If you are planning to buy or sell your home, having as much information available to you is essential if you want to get the best price for your home. Buyers don’t want to overpay and seller’s want to make sure that they are receiving fair market for their homes. Real estate comparables (comps) can help both parties out, but for some people they just don’t go far enough.

These days consumers have much more information at their finger tips thanks to the internet. Much of this information is free, but not all of it is accurate. Yet, consumers continue to do their research online before buying or selling a home. Read on and we’ll take a look at several sites which could make the difference for you.

Realtor.com — As the largest site listing homes for sale online, you can get a strong feel for local housing prices by researching available listings. Run by the National Association of Realtors, therefore not all “For Sale By Owner” offerings make the list. Visit FSBO.com to find homes being offered directly by their owners.

Realtor Networks — Though most of their listings eventually get on the Realtor.com site, for the most up-to-date information visit the national network sites for Coldwell Banker, ERA, ReMax, and others for listings. Strong, regional networks can also be quite good, but never forget your mom ‘n pop real estate broker — oftentimes, there personalized service trumps all and their listings are exclusive to them.

Zillow.com — Exactly how much is your home worth? With Zillow, they try to give you that information and they do it for free. Not always accurate, Zillow does best with homes of medium value and in neighborhoods where home buying and selling occurs on a regular basis. Other sites with home valuation information include HomeGain.com and RealEstateABC.com.

SayLending.com — Okay, we’re a bit prejudiced. SayLending and SayEducate are part of the same network. Still, if you are looking for free mortgage calculators, money tips, and other real estate information, then a stop here can certainly help you out.

What could be the biggest advantage to using online sources? Saving money on your real estate commissions. Expect that online home valuations and home buying/selling to continue to grow, making the real estate agent’s 6% fee a thing of the past.

Tags: home buy, home price, home sell, home valuation, real estate

Your garage is cluttered and you can’t even get your car in it. Not that you imagined yourself wanting to leave your car inside the garage, but it is a nice thought. After all, a garage is built for cars, not storage.

Many homeowners long ago ceded their garage space, transforming the area into a storage room. As if the attic, basement, and shed weren’t enough, so goes the garage.

If you would like to use your garage for storing household goods and for parking your car, you can do both. Read on and we’ll explore some tips on how to reclaim your garage as well as your sanity.

When is the best time to organize your garage? Right now! Seriously, winter is too cold and summer is too hot, so Spring and Fall are the best times to tackle a garage reorganization project.

Short of taking out a home loan to finance the work, you can do most of the work yourself and expend only a small amount of money on related supplies. Of course, if you need to actually expand the garage to make it work, then you’ll need to draft a blueprint, take your plans before the town zoning council, and plan on adding weeks to what shouldn’t be all that difficult of a project.

1. Keep It or Toss It! Go through all of the stuff in your garage and determine what you really want to keep and what you can get rid of. With the “I don’t need this stuff” pile, plan on holding a garage sale, donating the goods to Goodwill, or find some other way to dispose of it. If still useful, avoid adding your stuff to the landfills — you’d be surprised who thinks that your trash is a piece of treasure!

2. Check Out Home Storage Systems Once you have your “stuff” trimmed back to a manageable amount, consider what sort of storage systems work best for you. Shelving, hooks, pulleys, cabinets, and the like can all be used. Do some online research and/or visit your local home center for ideas. Tip: your home center probably has a free “organizing your garage” class which can be a wonderful way to get some ideas for your project.

3. Prepare, Then Get To Work! Before putting your home storage system in place, give your garage floor a good cleaning and paint the walls. You have the perfect opportunity to get this done before you move everything into place, so why not do that now?

Most garage organization projects can be completed on a Saturday or span the entire weekend if your garage is particularly cluttered. Hold that garage sale right away otherwise you could be tempted to restore what you don’t need. Whatever is left over, donate. You don’t need it and your garage no longer has the room for excess stuff and your basement, shed, and attic are already full.

Tags: attic, basement, donate, garage, garage sale, garage storage, shed, yard sale

Forget for just a moment the current problem impacting the real estate market — sub-prime lending. Sure, lending to people who are a higher financial risk has led to the increase in the current mortgage default rate, but that isn’t the only thing acting as a drag on some local housing markets.

Instead, there is one problem that continues to grow and, if left unchecked, will affect more homeowners than the sub-prime mortgage meltdown. I’m talking about property taxes which everyone has to pay, but in some markets around the country people are paying thousands of dollars more annually than just a few years ago. What makes all of this worse, is that in some of these same markets home values have actually decreased.

Here are some examples that I have learned about personally or have discovered via my research:

• A home that has been sitting on the market in Glen Rock, NJ has all of the features that a buyer would want and is in a town that is very convenient for New York commuters. With a $500,000 price tag it is listed at just below market value. I’ve learned, however, that the property taxes on this home has risen to just over $1000 per month or $12,000 annually! Add that cost to the mortgage, insurance, utilities, and upkeep and there isn’t any question why the home has remain unsold for nearly one year.

• For years, mobile home owners have been exempt from paying property taxes in Massachusetts. In one community, Chelmsford, the town has decided to levy a tax to bring in additional revenue. Up until recently, jurisdictions did not tax mobile homes because they are considered to be low-income housing. The move by the town of Chelmsford will add $30 per month to the rent bill for some mobile home residents.

• Minnesota residents understand the negative effect that increased property taxes has on communities. The state ranks as one of the worst when it comes to home sales thanks to property taxes which have risen by $2 billion over the past five years.

• Washington, DC residents have recently learned that their sky high property taxes are no longer the worst in that region. Unfortunately, the good news isn’t that their taxes have gone down, rather some Virginia and Maryland

communities have raised them much higher. In addition, the district offers a much more generous homestead benefit than its adjoining states, making DC life a little more appealing for taxpayers.

So, the next time you find yourself upset over the mortgage meltdown, pick up your local property tax bill and see how it has changed over the past five years. It could be that a much deeper crisis can be found on the bills of tax paying homeowners across the country.

Tags: home mortgage, home value, Property Taxes, tax rate