Tag Archives: remodeling

Apps for Homeowers who are Remodeling

Posted on January 4, 2013 | Leave a comment

Mobile technology has broadened our horizons in so many ways. Applications on smartphones and tablets even have become useful to homeowners who are remodeling or redecorating their homes. These handy apps, available through Apple’s iTunes Store or the Android’s Google Play, can help the design process, keep your project organized and do a lot of your work on the go.

Will your upgrades add value to your home? Contact the appraisers at www.scappraisals.com for your value questions.

Magic Plan

This incredible app measures your rooms and draws your floor plan by taking photos. The tutorial video helps you get started. Also check out the site’s details on using the floor plans for commercial use. Here’s how it works:

You take a photograph of the corners of a room. This allows the app to measure the walls and doors, identify the shape of the room and draw a floor plan.

For more than one room, you assemble them with your finger and the app will align the rooms, manage the wall thickness and door coherence.

Add photos, furniture and comments to customize your room. Then “publish” on the Web for an interactive floor plan. The app also can generate jpegs and pdfs.

Free for iOS. sensopia.com

Disclaimer: for information and entertainment purposes only

Use Your Remodeling Dollars Wisely

Posted on July 10, 2012 | Leave a comment

Time was, and not all that long ago, that putting money into your house before putting it on the market paid off at resale.

Contact the appraisers at www.scappraisals.com for your questions if remodeling project will add value to your home.

But the “sluggish housing market continues to push down remodeling return on investment,” Sal Alfano writes in the most recent Cost vs. Value Report issued by Remodeling magazine, with the overall average cost-to-value ratio dropping to 57.7 percent from its peak in 2005 of 86.7 percent.

Even though the cost of remodeling itself has continued to fall, that’s effectively counteracted by a drop in resale values, Alfano said.

Bottom line: There is no guarantee that any improvement will boost the sale price of a house, especially in a real estate market in which even multiple offers typically result only in an amount near or slightly above asking price.

Yes, doing the necessary improvements to a house will help it compete. If two houses are for sale on the same street for the same price and one has a new roof while the other needs one, it’s not hard to figure out which might sell first. But “might” is the operative word in an era when little about the real estate market is a certainty.

New roof or not, a house’s list price must be appropriate for the market to attract buyers, who likely will not only expect leak-free conditions, but also a furnace and air conditioning that work properly.

Disclaimer: for information and entertainment purposes only

Adding on to Your House Expands Your Options Too

Posted on July 4, 2012 | Leave a comment

Homeowners needing more room are in a tough spot these days. They want to trade up, but sell now in a depressed market and they lose money. One alternative is expanding the place you already have — adding on instead of leaving and taking the loss.

Contact the appraisers at www.scappraisals.com for your value questions.

It might be a two-story wing of extra beds and baths, or a simple bump-out that opens up a cramped kitchen. Whatever the scope, you won’t have to go house hunting or pay thousands in closing costs and real estate commissions, transaction fees that could buy concrete and wallboard for an addition. It may take a while for housing to recover. But when it does (it always has) the investment will pay off.

To start, check plan books or shelter magazines or come up with your own sketches. Try different versions, the ultimate space versus the practical space. When you get one or two that work, the question becomes how to make them part of the house.

Expanding up In homes with an attic that’s framed with rafters, not a maze of trusses, dormers can turn dead space into airy, well-lit living space. Framing in an attic can be tough, particularly when new 2-by-4s join existing timbers that are a little cockeyed. On the other hand, you don’t need to excavate, pour a footing, or build a foundation. The only intrusion into living space below is a stairway. Pull-down attic stairs won’t cut it. The only major framing job (in most homes) is to beef up the floor joists. Extra strength is needed because loads in unfinished attics are usually figured to be lighter than loads in finished spaces with people and furniture. Where you’ll find 2-by-10 joists on the first floor, the attic is likely to have 2-by-6s. Expanding even more and raising a full second story on a one-story house is more difficult. Loads are the problem because the existing structure down to the footings is designed to carry what’s there, not almost twice as much.

Disclaimer: for information and enterainment purposes only

Tag Archives: remodeling

Apps for Homeowers who are Remodeling

Use Your Remodeling Dollars Wisely

Adding on to Your House Expands Your Options Too

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