Aug 31

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Halifax home inspection

A pre-listing Halifax home inspection by a qualified Halifax home inspector has become even more important than ever!

With the average price of a resale home in Canada falling 3.6%, continuing a trend that started in June, when prices fell for the first time in more than nine years, there are more homes to choose from.

It’s a buyers’ market, with prospective purchasers able to walk away from a sale, if conditions of a home do not meet their approval.

A pre-listing Halifax home inspection by a qualified Halifax home inspector can put you back in the driver’s seat by identifying potential areas of concern up-front. You then have the option to perform repairs immediately, or disclose the areas of concern during initial negotiations.

Halifax home inspection

Other benefits include:

* The seller can hire their own Halifax home inspector rather than be at the mercy of the buyer’s inspector.
* The seller can schedule|arrange the Halifax home inspection at their convenience.
* It might alert the seller of any items of immediate concern, such as radon gas or active termite infestation.
* The seller can assist the inspector during the inspection, something normally not done during a buyer’s inspection.
* The seller can have the inspector correct any misstatements in the inspection report before it is generated.
* The report can help the seller realistically price the home, should problems exist.
* The report can help the seller justify a higher asking price, if problems don’t exist or have been resolved.
* A seller inspection points out problems ahead of time which:
o may make the home show better.
o gives the seller time to undertake repairs and shop for reasonably priced contractors.
o permits the seller to attach repair estimates or paid invoices to the inspection report.
o eliminates buyer obtained estimates from the negotiation table.
* The report might alert the seller to any immediate safety issues found, before agents and visitors tour the home.
* The report provides a third-party, unbiased opinion to offer to potential buyers.
* A seller inspection produces a clean home inspection report to be used as a marketing tool.
* A seller inspection is the ultimate gesture of good faith on the part of the seller.
* The report might relieve a prospective buyer’s unfounded suspicions, before they walk away.
* A seller inspection eases negotiations in general and eliminates 11th-hour renegotiations arising from the buyers’ inspection report.
* The report might motivate the buyer to waive the inspection contingency.
* The deal is less likely to fall apart, as can happen when a buyer’s inspection unexpectedly reveals a problem at the last minute.
* The report provides full-disclosure protection from future legal claims.

In summary, a pre-listing home inspection by a qualified home inspector before you list will give you peace of mind and avoid potential last minute disappointment when a sale does not go through.

Eventually your buyers will conduct a home inspection. You may as well know what they are going to find by getting there first!

Halifax home inspection

Aug 30

Moving Home is one of the most stressful periods of your life. The good news is that almost all of the stress and hassle can be taken out of the Sales Procedure by a little preparation.. We’ve all heard the stories about baking bread and brewing coffee just before potential Home Buyers arrive, but remember, you’ve got to get them out of their cars and over your doorstep before any of that can be of any benefit to you. So, the first thing you need to get right is the look of the Home from the street. By the time a potential Purchaser has walked from his car to your front door, you need him to really WANT to like the Home. This is the key to Sell Property Quickly.

First impressions have never mattered more. Flaky paintwork, dirty windows, messy hedges, tatty lawn, uneven paving stones etc., etc., can cost you a sale before you even get the chance to welcome potential Buyers over the threshold.

Before your viewings commence, in fact before you have the Home valued have a quick stroll up your road and try to view your Home as though it’s the first time you’ve looked at it and, above all, be critical.

Are all the windows & doors and their frames fresh and clean? If the paintwork is sound, a good wash is all you require. If the paintwork is cracked or flaking; defy the temptation to merely apply a quick coat of paint over a tatty surface. The results simply call out that you’ve done a poor job & give a much worse impression than a bit of natural wear & fatigue. If you can’t or don’t have time to do the job yourself; you’ll find a competent Handyman in most neighbourhoods who’ll do the job for a very reasonable price.

Take a look at your path or drive. Either pull out any weeds, or treat them with a proprietary path weed killer. If you have uneven paving stones, get them reset.

Get the front Garden tidied up. If it’s been allowed to overgrow, start mowing the turf regularly at least 2 or 3 weeks before you let a valuer see your Home. This way it will have regained some of its greenness. Consider applying a liquid garden feed using a garden sprayer. This only takes minutes, and gives a healthy verdant effect in days.

Keep the pavement & roadside litter free for a couple of Homes either side of your Home. If there are weeds growing on the pavement, treat them at the same time as you treat the weeds on your driveway.

These kind of jobs are speedy and cheap to carry out, and make the world of difference in helping you to Sell Property Fast. They put your potential Buyers in the right frame of mind before they step over your doorstep. That’s the key to Quick House Sales.

