Looking to Rent a House in Dublin OH?

Lease or Lease/Purchase this executive home in beautiful Donegal Cliffs, Dublin OH.

5060 Donegal Cliffs Dr.

Looking to Sell? 1st Clear the Clutter!

As a Realtor I have witness some pretty scary sites when it comes to clutter. I think as Americans we just seem to accumulate stuff. If fact I am convinced that the stuff in my basement reproduces because I don’[t remember putting all that junk down there. So, whether embarking on an old-fashioned spring cleaning or preparing a home for market, chances are you too will need to rid your home of accumulated junk. Junk, of course, is a subjective term: Sometimes it is defined as an item no longer usable for you, but of possible use to someone else. But the more conventional definition of “junk” includes scrap items with little discernable re-use potential, such as yard debris, unusable or irreparable appliances, or broken household items. If you’re busy and don’t have time to deliver items to the town dump, several services will send a professional junk hauler to your home. If you have re-usable items that someone else might want, consider advertising them on free sites such as Craig’s List (www.craigslist.org) or Freecycle (www.freecycle.org), where surfers may happily come haul away your used goods. Charities will also pick up your re-usable items (clothes, small functioning appliances, books, kitchen items) for distribution or re-sale in second-hand stores. The Web sites for re-sale chains Value Village and Savers Inc. include links to charities that haul in your area. If you have stuff unlikely to appeal to another consumer, or if you lack the time to market your items separately, several services operating in multiple regions will come haul non-re-usable items (construction or yard debris, large non-functioning appliances) for a fee generally starting at around $100. Fees can vary by your city of residence and the contents or size of your load. National services include 1-800-Rid-of-it (www.1800ridofit.com), 1-800-Gotjunk (www.1800gotjunk.com) and 1-800-recycle, and numerous local haulers can also help. If you must keep everthing you can always store it in a storage faciity or a POD. I get lots of coupons for these types of places so contact me and I will be happy to drop one in the mail to you Now let’s sell that house!!

Are Buyers Really back? Really? Really?

I have been out over the past month showing houses after a too long hiatus that was not of my choosing. For the life of me I just couldn’t find any buyers. However, I’ve been shocked at the increasing numbers of buyers I ran into. I’ve also notice that people are beginning to go by open houses again. This is always a good sign. Besides it is pretty boring sitting in an open house for a couple of hours when absolutely no one stops in. Being the eternal optimist I like to think we have finally hit the bottom of the market. – Question: How do you know when the market has bottom out? – Answer: When it starts to go back up

The Stimulus Package Helps More Than Just First-Time Home Buyers

With Congress reaching agreement on a $789 billion stimulus package for Americans and the President expected to sign it into law, the clock may be ticking for this year’s home buyers and homeowners.

The package contains two benefits related to housing.

The first provision is fairly well-known.  It gives first-time home buyers an $8,000 tax credit provided they purchase a home between January 1, 2009 and August 31, 2009. 

This is a true tax credit.

To reduce misuse and abuse, however, the $8,000 credit is contingent on home buyers holding property for at least 3 years.  If the home is sold in fewer than 3 years, the tax credit must be repaid to the government.  It’s also worth noting that the date range applies closings and not sales agreements. 

Closings must occur within these 8 months to be eligible.

A second noteworthy feature in the package is that the stimulus package gives existing homeowners incentive to “green” their homes.  With available tax credits for energy-efficient windows and doors, furnaces and insulation, homeowners can claim larger tax deductions based on home improvement, up to $1,500.

But, just because the government provides housing-related tax benefits doesn’t mean you should just act on them blindly. Tax liability is a highly individual item and you may be ineligible for any number of reasons.  Be sure to discuss your plans with a qualified accountant before committing to a plan.

Columbus, OH Real Estate on Yahoo! Real Estate – Houses for Sale & more

Quoted from http://realestate.yahoo.com/Ohio/Columbus

Housing Market Snapshot Columbus, OH Real Estate Market Snapshot updated Monday, February 2, 2009

Listing Type Number Median Price PriceChange
from Jan

Homes for Sale	2,880		$113,900	-8.1%
New Homes	5		$201,765	+0.1%
Foreclosures	2,938		$57,200	-4.7%

Thinking of Moving to Columbus?

Here is what you need to know.

Location, Location, Location . . .

 

• Located within 600 miles of 60% of the U.S. population.
• Delaware County is the 13^th fastest growing county in the U.S.
• The Region has a younger demographic profile than the rest of the State or Nation with 35.1% aged 24 years or younger and a larger prime working age population with 44.9% aged 25 to 54.
• Columbus boasts significant location savings and is among the top 10 lowest cost real estate markets in the country, according to Conway Data.  According to the National Association of Realtors, the median house price in Columbus of $153,900 is 31% less than the national average.
• The Columbus Region has one of the most stable major metropolitan housing markets in the U.S. rated by PMI Group with home prices remaining stable or increasing for most of the region when housing prices nationally have been falling.

 

Highly Educated . . .

 

• Nearly 40% of Columbus professionals have a Bachelor’s degree or higher.  This rate is 9% higher than the national average.
• The Region’s 20 colleges and universities are currently attended by 110,000 students.  These institutions confer more than 21,000 degrees annually, 5,600 of which are advanced degrees.

