Smart Lights Enhance Home Security and Shine a Light on Crime
Smart lighting brightens up your home and makes life more convenient. But it’s also an easy and effective way to enhance home security.
How to Help Elderly Parents Downsize or Stay in their Homes
Key insights:
As parents and relatives age and become less independent, it’s important to proactively discuss their future living arrangements.
While decisions about aging can be emotionally taxing, removing some of the logistical concerns can help minimize the overall stress.
It may be important to set up a Power of Attorney (POA), which names a designated decision-maker in the event that your parent is unable to make their own choices.
How to Mosquito-Proof Your Yard this Summer
Key insights:
It’s not necessary to completely get rid of the woodpile that fuels your summer bonfires, but you do have to cover it up to avoid building a home for bugs.
You can bug-proof your yard without breaking the bank. Consider citronella candles and good old bug spray.
If your bug problem is out of control, leave it to the professionals and get your yard sprayed.
Composting: Tips for beginners (and why it’s a win-win for everyone)
Key insights:
Composting can help us reduce our contributions to landfills and cut down on greenhouse gas production.
If you’re a gardener, your compost can be repurposed into the best garden fuel.
There are many options of where to put your compost — and they don’t have to stink!
Easy-care Ornamental Grasses for Your Garden
Perennials are a lot like people. Some require a little more love and attention to live their best life; others are fine, and even thrive, left out of the limelight. Ornamental grasses fall in the latter category. They don’t ask for much, aside from an annual spring trim, but can deliver high drama in the landscape by way of striking color, textural plumes, and varying height.
What Does it Mean for a House to Have “Good Bones”?
Key insights:
A home with good bones is likely a fixer-upper that needs cosmetic updates.
Custom and original features can add interest and value to a home.
Regardless of the age of a home, the materials used to build it are important.
Mulch 101: What is best for curb appeal? Preventing erosion?
Key insights:
Organic mulch could be better for your flowers and soil, but inorganic mulch may require less maintenance.
By adding mulch to your landscaping, you can prevent severe erosion.
Mulch complements flowers while they grow and cover dead plants during colder seasons.
What loan can I get with a 3% down payment?
Key insights:
It’s possible (and common) for buyers to purchase a home with less than a 20 percent down payment.
In addition to a down payment, financial factors and credit history are important considerations for loan approval.
Pending other factors, buyers with less than 5% down can get approved for a variety of loans — including conventional, FHA, VA and USDA loans.
Top Six Strategies for Merging Households
Key insights:
Determine whether moving into one of your existing homes or a completely new space is best for your family.
By making an effort to keep things equal between children, you’ll set yourself up for a more successful move.
Moves can be emotional, especially when they are coupled with families merging. Check up on your kids and their feelings during this time.
What counts as finished square footage?
Key Insights:
Learn the four criteria a space needs to be considered finished square footage.
See why typical attics won’t count toward square footage, but a four-season porch or basement bedroom will.
When in doubt, refer to MLS information, your purchase agreement or your own measurements.
15 Little Ways to Enjoy the Summer When You’re Trapped in the Office
As you’ve probably noticed, the good weather has arrived! And we’re sure you’ve also noticed that your office is still operating as if it’s not beautiful outside. You’re stuck inside, staring at a stock image of a beach as your desktop background while your social media feeds get filled with photos of tropical getaways, Summer Friday activities, and tan lines.
$500 Master Bedroom Makeover: Breathe New Life Into a Tired Space
Typically, high-traffic areas in the home tend to get the most love and attention. Kitchens and living rooms are constantly being invested in and renovated. However, it’s important to keep your bedroom up-to-date so it can be a restful and enjoyable space. After all, you do spend most nights there.
Tips for Opening Your Cabin or Lake Home After a Long Winter
You’ve been looking forward to it all dreary winter and now the time has come to open your cabin for the spring and summer! Follow these insights to get your lake home in peak warm-weather condition, while still leaving time to enjoy those first perfect weeks of cabin season.
iBuyers: What You Need to Know About Selling Your Home with an Online Investment Firm
Whether you watch the nightly news or read the daily papers, you may have heard about a new home buying model known as “iBuying.” iBuyers tend to be larger investment firms that make fast offers to home sellers, based on a home value that’s generated by their proprietary algorithms.
