Archive for May, 2010
Do’s and Don’ts of the Mortgage Loan Process
Thursday, May 27th, 2010 | Home Buying | No Comments
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DO’S AND DON’TS OF THE MORTGAGE LOAN PROCESS
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Avoid making credit mistakes during the Mortgage loan process. Follow this simple guide to ensure your mortgage approval is not jeopardized. ♦ DO respond to calls from your lender right away ♦ DO continue making payments staying current on your mortgage/rent and ALL accounts ♦ DON’T let ANYONE else retrieve your credit (even for a cell phone or health club) |
* Realtor Tip ~ Take Seasonal Pictures!
Tuesday, May 25th, 2010 | Home Selling, Staging | No Comments
It is a great idea to take “seasonal” pictures of your house!
If you have to sell your house in the winter months -
you can show potential Buyers your wonderful yard under all that snow!
(By Jen Stauter, Stark Company, Realtors)
8 Solutions to Common Wet-Basement Problems
Thursday, May 20th, 2010 | Home Improvements | Comments Off
Nothing poses a greater long-term risk to your home’s value than a wet basement. If left unchecked, basement moisture can ruin floors and walls, encourage mold, even damage roofing. Some wet basements are easy to cure, simply by making sure gutters stay clear and by diverting gutter water well away from the foundation. But if the problem comes from other sources—water flowing toward the house on the surface, seeping in from underground, or backing up through municipal storm drains—you’ve got to take more aggressive action. Here’s help with figuring out what may be causing your water trouble, and eight basement waterproofing strategies to try, from the simplest and least expensive to the most challenging and costly.
1. Add underground piping
If downspouts are dumping too close to the house, you can get water the recommended five feet or more away from the foundation by adding roll-out plastic or metal gutter extenders. But they aren’t the neatest or most effective long-term solution, especially if you’re likely to trip on them or run over them with a lawnmower. Permanent underground piping is invisible and capable of moving large quantities of runoff much farther from your house. For about $10 a foot, a landscaper or waterproofing contractor will dig a trench and install piping to carry the water safely away.
2. Plug gaps
If you see water dribbling into the basement through cracks or gaps around plumbing pipes, you can plug the openings yourself with hydraulic cement or polyurethane caulk for less than $20. Plugs work when the problem is simply a hole that water oozes through, either from surface runoff or from wet soil. But if the water is coming up through the floor, or at the joint where floor and walls meet, the problem is ground water, and plugs won’t do the trick. For that, see Solutions #5 though #7 below.
3. Restore the crown
If the gutters are working and you’ve plugged obvious holes, but you still see water dribbling into your basement or crawl space from high on the foundation walls, then surface water isn’t draining away from the house as it should. Your house should sit on a “crown” of soil that slopes at least six inches over the first 10 feet in all directions. Over time, the soil around the foundation may have settled. All you need to do to build it back up is shovel in more dirt. One cubic yard of a water-shedding clay-loam mix from a landscape supply house costs around $30 (plus delivery) and is enough for a two-foot-wide, three-inch-deep layer along 57 feet of foundation.
4. Reshape the landscape
If you can’t add soil without bringing it too close to the siding—six inches is the minimum safe distance to protect against rot and termites—then you may be able to redirect surface water before it reaches the house by creating a berm (a mound of dirt) or a swale (a wide, shallow ditch). In small areas, berms are easy; a landscape contractor can build one for a few hundred dollars. On bigger projects, berms make less sense because you’ll have to truck in too much soil. In that case, dig a swale (about $1,000). Once landscaping grows in, berms and swales can be attractive features in your yard.
5. Repair footing drains
If water is leaking into your basement low on the walls or at the seams where walls meet the floor, your issue isn’t surface water, it’s hydrostatic pressure pushing out water within the ground. The first thing to do is check whether you have footing drains, underground pipes installed when the house was built to carry water away from the foundation. (Look for a manhole or drain in the basement floor or a cleanout pipe capped a few inches above the floor.) The drains may be clogged, in which case you can try opening the cleanout and flushing the pipes with a garden hose. If that doesn’t work, a plumber with an augur can often do the job for about $600.
6. Install a curtain drain around the house
If you don’t have footing drains or can’t get the existing ones to function, there’s one more thing you can try before you invest in a costly interior or exterior basement waterproofing system: Install a curtain drain to divert water that’s traveling underground toward your house. A type of French drain, a curtain drain is a shallow trench filled with gravel and piping that intercepts water uphill of your house and carries it down the slope a safe distance away.
7. Pump the water out from the inside
If you can’t keep subsurface water out, then you have to address it on the inside. To create an interior drain system, crews saw a channel around the perimeter of the floor, chip out the concrete, and lay perforated pipe in the hole. The pipe drains to collection tank at the basement’s low spot, where a sump pump sends it away. Starting at about $3,000, an interior system may be the least expensive and disruptive option if you have an unfinished basement with easy access, or a lot of mature landscaping that digging for an exterior system would destroy.
