Change out those lights!

Room For Improvement

Don’t get Steve Somogyi wrong. He doesn’t hate all brass finishes — just the really shiny, yellow-toned stuff that he thinks screams “Cheap!” when homebuyers notice it in light fixtures, switch plates, doorknobs, etc.

That brass tone was fashionable a couple of decades ago, but its day is done and it has to go if it’s in a house you’re trying to sell, according to Somogyi, a real estate agent and interior designer.

In prepping a small house for the market recently, he switched out every single brass light fixture, switch plate, door hinge and knob for ones with an oil-rubbed bronze finish that’s a very dark brown.

Dark-toned fixtures and hardware may work to deformalize a room.

By buying the replacements from a big-box store and a website  specializing in closeouts, the homeowner spent $300 to $400 for materials, he  estimated, and a contractor/installer made the changes in a day.

In a larger home, such changes might be too complex or expensive to do  throughout, but at the very least, sellers should take a hard look at the  front-door hardware that greets potential buyers, he said.

“I spent a lot of the money on the door hardware in that house  because I do believe that your buyer knows within a few seconds whether they’re  going to buy,” Somogyi said. “When you feel an expensive door handle  vs. a cheap handle, you can feel the difference.

“I try to sell an emotional experience, that the place has been  loved,” said Somogyi, an agent for the North Clybourn Group brokerage in Chicago. “That energy  comes out.”

Although he’s a fan of dark-toned finishes (and certain antique golds),  Somogyi said the general homebuying public continues to accept the recently  popular satin-nickel tones as being “up to date” — though he  suspects an appetite is brewing for the next big color.

“Lighting fixture (and hardware) finishes have certainly trended  away from polished brass over the years,” said Jody De Vine, director of  marketing for Sea Gull Lighting in Riverside,   N.J.

We’ve seen more  transitional styling and finishes that cross over between traditional and  modern. This became quite evident in the use of polished and brushed nickel.”

De Vine said chrome finishes have gained popularity as a “clean”  style, and that dark browns and iron-blacks come across as cozy and work well  in updating traditional styling. Those browns and blacks also seem to be a  popular choice when trying to deformalize some rooms, she said.

Somogyi said not to overlook hardware details because buyers notice  them.

“Those switch plates and outlet covers that have crusty paint on  them? They only take a minute or two to switch out,” he said.

And if you have recessed can-lights in ceilings, take a look at the “surround,”  or collar, around the openings, he said. “Over time they get to be a  yellow-y color that stamps them as being dated, dreary or old.  I’ve seen a  million of these.”

-Taken from Inman.com

Home Improvement

The transition between winter and spring is the time to get a jump on moisture damage and heat loss and make quick work of organizing storage areas.

Don’t let winter slip away without using the cold, wet weather to help you detect where your home is leaking water and heat, giving you a chance to seal it up tight and develop a wish list for energy-saving improvements. Your first order of business inside your home is to make sure no water is getting in.

Carefully check every spot where condensation or water could enter your living areas and storage spaces. Take along a pad of paper and a pencil and take detailed notes as you scrutinize ceilings, under the roof, under the eaves and along window and door frames and ventilation seals. Be particularly careful to check under toilets, sinks, tubs and showers. Use a flashlight to check the crawl space or basement walls and floors and the underside of the first-story floor. You’re looking for visible moisture and for stains caused by moisture. When you find something, the remedy will depend on the source of the leak. You may just need to recaulk around a tub or window, or you may need to call a plumber to replace a leaking fixture.

Here are some other tasks to tackle inside your home this month:

Change the shower curtain. While you’re checking for leaks in the bathroom, see if the shower curtain needs replacing. Damp shower curtains can grow unhealthy mold and mildew and contribute to mold problems in the tub and shower, so swap yours out periodically and make sure to open and air out the shower enclosure when you’re done bathing.

Batten down the hatches. Find and seal energy leaks. Grab a pad and pencil to note any spots that you can’t address right away. Arm yourself with a tube of caulk to fill small cracks and a spray can of insulating foam sealer for larger gaps. Tour your home feeling for cold air entering through cracks in chimneys and window and door frames, and cracks around appliance vents, electrical and plumbing fixtures and furnace ducts. Remedies might include adding weatherstripping to a door frame or applying fresh caulk to window frames.

