New Home Communities | Keeping Your Home Safe During an Open House

New Home Communities | Letting complete strangers tour your home is a little unnerving. Along with dealing with lots of unknown visitors, you may also fear judgment for hoarding unfinished Pinterest projects in your laundry room. Most things that can cause social embarrassment are easy to hide, but it is worth putting some thought into keeping your home and belongings secure throughout the process of finding a buyer. Here are some safety and security tips that protect your home and your peace of mind.

Preparing for Your Open House

The moment you decide to put your home on the market is the moment that you prepare to host strangers. It’s a normal part of the selling process, and you can make yourself feel more comfortable by thinking through the following.

New House Builder | 5 Reasons to Replace Your Home’s Insulation

New House Builder | Home insulation is paramount to the proper heating and cooling of a home. While insulation in a newer or custom-built house is usually high quality, insulation in an older home wears with age. If worn insulation is not replaced, it could mean a significant increase on the electricity bill, a cold house in winter or a sauna during the summer, among many other problems.

Does your home’s insulation require replacement? To find out if it’s time, here are some signs of insulation degradation:

Home Building Trends | 5 Helpful Tips for Renting Out Your Home

Home Building Trends | 39 percent of homebuyers plan to rent out their last home rather than sell it. The report notes that people are choosing to become landlords for reasons both financial and practical. If you are renting your home, or are considering doing so, here are some tips and suggestions for making it a positive experience.

First, recognize that becoming a landlord is like starting a small business. You should set goals and realize that you are taking on financial and legal responsibility. You also need to spend time thinking about the relationship that you want to have with your customer (your tenant). To help you think through everything, here are the five components of a typical rental process:

Moving Tips | Moving During the School Year? 10 Tips to Make It Less Stressful

Moving Tips | Big transitions in life can be challenging, and moving definitely ranks at the top. It’s exciting, it’s scary, it’s stressful — and everything in between. If you have school-age children and your move happens to fall during the school year, it can be even more difficult. As a dad of three, I’ve had to move my family midyear on multiple occasions, and I’ve learned from those experiences. Here are 10 tips for making a midyear move less stressful:

Before You Buy

1. Find the right neighborhood and school for your family. Spend time researching schools and neighborhoods. Determine your target school or school district and narrow your home search to those areas.

Home Builder Jacksonville | Declutter Your Home Through Philanthropy

Home Builder Jacksonville | Whether you’re spring cleaning or just plain irritated enough to throw your clutter right in the gutter — hold up a minute! It’s now easier than ever to find a worthy charity to take the excess off your hands — and put it into the hands (or paws) of someone in need.

1. Gather everything you don’t want.

Here are three lists of the items most sought in popular charity sectors:

New Home Communities | How to Find an Affordable Vacation Home

New Home Communities | We’ve all heard the saying “bigger is better,” and that can certainly apply to real estate. Bigger homes are worth more, particularly if they come with large pieces of land. But the same old rules of real estate don’t necessarily apply when it comes to vacation homes. A vacation home is a place to relax and spend time with family, and it doesn’t have to be luxurious to be a good investment.

Have you always dreamed of having a vacation home, but think you can’t afford it? Well, it’s time to get creative and think outside the box (or beyond your local market). There are a number of affordable, unique options for vacation homes, as well as plenty of tricks to find more value for your money.

New House Builder | 10 Value Boosting Home Projects

New House Builder | If you’ve lived in your home for a while, it may need more than a typical once-over this year, particularly if you’re thinking of selling anytime soon.

Home designers were asked which home projects they suggest for homeowners who are considering selling their homes in the near future and want to add value. Here are the 10 projects they mentioned most frequently.

1. A new front door or garage door

Angela Creech said a new front door or garage door is one of the best returns on investment that she’s seen. According to the Cost vs. Value Report, she’s right: Replacing an entry door with a steel door would cost an average of $1,162 and would recoup 96.6 percent of that cost when it comes time to sell, the highest return on investment seen in this year’s report. A garage door replacement was also in the top five projects.