Fall is the season when your house starts giving you warnings. The furnace makes a noise you don’t remember hearing last year. You notice the garage door doesn’t quite seal at the bottom. There’s a crack in the driveway that seems a little wider than it was in June. The upstairs rooms feel colder than…
For the last several years, a lot of buyers and sellers got used to a housing market that forgave mistakes. A seller could put a house on the market without doing much preparation and still get multiple offers. A buyer might have to decide almost immediately because somebody else was waiting behind them. A house…
One of the biggest mistakes I see homeowners and buyers make is assuming that a problem automatically means the entire plan has to change. Your windows are drafty, so you think you need to replace every window in the house. Your student loan payment is killing your mortgage qualification, so you assume you can’t buy…
Most homeowners are pretty good at reacting to problems. The driveway cracks badly enough, so they replace it. A parent falls, so the family starts talking about grab bars and ramps. Mom or Dad moves into assisted living, and suddenly somebody has to figure out what to do with 50 years of furniture, clothing, tools,…
Some of the most expensive homeowner mistakes start with a sentence that sounds perfectly reasonable. “I thought FHA loans were only for people with bad credit.” “I figured I should refinance because I need some cash.” “I assumed a better roof would automatically lower my insurance.” “I thought solar would require $40,000 out of pocket.”…
Owning a home with a lot of equity feels reassuring. You may have lived there for decades. You may owe very little on the mortgage. Zillow may tell you the property is worth $500,000, $600,000, or more. That doesn’t necessarily mean you’re financially comfortable. I’m talking to more homeowners who are sitting on hundreds of…
Most homeowners don’t ignore major risks on purpose. They assume the backup sump pump will work because it worked the last time they checked it. They assume the water heater will make it another few years because it hasn’t leaked yet. They assume their condo will be easy to finance when it’s time to sell.…
