Dallas Appraiser L.L.C. wants your help and commentary on our Real Estate Blog

Title: 

The First Impression a Buyer Gets

Word Count:

466

Summary:

Your home may be a great place to raise a family or just live. The problem, of course, is a buyer does not know that and instead forms an immediate opinion on what they see first.

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Article Body:

Your home may be a great place to raise a family or just live. The problem, of course, is a buyer does not know that and instead forms an immediate opinion on what they see first. 

The First Impression a Buyer Gets

Love at first sight is a cliche’, but it has an underlying truth to it as do most cliche’s. The simple fact is we are an emotional species. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, we always form a first impression of everything we come in contact with. That impression may be conscious or subconscious. The undisputed fact, however, is our first impression determines any subsequent decisions a majority of the time. If you are selling a property, you must accept and focus on this fact. 

As a seller, it is vital that you understand a buyer’s first impression of your home is everything. If the first impression is not good, the buyer will move on. It is as simple as that. There are two areas where you are going to make a first impression, so let us take a closer look at them. 

Obviously, one area is when a buyer first comes to see the property. The minute they drive up your street, they are evaluating. They are looking at all the homes, not just yours. As a result, it is important that you home looks as good as it can compared to those around you. This means you need to have the landscaping in excellent shape. Remove dead plants, edge the lawn, fertilize everything, rake up leaves and so on. If you have a driveway, you should have it cleaned before showing the property. Keep garage doors closed. The list is endless, so just make sure the first impression is impeccable. 

A less obvious area where a first impression is created deals with photographs of a home. Over 70 percent of homebuyers now do their initial shopping on the Internet. If you are not listed on a site, you need to be. Regardless, the key to your web listing will be the photographs. Upload as many as you can, but make sure they look great. Avoid dark, unappealing pictures at all costs. The process is like a dating site. The buyer will be pointing and clicking through a lot of properties, so take some time with your photographs. You may even want to incur the expense of a professional photographer. 

One of the best ways to evaluate your property is to ask others to look at it and offer suggestions. Friends can be a good choice, but you must make clear to them that you want only critical comments. To this end, you need to brace yourself for such comments. Donít ask for their help and then get angry when they give it.

Title: 

The Benefits of a Real Estate Directory to Visitors

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547

Summary:

Web directories are known as accessible one-stop information destinations. Their listings contain the addresses of member websites, whose contents have been indexed and organized based on specific subject matters.

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Article Body:

When you need a telephone number, where do you turn? If you are like most people, you flip open the Yellow Pages - the telephone directory. Directories are so much a part of our everyday lives that we take their presence for granted. The building directory helps you find the right office or apartment. The employee directory will help you find the right person in the right department. A film directory helps you find the movie that you are looking for by title, subject, actors, director or producer. 

One of today’s most popular ‘search engines’ started life as a directory ñ and still is. Yahoo! has one of the most comprehensive directories of web sites online. But when you are looking for specific information, especially regional information, it pays to turn to a specialty directory to help you find what you want. An online real estate directory is the best place to turn when you are looking for a information about buying, selling, inspecting and improving property.

What is a real estate directory?

Like most web directories, a real estate directory is a listing of web sites indexed and organized to make things easier to find. Depending on the real estate directory, the listings available will be indexed according to region, agent, type of property or price ñ and often all of the above. Other sections will be clearly labeled as well - a comprehensive real estate directory offers more than just properties for sale. You will find listings for appraisers, inspectors, home improvement sites, contractors ñ almost anything that has to do with real estate.

Why a real estate directory?

Unlike a single realtor site, a real estate directory will cover listings from many different sources, which gives you the widest possible variety of listings to search through. A trip through a real estate directory will give you a good feel for the general market conditions in the region where you plan to buy ñ and make it easier for you to find a realtor who is listing the properties that you want to buy. After all, why deal with a realtor who specializes in luxury condos when you are looking for a two-bedroom bungalow on the lake?

While traditional search engines are a good place to start looking for home listings, you will often have to drill down through several pages to get past the listings for home mortgage companies, a few dozen single realtors, several realty listing sites that only lead to more realty listing sites ñ in other words, all the flotsam that floats to the top of the search engines. By going directly to a real estate directory, you will cut out the sifting through pages of unrelated info and get straight to what you are looking for ñ an indexed directory of current real estate listings that makes it easy to find the homes you want to buy.

Finally, the best real estate directory does not stop with providing listings of homes for sale like many realtor sites do. You will find listings for web sites that tell you how to prepare your home for sale, how to put your home on the market, which home improvements offer the most ROI (return on investment, of course), mortgage and loan companies and so much more.

