7 Shocking Things that Can Devalue Your Home

Written by adminAugust 9, 2018
Life Style

Your home is the largest investment most people make in their lives. The hope is that the home only increases in value over time, but there are a lot of additions that can devalue your home. These are often things that the homeowner themselves think will add value and make it more appealing to a buyer.

They later found out they were wrong and struggled to sell their home. In today’s economic climate, having trouble selling a home is the last thing you need as the housing market remains unstable.

You probably have no control over everything that impacts the value of your home. For example, if you moved into a great neighborhood that later went downhill, that’s not something you can control. It will be difficult to get a lot of additional value from that situation.

But for the obstacles that are well within your control, there are hidden problems that most homeowners don’t realize might actually come back to bite them in the end. Let’s look at seven of those factors:

1) Having a Swimming Pool

To you (and most people, we would think), having a pool brings back great memories. It’s a place of relaxation and fun parties. To others, it can be an inconvenient and costly issue that keeps them from buying your home.

Pools can be expensive to maintain, add additional cost to the home they aren’t ready to spend, and might even be considered a danger risk if they have really young children. This is a problem that might lead a lot of potential buyers from walking away.

Ways you can fix this problem, if you haven’t already installed a pool, is to go with an above-ground or non-permanent addition. If you’ve already taken the plunge or you bought the home with the pool already a fixture, you can do the work to ensure it’s safe by adding protective fences.

2) The Cool Carpet You Love Isn’t Cool to Everyone

No one can decorate a home like you can. You did your best Feng Shui that made your living space the most appealing and comfortable as you could with color schemes that fit your mood. The problem is, not everyone is going to dig those blue carpets or purple linoleum that covers the kitchen floor.

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This beautiful masterpiece in your eyes could be an eyesore disaster to others that cause them to walk away. The best thing you can for your home is to update all floor to something modern, like wood flooring or fresh, neutral-colored carpeting.

3) A Bad Floor Plan

If you’ve been telling yourself for years that knocking down that wall would be the perfect way to open up your home, maybe now is the time to do it. It would be especially helpful when trying to sell it.

Your house doesn’t have to be a mansion to make people walk in and feel like they have a lot of great space to do whatever their heart desires. It’s best to let potential buyers see multi-use from as much of that space as possible.

The reason is because the new owners might not have the same lifestyle you do. You might have a children’s room they want to use as a place for storage or require a home office. If you have a lot of single-use space, it will be harder for different people to want to buy it.

4) Turning Closet Space into Something Else

If you have a large closet that you’re thinking might be more valuable to use as a bathroom space or small office, don’t touch it. Let the new owners decide what to do with that space. One of the top things on the list of new owners might be to have plenty of closet and/or storage space.

You may decide that using a lot of dresser space is great for your clothes, but others might like to hang up their stuff in a closet, or have a large collection of shoes or suits. So, what you think will add value my actually decrease it.

5) Not Enough Natural Light

There are a lot of benefits to natural light. Not only does it help cut down on the electric and heating bills to have extra light, it can also help make a place appear more inviting and friendlier. The lack of this type of light can lead to a more stuffy and closed feeling.

If you feel there’s a lack of windows, consider adding a few. This is especially important if you have a great view you can utilize.

6) Having a Converted Garage

You might have the greatest man cave on the planet, but it does nothing for the next people looking to buy it. They may want an actual garage to store their cars in. This is especially true if you live in a northern climate. It’s beneficial to keep your vehicles in a covered space overnight or during storms.

If you converted your garage into a hang-out place, an additional living space, or you have a ton of stuff stored in there, it would be best to clean it all out and restore the garage back to its proper condition.

7) Wallpaper is Ugly

Again, you might love the look of your decorated bathroom space with boat wallpaper to keep up with the nautical theme you probably enjoy. But statistics show that the majority of homebuyers agree that wallpaper is generally ugly and unappealing.

Depending on how much of the stuff you’ve used, it could really devalue your home. It will signal to buyers they’d have to put a lot of extra work and money into fixing it on their own. If you do it on your own, you can recoup a lot of that value while having a clean appearance.

To finish, not everyone likes your styles, and that’s perfectly okay. You’re free to design your home however you want. But if you’re trying to sell it, the best advice is to try and scrub any personal touches out. Try to return it back to its neutral form. It could turn away a lot of buyers who feel they’d have to be a lot of work into it.

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Women Need to Save More than Men

Written by adminJune 4, 2018
Saving

In today’s world, we seem to be entering a new financial revolution for women. Talk of the pay gap has increased, which has led to women gaining more respect and equal pay in the workplace.

