Fall is right around the corner and September has me dreaming of cooler weather and pumpkin carving. Whether you're a pumpkin spice or an apple cider, and whether you rent or own, there are things you can do around your home to increase safety, lower heating bills and ensure the coming cold weather doesn't create issues down the road. Check for cracks in your driveway, sidewalks, porch and patio. Any cracks or lifting you see now will only get worse with freezing and thawing over the winter. Repair them before they become a trip hazard. Renters, don't think this doesn't apply to you. Your landlord may not see your home every day, so you take a look and report your findings in order to get things repaired. This one may not apply to renters, but every homeowner knows the struggle to get your lawn looking green and lush in the Spring. Get a leg up by fertilizing now, and giving your grass a chance to grow strong roots before the freezing weather hits. Smoke detector and ca...

As a Realtor, I'm often looking for inexpensive marketing strategies. My email signature and business cards are great, but there have to be more ways to get my name out there. I have my blog, my  Facebook page  and my  Instagram  but I need content for those, so I'm always looking for ideas. One thing I consistently see is "take a picture of your work space and share about your projects for the day. I've held out on this one because my office is cluttered, chaotic and full of stuff that doesn't seem to be Real Estate related.  Hubs had surgery this morning. It was minor but still required general anesthesia, which is a little scary and got him thinking about happiness and our future. I know, deep stuff for a Real Estate blog, right? But I'm getting there. Stock photo, not from Hubs' OR I knew he'd be in the operating room for about an hour, so I took my laptop to get some work done while I waited. Once he was settled in and I got to work, I caught him g...

You may have noticed some changes around here and on my  Facebook and  Instagram  pages.  It's because I've moved! Having grown up in Deaborn County and lived in Southeast Indiana all my live, I have strong connections to the community and love helping others develop the same. My husband and I recently moved to Batesville and I'm finding it even more important to make strong ties in my community. As such, we made the difficult decision for me to leave Sibcy Cline to find a brokerage better suited to myselve and my Indiana clients. It is with great pleasure that I announce I have found my new Real Estate home and have transferred my license to Lohmiller Real Estate. Not only is LRE an Indiana based, family owned company, they will allow me to cultivate my business in my new town, as well as even futher west and north. I am excited to see how my business, my experience and my expertise will grow with this new opportunity. My primary goal is to ensure that each client h...

You may have heard that we are in a seller's market.  This means the demand (number of people looking for homes) exceeds the supply (number of homes on the market).  As a Realtor, I work with both buyer and seller clients.  At any given time, I tend to have more buyer clients than sellers.  That's just the nature of the work.  Not all buyer clients will end up buying and many people start looking before they're really ready to buy.  It makes sense.  That said, currently I'm working with 19 buyers and only 2 sellers!  That's nearly TEN TIMES as many buyers as sellers!   What does this mean?    We're not only in a seller's market, we're in a HOT seller's market!  The market has record low inventory, so houses are selling fast and often times above list price.  According to HousingWire, and online news source for those in the Real Estate market, 42% of people who bought a home during the pandemic dealt with a bidding war...

Edited to add: this post turned out to be much longer than I planned.  While I apologize for the length, I really do think it's all important information.  I hope you learn a lot and don't hesitate to reach out if you have follow up questions! Can you buy or sell a home without a Realtor?  Absolutely!  But why would you embark on what is likely the biggest financial decision of your life without an expert?!  While there are many reasons to use a Realtor, here are the ones I think are the most important. The lingo We've already talked about how real estate has its own language .  While it's good to educate yourself, your Realtor already knows the lingo and is happy to be your translator.  She can also make sure you don't get misinformation along the way because someone else didn't understand the lingo.   I recently had a lender tell a buyer client she didn't need to schedule inspections, it would be taken care of for her.  Come to fi...

