept appeals on HELOC reductions on a case-by-case basis.

One way to appeal a HELOC reduction is:

1. Call your lender’s Customer Service line. Do not send an email.
2. Politely ask why the HELOC limit was reduced. Listen carefully to explanation.
3. Explain why you would like your HELOC reinstated. Acceptable reasons may include home improvement projects or improper home valuation by the lender.
4. Be prepared to write a formal letter, if asked. Address the issues explained in #2.

Banks will typically not reinstate a HELOC if a borrower has been delinquent on payments, or lives in a severely depressed neighborhood. However, because lenders rely on computer models to assess risk, it’s always a good idea to ask.

Sometimes the Human Element of an appeal can work in your favor.

Most homeowners make four housing-related payments each month:

1. Principal on a mortgage
2. Interest on a mortgage
3. Taxes on the real estate owned
4. Insurance for the real estate owned

Collectively, these payments are known by the acronym PITI but don’t let it fool you — a homeowner’s monthly expenses are still called PITI even if one or more of the elements doesn’t apply.

For example, a homeowner with an interest only mortgage does not pay principal each month.

Additionally, condo owners typically don’t pay homeowners insurance — they pay a monthly assessment and/or maintenance fees to an association instead.

But regardless for what it stands, determining a comfortable PITI should be every homeowner’s starting point when looking for a new home. PITI is the monthly housing cost, after all, and by knowing what fits in your budget, it’s a lot easier to compare homes and their related expenses.

It’s certainly better than asking the bank “how much home can I afford” — all that’s going to tell you is the P and the I. As a homeowner, you need to know all four.

PITI is most commonly pronounced pee-eye-tee-eye.

(Image courtesy: Contractor-Books.com)

In this 4-minute video, real estate maven Barbara Corcoran reminds us that homes are bought and sold within 8 seconds.

And, although the clip features a suburban home in New York, the Lessons of Good Presentation apply to every home looking for a buyer.

Some of the video’s key take-aways include:

• Let your home’s natural light shine in
• Your home’s hardware reflect the home’s condition
• Don’t replace your kitchen — clean it up instead
• Linen closets can sway a buyer’s attitude about your home

With excess supply in the market, making a positive first impression on home buyers can mean all the difference.

Preparing a home the right way can be the difference between getting an offer, or just getting lots of traffic.

A “Housing Start” is a new home on which construction has commenced and in May, Housing Starts fell to a 17-year low nationally.

At first glance, this may seem like a negative for the already-battered U.S. housing market.

It’s not.

Falling Housing Starts reflects the broader real estate market and shows us that builders are working hard to get their already-built homes “off the books”.

It would be foolish for them to build new homes now — each new unit makes selling the existing ones tougher.

So, when we look at the figure objectively, we can see that Housing Starts reaching a 17-year low is actually good news — real estate prices are based on Supply and Demand, after all.

With Housing Starts touching new lows, we can infer that there will be fewer new homes coming on the market in the coming months and that should help support higher home values nationwide for everyone.

(Image courtesy: The Wall Street Journal Online)

A jammed garbage disposal is one of the most common household plumbing issues and, despite its mechanical simplicity, fixing one can cost up to $300 in labor and parts.

Try saving some money next time by doing it yourself.

Courtesy of Expert Village, this short, 2-minute video walks you through the steps in troubleshooting your own in-sink disposal system, complete with safety steps.

Repairing most garbage disposal problems is as simple as turning a wrench, pushing a button, or both. There’s no “technical skills” or elbow grease required and you may save yourself a few hundred bucks.

RealtyTrac released its most recent foreclosure statistics and if you only read the headlines, you think the entire country was on the verge of losing its homes.

The underlying data tells a different story, however.

More than half of the country’s foreclosure activity in May 2008 was tied to just 4 states in the union:

1. California (28 percent)
2. Florida (14 percent)
3. Arizona (5 percent)
4. Michigan (5 percent)

In other words, the majority of mortgage defaults are coming from a small minority of states.

See, between 2002 and 2006, California, Florida and Arizona were very popular with real estate speculators, many of whom over-extended themselves on real estate; and Michigan’s economy has been decimated by job losses in the auto and manufacturing industries.

In addition, these 4 states are among the nation’s most populous. It makes sense that they are distorting the national statistics.

On a local level, the news is not so grim. Not only did 20 states show a reduction in monthly foreclosure activity, but many more fell below the national foreclosure average. That type of story, though, doesn’t make for good headlines, is all.

Search the full May 2008 foreclosure report for yourself on RealtyTrac’s Web site.

As expected the average days on market is continuing its seasonal decline into the month of June with the increased activity during the summer months. What is interesting to see here is that the average price for houses that have sold has been stable since January of this year. I’m not going to speculate as to whether we have reached a bottom as far as price is concerned, but at the very least we have hit a plateau.