Despite this new-found attention, women still are iffy about money. They lack confidence in saving for their future, don’t like to talk about it, and would almost rather talk about anything else.

According to a recent survey, only 52% of women feel their confident enough in managing their investments. That’s just over half of all women!

There’s still a strong feeling that men are providers and they take care of the family, but there’s a fairly large loop hole that many couples don’t think about when planning for retirement: women live longer than men.

This is why it’s super important to help women understand that financial matters aren’t just about empowerment, but having the ability to survive if something bad happens.

Lorna Sabbia from Merrill Lynch agrees.

“As women are at a tipping point to achieve greater financial empowerment and independence, it is even more essential that we support women in helping them pursue financial security for life. This includes encouraging women to invest more of their assets, save earlier for retirement, and pursue financial solutions that closely align to their personal values and life paths,” she said.

There’s a real investment gap between men and women and it’s troubling. Investing often seems like a ‘man’s game’ and can seem too analytical. They do well with other aspects, like budgeting, but investing isn’t a strong suit for most women.

On average, women live 5 years longer than men. 84% of all people over 100 are women. While this is a continuing trend, a little less than half of all women worry about running out of money. This is not a fear that will go away anytime soon, especially as technological developments allow us to live longer.

This is a major problem that needs to be addressed. Over half of all women say they regret not investing more while they were able. 60% say they didn’t invest because they just didn’t have the knowledge necessary. 34% cited a lack of confidence.

To combat this, women should consider hiring a financial planner and taking the time to learn how to properly invest.

It also shouldn’t be a subject women shy away from with their husbands. They should be in on the front lines and discussing ALL aspects of future saving, including investments, so they understand how it works and they know what their options are when the time comes.

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Homes of the Future Are Here Today

Written by adminMay 31, 2018
Saving

As with nearly every other facet of our modern world, the homes we live in are becoming smarter and more technologically advanced seemingly with each passing year.  

Thanks to millions of dollars of investments into car technology, we now have vehicles on the road that are safer, cleaner, and can drive and park by themselves without driver intervention.   

No, we still don’t have flying cars yet, but the advancements in home technology will completely change how we live our lives.  

With huge advancements in biometrics, you can own a smart home that knows who you are, what you like, and can even help you conserve energy.  It does this all by remote access. You wear a bracelet or some similar type of device and it will tell you apart from other family members living in the home.   

By reading your heartbeat, the house can determine your mood and preferences.  Is your skin warm or cold? It will adjust the temperature in the room. Does it sense you’re about to walk into your study? It will turn the lights on for you (and turn them off again when you leave).  

There are a lot apps as well that will allow you to see who’s at the door, detect movement, turn on lights, and even play custom music to your specifications.

In simple words, you can control your whole living experience from your wrist or smartphone.  The more you wear and use this technology, a pattern about your habits begins to emerge. That means your home will only get smarter and adapt.

Making Economic and Environmental Sense

As technology and the internet continues to improve our lives, it opens the door for more opportunities to live smarter and more connected to all that goes on around us.

For example, the refrigerator with a touch screen, webcam, and app you can pull up on your phone.  If you forgot to check if you need a gallon of milk on your way home from work, all you do is pull up the app and can see exactly what’s inside the fridge.   While this technology is cool, scientists are fundamentally changing the way we use refrigerators so they’re also environmentally friendly as well.

Rather than using coolants in a process known as water vapor compression to generate cold air, researchers have found new ways of keeping your food cold using magnets.  It’s called the magnetocaloric effect, meaning you can raise or lower the temperature of an object by changing its magnetic field.

Another uses a cooling fluid that’s water-based, cutting down on the amount of electricity used.  That’s great for the environment and the pocket book.

Any time you get to add new technology to an already established system, and discover new ways of doing it better while not harming the environment, it’s a slam dunk.  Consider the various wireless sensors designed to make your home more energy efficient. They will control lighting units, heating and cooling systems, and the like by measuring the temperature of the room, humidity and light levels and adjust accordingly.   

There are even advanced windows which are highly insulated and can detect the amount of sunlight in a room.  They will darken or lighten, much like transition lenses on a pair of glasses that go dark to protect your eyes when you step outside into a bright, sunny day.  This measure will save consumers money and energy.

Nearly every part of your home is upgradable to more energy-efficient and bill saving options.  With smarter and more efficient appliances, roofs, windows, siding, and insulation, all connected to smart technology, biometrics, and apps, your home will know how to keep you comfortable while saving the environment and your pocket book.

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