Run the numbers. Get an idea of how much energy a home the size of yours typically uses by entering detailed information about your dwelling into the Home Energy Saver tool. The tool lets you calculate your home’s energy use. It also lets you estimate the energy savings from a variety of improvements, such as adding insulation, replacing windows and purchasing high-efficiency appliances. Experts from the Energy Department, the Environmental Protection Agency and other state and federal agencies collaboConduct a home energy audit. If you’ve sealed the obvious leaks and your home is still inefficient, you’ll get more detailed information from a professional energy audit. The auditor can recommend energy-saving improvements and point out those that will most improve efficiency. Learn more about energy audits and how to find a professional auditor at the Energy Department’s Energy Savers site. Auditors use a blower door test, a thermographic scan and, occasionally, a perfluorocarbon tracer gas air-infiltration measurement technique to learn how weather-tight your home is. Tips: Check a contractor’s references thoroughly and check for complaints at the Better Business Bureau and your state attorney general’s consumer protection office (find your attorney general through the National Association of Attorneys General). The Energy Department advises finding a contractor who uses a calibrated blower door and who does thermographic inspections. Expect to pay roughly $300 to $500. In some cities, utility companies or government agencies do the work or help with the fees. For example, in Austin, Minn., the city utility performs and subsidizes audits so homeowners pay only $50 or $150, depending on the type of audit. Austin screens and recommends contractors, too.rate in sponsoring the site.

Clean out storage areas. Get a head start on spring cleaning by attacking a cluttered storage space. Whether you go after the garage, attic, laundry room or garden shed, your home benefits when you get rid of rusting tools, leaking fluids and household chemicals. Start by taking everything out of the space and piling it up outside. Clean the empty space, then go through the items, trying to let go of everything you haven’t used in the last year. Make four piles: stuff to keep, trash, donations and recycling, and hazardous waste. Open paint cans to dry the paint completely before disposing. Recycle batteries so the lead they contain doesn’t contaminate ground water. Rules for disposal vary by locale. Call your waste-disposal company or the county landfill to learn where and how to dispose of hazardous waste.

-By Marilyn Lewis of MSN Real Estate

Home Staging Tips

January Real Estate on the Cheap: For the budget-minded, staging a home for sale may seem like an expensive hassle. But making a small investment can lead to higher offers. Here’s what to do.

In the past few months, we’ve talked about some ways to save money if you’re a homebuyer, homeowner or renter. Sellers, now it’s your turn. This installment of Real Estate on the Cheap will address the importance of staging your home — and how to save while doing it.

Repeat after me: It’s not your home When you list your house for sale, it goes from being your home to being a product.

“Any time you are marketing a product, you want to dress it up pretty,” says Brandon Gren, a Washington, D.C., real-estate agent. “But people don’t see their homes as products.”

If you were selling your car, you would toss out the fast-food wrappers, wash it, wax it and vacuum it, he says. And you’d get a lot more buyer interest — and money — than if you didn’t take those steps.

The same is true when you are selling your home. You want to present it as a beautiful, desirable product. And you want it to stand out from all the other homes on the market.

“With short sales, bank-owned properties and the traditional sellers — all of these entities are in fierce competition to get the house sold,” says Barb Schwarz, founder and chairwoman of the International Association of Home Staging Professionals. “We are now seeing even some short sales and bank-owned properties being staged.”

How to save on staging You may assume that you’ll save if you stage your home yourself. That’s not always the case, Green says. “Almost everybody who stages on their own comes to me at the end of the process exhausted, saying they completely underestimated the time it took to stage,” he says. “You’re literally furnishing an entire house, and that takes time.”

He says it can take 40 hours just to stage a one-bedroom apartment: gathering ideas, finding furnishings, putting it all together and then taking it all back out. “Depending on what your salary is, is that full workweek dedicated to staging worth it?” he says.

That brings us to our first tips to save on staging:

1. Consider hiring a professional. Do a little math and make a few calls to see what it would cost to hire someone to handle the staging for you. Professional stagers have an arsenal of furnishings at the ready and can hammer out a neutral, professional design much quicker than you can. If you’re determined to do the work yourself, see about getting a consultation from a professional stager.

“Even if the homeowner chooses to do the work themselves, they’ll get an objective opinion about what needs to be done,” says Jill M. Banks, who runs Happily Better After Room Design & Home Staging in southern New Jersey and says most consultations cost about $200.

2. You don’t need to stage the whole house. Whether you hire a pro or decide to go the DIY route, you don’t need to stage every single room, Green says. Stage the main living areas — living room, dining room, kitchen — and at least one bedroom, preferably the master, he says. You should also stage any room that has a confusing purpose to show how it can be used. So if there’s an awkwardly sized bedroom, stage it to show that it will fit a bed and dresser comfortably, for instance.

“But you can leave several rooms empty, and you can leave the basement empty, as well,” Green says. “That can be a big saver.”

If you decide to go it alone Homeowners can do many things to stage their home at little or no cost. The most important thing to keep in mind is that buyers must be able to envision themselves living in your home.

“No one will buy your home until they can mentally move into it,” Schwarz says.

3. Clean, get rid of clutter and depersonalize. Staging is about making your home look nice, but remember that buyers have other senses and that a bad smell can be a deal-breaker. Nothing smells better than clean.

