How to Value Your Home Prior to Contacting an Agent

If you are planning to sell your home, you may want to ask an agent how much it will sell for. Before you do, there are a few things you can try to estimate the value of your home on your own. This way, you'll have a good idea of what the market will offer your home before hiring an agent to help with negotiations. Here are four steps to estimating the value of your home:

Perform Local Comparisons

Even if you live in a small community, there are likely dozens of homes just like yours. Look at what similar homes have sold for and listed over the past few months. This should give you an idea of what your home is worth in today’s market.

Compare Your Home Improvements

Knowing how much your home is worth is key to getting a fair price when you decide to sell. Before you put your house on the market, it’s a good idea to make a list of any renovations or improvements you've made, regardless of whether they were expensive or not. If buyers are looking at similar houses in your area that have been renovated, those improvements can increase your home's value. Additionally, keep records for things like appliances and floors. These upgrades aren't as visible as rooms remodeled from top to bottom but can still be part of what sets one house apart from another.

Look at Recent Sales History

The sales history of your home is an important metric, especially if you plan to sell your home as-is. Most real estate agents would advise you to choose a price range that allows for 7-15% annual appreciation, since most neighborhoods trend in that direction over time. To figure out what is possible, start by looking at the sales history of homes that are comparable to yours. You can search online with sites like Redfin or Trulia and find that data.

Perform a DIY Appraisal

The DIY route is a good way to appraise your home before an agent comes to do it. If you’re going with this approach, understand that the number won’t always be accurate but you’ll be able to get a better idea of how an agent will price your home. Go through your home and take note of the condition, amenities, number of rooms, and bathrooms, as well as any problems. Input this information on instant home valuation sites to get a general idea of how much your home is worth.

Selling your home can be stressful, but it’s important to understand the process so you know what to expect and when. These five methods will help you estimate your home’s value and determine the best strategy for selling it quickly and for maximum profit.

Next Exterior Refresh: How to enhance your home's style over the weekend

Weekends are valuable because you have more time to spend at home to freshen up the style of your home. This helps to give your home a facelift. However, if you are struggling with ideas, check out these five great tips to enhance the style of your home over the weekend.

Add New Lighting

Lighting helps to bring your home to life. When your home is poorly lit, it will look dark and dull. Adding new lighting to your home will make it look airy and welcoming. There are different ways to improve your home with lighting. For example, you can buy floor lamps and place them in strategic places like the dark corners of your home. When using lighting in your rooms, you can layer the lighting with side tables. This will make the rooms look welcoming. You can also replace all your outdated lighting fixtures with the impressive modern lighting fixtures available on the market. The use of bright lighting can give your home a facelift. 

Clean and Paint Your Home

One way to enhance the style of your home is by cleaning and painting it. Cleaning your home properly over the weekend can improve your mood and make your home more comfortable. Also, painting your home will make it look new and welcoming. When painting your home, look for places that need a touch-up. For instance, you can consider painting your ceiling or trim with a coat of white paint. Painting can help transform your home, thereby reducing the need for significant renovations. It can also help bring new life to outdated furniture. Whenever you have some free time over the weekend, don't forget to do some cleaning and painting in your home.

Decorate Your Living Room and Kitchen. 

A great way to improve your living room is by rearranging the furniture. Try setting up your furniture in a new way. Also, you can swap out some furniture from other rooms to establish a new look. You can choose to make use of a new rug, hang a few curtains, and change the decor on the bookshelves. Furthermore, the weekend is a great time to add some style to your kitchen. You can decide on painting the cabinets and walls of your kitchen. Since you will be doing a lot of activities in your kitchen, you should consider painting it with color that can hide dirt or stains better. Also, use a semi or high gloss finish to prevent unnecessary peelings. You can also add plants as decoration, they will give a lively atmosphere to your indoor look. You can just visit the closest flower shop and bring them home over the weekend. Be careful to check what kind of dirt and how much water do they need once you start taking care of them! If your living room is dark and there is not much sunlight passing through the windows, add some LED grow lights to help the plants grow healthy. 

Create Accent Walls

One of the best ways to enhance your house style is by creating an accent wall for your home. Taupe or White walls have a unique look, but adding a little pop of color can make your house look modernized. Also, you can choose to experiment with patterns, tone, textures, and more. With complimentary accent colors and painter's tape, you can create modern wall art. Irrespective of what you want to achieve with your accent wall, try to make sure it reveals your distinct sense of style. 

Change the Siding of Your Home

Changing siding can make your home stand out remarkably. Siding plays a vital role in the security of your home. It protects your home from elements like snow, ice, wind, or rain. Having poor siding will allow water to enter your home from the windows or roof, resulting in crucial damages like mildew and foundational issues. Whenever you notice air coming through the exterior of your home, then it may be time to consider changing your siding. If you don't have time for this, it would be nice to seek professional help from siding contractors. Make sure you hire a siding contractor who is licensed and insured because this guarantees that they will help you install your siding correctly. 

Conclusion

Spending time over the weekend adding style to your home is a great way to have fun and improve the quality of your home. Remember to add style to your home, add new lighting, clean and paint your room, decorate your living room and kitchen, create accent walls and change the siding of your home. Take on the challenge today and make your home look special! 