 

Business Thrives . . .

 

 

• A thriving metropolitan area with a population of 1.7 million in eight counties – Delaware, Fairfield, Franklin, Licking, Madison, Morrow, Pickaway, and Union – the Columbus Region is a launching pad for corporations and inventions known worldwide.
• The Columbus Region is home to the headquarters of 15 Fortune 1000 companies, six of whom are Fortune 500 companies.  Among the flagship enterprises born here include Limited Brands, Wendy’s International, Nationwide, Bank One, Worthington Industries, Longaberger Baskets, Cardinal Health, and the Scotts Company.  The Columbus Region is also home to several internationally-recognized research institutions, including:
  • The Ohio State University, Ohio’s flagship research university.
  • Battelle, the world’s largest contract research and development organization, where Xerography, the bar code, the sandwich coin, and the technology for the compact disc were invented.
  • OCLC – Online Computer Library Center, with more than 60,000 client libraries in 112 countries.
  • Chemical Abstracts Service, which provides the world’s largest and most current collection of chemical and related scientific information.
  • Edison Welding Institute, North America’s leading organization dedicated to research and development of welding and materials joining technology.

 

 

What Others are Saying . . .

 

 

• Eleventh Best City for Singles (Forbes, August 2006)
• Eighth Best City to Live (Money magazine, August 2006)
• One of America’s Top-Rated Cities (Grey House Publishing, May 2006)
• An All-America City Finalist (National Civic League, April 2006)
• Top 10 Shortest Commute Time Among Major Cities in the Country (U.S. Census Bureau, February 2004)
• Top metros in U.S. overall for public schools (Atlas & Guide – Expansion Management Magazine, May 2006)
• One of the nation’s best metro areas for the arts ranked by The Places Rated Almanac.
• Top 10 City for Art (American Style Magazine, April 2006)
• Shape Magazine ranked Columbus as one of the nation’s top five cities with outdoor appeal and activities (June 2007).
• fDi magazine ranked Columbus third among “Large Cities of the Future” and fourth among “Most Business-Friendly Large Cities” as well as “Most Cost Effective Large Cities” (April 2007).
• CBS Morning News’ medical report ranked Columbus as having the “best breath” and “most-kissable” community (March 2007).

Homebuilding Myths: The Three-Bid Rule

As the housing industry becomes more sophisticated and conscientious about achieving genuine and lasting homebuyer satisfaction, the level of professionalism among builders continues to reach new heights.

As a result, potential clients searching for a builder to create their dream home have a much deeper pool of talent from which to select. Today’s professional builder is not only skilled in construction and client relations, but also highly-competent in terms of his or her business expertise.

This new and more professional breed of builder deserves to be evaluated by home buyers in a new way. Namely by dropping the age-old practice of collecting three bids for the work in favor of a more business-like approach to a very important decision.

In theory, the three-bid rule was thought to work because it assumed everything else, other than cost, from the competing builders was equal. This thought process assumed that each builder had assessed and calculated the scope of work, blueprints, and specifications in the exact same way.

In reality, however, such assumptions are dangerous and rarely, if ever, accurate. Every builder and contractor, professional or not, analyzes a new-home project and estimates its associated costs differently; as a result, the three bids are not apples-to-apples comparisons. The differences can be subtle, but they exist. And those differences render an unequal playing field for competitive bidding creating confusion and misunderstanding.

Even if all three contractors based their bids on precisely the same interpretation of the project, the three-bid rule still reduces each builder to a number rather than considering his or her various skills, experience, personality, record of success, and ability to do the work. For this reason, an increasing number of the best homebuilders simply refuse to bid competitively, opting out of such opportunities because they know they are being evaluated only in terms of a cost estimate rather than whether they are the best builder for the job.

The professional builder prefers a different approach to contractor selection: the negotiated contract. In that scenario, a homebuilder is selected based on his or her abilities and personality and how they fit with the homebuyer. These are two critical considerations considering how closely builder and client will interact with each other during the construction of a new home.

The negotiated contract also takes the guesswork out of the project’s cost. The budget is shared up-front with each of the builders being considered based on what the buyers can afford, not what the builder (and his stable of trade contractors) thinks it will cost. Sharing the budget not only removes assumptions and judging a builder’s worth based on price alone, but also builds trust and enables honest communication about actual costs and, if necessary, choices that need to be made to match the project’s scope with the homebuyer’s budget. That’s the “negotiated” part of the contract process.

As important, the negotiated contract process is far superior to the three-bid rule in matching personalities between the homebuyer and the builder, and between projects and a building company’s skills and experience. By first narrowing and then selecting one homebuilder based on everything but the cost of the project, buyers help ensure that the project will remain on budget and schedule and result in a finished home that meets (or ideally exceeds) their expectations.

As the homebuilding industry continues to evolve into an increasingly professional business, it requires new and more effective models for conducting that business. The negotiated contract has strong advantages over the three-bid rule.

 

This approach reflects the new age of new home construction to the benefit of every homebuyer.

M. Zenios
3 Pillar Homes