8. Waterproof from the outside
Installing an interior drainage system gets the water out but doesn’t actually waterproof the walls. For that, you need an exterior system: a French drain to relieve hydrostatic pressure and exterior waterproofing to protect the foundation. It’s a big job that requires excavating around the house, but it may be the best solution if you have a foundation with numerous gaps where water is getting through. It also keeps the mess and water outside, which may be your choice if you don’t want to tear up a finished basement. The downside, besides a price tag that can reach $20,000, is that your yard takes a beating, and you may need to remove decks or walkways.
(Jeanne Huber is the author of 10 books about home improvement and writes a weekly column about home care for The Washington Post. She solved her first drainage mystery when her family’s frequent sneezing attacks led her to discover mildew coating the underside of their house’s roof. Turns out basement flooding (see Sign #6) was to blame.)
Builder Confidence Up!
Wednesday, May 19th, 2010 | Home Buying, Home Selling, Market News | No Comments
Builder confidence in the market for newly built single-family homes rose for the second consecutive month in May to its highest level in more than two years, according to the latest report of National Association of Home Builders.
The HMI, based on a monthly survey, rose to its highest level since August 2007. Based on a 100-point scale, the HPI measures builder perceptions of current single-family home sales and sales expectations for the next six months. Scores over 50 indicate more builders view sales conditions as good than poor.
The national HPI ticked up to three points to 22 in May, and the HPI gained in every region. The Northeast rose 14 points to 35, its highest level since June 2007. The Midwest posted a two-point gain to 17, while the South rose a single point to 22 and the West jumped seven points to 20.
“Builders surveyed for the HMI at the beginning of May were undoubtedly reacting to the heightened consumer interest they had just witnessed as the deadline for home buyer tax credits arrived at the end of April,” said NAHB chairman Bob Jones. “Builders are also hopeful that the solid momentum that the tax credits initiated will continue even now that those incentives are gone.”
According to the HPI, sales are expected to gain in over the next six months, despite the expiration of the first-time home buyer tax credit. Indeed, broker sources tell HousingWire some sellers are taking anywhere from $6,500 to $8,000 off the asking price, to encourage purchases in lieu of the first time homebuyer tax credit. (U.S. BANCORP))
Sales Continue to Increase in 2010
Monday, May 17th, 2010 | Home Buying, Home Selling, Market News | No Comments
The increased pace of sales started in the 4th quarter of 2009 has continued into the first quarter of 2010. Residential sales reported to the South Central Wisconsin MLS for the combined Dane, Sauk and Columbia County markets were up 22.7% from the same period a year ago. This follows on the heels of the 47% increase in the 4th quarter of 2009, and the pace of offers suggests that the second quarter of 2010 will also be very strong. While there are still some uncertainties and cross-currents in the data, the persistence of the energy in the market is very encouraging. It appears that the fear based economy we were dealing with a year ago is largely a thing of the past. How the remaining uncertainties resolve themselves over the coming months will determine how long it will be until we can truly call this market “normal” again.
Condos Heating Up
Monday, May 10th, 2010 | Home Buying, Home Selling, Market News | No Comments
Little noticed in the excitement over the increase in overall sales activity is the fact that condos, at least on a percentage increase basis, have performed even better than single family homes over the past six months. Since October, single family home sales are up 22.4% in Dane County, while condo sales are up a whopping 65.5%. While single family inventories are up, as noted above, condo inventories are down 11% since last year. The combination of rising sales and falling inventories has cut the number of months of condo inventory almost in half, while single family has stayed level. Condos tend to be less expensive than single family homes, which has undoubtedly made them attractive to first time home buyers. To be sure, we still have more condo inventory to work off than we do in single family, and we expect both to improve even more over the next three months and beyond. But the growing strength in condos is welcome as yet another indicator of the steady improvement in all areas of our market.
Muddy Foot Print
Monday, May 3rd, 2010 | Home Buying | No Comments
After a week of waiting to hear from an asset manager on a foreclosure offer, we get the news my Buyer’s offer was the offer the bank has selected. Yea! We just need to get one piece of paper signed to make it official.
This asset manger will not accept electronic signatures so the Buyer & I hatch a plan to meet at the Buyer’s apartment. The Buyer’s apartment was located close to downtown Madison on E. Washington Ave. I arrive during rush hour & park behind the apartment on a side street to avoid traffic.
I walk around the block – find the apartment easily – meet with the Buyer & get the needed piece of paper signed.
Now all I have to do is get this one piece of paper safely back to the asset manger…. Easy right? Wrong!
I head out to walk to my car – it is a beautiful, but windy day…. All of a sudden out of nowhere a huge gust of wind rips the freshly signed paper out of my hand. The paper takes off like a kite bouncing in the air.
Panic strikes!
In my extremely, non-athletic flip flops – I start to run after the paper – it was zigging & zagging in the air – I’m trying to grab it & missing. I turn the corner … WHOO! WHOO! There is a train coming & my paper is heading right toward it. OH NO! I start swinging wildly to catch this one piece of paper…after another block of chasing & right before the train – the paper gets low enough so I can stomp it with my foot & bring the chase to an end.
Phew!
All in all looking back on this incident it appears everything turned out for the best!
The Buyer got her house, I got a workout & the people watching the whole ordeal from the bar on the side street got a great show… even the piece of paper managed to stay in good shape minus the muddy foot print on the back.
(Jen Stauter, Stark Company, Realtor ~ www.HomeTeam4u.net )