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Posts Tagged ‘home value’

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Maintain Your Deck To Extend Its Life

March 27th, 2009 by Matthew C. Keegan | 3 Comments | Filed in Home Improvement, Home Tips
A deck adds value to a home as well as many months of enjoyment each year. By keeping it properly maintained, you can ensure that itll look good and last longer.

A deck adds value to a home as well as many months of enjoyment each year. By keeping it properly maintained, you can ensure that it'll look good and last longer.

When it comes to outdoor enhancements to your property, I can’t think of anything better to have with a home than a deck. With a deck, you are able to extend the inside of your home to the outside, creating a seasonal living room/kitchen that is just great for entertaining.

But decks can be costly and all the more so if they aren’t maintained properly. Besides making sure that your deck is structurally sound, you’ll want to clean and seal it from time to time to extend its life.

Deck Wear & Tear

Decks are prone to splitting, cracking, fading and warping thanks to penetrating sunlight, a variety of weather conditions including rain, ice and snow, age, and wear and tear. By periodically cleaning and treating your deck you can ensure that you’ll get many years out of it, adding to the look and value of your home.

Taking care of your deck isn’t a difficult process, but it involves four steps: clearing it of all items, hosing it down, applying a cleanser, and when it dries applying a sealant. Don’t count on doing everything in one day — you’ll be cleaning it off one day and applying a sealant the next. Just make sure that you have two consecutive days of no rain in the weather forecast before getting started.

Tips For Deck Cleaning

So how do you clean your deck? Do you use a hose or a pressure washer? That second question is open for debate as some people insist a pressure washer can damage the deck, removing an important protective coat if operated by an inexperienced person.

When I’ve cleaned a deck, I use a hose and I find a cleansing agent that is environmentally friendly. Harsh chemicals are no fun to play around with and I have to wonder what the long term residual effects are on people, plants and animals. Oxygen bleach is a product pushed by some people who insist on using a truly environmentally friendly product.

Choosing The Right Sealant

When it comes time to using a sealant, you’ll first want to identify what sort of results that you want. Most definitely, you’ll want a sealer to penetrate the wood and a product that is easy to clean up. This means you’ll be looking for a sealant that is oil-based and mixed with latex.

In addition, you’ll want a sealant that provides protection from UV rays and water damage. Whether you want to change the color of your deck or allow it to fade to a natural, weathered look is up to you. Just make certain that it offers the protection needed to withstand the elements. You can choose a color that will match or nicely contrast the color of your home, even choosing two different colors for a nice combination.

Tools You Will Need

To clean your deck, you can pick up a pump action sprayer to apply the cleanser and pick up a stiff brush for scrubbing. You’ll also need paint rollers and brushes to apply the sealant and you may want to tape off any adjoining section of your home to prevent painting it. Use plastic tarps to protect nearby bushes, walking areas, etc. from spray.

Count on setting aside a weekend to get this project done or any other two-day period. If you start early enough in the morning, you may be able to apply the sealant to a dried deck later in the day, but check the cleaning and application instructions carefully to make sure that you can apply a protective coat so soon.

If you’re looking for additional guidance, visit your local hardware or home store to talk with someone who can share with you their expert advice. You can handle the job yourself or farm out the responsibilities to a qualified professional.

Photo Credit: Dan Shirley

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Zillow Reports US Housing Values Dropped By $2 Trillion In 2008

December 16th, 2008 by Matthew C. Keegan | 2 Comments | Filed in Home Buying, Home Financing, Home Selling, Home Tips, News

Try to wrap your mind around this thought: America’s housing market was hammered in 2008 to the point where when all is said and done on January 1, 2009, the losses should mean that more than two home money valuetrillion dollars in housing value disappeared for the year. Due chiefly to declining home values nationally, which was reflected in an 8.4% loss for the first three quarters of the year, homeowners are now holding onto property that could be worth significantly less than it was a year earlier.

Not all markets are performing poorly, but the five biggest loss leaders are each located in California. According to an analysis of recent Zillow Real Estate Market Reports, Stockton, CA had the biggest single year over year drop of any market in the US, with home values dropping by 32.3% during that period. Also experiencing huge losses were Merced, Modesto, Salinas, and Vallejo-Fairfield, tallying losses average 30% for the year.

In the midst of the bad news there are a few markets which have actually seen a slight rise for 2008. These markets are State College PA , Anderson in South Carolina, and three North Carolina metropolitan areas including Burlington, Winston-Salem, and Jacksonville. Indeed, Jacksonville has led the way for the year, reflecting an average home increase of 4.9%.

“This year marked the acceleration of the market correction, and is likely to end with the eighth consecutive quarter of declines in home values,” said Dr. Stan Humphries, Zillow’s vice president of data and analytics. “In general, homeowners in most areas we cover are struggling with foreclosures pouring into the market, large amounts of negative equity and dropping home values. On the positive side, in the third quarter, some markets – particularly those hit hardest in the downturn – showed smaller year-over-year declines than in the prior quarter. Our optimism here, though, must be tempered by the knowledge that the larger economic problems that emerged in the fourth quarter will likely further challenge the real estate market.”

Zillow’s survey covers 163 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) across the USA. Most chilling is Zillow’s calculation that as many as 11.7 million American households owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. One in seven of all homeowners (14.3 percent) were “underwater” by the end of the third quarter with that number expected to increase significantly when fourth quarter figures are tallied early next year.

Source: Zillow.com

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Is Your Homeowners’ Insurance Sufficient?

June 2nd, 2008 by Matthew C. Keegan | 1 Comment | Filed in Property Taxes

How good is your homeowners’ insurance policy? Has it been updated since you first took it out? Does it reflect the big surge in home prices over the past ten years?

homeowners insuranceInsurance can be one of those things you get and quickly forget about. Sure, annual premiums must still be paid, but if the rates haven’t gone up all that much over the years, you may not notice just how much your insurance coverage you really have. Then again, if you live in a Gulf state, then you probably have seen your insurance costs double, triple, and even quadruple in a few short years.

Paying more for insurance doesn’t necessarily mean that the insurance you have now covers all of your needs as it did back then. Your insurance company may have been tracking current housing conditions and adjusting your coverage accordingly, but you can’t guarantee that they have or that their calculations reflect your home’s value.

In addition, construction costs have skyrocketed and subtle changes in your policy may have changed some key provisions, specifically limiting the cap on the home’s replacement value.

So, what is the solution? Answer: find your homeowners policy and check to see if it is adequate for your current needs. If it isn’t, contact the insurance company to adjust your policy accordingly. Furthermore, if you aren’t satisfied with the proposed modifications, start shopping around for a new policy.


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High Property Taxes Are A R/E Nightmare

May 20th, 2008 by Matthew C. Keegan | 2 Comments | Filed in Commentary

home property taxes

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.


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