“Check that all rooms are spotlessly clean, have washed windows, smell good and have been aired before showings,” says Lauri Ward, president of Use What You Have Interiors, which focuses on using a client’s belongings to redecorate or stage the home.

“By packing up your clutter, you create more space for the buyers to mentally move into,” Schwarz says. And, she adds, “If you keep out all your collections and family photos, the buyers will spend their time looking at them and not your house.”

Don’t forget that buyers will be looking in your closets, too.

“You want the buyer to have the perception that, ‘Oh, there’s so much storage in here,’” Green says. “If it’s chock-full of stuff, it automatically gives the perception that there’s not enough storage.”

You don’t have to empty the closets and other storage areas, but Green advises paring them down to about 20% of what you normally store there.

It’s nothing personal When it comes to furnishings, Green warns that you may not want to use only what you have.

“Most people have a design aesthetic that matches them as a person,” he says. “Usually, the stuff you have isn’t fantastic for staging. Staging is going to need a fairly neutral design.” He advises DIY stagers to be selective when finding furniture. “Take the time to hunt for pieces that really are effective with the concept,” he says.

But that doesn’t mean you have to spend a lot. “I had a client once who staged off of Craigslist,” Green says. “It took her forever, but she pieced together a fantastic staging concept by buying used furniture.”

4. Be resourceful when hunting for furnishings. If you have friends and family with updated or neutral furniture, see if you can borrow a few pieces to stage your home. If you need to stage a room as a bedroom but you don’t have a bed, get an inflatable air mattress that rises off the floor to regular bed height. Once you get the linens on, it will look just like a regular bed, and you can use it for guests in your new home.

Here are a few other quick tips from the experts:

5. Show off hardwood floors. “If you have hardwood floors in good shape that are covered by wall-to-wall carpeting, remove the carpet and clean the floor,” Banks says. “Hardwood floors are a big selling point these days.”

6. Remove heavy window treatments. Banks say buyers are looking for homes with lots of natural light and that lighter, less formal window panels give any room a lighter, airier feel.

7. Freshen the walls. “Paint is always the least expensive way to make a major change to a home,” says Jessica Dolan, a home organizer and stager. Green says cleaning the wall may be enough to make it look freshly painted.

8. Remember the rule of three. Green says the golden rule is three items per surface, whether it’s a wall, tabletop or mantel. “Quantity is usually when people get a little too crazy,” he says.

The rule of three applies to small rooms, as well, while larger rooms may get six pieces — four chairs, a table and a lamp in a dining room, for example.

9. Do your research. If you’re not sure what a staged home should look like, spend a half-day going to open houses to see what works and what doesn’t. Take notes.

-Taken from msn.com/Leah L. Culler of MSN Real Estate

Mortgage rates to stay low for most of 2012

Rates will likely stay below 5% for at least the first half of the year, industry experts say.

Mortgage rates should remain low in 2012, especially in the first half of the year, according to the predictions of several industry watchers.

“We may spend the entire year below 5%,” said Greg McBride, senior financial analyst for Bankrate.com, referring to the average interest rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. (Bing: Perfect credit score)

Rates may even fall to new lows early this year, particularly if the European debt crisis hits a crescendo, McBride added.

Already, rates are sitting at record lows. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 3.91% for the week ending Jan. 5, according to Freddie Mac’s weekly survey of conforming mortgage rates. That ties the record for the lowest rates that have been in the history of the survey. In contrast, the highest average was 18.63% set in 1981, according to Freddie Mac.

In general, the financial troubles in Europe, combined with the Federal Reserve’s pledge to keep short-term rates on hold at least through 2013, will keep mortgage rates from rising significantly, McBride said.

• What’s the lowest interest rate you can get?

Europe’s woes have caused a “flight to quality” among investors, sending their money in the direction of U.S. bonds, which has the effect of lowering mortgage rates. The Fed’s short-term rate policy also reduces long-term rates, since long-term rates “reflect expectations of where short-term rates will be in the future,” he said.

• MSN Money:  New year, new records for mortgage rates

Lately, consumers have been conditioned to expect low rates. Last year, the 30-year fixed-rate conforming mortgage had its lowest annual average on record at 4.66%, according to Bankrate.

Read:  What’s ahead for home prices in 2012

According to Freddie Mac, the 30-year mortgage averaged 4.5% in 2011; the lowest weekly rates on record were posted toward the end of the year.

But whereas rates fell in the second half of 2011, they are expected to rise at least somewhat during the second half of 2012, said Frank Nothaft, chief economist of Freddie Mac.

