For many, laundry rooms are just a simple, functional area for washing clothes, but our real estate agents see them as a room with lots of opportunities.
During the staging process, we always remind our clients not to forget about the laundry room. It's among the most desirable features for buyers. In fact, 91% of home shoppers want a laundry room, and 57% said it's a must-have. Therefore, taking the time to stage this space gives you the opportunity to turn a basic functional area into a true asset.
Adding some beautiful decor or designs to your laundry room is an easy and affordable way to increase the overall appeal of your home. There are many wonderful ways to transform your laundry room into a beautifully designed addition. Here are some of our favorite ideas:
With a little extra work, it's easy to transform a basic laundry room into a major selling point for buyers when they are looking at Richmond homes for sale. Contact us today for more tips on interior design.
Many households view their pets as family members, so it only makes sense that you would consider your pets when searching for a new home. Our real estate agents suggest following these tips to ensure you buy a pet-friendly home.
Ready to move to a home with more space for all your family members? Contact us today to get started!
If you're planning on buying or selling a house in the coming year, you might be wondering how to find the right real estate agent to support your transaction. After all, so much of your success depends on the experience of the real estate agent you select to support you along the way. If you're selling your home, your real estate agent is key to securing the highest possible sale price. If you're considering one of these beautiful Richmond homes for sale, your agent's expertise in the market and negotiation experience can help you land a solid deal.
However, finding a good real estate agent with the right level of experience isn't as simple as you might think. With so many agents out there, you might have to do some work to really find one who is truly a good match for you and your family. To help you, below are some tips that can help you find the best real estate agent to support your transaction in 2022.
Selecting the right real estate agent takes a bit of research, but it's well worth the time investment. A good agent can have a tremendous impact on the outcome of your home purchase or sale. Contact us for more tips or to speak with one of our real estate agents today.
As we move into the waning days of 2020, Richmond homes for sale are still getting plenty of attention from buyers. For all kinds of reasons, people from around the country are learning what our real estate agents already knew: Richmond is the place to be in 2021!
Let's look at seven of the biggest reasons why:
In 2021, Richmond is set to continue growing. It's a thriving city that will always pleasantly surprise you. There's plenty more to see, and your next home could be waiting!
Contact us at Joyner Fine Properties to learn more about the area or get started.
Are you ready to buy your first home? Congratulations! This is a major milestone and an awesome accomplishment that you should be proud of. Our real estate agents understand how important this decision is, and we're here to help anyone who feels ready to enter into homeownership. Get ready to buy your first home by using this helpful checklist.
Would you like to schedule tours of our latest Richmond homes for sale? Let us help you. Contact us today to tour the best homes in the RVA.
Purchasing a first home is one of the largest financial decisions most people make in a lifetime. The process can be an emotional roller coaster -- stressful, exciting, and overwhelming at the same time. For inexperienced homebuyers, it can be difficult to know what to expect and it's common to make mistakes during the house-hunting process. However, with a little preparation and research, you can avoid costly pitfalls and prevent major issues from popping-up down the line. Below are some tips to help you make the best decision when purchasing your first home.
Buying your first home can be an intimidating experience, but our REALTORS® can help. If you're a first-time homebuyer, contact us today for assistance.
Like most major purchases, buying a home involves expenses beyond the reported sale price of the home. Some of these expenses are for processing key paperwork, and others cover measures to help you aware of potential issues with your purchase. Our real estate agents want you to be prepared for the full process of buying a home. Some expenses consist of a flat fee, such as the mortgage application or home inspection fee. Other expenses represent a percentage of the sale price. While exact figures are hard to determine before you make an offer on a specific home, knowing what these expenses are can help you estimate a figure for the assorted expenses involved.
New homeowners can recall one key aspect of buying a house: the reams of paperwork. You're making a large and legally significant purchase, and much of the paperwork will be in complex, legalistic language. Many homebuyers hire an attorney to review the paperwork and ensure that all is in order and that there are no aspects of the sale that will surprise either buyer or seller. It's a small cost compared to a home purchase price and can save you much more in unexpected expenses.
