Home warranties can be attractive to home owners or buyers who are looking at purchasing a property. These service contracts can cover all of a home’s major systems, such as the furnace or air conditioner, and will cover needed repairs if the appliance breaks or damaged.
Some sellers are offering a home warranty to try to lure buyers.
But not all home warranties are the same. Experts say you should carefully weigh costs, policy allowances, and customer feedback before making a decision so that you ensure you’re getting the best deal. Home warranties cost about $250 to $500 a year.
Here are some more tips from experts in shopping for a home warranty:
Find customer reviews. Web sites, such as homewarrantyreviews.com, provide reviews of home warranty companies. You also might check how each company is rated with your local Better Business Bureau.
typical home in Belle Haven Estates
Check for extra fees. Will you have to pay a fee for service calls?
Check the coverage allowance. Are there any exclusions to coverage? Will the allowance cover the entire cost of a broken appliance or just some of it? For example, if you have older appliances and mechanicals, will the policy cover the full cost of replacing it or just the depreciated value? If the policy only covers the depreciated value when a 20-year-old furnace dies, for example, the reimbursement may not be enough to buy a new one. Also, verify what appliances are all included in the coverage. Some companies will allow you to add coverage for swimming pools, while others won’t.
"The biggest thing is awareness of what the exclusions are," Greg McBride, a senior financial analyst at Bankrate.com, told the Chicago Tribune. "The mere presence of a warranty, by nature, tends to have exclusions. Being aware of that can aid in the decision-making process."
Source: “When Home Warranties Are Worth It,” Chicago Tribune (Feb. 8, 2011)
Most home owners opt to add some upgrades to a new home, which can be rolled into the mortgage opposed to paying for them later on their own. But the choices of what flooring, lighting, or other upgrades to choose can be overwhelming.
Designer Candice Olson, author and host of HGTV's "Candice Tells All," says lighting and extra wiring are key upgrades new home buyers should consider.
"Adding lighting -- or at least the wiring for it -- means you'll be able to have bathroom sconces instead of that one overhead light the builder gives you,” Olson says. “Your flat-screen TV can be where you want it. You'll have a floor outlet for the lamp in middle of the open room. And you won't be ripping out walls later to do all this."
Also, she says home owners shouldn’t forget about the exterior lighting either. "Outside lighting, plus landscaping, will set apart your house from the others in the neighborhood where buyers chose from plans A, B and C," Olson says.
As for flooring, Olson recommends hardwood floors for the main living areas, and cork floors for the basement, since there’s potential for water leakage in basements.
She also says the addition of taller baseboards, chair rails, crown molding, coffered ceilings, built-ins or a banquette also are smart investments for upgrades.
Source: “Decisions, Decisions: Add Character to Your Home With a Few Choice Upgrades,” Chicago Tribune (Feb. 4, 2011)Townhouses
Second mortgages have become one of the biggest roadblocks to closing short sales.
There are about 450,000 properties in some stage of the foreclosure process with at least one junior lien, according to real estate research firm CoreLogic. These second liens are a primary challenge for Freddie Mac, said Mark Johnson, who oversees short sales for Freddie.
Holders of second liens have little left to lose so some of them are willing to get in the way of a deal in hopes of being thrown a bone, said Jon Goodman, a real-estate lawyer and investor in Boulder, Colo.
Source: The Wall Street Journal, Nick Timiraos (11/27/2010)
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The foreclosure mess is making it harder for banks to sell properties. ForeclosureRadar, which tracks foreclosures in five Western states, says the number of properties coming to auction in Arizona, California, and Nevada has declined by more than 30 percent.
Investors are backing away from sales because they fear that the properties they buy will be tied up in an investigation, says Sean O’Toole, CEO of Foreclosure Radar.
O’Toole believes the problem is short-lived and ultimately will be settled in favor of the banks. "The fear that has been created in based more in hype than in law," he says.
Source: CNNMoney.com, Les Christie (11/29/2010)
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Julie Nesbitt knows the back trails and by-ways of Northern Virginia real estate.
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Understanding the tenets of title insurance is especially important considering the turmoil in the real estate industry.
Title insurance is intended to protect the insured from improper titling, including defects in foreclosure proceedings, forgery, or impersonation or cases in which no title is legally conveyed. Other defects are partial, such as a neighboring fence or garage encroaching on the insured person’s property.
The title insurance industry recently set down strict guidelines for when and if they will insure a title to a property on which there has been a foreclosure.
The buyer should be equally vigilant, insisting on a 60-year search and paying for an owner’s policy as well as the lender’s policy that the bank will demand.
Source: Washington Post, Harvey S. Jacobs (11/27/2010)
Does paying cash for a home net the buyer a discount as it might for other transactions? The answer: “It depends.”
If the seller is in a big-time crunch, an all-cash deal can expedite the sale. Also, offering to pay cash gives the buyer less wriggle room, which could comfort a nervous seller.
A seller with minimal equity may be looking for a more generous deal than an all-cash buyer is likely to demand. Also, if there is a bank involved in the deal, it may not be so enthusiastic either because an all-cash transaction could undercut the reason banks are in business.
Source: The Wall Street Journal, June Fletcher (11/04/2010)
Are you looking for a home in a particular ZIP code?
Mr. Zip is still making his rounds
A ZIP Code is a category for grouping mailing addresses and thus ZIP codes are not exact geographic regions. That means that ZIP Codes are only loosely tied to cities. In some cases, ZIP Codes can overlap, be subsets of each other, or be artificial constructs with no geographic area. Sometimes the center of a ZIP Code may be in one County and the associated city/town in another. However, ZIP codes are sometimes useful for finding homes for sale in a particular area. For a list of ZIP codes check out