Even if you’re thinking about selling your Home to one of those Companies that buy homes, taking these steps will ensure you get the highest possible valuation outcome.

Aug 30
variety of life insurance
icon1 Kay Huna | icon2 Insurance | icon4 08 30th, 2008| icon3No Comments »

Do not let the variety of life insurance in the market puzzle you. You can get clarification about which life insurance was designed appropriately for you in mind from a life insurance agent or a financial advisor. Life insurance simply makes life easier for those you leave behind– it is an undeniable thing.
Beneficiaries of a life insurance policy varies from one person to another. Some individuals take out life insurance and make charities their beneficiaries. As a business partner, you can make your business a beneficiary of any life insurance policy you take out so that the business can remain in existence even in your without your presence.

Aug 29

With the slowing housing market, rising interest rates and lenders tightening the reins on their mortgage qualification requirements, it’s extremely important to get the best mortgage at a good interest rate.

Keep reading for four tips you can use to get the best mortgage in today’s residential real estate market.

1. Work on your credit.

If your credit score isn’t good, take the time to work on rebuilding it. Now is not the time to accept a higher rate just because you have poor credit. Spend a year or two making sure all your payments get in on time, that you stop applying for new credit and you reduce the balance on your double-digit interest credit.

Because interest rates are already rising, you can’t afford to lock in at a credit penalty rate. Remember, taking an additional year or two before purchasing a home could save you tens of thousands of dollars over the life of the loan, so have patience.

2. Build a sizable down payment.

Having a strong down payment of 20% or more puts you in the driver’s seat and allows you to direct negotiations with lenders. Not only will you save on private mortgage insurance (PMI) and your interest rate, you’ll also walk into your home with pre-established home equity.

You’ll have backup equity in case of a financial emergency, and you’ll have a strong financial foundation that’s not easily rocked by economic instability.

If you’re having trouble coming up with a larger down payment, try accessing 401K reserves or negotiating a loan through financing from your family.

3. Opt for the stable lender.

With fly-by-night mortgage companies closing their doors and selling their loans on the secondary market, you want a lender that’s going to give you good customer service and do so for 30 years.

Don’t make the same mistake as the countless thousands who lost their homes to foreclosure because of bad lender decisions; opt for a stable lender. Look for a financial provider whose personnel answers your questions, doesn’t try to rush you and is genuinely interested in helping you get the best loan.

If you’re stuck, ask around your neighborhood or hit family and friends for advice on their lenders. Having customer referrals from people you trust is invaluable.

4. If interest rates are too high, don’t lock in.

While an adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) means your monthly mortgage payments can still go up with inflating interest rates, you also don’t want to lock yourself into a 30-year fixed rate mortgage with a bad interest rate.

Whatever you decide, remember that if you have substantial home equity and good credit, you can always renegotiate or refinance down the line if interest rates come back down.

Aug 29

You can spend a fortune on your home only to see it all damaged or destroyed by a freak of nature or an accident, for example. It would be easy to plan for tomorrow if we could all see into the future, but that doesn’t mean we cannot prepare for these events. For your house, there are potential threats which need to be guarded against and do not forget the dangers that also originate from other people, like acts such as burglary and arson. Homeowners insurance can help offset these problems when an agreement is made between the homeowner and the insurance company to pay for replacements providing a set amount called a premium is paid routinely.

Examples of things covered under a typical house insurance policy might be theft, fire, vandalism, or other damage to your property. Almost every policy will contain a deductible which needs to be considered but if you need to completely rebuild or re-equip you entire home this is only a small concession to make.

A homeowners insurance can now be arranged quickly and without fuss using one of numerous websites, with some being owned by insurers that are only available on the Internet. It doesn’t take that long to visit a decent number of websites to obtain quotes from all of them and see what you can get from each for the monthly premium they are asking.

Comparing insurance quotes, online or off is a good idea as just what the policy actually covers that is more important than the cost. Even people that have mortgages will be required by the lender to ensure their house has a homeowners insurance policy in force.

Although monthly premiums may be an issue, it is quite common for discounts to be available for people starting a plan with a new insurer. Many insurance companies will allow you to adjust your deductible so in the event of a claim you would be liable for a greater amount before the policy pays out but it will reduce the premium each month.

You also need to consider covering the replacement cost of your belongings versus covering the actual worth as your old TV may cost 500 dollars to replace, but probably wouldn’t bring more than 50 dollars at a garage sale. Replacement Value policies should really be standard but many people are reduced to trying to find replacements for insured possessions from garage sales or thrift shops because they overlooked this important aspect.

Your home probably cost a great deal as did the possessions inside and the sentimental value should not be overlooked either. Your house insurance should ideally protect every part of your home, in fact everything you care about not just items with real value.