You'll have a chance to view your new home before you buy it, but what you probably won't have at the open house is the expertise of a home inspector. Home inspectors are trained and licensed to diagnose signs of damage and deterioration and identify areas in need of repair. You can have this done before you make an official offer, or as part of closing. You may also want to have the lot your home sits on surveyed to help establish boundaries and dimensions. It's more common for commercial properties, but can be beneficial for homebuyers to know where their responsibilities end and where their neighbors' begin.
When you buy a home, you're joining a chain of owners. Occasionally, that chain can get tangled or even break. Your closing costs will include a title search and title insurance to make sure that you bought your home from someone authorized to sell it, and to protect you if a dispute over ownership arises. If you omit these, you may wind up making a significant investment in a home you don't truly own.
Some closing costs represent the initial payments of expenses you'll continue to pay after you take possession. These include property taxes, mortgage insurance, and homeowners insurance premiums. How much you have to pay upfront can vary, and you may be asked to cover a period before your move-in.
If you'd like to get an estimate of closing costs for one of our Richmond homes for sale, this worksheet should give you a good idea of what to expect. If you have further questions about buying a home in Richmond, we'll be pleased to answer them when you contact us.
After days, weeks, or even months of browsing Richmond homes for sale, you've found the perfect house for you. Research and diligence have placed you in the best position to take the next steps — submitting an offer.
How to Draft a Personalized Offer Letter in 10 Steps
Before you ask your real estate agent to formally offer a price, you may want to consider writing a personalized offer letter. Sending in a sincere note along with your offer price can make a world of difference, especially when you're competing against other buyers. Our real estate agents suggest following these ten steps when drafting your personalized offer letter.
For help finding and putting an offer in on fabulous Richmond homes for sale, contact us today!
You've found your dream home, your offer was accepted, and now you're anxiously awaiting your closing date.
While it might seem like the hard part is over, there is one more thing you need to take care of before you sign your closing paperwork: your final walk-through. It is your last chance to make sure the home is exactly as it should be before it becomes yours. This is not something you should take lightly.
During your walk-through, you'll want to make sure that all repairs are complete and that nothing has changed since the last time you saw the home. To help make sure you don't forget anything important, our REALTORS® have created the following final walk-through checklist. Let's get started!
Hopefully, everything will look great, and you can look forward to your closing date. If you notice any issues, however, you'll want to discuss them with your REALTOR® who will help you decide on the best course of action. In most cases, any problems can easily be fixed and shouldn't impact your closing date.
If you haven't found your ideal home yet, now is the perfect time to get started. There are plenty of great properties available in Richmond, and we would love to help you find the one that's right for you. Contact us to get started.
A lot is happening in the world, and it's having a direct impact on the housing market. The reality is this: some of it is positive and some of it may be negative. Some we just don't know yet.
The following three areas of the housing market are critical to understand: interest rates, building materials, and the outlook for an economic slowdown.
One of the most important things to consider when buying a home is the interest rate you will be charged to borrow the money. We recently posed the question, "Are Low Interest Rates Here To Stay?" The latest information from Freddie Mac makes it appear they are. We are currently at a 21-month low in interest rates.
Talk of tariffs could also affect the housing market. The National Association of Home Builders reports that as much as $10 billion in goods imported from China are used in homebuilding. Depending on the outcome of the tariff and trade discussions between several countries, there could be as much as a 25% boost in the cost of building materials.
At the beginning of the year, many economic leaders thought we could expect a recession in late 2019 or early 2020. As spring approached, we reported that economists had started to push that projection past 2020. Now, three leading surveys indicate that it may begin in the next eighteen months.
We are in a strong housing market. Wages are increasing, home prices are appreciating, and mortgage rates are the lowest they have been in 21 months. Whether you are thinking of buying or selling, it's a great time to be in the market.
SOURCE: Keeping Current Matters - Steve Harney
Buying a house should never be entered into lightly, and often many potential buyers may not realize just how much work it actually takes or the process involved. Doing as much research as possible can help determine exactly what is needed and required, to put a buyer in the best possible position to make a purchase.
