Category Archives: Real Estate

Hiding the Litter Box for an Open House – Ideas

Posted on March 17, 2012 | Leave a comment

Dealing with the litter box before opening your home to buyers is important, as some of them may find the sight of it unappealing.

Contact the appraiser at www.socalappraisalserv.com for more marketing questions. (ex: what adds value).

“No one wants to look at a litter box in a bathroom,” said Joanne Kane, a vice president with Nest Seekers International real estate in Southampton, N.Y. “Even if it’s not the smell, if you just walk in and see it, it’s not pleasing.”

And that kind of reaction could affect sales.

“I don’t know if it would prevent a sale, but people do buy on emotion,” said Ms. Kane, who has two cats of her own. “It’s all about the senses when they come in.”

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Is It Better to Buy or Rent? Calculator

Posted on March 11, 2012 | 1 comment

Whether renting is better than buying depends on many factors, particularly how fast prices and rents rise and how long you stay in your home. Compare the costs of buying and renting a home in the calculator below. Click the advanced settings button to change inputs such as your rate of return on investments, condo/common fees and your tax bracket.

Try the calculator at: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/business/buy-rent-calculator.html?ref=realestate

Disclaimer: for information and entertainment purposes only

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Tagged rent calculator

What Square Footage Doesn’t Say

Posted on March 10, 2012 | Leave a comment

THE quirks of residential layout dictate that any measurement of square footage in a house will be debatable at best, agents and other experts say.

Assessors, who measure living space as one of many variables in computing home value, follow guidelines set by the state’s Department of Taxation and Finance. These guidelines, to take just one example, automatically exclude the basement from any calculation of living space.

In an appraisal one of the requirements is the appraiser measures all living space and garage and out buildings. Why is the public record SF of your home different from the actual SF? Contact the appraisers at www.socalappraisalserv.com for questions or have a licensed appraiser measure your property.

No matter how spectacularly well remodeled that basement may be — lavishly enough, perhaps, to increase the assessor’s ultimate determination of property value — its location in the house makes it irrelevant as square footage.

This may come as a surprise to buyers relying on real estate Web sites like Zillow and Trulia that make a feature of the “price-per-square-foot” calculation. Trulia, especially, considers price per square foot so significant that it highlights it right alongside the number of baths and bedrooms.