The Good the Bad and the Ugly of Investing in Real Estate

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Like any other profession, there are good and bad things about what are available.  Each of the things that happen in the profession is just part of the business.  If you want to know what you are getting into, you will want to make sure that you know all sides of the coin of the profession.  This will help you to be prepared for looking into property or buying into the occupation of real estate.  

The good part of real estate is that you will be helping others to find a home.  Anyone involved in real estate will say that the largest perk of being in the profession is that you are able to help people with their living situation.  Another good benefit of being a real estate agent is that the finances are usually stable and do not come in small doses.  For those that love their jobs in real estate, they will most likely base it on these two factors.

Despite the benefits of being a real estate agent, there are also some tough parts of being involved.  One of the major frustrations is that the properties that are available will be dependent on the type of market, the neighborhood and the sales of that area.  At times, there may be an overflow of properties available, while at others, everyone will be holding onto their property.  For those involved in finding or buying real estate, this can cause for a challenge in finding what you want and when you want it.  

Of course, for anyone becoming involved in real estate, other frustrations may come from the terms and the details that are used in the process as well as the process itself.  It is not uncommon to find a home, have it inspected and then not have the ability to buy the home because of the condition of the home.  There also may also be financial problems with real estate during the process of finding a home for an individual.  All of these factor in to spending a lot of time looking at homes without the benefit of buying.  

Whether you are buying or selling, it will be important to know what to expect from real estate.  By factoring in the different parts of property, you will have the ability to decide what is best for you and can stay ready for the potential problems that may occur while you are going through the process.  Knowing what to expect will help you to get past half of the battle of the real estate market.  

The Game of the Real Estate Market

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Just like playing the game of Monopoly, there are specific rules to follow in order to get the right property at the right time.  The rules of the game will be dependent on who you are, what your individual tastes are and what type of investment you are looking for.  However, before you even start to role the dice, you will want to make sure that you know the basic rules of the game.  

One of the basics that you will want to know is to decide what it takes to find the right real estate market.  You can use several marketing strategies that will help you to find the right home, the right place, and to make the right type of investment with the market.  Of course, while you are doing this, you will have to investigate the various areas and how they are connected to the community. This will allow you to find what will profit you with the investment in the long run.  

Just like Monopoly, you will want to understand the area that you will be in and how this will affect the rules.  For example, everyone knows that by investing in Broadway there will be more profit than the utilities station.  This same rule applies to finding what is available in the real estate market.  You will want to know the area and how it will affect your profits and your way of living.  This can be examined by the demographics, the history of the area, and the flow of people that are moving in and out of the area.  

After you have investigated these various things, you will be able to decide when the best time to pass go will be.  This can help you to find the best deals, move at the right time and have the luck of the dice in order to get what you want and need for better living or for better profit.  

Title: 

Top Ten Tips For Home Buyers

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326

Summary:

More than seven million American homes are sold every year. If you want to become a homeowner, there are 10 tips you should know.

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Article Body:

More than seven million American homes are sold every year. If you want to become a homeowner, there are 10 tips you should know:

About You

1. Pay your bills on time. This makes you a lower credit risk and, therefore, a better candidate for a mortgage at the lowest possible rate. Paying your bills now can make it easier for you to get a mortgage later. 

2. Check and update your credit report before starting to look for a home. Credit reports are used by lenders to determine whether you will qualify for the mortgage you seek and for the interest rate you pay, so make sure your report is accurate.

3. Determine what monthly mortgage payment you realistically can afford. Calculators to determine this can be found at The Home Loan Learning Center, which is part of the Mortgage Bankers Association's web site. 

4. Take time to learn important terms and understand their meaning. Become familiar with words used in the home-buying process. 

About Your Loan

5. See your lender first. Find out what you can afford before you look at houses.

6. Shop around. Compare the different types of mortgages and the interest rates offered by different lenders. Have the lender validate your calculations and agree that you are qualified for a home loan and monthly payments of that size. Get prequalified. 

7. Understand the deal. Ask about closing costs and other fees before you sign the documents. Ask if you will incur costs if you refinance or prepay your mortgage. 

8. Work interactively with a mortgage lender. Your lender will likely need to talk with you from time to time and may need additional information. Make sure you get back to your lender quickly so the process can be completed as soon as possible. 

About Your Home

9. Avoid emotional buying. Before you look at any house, determine what features you really need in a home and then try to stick to the list you made.

10. Visit as many homes as possible.

To Buy or To Lease

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Buying and selling means more than finding a real estate agent to do the work that is needed.  There is also the need to make sure that you know what you want or need when you are moving with the investment.  No matter what the market, there are always different moves that you can make in order to get the right person moved in to your property.  