Every industry has their own language.  There terms they throw around like everyone knows what they're talking about but no one outside the industry really does.  In most cases it's okay.  I don't need to know what a faucet aerator or a backflow valve are as long as my plumbing works.  But in Real Estate, it's your money and your home we're talking about, so a little education can go a long way. There are a LOT of Real Estate terms, so I'll break them down by category.  Here are a few pre-house hunting terms to get you started. Realtor  (Pronouced Reel-tor) According to the National Association of Realtors, " REALTOR® is a federally registered collective membership mark which identifies a real estate professional who is member of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® and subscribes to its strict Code of Ethics." In reality, a Realtor is someone who sells your home in record time, finds your dream home and solves problems you never knew exi...

I have relatively consistent set of closing gifts I plan for my clients but when I received notice on Thursday that a house was closing on Tuesday I didn't have time for my standard personalized seller's gift.  I took to the internet for inspiration and ended up coming across the coolest lists of gift ideas! One thing I saw that I had never considered - people buy closing gifts for their Realtor?  Is this really a thing?  Sure, who wouldn't love a personalized coffee mug or an engraved business card case?  But to be completely frank... As a Realtor, I'm here to tell you: a referral or a positive (and honest!) review is the absolute best gift you can give your Realtor!   Some friends of mine are buying a home that is for sale by owner.  Yes, they wanted to use me as their Realtor and we had even looked at a few houses.  But they came across this house through an old friend and the seller specifically doesn't want to work with a Realtor.  I ful...

First, let's recap. You've made an offer and negotiated a deal.  You're now under contract to purchase a house. You've submitted earnest money to your Realtor and she has deposited the check. You're watching your spending and not doing anything to  jeopardize your mortgage . You've gotten insurance quotes and provided the information to your lender. You've completed your inspection and negotiated repairs with your Realtor's help. You've contacted your landlord or put your current home on the market. You've started packing and scheduled movers or a moving truck and friends. You've started mentally preparing and making lists of what needs done in the future. Now you're in the home stretch, and it's just down to the nitty gritty. 1. Your lender will schedule an appraisal.   An appraiser assesses the value of the house to make sure it's a good investment for your lender.  Odds are your Realtor had a pretty good handl...

We're talking next steps in the buying process.  Last week I shared about the first steps after your offer is accepted.  By now you've gotten you earnest money to your agent, heard from your lender on their next steps and scheduled your inspection.  Your lender and closing agent are doing the heavy lifting right now and they, along with your agent, will lead you every step of the way.  In addition to following their instructions, you've got a few jobs. 1.  Get an insurance quote Your lender should have given you some directives on this by now, but don't forget.  Make sure to call around to compare rates and coverage.  Check if they offer a multi-line discount, it may be worth changing your car insurance to get better rates on your homeowner's policy, too. 2.  Maintain your credit Yes, we talked about this last week, but it warrants repeating.  Curb your spending and don't take on any new debt that could jeopardize your ...

House hunting is so much fun, but let's be honest - the real thrill is when you make an offer and we're all waiting with baited breath to see how the seller responds.  Today, you got that response and your offer was accepted!  Congratulations, you're going to be a homeowner! And now you're terrified because you're going to be a homeowner.  So now what?  I'm glad you asked. First, get your earnest money to your Realtor.  You will have already agreed on an amount and a timeline, so make sure you stick to that.  The sooner you get it to your agent the better, because she may need time to then get it to her office or the listing agent. Your Realtor should deliver your contract to your lender and your closing agent, who is most likely an attorney.  Check with your lender to make sure she received it.  Then watch for communications from both of them with instructions on next steps.  They'll be reminding you to obtain insurance quotes, sche...

Remember last week when I shared my opinion of what Coronavirus is going to do to the market ? First, let me tell you I still fully believe everything I said. Second, let me tell you that doesn't mean I don't still have my moments of despair. Truth time - I'm feeling it today. I'm over this quarantine, I'm over my business taking such a hit, I'm over the "funny" memes of people making light of something that sucks so bad. I'm just over Coronavirus. I had a couple showings scheduled for this afternoon that got cancelled because my client isn't feeling wel, cue me panicking because I just saw her last week and she isn't giving me any details on her illness. I needed to stop and collect myself, so I started going through a few pages I follow and found this: Just what the doctor ordered, I'm breathing again. When we moved back in October, the house needed so much work we didn't take the time to get to kn...

