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Maureen Gilmer with the DIY Network offers the following five cheap and easy ways to improve curb appeal:

1. Edge it. Make the distinction crisp between lawn and flowerbed or sidewalk. Replace old edging materials with tumbled concrete payers — the heavier they are the better they stay in place.

2. Mulch it. Cover bare ground with two inches of attractive mulch.

3. Stain it. Old concrete walks, steps, and planters crack, stain, and discolor. Cover them with new colored concrete stains. The result unifies paving and mimics more expensive stone.

4. Color it. Worn out fences can give the property a black eye. Stain them with muted colors like warm gray, soft green, antique gold, or subtle blue.

5. Plant it. Buy whole flats of six packs of single color annuals.

Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Maureen Gilmer (04/07/07)

What’s the difference between an invitational and a seminar?

The home buying invitational will showcase a model home that is either for sale or an example of what’s for sale within a particular community. This event is intended to provide those of you who may be interested in a specific community or price range that the community fits into but would like exclusive incentives that are not available to those who do not attend the invitational. Seating is limited and each invitee will be permitted to bring a certain number of guests. If you are interested in attending the invitational please inquire here and I will contact you with a date.

The home buying seminar will be a much more casual affair with no specific community or price range focus and will go over general home buying information including first time home buying and financial programs available to home buyers. If you are interested in attending a future home buying seminar please inquire here and I will contact you with the next available date.

Here’s some advice for any buyer contemplating a preconstruction purchase:
Negotiate an exit strategy in your sales contract, especially as lead times for construction grow longer in some markets. For example, state that if the builder doesn’t break ground by a certain day, you can get out of the contract.
If you’re deposit money is going to sit there for an extended period, as the developer to pay interest.
Get in writing what changes that can be made to the project once the sales contract is signed. Finishes and appliances might not be set in stone at the time you sign the deal.
Try to find out the current state of the local market and gauge whether the developer is offering incentives to lure new buyers – which, though attractive to buyers in the short term, can put a downward pressure on prices.

Source: The New York Times, Amy Gunderson (04/04/2007)

Christopher B. Leinberger, a Brookings Institution fellow, says up to 40 percent of Americans want to live in urban places where they can walk to restaurants, shop, jobs, and entertainment. He predicts that the move to downtown may well lead the housing market out of its slump. “Downtown living is the preferred alternative,” he says.

Though Leinberger believes there are not enough condos on the market to meet demand, builders in several cities have been forced to offer incentives or transform condos back into apartments due to slow sales.
One of the best things about walkable neighborhoods is that locals are virtually income neutral. In other words, well-heeled empty-nesters and cash-strapped first-time home buyers both are able to choose the same neighborhoods, even if they can’t afford the same interior designs, says architect Rick Emsiek, a partner with McLarand, Vasquez, Emsiek & Partners in Irvine, Calif.,

Other urban living trends include:
More sales to single women who will choose cities as they become safer.
More pressure by cities on builder to mix residential with retail so service workers can live where they work.
Cities will cater to the childless while families will move to the suburbs.
Empty nesters and their grown children will live near each other in townhouses and condominiums.

Source: Builder Magazine, Sharon O’Malley (03/01/2007)

• The home buying seminar is now postponed indefinitely. We are working with the builder of the subdivision to produce a high quality seminar but due to corporate shifts and the market we are experiencing more delays than anticipated. I am working on producing more frequent, smaller scale home buying seminars for clients and will update the blog once I know more.

• The blog will undergo another design change to make it more user friendly and attractive within the next three months.

• Editorial entries are going to become more common. I’m very satisfied with the blog in it’s current state but I want to add more personality and fun to the blog so that it’s not just news only. It will continue to feature news stories about the industry but there will be a lot more editorial articles.

So that’s what I have coming up over the next month and beyond. Leave a comment or email me with any questions.

“We’re starting to see movement,” he said. “The Carolinas are very strong and down around Atlantic City. The Midwest, you’re not going to see blazing increases we saw in the last few years, but it’s steady. Texas is strong.”

And the weakest? “Florida is still in a weak position. … Las Vegas is still a bit of a weak market.”

Would Kunz sell his own home in this market?

“Sure. I think there’s this perception that people wait for a good market to sell their homes. Most people buy or sell because of major events taking place in their lives: births, deaths, marriage, divorce. No matter what the local real estate market is doing, having a job change as I did three years ago, going from California to New Jersey, I had to buy a house and sell a house.

“I may not get as much for the house as a year ago, but when I have to buy something else, it’s not going to cost as much as a year ago. It’s a good move-up market,” Kunz says.

Source: USA Today, Noelle Knox (4/02/2007)