Leasing is one of the several ways that you can move into a real estate investment.  If you are having difficulty selling your home or property, then you can consider leasing as an option instead of selling it. If you decide to use the lease option for the property, then it means that you will become the landlord for a period of at least one year.  The tenant will have a contract that is signed for this amount of time that says to take care of the property and pay rent.  After the time period is up, the tenant will have the option of buying the property from you.  

If you are considering buying a home, this is a good first step to get into.  You will have lower payments, will be able to build your credit, and will have the option of trying out the property before you buy it.  If you are selling the property, it can also be beneficial, as it allows you to demand a higher price and move into a better market when it is time to sell.  Usually, by the time you are ready to sell, you will be able to offer a price that is ten to twenty percent higher than it would have been a year before.  

If the market isn't right, you can't sell your home, and the right options don't seem to be walking through the door, then leasing is a second option that you can consider.  By leasing the property, you will have the ability to profit on either side of the fence.  

Top Ten Terms for Loans

Everyone knows that you should never sign on the dotted line without reading the contract.  This same term applies to loans.  Signing a loan without knowing the terms and what everything means can be detrimental to your finances, credit and future investments.  Before you sign on the dotted line, make sure that you know these terms and how they will apply to you.  

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1.  Interest rate.  The interest rate is the percentage of your loan that is added on every month.  The percentage will vary according to the economy and will make a difference in your payments.  

2.  Fixed Rate.  A fixed rate will be an interest rate that stays at the same percentage throughout the entire period of your loan.  

3.  Variable Rate.  A variable rate will change according to the economy and the charts that are stating what the rates should be for interest.  A variable rate usually changes every year and adjusts according to a specific given range of percentages.  

4.  Principal.  The principal is what you will be paying on your actual house.  Whatever you pay on your principal is what you will see in the end as your investment.  

5.  Escrow.  This is similar to a savings account of your loan.  Whatever you put in escrow will accumulate without paying directly into the loan.  At the end of the term you can use it to finish paying off the loan or to invest in another loan.  

6.  Title.  A title will be what you get to your home after it is officially yours, stating that the property belongs to you.  

7.  Deed.  A deed will most often be used as a title for a commercial area.  Instead of giving ownership it shows that the property is leased to the one who is using it as a business.  

8.  Home Equity.  This is a loan or line of credit that you can get for your home.  It will finance up to eight percent of your other loan and get paid back later.  This helps if you want to consolidate loans or invest more into the property.  

9.  Appraisal.  After an inspection of the home is made, an appraisal will be made.  This will be an estimated value of what the home is worth.  

10.  Equity.  This will be the actual amount of the property that you own.  Most likely, it is what is being paid off of your principal amount.  

Once you know some of these basic terms, you will be able to expand on your knowledge and find the exact loan that will fit your needs.  These basic definitions will help you in making the right decision for the type of loan that you want.  

Title: 

Unlikely Rooms Can Sell Homes

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388

Summary:

So many times when homes are for sale, people forget that some areas of the home need a little more attention than others. Think about it for a minute, what's the room that gets cleaned the least in your home? Now, I'll bet you didn't answer; "the garage." Garages are an oft-overlooked area when preparing a home for sale.

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Article Body:

So many times when homes are for sale, people forget that some areas of the home need a little more attention than others. Think about it for a minute, what's the room that gets cleaned the least in your home? Now, I'll bet you didn't answer; "the garage." Garages are an oft-overlooked area when preparing a home for sale. The garage has simply become the old catch-all area for accumulated junk and things that you just can't bring yourself to throw away. You know what I'm referring to, clothes from 12 years ago, that collection of 1970's disco 8-tracks, who knows, there might even be a car in there somewhere! 

Garages can be a huge undertaking and an emotional one at that. In cleaning out a proper collection of "stuff" who knows what forgotten treasures you might run across? But remember, the idea here is to get rid of things that aren't being used. The best idea is to set aside a whole day to dedicate to the cleaning of the garage. First things first, everything comes out. Everything. Sort everything into three piles, one goes to the garbage, one goes to goodwill or a similar organization that can use old clothes and such and the third pile is the keepers.

Once everything is out of the garage you can set about cleaning it. If this is the first time you have really cleaned it, this could take a while. This is a great time to practice your skills as a landlord and evict the countless creepy crawlies that have undoubtedly taken up residence in the rafters and dark corners and still have not paid their rent. Give the floor a good sweep and if necessary maybe pressure-wash anything that is holding a stain. at this point your cleaning of the garage could be done, or if you are a big thinker, there are some options such as garage organization systems that are tremendous for keeping things neat and orderly and add some value to a home as well. Usually these consist of a wall-mounted rack system and incorporated storage shelves and bins. Hopefully when this exercise is complete, you garage will be as attractive as the other rooms in your home and will be a good selling point when buyers come to have a look at your home.