Here are ten (10) great ways to help you identify the point at which making a home purchase becomes feasible for you:
1) Little to no credit card debt
When you're trying to get a mortgage, perhaps the most important aspect of doing so is getting your credit card debt reduced as close to zero as possible, according to Money Under 30. That's true for two reasons. First, the size of your credit card balances relative to your limits makes up a significant portion of your credit score. Second, lenders look at debt-to-income ratio. As long as you're carrying relatively small balances from one month to the next (or ideally, not carrying a balance at all), you'll be in good shape.
2) All other loans paid off
One of the biggest hurdles for the millennial generation when it comes to being financially capable of buying a home is student loans. It may not be wise to try to buy until your loan balances under control. That doesn't mean they have to be paid off in full, but they certainly need to be somewhat small relative to your income.
3) Tens of thousands of dollars in savings
If you're trying to buy a home in today's market, you'll almost certainly need to make a sizable down payment. While it's possible to get mortgages with down payment requirements as low as 3 percent, the added long-term expense could end up costing you significantly over the life of the loan. Making as large a down payment as possible is going to keep your borrowing costs down.
4) A rainy day fund
In addition to the money that will go toward your down payment, it's vital to have some additional money saved just in case something goes wrong with the home, according to Mint. As a general rule, having about $1 per square foot - or 1 percent of the purchase price - in the bank will help cover some basic expenses you're likely to encounter after your home purchase.
5) A long-term plan
Whether you're buying a home for a whole family or as a single person, you need to know what your situation is going to look like two, five, 10 or even 20 years down the road. That will inform a lot of decisions about the kinds of homes you're looking to purchase - i.e. not buying a small one that you'll have to move out of in a few years when you have kids - and how much work you'll have to put in to make sure your finances are in good enough shape to do so.
6) Reliable income
Lenders also want to make sure you're going to be able to keep up with your mortgage payments in the long term, so a steady job is a must, according to Credit Sesame. While no one can predict their employers' future with 100 percent accuracy, it might not be a good idea to go house hunting at a time of turmoil. As long as you're fairly confident in your position, shopping should be no problem.
7) A comfortable cushion
One issue some homeowners encounter after buying a home is they've pushed themselves so far financially trying to get ready for the real estate sales process that they come out the other side in rough financial shape. Being "house poor" means people own a house but otherwise struggle financially because of the cost of that property. You'll need to make sure you're not buying too much house or else risk running into other financial problems even if you can technically afford the mortgage and other costs.
8) An understanding of what constitutes affordability
Along similar lines, it's vital to not only factor in the cost of the mortgage, taxes and so on themselves, but also other expenses. This may include higher electric and heating bills that come with living in a bigger space, more costly insurance coverage (especially if your new home is in an area prone to flooding) and so on. Sitting down and doing the math around the true cost of homeownership will help you avoid being house poor or running into expenses you might not have realized will crop up
9) A list of must-haves and nice-to-haves
When people actually start shopping for homes, it can be easy to fall in love with certain properties, according to Forbes. However, while it would be nice to have a state-of-the-art kitchen with stainless steel appliances, it's probably going to be expensive and not necessary to your happiness in the home. Having a list of things that you will absolutely need out of your new property - big backyard for the kids, finished basement for a home office, etc. - will inform your choices and help you get a better idea of what you can actually afford.
10) A talented and experienced agent
The key role of real estate professionals in every portion of the process cannot be overstated. They will be able to help first-time buyers as well as those who have previously been through the process get as prepared as possible so they can maximize their understanding and the value they get out of buying a home. Experienced agents have likely seen it all and can help shepherd any client through a sale - as either buyers or sellers - with ease.
Buying a home is usually going to be the biggest purchase anyone makes in their entire lives, so it's important to put in a lot of legwork - over a period of months or more - to ensure things go as smoothly as possible at each step of the shopping process. That, in turn, will help you feel more confident in your ability to make a purchase with confidence that you've done everything right.
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