So here's the deal - Feature Friday is late this week.  I started writing around 10:00 this morning and here it is 9:10pm and I'm just now sitting down to finish my article.  Want to know why?  It had been a while since we'd been to Sushi Samurais, so I was having to dig for pictures.  And of course, each one looked more delicious than the last.  The more I wrote and the more pictures I found, the more I wanted sushi!  So, Hubs and I finished work for the day and started our 52 mile, 50 minute (each way) treck to Sushi Samurais.  You're probably also wondering why I haven't found a sushi place closer to Batesville when I always talk about eating local.  Trust me, I've tried.  But Sushi Samurais truly is #worththedrive Hubs and I do not celebrate what we call the Hallmark Holidays, but on Valentine's Day 2014 we actually went out to a nice dinner.  We were both working in the same part of town, which happened to be almost an hour fro...

I've been working with a client with very specific wants for a couple weeks now and they just can't find "the one".  As we stood in the driveway of yet another "not quite right" home this past weekend, they asked me what I anticipated the market doing over the next couple of weeks.  Usually I would say the market always picks up in the Spring and we should take our times because the right house was out there and would be coming on the market soon.  Unfortunately, in these unprecedented times I just couldn't give a straight answer.  This one is going to be a little darker than usual, so here's a picture of the beach for a quick pick me up before you dive in. I tried and failed. For the past several months we've had a lot of people interested in buying a new home but not a lot of people selling.  We've had what we call a seller's market, because houses have been moving quickly and bringing a pretty good price. With the current situa...

I see so many people looking for ways to fill the time during the quarantine, so I've created a virtual scavenger hunt! The first three people to complete the scavenger hunt will get a free Competitive Market Analysis (CMA) of your home once the threat of COVID-19 has passed. If you're interested in listing your home in the future, this will help you know where your home stands and what you can do to add value. If you're not interested in listing, it's still fun to know. Plus, I've done these for people who ended up using it to get a BIG cut in their property taxes! If you're not local, I can still do a virtual CMA, but it's less likely to hold up in a tax dispute. If you're interested in that service, I can connect you with an agent who's local to you, so still play along! And if you're not currently a home owner and a CMA can't help you, there are plenty of other services I provide, so still play and we'll find a great ...

Yesterday was National Chili Day and living so close to Cincinnati, you know I'm a fan of Cincinnati chili!  This irritates Hubs to no end, who grew up in Texas and says not only does cinnamon have no place in chili, but with the consistency, flavors and serving methods it's not even chili.  Well he is welcome to his opinion, no matter how wrong it is! In my experience, people either love Cincinnati or hate it.  It's actually more of a Mediterranean meat sauce than an American chili and I think the misnomer is part of why the dish is so divisive.  But that doesn't make it any less delicious.  It doesn't keep it from being featured in pop culture.  And it doesn't make me not feature it for National Chili Day! Picture courtesy of Wikipedia Country duo Big and Rich grabbed a bowl of Skyline Chili in Comin' to your City, but for me if you're going to Skyline you're getting a three-way or a coney.  Okay, a chili cheese sandwich, because I don...

Thanks to late night Netflix binging we've all heard of the  KonMari  method of organizing your home.  While in no way a minimalist, Marie Kondo understands the importance of clearing out the things that no longer provide value to our lives for cleaner, simpler, more organized living.  This applies to preparing your home for selling too! You don't want your house to look bare, but a bit of tidying will make your home seem bigger with more storage and help buyers picture themselves living in, not just visiting, your home.  All of this will help your home sell faster and for a better price. My personal experience When we sold our last home I wasn't a Realtor yet so we used a family friend.  Her assistant came over and tore the place apart staging it and making me clear out every shred of evidence that a family lived there.  By the time she finished, our house felt cold and stark, the furniture layout made the living room look huge but barely functio...