Aug 28

Molin Upper Elementary School Principal Dave Archambault asked faculty and the business community a simple question: “What happens when you inspire more than 75 fifth-grade students to create an invention or new business idea?”

On Friday, Archambault was pleased with the answer.

“This is great — we have a lot of great ideas,” Archambault said.

From eyeglasses fitted with windshield wipers to clear one’s view in a rainstorm to a “sweet flavored gum” that was claimed to have the ability to bring about world peace, the second annual Young Entrepreneurs Contest showcased students’ creativity.

And that’s not all! Read the full story at Raising Entrepreneurs.

Aug 27

If you are looking for ideas for earning a second income, you may want to consider selling at flea markets. Starting out at a flea market has a relatively low start up cost and there are numerous benefits to selling at them. Many people enjoy visiting the flea market on the weekends with their families. Additionally, visitors to your area enjoy visiting flea markets for souvenirs and other gifts for their families. There are many people in communities all over the United States that frequent the flea markets that are in their area. If you would like to make a nice supplemental income, you should at least consider the opportunity of selling at flea markets.

In every community, the rules are different when it comes to selling at the flea market. If you wish to sell merchandise, you must first check with your local courthouse on any rules that may apply to this. Many communities expect you to have a Peddler’s License, or a Business License. Additionally, you may be required to get a Federal Taxpayer’s ID Number. It is important that you know and understand the rules in your community prior to selling at a flea market in order to avoid any possible issues down the road.

Once you have established and met all the requirements that are necessary for you to sell at the flea market, you can start getting ready for your new business! It is important to contact the owner or owners of the flea market where you wish to sell. There may be a fee required to sell at the flea market, and you may even be required to rent the space that you will be selling at in the flea market. Once you have made all the proper arrangements, it is time to move to the next stage in your business.

You will have been gathering merchandise that you would like to sell at the flea market while organising yourself with the proper permits. A good place to start looking for products to sell at the flea market is in your own home. You may have old books, movies, clothes, dishes, furniture, games, and other items that may sell well at the local flea market. All you need are a few price tags and some stuff that is gathering dust in your closet to start selling at the flea market.

Longer term, you will need a more regular and reliable source of products - you can specialise in collectibles, or toys, or clothing, or buy goods from liquidation sales. You can even sell your services at a flea market!

If you have a particular skill or talent, you can offer this at the flea market. For example, if you are good at taking pictures, you may offer brochures that cover your services. You can take wedding pictures, pictures of sporting events, and more. Simply make and post a sign at your booth! You may even want to hand out flyers. If someone purchases something from you, you can stick a flyer for your services in the bag with their merchandise.

There are numerous ways that you can create a nice supplemental income by working at a flea market. With a little creativity and a few things to sell, you will be well on your way to earning a second income for all those little extra things in life - or just to make the monthly budget balance.

Aug 27
Refinancing Benefits
icon1 Mark Bennett | icon2 Mortgages | icon4 08 27th, 2008| icon3No Comments »

If you are going to be refinancing your home then you should consider the many refinancing benefits that are available to you. If refinancing is going to be the most suitable option for your financial needs then you should know that you can get many different refinancing benefits, including lowering your monthly payments and consolidating your debts, among other things.

One of the best refinancing benefits that you can get in most cases is that you can have a lower level of monthly payments for the loans that you already owe. When you refinance your home you can get lower interest rates and therefore lower monthly payments as a result. This works in that every month you’ll send in a mortgage payment which will help to repay part of the interest and a part of the principle amount of the loan that you took out in the past. With refinancing you will be able to reduce the monthly payments that you have to make for both the interest and principle.

The reason why there are lower payments is because when you refinance your home you will be taking out a second mortgage that will help you to pay off the first mortgage. If the first mortgage was taken out many years ago and you had already paid off a good amount of it you will be able to take out a smaller mortgage because your debts will be smaller than what they were when you took out the first mortgage.

Debt consolidation is another of the refinancing benefits that you will be able to get. This is one of the refinancing benefits that will be especially useful for those who have high interest debts. These debts can include credit card debts in many cases. The equity that you have already will be used as collateral to help you get a lower interest loan as one of the best refinancing benefits. Of course, you won’t immediately get an increase in savings through refinancing for this purpose.

Debt consolidation will be useful in that it will help to make it easier for you to pay off all of your bills. It can be difficult to take care of all of the bills that you have in one month, so with debt consolidation you will be simplifying the payments that you have to make.