4 Ways to Add Security to Your New Home After Moving In

A home is an impenetrable fortress or sanctuary where you feel secure and relaxed throughout your life. Therefore, if you want to ensure this place maintains its reputation, in the long run, secure it as possible. It is essential to secure your surroundings after successful relocation because you aren't conversant with your new home. Surveillance statistics indicate that it is pretty easy to be robbed a couple of months after a residential move compared to any other occasion. Therefore, it's crucial to prevent possible risks and take stipulated measures to secure your property. As a result, it avoids unfortunate accidents that might arise in the new home significantly. Here are top-notch ways to secure your home immediately after relocation:

Install an Outstanding Security System

Most people globally have installed a burglar alarm system in their apartments to improve security. The system will warn you against dangers as well as discourage intrusion into your home. It would be helpful to install video cameras at various crucial areas around the apartment to boost security surveillance. Besides, install sensors on doors and windows to improve security monitoring perspective. Once installed, you can flawlessly manage it through your smartphone or laptop. This approach will alert you on the type of damaged property and notify you whenever a person wants to enter your house.

Video surveillance system is also a great option. Besides, it's important to put warning strikers at your entrance, indicating that you have improved and responsive home security. But ensure it's more generic stickers to prevent burglars from flawlessly disabling it. Ensure you hide your home security wires system from burglars who might them and eventually tamper with the security system.

Protect Windows and Doors

If you want to prevent intrusion to your home, secure all possible entrance areas such as secure pet doors, protect windows with great locks, install metal bars on the windows, and maximize the interior hinges regularly.

Install Exterior Lights

According to a recent surveillance report, installing light equipment around your home, specifically at the entrance, regularly discourages intrusion. As technology continues sparking worldwide, many have embraced home security devices like infrared detectors, which automatically turn on whenever an individual is within your geographical boundaries and detect usual movement at night.

Improve Outside Surrounding Condition

To enact the approach, use taller and stronger fences along with adequate maintenance and repairs aspects. In addition, keep away tools and ladders that burglars could use to scale your lovely home quickly. Besides, regularly trim hedges and avoid thick and tall shrubs around your windows. You could also use a trained dog to improve your home security.

The above-highlighted security techniques will secure your property and keep intruders away from your home daily.

7 Simple Habits to Give Your Bathroom an Eco-Friendly Makeover

If you are thinking of living a zero-waste life, the key is to do it bit by bit. You can start in one area of life, such as your hygiene and bathroom routine. Doing so makes your transition eco-friendly and manageable.

That said, we have listed down seven eco-conscious habits you should start building to have a sustainable bathroom.

Use energy-efficient lighting

If you want to be more eco-friendly, the first thing that you need to do is ensure that you don’t use more resources than you need. An example of a resource that you might want to be more efficient in using would be energy.

In the bathroom, you would often use energy to light the bathroom. Therefore, if you want to be more energy-efficient in the bathroom, switch to LED lights.

When you have energy-efficient lighting, you reduce the energy you need to run your bathroom. That means that you are more resourceful while also reducing the energy costs that you have to pay. 

Minimize water usage

Aside from being more mindful of how much energy you use, it would help to keep in mind your water usage. Reducing water usage enables you to reduce your water bills, and it’s more sustainable since you’re not using more than you need. 

There are different ways you can reduce your overall water usage. Cutting down on how often you wash your hair is a great way to minimize water usage and is one way you can have healthier hair. You can also use a low-flow showerhead which will help provide the same water pressure you want but with just the right amount of water you need.

There are also low-flow toilets that can reduce water usage while still being efficient at their intended tasks.

Heat water more efficiently

Aside from the lighting in the bathroom, you also use energy when you heat water. Heating requires a lot of energy, so by focusing on heating water more efficiently, you can also cut back on your household energy usage by a lot.

With that said, there are many ways you can heat water more efficiently in your bathroom. You can heat water more efficiently by getting a tankless water heater that will only run when you open any hot water faucet. It saves you a lot more energy than the standard tank water heaters.

Ditch those plastic bottles

Your toiletries usually come in single-use plastic bottles. That means that you can’t reuse them. Instead of continuing to use those plastic bottles, try and look for greener alternatives.

For example, nowadays, there are shampoo and conditioner bars that look like a bar of soap, except they’re shampoo and conditioner. You can also support brands that would refill your old bottles for a lower price, which is a service that many shops use nowadays.

If you have specific hair concerns that you can’t get from any other brand, though, opt to purchase that item in bulk or larger quantities instead. That way, you can reduce the impact as much as possible.

Switch to all-natural cleaners

You can also have a more eco-friendly bathroom by changing the cleaning solutions and products that you use there.

We often use harsh chemicals to clean our bathrooms, which are harmful to us and the environment. Instead of using those, you can opt for the greener alternatives that work just as well but use less harmful and natural ingredients.

If you have children or pets, using all-natural cleaners can be the safer option. Doing so ensures that your home is free from any toxic ingredients that can cause a reaction to you and your family members.

Some people even opt to make homemade cleaners made from household products like baking soda and vinegar. If that’s something that interests you, then consider making cleaning products at home. Be careful and test the cleaning solution first so that it doesn’t end up damaging your bathroom instead.

Replace your shower curtain

Those cheap vinyl shower curtains you find almost anywhere are often made from harmful materials. These materials release detrimental fumes throughout their lifetime.

Instead of using those, look for shower curtains that state non-PVC so you have a green shower curtain. Better yet, install a shower screen instead. Those will last longer, are easier to clean, and they’re eco-friendly.

Of course, they’re more expensive than a shower curtain, but you won’t have to replace them any time soon anyway.

Incorporate sustainable furnishings

Sustainable furnishings in the bathroom are also a great way to incorporate greener elements. Using fixtures made from recycled materials helps reduce your carbon footprint.

Recycled glass and ceramic, for example, are long-lasting and aren’t as wasteful to use in your bathroom. Bamboo is another example of an excellent material that is sustainable and attractive in your bathroom.

These changes should be able to help you spruce up your bathroom without adding damage to the planet. This should also encourage you to continue doing the switch for the environment.