Real Estate Archives - Page 3 of 7 - Making Sense Of Cents

5 Ways To Increase Your Curb Appeal

June 20, 2015 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 2 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

As many of you know, we recently moved to Fruita, Colorado (we're located in western Colorado near Utah) from St. Louis, Missouri. Our house in St. Louis is still on the market and we are trying our hardest to sell it.

One of the top things we are focused on now is improving the outside of our home with different curb appeal ideas. Our home is nice, but since we haven't been there the curb appeal has gone down a little bit.

We plan on changing that though. The way your home looks from the street can greatly impact how long it takes to sell as well as the price at which your home sells for.

Below are five curb appeal ideas so that you can sell your home fast and for a higher amount. [Read more…]

What If Our Home Doesn’t Sell? Should We Turn It Into A Rental?

June 17, 2015 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 52 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

When I originally wrote this article, we had no offers on our home and we were feeling somewhat negative about it. However, last week we accepted an offer on our home and it's scheduled to (hopefully) close in July.

It's been nearly four months and our house hasn't sold yet.

We've had exactly 30 showings and great reviews, yet no offers.

Not even a single lowball offer.

Our home is priced quite competitively and below comparables, so we are afraid to lower the price any further.

We are already going to lose money with what our home is priced at now so we are currently wondering about other possible options. I knew selling a home would be stressful, but I didn't realize that it would be this stressful. Many ideas have been going through my mind but it's hard to decide what the best decision is.

Below are some of the things we have been thinking about possibly doing since our house hasn't sold yet. [Read more…]

A Complete Guide To Renting A Room For Extra Money

April 22, 2015 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 66 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

In one week, my sister will be moving back in with us.

She's joining us in Colorado so that she can do a little more traveling while having a safe place to store her stuff. She won't be with us full-time, as she mainly plans on using our home as a home base so that she can travel more. However, she will be with us some of the time and she will be paying rent for when she is actually with us.

I'm excited to have her move back in. We've missed her, it will be nice to have our dog sitter back (I'm not going to lie, this will be amazing), and the little extra money will be nice.

While renting a room in your house most likely will not make you rich, it may earn you a good amount of side income. I know of a few people who rent out many rooms in their home and have been able to pay off their home completely due to this. [Read more…]

How Your Credit Score Impacts Your Home Buying Process

April 9, 2015 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 31 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Your credit score is so very important. Like I said in the post How Your Credit Score Affects Your Life + Credit Sesame Review, your credit score has the ability to impact all areas on your life whether you want it to or not.

Some are completely against credit scores and think they can just do without trying to improve their score, but I don't think that's the correct way to go.

Your credit score can impact all areas of your life, such as obtaining a job, waving additional deposits when signing up for new bills (such as utilities), renting a home, and probably most important of all – obtaining a mortgage and buying a home.

Even though it can make such a large impact on your life, your credit score can be quite easy to improve for the better, so why not just do it?

So, how important is a credit score to buy a house?

Answer: It is very important!

The needed credit score to buy a house can vary a little, but the higher your credit score the better. When you are in the 620 to 720 range, you may come across some problems as stated later in this post.

Check your credit score with Credit Sesame for free!

Below are different ways your credit score can impact your home buying process.

[Read more…]

Pros and Cons of Paying Off Your Mortgage Early

March 16, 2015 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 63 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Currently, one of our main goals is to save for a down payment for our next house. Due to this, we have been wondering about how much exactly we should save.

With our first house we didn't put down 20% and had to pay PMI (big mistake), so we will definitely put down at least 20% on our next house.

Also, we are self-employed and I have heard that most self-employed people have to put around 25% to 30% down (and sometimes even 35%!) because banks want to see more upfront from small business owners.

Now, that's a lot of money!

This has got us thinking. While we are aiming for 30% or more, at what point should we stop saving for our down payment and ramp up our retirement savings instead? Yes, we are still saving for retirement, but should we be saving more?

In the personal finance world, the decision seems to be split. Some are all about paying off a mortgage quickly, whereas others don't think that's a good idea. There is no right or wrong answer, which makes the decision a little more difficult. [Read more…]

Should You Rent Or Buy? – Why I’m Excited To Rent

February 25, 2015 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 92 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

We are currently in the process of settling into our new home in Fruita, Colorado. This move came quickly and we are enjoying our new home so far.

Ever since I announced that we are renting our current home, I have received many questions. Some for some reason have given me flack for deciding to rent, whereas others understand why we made this decision.

While we loved owning our last home and there were many positives, owning this time around would be a huge hassle.

I believe there are positives and negatives when trying to decide whether to rent or buy a house, and our reasons for renting this time around clearly outweigh buying.

Below are the many reasons for why I'm excited to rent a home. Hopefully the below will help you decide whether you should rent or buy a house as well if you are stuck in a similar situation. [Read more…]

Our Moving Expenses And Moving Checklist – Colorado Move Update

February 20, 2015 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 113 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Today, I'm going to talk about our move to Colorado. It kind of popped up out of nowhere but now we are right in the middle of it all. I can't believe how quickly everything is moving along and I am extremely excited.

Out of all of the moves we've done, this one is definitely the largest. We've moved a few times now, but they have all been fairly cheap and short distance moves.

However, after collecting, hoarding, and buying things over the last 5 years, we have many more items to move this time around. Even if we were just moving across town it would be difficult with all of our stuff.

Moving to Colorado will be our longest move as well as our most expensive. I've heard of people spending over $10,000 moving, and that is something we didn't want to come anywhere close to.

Below are some updates for our move to Colorado, including our moving expenses and what's left on our moving checklist.

[Read more…]

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