The last of the refinancing benefits is that you can use the equity that you already have built up. You can cash out the equity for various purposes, including financing your future education needs or improving your home. A line of credit with equity can be taken out, but the money will not be sent to you all at once. Don’t forget that while this is one of the best refinancing benefits, you are using your home as collateral.

Aug 26

The safest choice of bond investment for your portfolio is Treasuries (and inflation-protected Treasuries). Only rarely do Treasuries offer the fixed-income world excitingly large returns. But their issuer — Uncle Sam — won’t be going bankrupt. In troubled times, that is an important consideration.

Here are the best ways to buy Treasury bonds:

1. The U.S. Department of the Treasury has Web site called TreasuryDirect that allows for the purchase of Treasurys. It’s easily accessible to individual investors, and Treasuries can be bought at auction at no fee.

2. Mutual funds. There aren’t many Treasuries-only mutual funds. However, some exchange-traded funds have emerged that are modeled on Treasury indexes. Exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, are essentially baskets of actual securities that are broken into pieces for individual investors to buy. ETFs offer low fees and have certain tax advantages.

3. Government bond funds. The most common Treasury proxy is the ubiquitous “government bond fund,” which usually includes Treasuries, highly rated agency debt (for example, from the Federal Home Loan Bank, Ginnie Mae and so on) and even some short-term corporate bonds. Vanguard, T. Rowe Price and PIMCO offer government funds of various durations with excellent track records. Just watch the entry costs and ongoing fees whenever you buy into a fund.

Why Buy Into A Fund?

The primary advantage of these funds is that they simplfy your investment. Writing a check to a fund company takes less effort than buying individual bonds and can, for some investors, be worth a small annual fee.

Many financial planners criticise government-bond funds, though, because few bond funds feature a single maturity date. Most managers buy and sell to take profits or pounce on perceived bargains. This means that there is no way to guarantee the return of your capital in full on any precise date - one of the key reasons for buying bonds in the first place.

The only way to totally guarantee stability of principal is to buy individual bonds at issue and hold them to maturity.

Aug 25

Online credit card applications seem to be the in thing and Chase too offers online credit card application facility. Here, ‘Chase.com credit cards’ refers to the Chase credit cards that can be applied for online. Just for those who don’t know, ‘Chase’ is a brand that is owned by JPMorgan Chase & Co. (a leading global financial services firm).

By ‘Chase.com credit card offers’, I mean the credit card offers that are available at Chase.com. Obviously, ‘Chase.com credit cards’ would be regulated by Chase. Again, as with any other credit card supplier, ‘Chase.com credit cards’ on offer would be changing too.

Anyways; one night, before going to bed, I thought of just checking the Chase.com credit cards section. Here is what I found:

There is a separate Chase.com credit cards section. As I browsed through the Chase.com credit cards section (the online application ones), the first one I encountered was called ‘Chase Cash Plus’ or the ‘Chase Cash Plus Rewards’. These promise faster rewards and offer 5% earnings on gas and on purchases made at grocery-stores/drug-stores. For other shopping venues, it offers 1% earnings. These earnings can be in the form of gift certificates or cash.

The next on the Chase.com credit cards section was the ‘Flexible rewards Visa signature card’. Here you earn a point for every purchase of $1. You can keep collecting these points and then finally redeem them for your choice of things (like cash, travel, gift certificates or some kind of merchandise). The redemption can start at 2500 points (and you get a bonus of 1000 points once you make the first purchase). Moreover, this one doesn’t have any annual fee either. So that was the second one in the Chase.com credit cards section.

Moving on in the Chase.com credit cards section, I found ‘Free Cash Rewards Platinum Visa card’. This one, as the name goes, offers cash rewards. You can get a $25 check or a gift certificate on redemption of 2500 points. Since there is one point earned for every $1 spend, this mean that you effectively get 1% cash back on these cards.

I had started loving browsing through the Chase.com credit cards section. So I moved on to the next one in the Chase.com credit cards section. The next one on the Chase.com credit cards section was ‘Chase Perfect Platinum MasterCard’ which doesn’t limit you to getting rebates only on a particular brand of gasoline; instead, you get rebates everywhere. ‘

Chase Platinum MasterCard’ was the next one in the Chase.com credit cards section. This one offers online account management i.e. monthly statements, bill payments etc can all be done online (also you don’t have any annual fee on this one).

There were few more cards on Chase.com credit cards section and one especially caught my attention. This one was at the bottom of Chase.com credit cards section and was called ‘Check Gallery Platinum Visa Card’. Here you could choose the design of your card from those available e.g. cowboys, smileys etc.

By now, I was so sleepy that I really had to shut down my computer and go off to sleep.

Note: The information given in this article was correct at the time it was written. However, the author does not guarantee the correctness and completeness of this information at any time.

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