Title: 

Understanding Gothic Revival Architecture

Word Count:

422

Summary:

Some architectural styles should never change. That's likely what many builders thought in the early 1800s when Gothic architecture was re-discovered. With its tall, looming lines and intricate facades, the style was as relevant and attractive then as it was in its original period between the 12th and 16th century. 

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Article Body:

Some architectural styles should never change. That's likely what many builders thought in the early 1800s when Gothic architecture was re-discovered. With its tall, looming lines and intricate facades, the style was as relevant and attractive then as it was in its original period between the 12th and 16th century. Many Gothic Revival structures throughout the united states have been carefully preserved, and new examples are always celebrated. 

Gothic and Gothic Revival architecture is always easy to identify. Buildings of this style often have high pitched roofs or spires, tall, narrow windows coming to a point at the top, exposed wood structural beams, and cross hatched decorative patterns. Because of its defining characteristics many people have the misconception that all gothic buildings are tall and narrow. In fact, some of the best examples of the style are squared or rectangular structures such as the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, and the Saint Clotilde Basilica in Paris - the Gothic tradition in these buildings is as apparent as anywhere else. Gothic skyscrapers built in the late 19th and early 20th century, particularly in New York City, may be responsible for the style's most common interpretation. The Cathedral of Learning at the University of Pittsburg, is another beautiful example of tall, narrow Gothic architecture. 

Gothic architecture is widely accepted to have begun in the 12th century with the Basilique Saint-Denis in Paris, where nearly all of the country's monarchs were buried. The style quickly spread across Europe, and was developed over several centuries, with the last high profile example being the Chapel at Westminister, built by Henry VII in the early 16th century. 

Gothic architecture never died out completely, but resurfaced less frequently between the 16th and 19th centuries, while post renaissance styles were popularized. The literature of the 19th century helped as much as anything to revive interest in the middle ages, as authors like Horace Walpole began to celebrate the period in their works. 

The Gothic Revival was in full swing by the early 19th century, and came to America in the 1830s. While the style re-emerged largely unchanged, it was now being applied to smaller structures like homes and commercial buildings, as well as in traditional settings. Gothic revival architecture remained popular in the U.S. until the 1870s, although, again, it never vanished completely. Aspects of the Art Nouveau style of the 1930s can be traced to Gothic and Gothic Revival architecture, and occasionally a gifted architect is able to channel the original style in all its unmistakable stark beauty.

Title: 

Understanding Shingle Architecture

Word Count:

381

Summary:

Shingle architecture helped define the look of many of America's most popular waterfront communities in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Reminiscent of the Queen Anne style, this building form helped residents make the most of lake and ocean real estate with a variety of ornamental features to enhance view, and construction materials that worked well in wet, coastal climates.

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Article Body:

Shingle architecture helped define the look of many of America's most popular waterfront communities in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Reminiscent of the Queen Anne style, this building form helped residents make the most of lake and ocean real estate with a variety of ornamental features to enhance view, and construction materials that worked well in wet, coastal climates. 

As the name suggests, Shingle architecture relies heavily on the use of shingles on roofs and exterior walls. As a result, shingle style homes looked naturally more ornate than most homes, and required less ornamentation. The shingle skin of these homes also provided extra insulation, and kept the homes dryer and warmer during wet winter months. Stone counteractions on many of these homes also helped extend their life span for many generations of residents.

The exterior style of shingle homes was also defined by large, asymmetrical shapes, and generally horizontal profiles. Unpractical on small city properties, the style worked well on large coastal estates - many of the most famous examples of shingle architecture were built on the New England seashore. Shingle style homes tended to rely less on form than their Queen Anne predecessors, although they employed many of the same shapes. Features like gambrel roofing, polygon towers, and multiple eaves helped evoke the Queen Anne style while allowing for progression of the form. Since Shingle architecture is less clearly defined in shape, it's sometimes more difficult to identify at a glance, except for the telltale shingle roof and siding.

Although Shingle architecture became fairly widespread around the turn of the 20th century under New York architects like William Rutherford Mead, Stanford White, and Charles Follen McKim, the style never attained the same popularity as Queen Anne architecture. 

The interior style of Shingle homes was often characterized by the use of natural light. Shingle home floor plans were generally more open, and room to room transitions were often more informal than Queen Ann style homes, primarily because of their larger size. In this way, Shingle homes were often more accommodating to guests and large families.

Home buyers and sellers in the northeast and great lakes region will likely come across the Shingle style at some point, and a basic understanding of the form could prove a great advantage over other investors.