“Operation Twist is scheduled to remain in effect until June,” Nothaft said. The intent of Operation Twist, or the Federal Reserve’s Maturity Extension Program, is to push — and keep — long-term interest rates low, which means rates should stay low for the first half of the year, he said. The Fed plan, announced in September, involves buying long-term securities and selling $400 billion in short-term debt.

But the Fed hasn’t made a commitment on whether it will extend the program beyond the June cutoff, Nothaft said.

Economic outlook An improving economy could also cause rates to rise.

Rates on a conforming 30-year fixed-rate mortgage are expected to average 4.2% in the first quarter of 2012, and should average 4.8% by the fourth quarter, according to Freddie Mac’s forecast.

Meanwhile, HSH Associates, a publisher of consumer loan information, predicts conforming, 30-year fixed-rate mortgages will remain between 3.85% and 4.85% throughout 2012.

• On our blog, ‘Listed’: Home prices back to 2011 levels

“Things appear to be improving domestically. The economy, employment, the housing market are showing signs of warming,” said Keith Gumbinger, vice president at HSH.

While the troubles of 2011 will certainly carry over into the new year, at least some upward emphasis on mortgage rates is expected “as things start to look a little more rosy,” he said.

But those who aren’t as optimistic about the growth of the economy have different rate forecasts. For example, Fannie Mae’s chief economist, Doug Duncan, expects rates will stay relatively flat all year, with the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rising to 4.1% or 4.2% at the most by the fourth quarter.

The low-rate environment means that even people who have been improving their credit quality for the past five years may have a shot at scoring some of the lowest mortgage rates in history — and they may add sales to the housing market in the process, Duncan said.

Some mortgage market watchers also think that lenders may be more willing to work with borrowers with good but not great credit in the year ahead, as the housing market and economy show some signs of improvement and lenders look to grow their business.

“I don’t see credit becoming appreciably easier. But I think what you will see is more lenders willing to dip their toes into the waters of 700 and 720 credit-score consumers,” McBride said. “You may end up, as a consumer, seeing more lenders at the table for those that have good credit scores and not just those who have great credit scores.”

The bleeding is just about over, but don’t expect a speedy recovery.

The median home price in the U.S. has plunged nearly 40% in a little more than five years, but the worst is over: The market has finally wrung out the last excessive valuations born of the housing bubble. Before you break out the party hats, note that this doesn’t mean prices across the nation are poised to rebound any time soon. (Bing: What’s the median home price in your area?)

Alex Villacorta, director of research and analytics at Clear Capital, a provider of real-estate data, says the housing market is in a “suspended state,” with positive and negative factors offsetting one another. But he says he doesn’t expect another free fall in prices, assuming “things are left to work themselves out and there are no further shocks to the economy.”

Although the percentage of sales of distressed homes is expected to rise, the federal government’s latest loan-modification program might allow as many as 2 million homeowners to refinance, says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. Zandi says that further home-price declines nationwide will be limited to 3% to 5% and that 2012 will be the year that prices finally stabilize, setting the stage for gains in 2013.

1. Interest rate buy-down. When you hear sellers say they will “pay points,” what they are doing is offering to award the buyer a certain number of percentage points of the sales price, which will, in turn, be paid to the buyer’s lender as discount points that bring the buyer’s interest rate down. For the buyer, this is a big deal, as it decreases the pressure they feel to guess the right day to lock in their interest rate (a common source of serious stress among buyers), and sends the message that if they buy your home, they’ll automatically beat the market rate.  And what buyer doesn’t want that?!

2. Closing cost credit.  Many buyers trying to break into the market while prices are low are already scraping the bottom of their savings account barrels to come up with their down payment money.  With most home loans, the buyer will have to come with anywhere from 3 to 6 percent of the loan amount, in cash, on top of their down payment, to cover closing costs like loan fees, escrow services and title or mortgage insurance.  (And strangely enough, the buyers putting the 3.5 percent minimum down payment on an FHA loan are likely to have to come up with the higher end of the closing cost range, 6 percent, to cover their mortgage insurance.)

3. HOA dues credit.  If you are selling a home that is in a homeowners’ association (HOA) that charges monthly or even annual dues, then surely you recall buying that home and being overwhelmed at the prospect of going from rent being your sole monthly housing expense, to having a laundry list of expenses starting with your mortgage, including property taxes and insurance and then having HOA dues as the unpleasant cherry on top.

4. Broker incentives.  Some savvy sellers who can’t afford to offer buyers several percentage points’ worth of the proceeds of sale toward closing costs take a different route, offering to pay a bonus percentage point (or more) in incentives to the eventual buyer’s broker or agent – on top of the commission, rather than to the buyer themselves.  Over 90 percent of buyers who are ready, willing and able to buy a home on today’s market are represented by a broker.  And brokers have to sort through sometimes hundreds of pretty similar listings to decide which ones to show a buyer any given Sunday.