Home Maintenance Tips For Fall

As summer fades into fall, see our checklist to preserve the health of your home.

1. Clean the gutters: As you clear leaves, dirt, and pine needles from gutters, examine downspouts for damage. Check the flashing around your chimney and look for damage to the roof that may lead to leaks
2. Change the filters: Change the air filter in your central air conditioning system or if you have a window air conditioning unit, remove from the window or place a waterproof cover over it to prevent damage. Change filters in stove vents, clothes dryers and room fans if applicable.
3. Drafty days: Evaluate the seal and caulking around the window frames to prevent losing heat in the winter.
4. Fix leaky faucets: Avoid broken pipes in cold winter months and repair leaky faucets in your kitchen, baths, and laundry room now.
5. Clean sweep: Examine and clean your fireplace damper and ensure the flue is operating correctly. A professional chimney sweep may be necessary.
6. In hot water: Often, if you live in an area with hard water, extra amounts of sediments build up in your hot water heater. Drain and make sure rust is not developing.

What do we have to be optimistic about anyway?

In my world, sales are up, inventory is down, new home construction is up and overall we’re seeing signs of improvement in the Real Estate Market.  In fact, our October 2011 sales doubled our October 2010 Sales.  This is all GREAT News.  So why aren’t we more optimistic?  In a word, fear!  The media is constantly casting doubt on the Real Estate market.  What if this is a temporary sales increase, what if interest rates go up, what if inflation enters the market and force prices up.  What if inventory continues to drop, prices are forced upward and appraisers fail to justify the pricing?  Oh yeah, let’s not forget about the unseen Shadow Inventory that is lurking in the background.  All these things can and most likely will happen at some point.  The Million Dollar Question is when will it happen?  The fact is these things are not happening now!

While I don’t profess to have a crystal ball, the one thing I’m confident about is that Right now, Buyers have a decent supply of homes to choose from.  Right now, Qualified Buyers can lock in fixed rate 30 year loans at less than 4%.  Right now, the market has enough comparable sales to justify market pricing, and Right now, inflation is being controlled by the Federal Reserve.  All this spells that Right Now may be the best time to buy real estate that most of us will ever see in our lifetime. 

As a Full Service Real Estate Brokerage Company, our job is to empower our customers with knowledge to make sound real estate decisions whether Buying or Selling Real Estate.  To this end, I’d like to offer you access to a few tools you can use.  For those of you looking to learn about housing trends, I encourage you to visit www.c21beggins.com and watch the introductory for the Introduction to the Art of Investing in Real Estate.  If the video captures your attention, sign up for the free video course.  If it doesn’t, move on and watch TV.  The author, Greg Rand, does a fantastic job of explaining how the Great Depression compares to today’s Great Recession and how he expects the recovery to be similar as well.  This segment is in module 5.  Our company has purchased this program and had made it available to you for FREE!  Also, inside this program, is access to tools that will help you assess the income potential of virtually any property you’re interested in as well as links to resources to identify population trends and what market rents are in a given area of the country.

For those of you thinking about buying or selling or those of you who know someone who’s thinking of buying or selling real estate…contact the agent…who sent you this newsletter and ask them to set you up with a FREE Listingbook account.  You enter your search criteria and each day, Listingbook will send you a daily report showing you changes in the market you’re interested in.  This will enable you or your friends and family to gain access to the market without having to go through a REALTOR so you can quietly do your own research until you’re ready to work with an agent. 

So if you’re think you may want to…sell now…to take advantage of today’s buyers’ market, let CENTURY 21 Beggins Enterprises interview for the job of selling your home.  Obviously you want to hire a company that gives your property world class exposure and empowers customers to make good real estate choices.  Check out how our listings are promoted on these major real estate websites:  www.Trulia.com, www.homefinder.com, www.realtor.com, www.zillow.com, www.yahoo.com and of course www.C21beggins.com and www.CENTURY21.com.  You’ll notice that our listings are ultra-enhanced and loaded with tons of high quality photographs to help us customers sort through and narrow down the inventory at their own pace. 

And, finally, if you need to sell and are upside down, and many people still are, contact the agent who sent you this newsletter and ask them to set you up with a FREE Attorney Consultation to help you assess your situation.  You should know your options.  Thanks for your business!

Until next time, may you have fair weather and following seas!

Craig J Beggins, President

CENTURY 21 Beggins Enterprises