Will Tiny-House Communities Help Middle-Class Homebuyers?
The housing market in the United States may have bounced back since the Great Recession. But fairly stagnant wages, higher home prices, and steep rents have made it harder to afford to buy a home.
Buyers Desire Lawn Appeal: 5 Steps to a Healthy
Seventy-nine percent of consumers say that a lawn is an important feature when renting or buying home. Many consumers are even ranking a nicely sized yard as the second most important home feature, only behind a renovated kitchen, according to a new survey released by the National Association of Landscape Professionals.
Fresh DIY Bathroom Decorating Makeover
https://www.bettymostrealestate.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/videoplayback.mp4 Watch how H&H’s Reiko Caron livens up a neutral bathroom with stylish accessories and a modern palette inspired by the new Kapitza for Clinique geometric bags. Discover how you can make a colorful tray to corral your daily beauty products and embellish a plain rug with a DIY Moroccan Boucherouite–inspired design.
How to Get Rid of Pet Smells Fast
Beloved household animals can leave behind smells that could turn off potential buyers when a home is for sale. Homeowners—who may have become “nose blind” to the smells—may want to take a few steps to remove any lingering smells prior to their first showing. Here are a few tips from HouseLogic.com, a home improvement resource:
10 Features That Can Help a Home Sell Faster
Realtor.com®’s research team pinpointed home features that can help sell a home in the fastest time for the best price. They analyzed more than 1 million single-family listings on realtor.com® in February and identified the home features found in homes most often with the highest list prices and that went under contract most quickly.
Seven Apps To Make Your Design And Renovation Projects Easier
Whether you are renovating an entire room, looking to repaint, redecorating or simply in search of the perfect sofa, a minor change can become a major project. But, it doesn’t need to be. Here are seven apps for your Smartphone (and two that are web only) which can make these projects much easier.
$1.2M Queen Anne mansion on Summit Avenue is postcard from the past
The well-preserved Victorian brownstone was designed by a renowned architect. In 1894, this Queen Anne brownstone mansion cost an extravagant $12,000 to build. It was designed by architects Clarence Johnston and William Willcox for Rush Wheeler, a real estate lawyer and his wife, Harriet Wheeler. Today it’s on the market for $1.2 million and [...]
Four surprising things first-time sellers don’t know
First-time homebuyers are often the focus of conversation, but selling a house for the first time is a major endeavor, too! Here are four insights first-time sellers should keep in mind as they prepare to list their homes for sale in Minnesota or western Wisconsin.
Media Rooms: Home Theaters With A New Look
The home theater is moving out of the basement and into the main living area. Home theaters are being replaced by multifunctional media rooms that feature lounge-style spaces—cozy couches, tables, and chairs around a TV, as well as a place to entertain guests or for the kids to do their homework,
18 Must-Have Tools and Apps for Digital Nomads
If you’re one of the world’s digital nomads, you need to have the right tools to do your job and enjoy your footloose lifestyle.
THREE WAYS TO WINTER-PROOF YOUR HOME
Winterize your home with these tricks you may have forgotten about. Like any responsible homeowner, you’ve taken all the precautions you can to get your home in top-notch, winter-proof shape. You re-caulked your windows and doors, replaced your furnace filter, covered your windows in plastic, and even invested in a programmable thermostat, but each month, [...]
For Generations to Come
Trusted Real Estate Agent, Betty Most, has over 30 years of experience and knowledge. She’s been serving her community as a trusted advisor and friend.
How to Sell Your House: Simple Steps from Start to Finish
Here are some insights you can use as you prepare to sell your house, navigate the listing process and walk away with a sale price and terms you’re happy with.
The Magic of Family
Discover The Magic of Family https://www.bettymostrealestate.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/The-Magic-of-Family-smaller-file.mp4
You Can’t Pick Your Family
When You Can't Pick Your Family, You Can Pick Your Realtor https://www.bettymostrealestate.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/You-Cant-Pick-Your-Family-smaller-file.mp4
Hot Property on a Cold Winter Day
Typically, the winter months are not the most ideal time to put your house on the market. Inclement weather tends to discourage would-be buyers from venturing out.
Here a few tips to help make your property hot, even on the coldest days.