Category: Real Estate

Should You Rent or Buy? | ZING Blog

“To rent or to buy, that is the question.” Okay, so I’ve taken some liberties with the dialogue in Hamlet. However, many people question the decision to rent or buy daily.

There are some definite reasons you may choose to rent rather than buy. There are also compelling reasons to buy your own home. We’ll go through the reasons for doing each before we take a look at our case study on Rich and Sara, who chose to buy their own home.

Why Rent?

Renting a home can be an attractive option for some people. From maintenance to tax savings and the ability to move often, renting can provide an appealing alternative to settling down to a mortgage.

Maintenance

If you rent, you more than likely aren’t responsible for maintenance and upkeep. When the water heater breaks, your landlord calls someone to come and fix it. Depending on the arrangement, your landlord may even provide for both snow removal and lawn maintenance services.

Not having to deal with maintenance can be a big draw because you’ll save a certain amount of money and frustration.

Your landlord may pay you back for materials and labor if you do the maintenance yourself. They might even be pleased with certain upgrades like a fresh coat of paint (provided you use neutral colors).

Tax Savings

When you own property, you’re responsible for the taxes and insurance on that property. That means you’re definitely spending a little bit extra on the monthly payment. These costs can fluctuate when your property value is reassessed. How often this happens depends on where you’re located.

The flip side to this is that you can deduct your state and local property taxes as well as mortgage interest from your federal taxes.

Freedom of Movement

If you’re the type of person who floats on the wind and sticks around in one place for short periods, it may not make sense to get a mortgage. Although renting can be more expensive, it does give you the opportunity to move with greater flexibility.

On the other hand, as you’ll see later, if you plan on sticking around, it’s more cost-effective to buy.

Housing

Now that we’ve gone over the pros of renting, let’s talk about why it makes sense for a lot of people to buy a house.

You Can Afford It

Real estate prices are different in every community. However, renting is often more expensive than you might think. This can be particularly true if you have a young and growing family like Rich and Sara’s. If you do the math on renting a house, it often makes a lot more sense to just buy.

If you’re considering taking the leap and buying a house, it’s a really good time to do so while rates are low. A lower rate factors into making your mortgage payment affordable.

You Own It

Another big reason people prefer buying a house instead of renting is that once your mortgage term is over, you own the house. You don’t have to make a monthly payment to a landlord without building up any equity.

Home values are also going up, which means you gain more equity faster. Equity is important because you can use it later on to pay for home improvements if you choose.

Once you realize that your monthly payment will eventually go away, that’s when you can really start to plan for the future.

Putting Down Roots

So far we’ve talked about all the logical reasons you might buy a house, but there’s also just something appealing about watching the kids play in the backyard and live in the community where you work.

Owning a house provides a base in a way that renting an apartment just can’t. Many people move every time their lease is up in order to find something more affordable.

With a home, your payment won’t necessarily change over the life of the term. Even if you’re in an adjustable rate mortgage (ARM), you have the option to refi into a fixed rate before the adjustable part kicks in.

Your home is also a place you have the real ability to make your own. In an apartment, you can’t really change the layout or switch where the TV is because you can’t move the outlet.

In contrast, when you first walk into your new home, it’s a blank canvas. You get to picture where the recliner is going to be. You can imagine everyone sitting around the dining room table along with a nice royal blue on the walls. Maybe there’s a workshop space. In the back, there’s a deck where everybody in the neighborhood knows you grill the best ribs in the city.

In your own home, you have flexibility to make your vision happen. It’s your little space within the rest of the community.

Rich and Sara did end up taking the step and buying a home. In doing so, they saw housing could actually be affordable. With that realization came a number of others.

5 Reasons Not to Use Your Sales Price to Test the Market | Total Mortgage Underwritings Blog

If you’re thinking about listing your property with a higher or lower price to test the market, don’t be too quick to make this move, as it can prove to be a costly mistake. Pricing your property incorrectly can turn potential buyers off for a number of reasons.

Consider these key moves to help you better understand the pitfalls you should avoid to save time and avoid making a big money mistake.

1. Wasting the high-exposure time when a listing first hits the MLS

When your home first hits the MLS, it’s fresh on the list of available homes and more interesting to a lot of buyers. That’s why you want to strike while the iron is hot. A buyer who wants to be in your neighborhood may pay a higher amount, but you won’t know if you’ve priced your home too low. For great price comparisons in your area so you know the going rates, check out Realtor, Trulia, or Zillow.

2. You can lose buyers doing internet searches

While a lower price might draw a few potential calls, you can actually turn people away if you price too low. They will want to grab a great deal, but a potential buyer who has done their homework might think something is wrong with a property priced too low.

As the owner, you can also lose buyers doing internet searches because they may not see your listing. Keep in mind that a home should have a competitive price. Sales prices that are dramatically lower might not show up in search results in the same neighborhood.

3. Your listing will get old

If you’re waiting for a buyer, you may end up finding that your property is sitting for weeks or months. And, if you’ve already moved, you still have to cover the mortgage payment. That’s another reason why you want to ensure you’ve priced it accordingly and work with an agent who can help you sell–and advertise–your property the right way.

4. The house won’t appraise

Another problem you can run into is with the appraisal. Price it too high, and the appraisal may come back lower and kill the sale.

Price the property lower than its true value, and it can raise red flags when you get it appraised, as it may get valued at a higher amount. Again, consider the perspective of a potential buyer who may not understand why you’re handing money away.

5. Agents who overprice sound good, but usually have a plan for price reductions

After pricing a home too high, an agent may try to compensate by lowering the price over a period of weeks. On MLS listings, this can make you look desperate A home with several price reductions may result in a buyer who lowballs you because they now think you’re desperate.

Simply find the best rate for your home. This can be done through the inspection, an estimate, or by comparing other properties in the area. The time you take to price your home correctly may help you sell it faster.

Bottom Line

Selling your home can be a time-consuming process, but pricing it right can help with offers. Focus on having a great marketing plan to give your home the visibility it needs, have a floor plan to give potential buyers when they see it, and up-sell the upgrades and improvements you’ve made. That way, you have an investment that future homeowners will see as their future home.

Home for the holidays: A nine-step guide to buying – News – The Concord Journal – Concord, MA

Buying a home can be one of the most rewarding experiences you can have. It is the foundation of the American dream and something many of us strive for. However, buying a house is a serious undertaking, and one you want to be sure you are prepared for. Here are some tips to keep your home buying experience from becoming a nightmare.

1. Get pre-approved – make sure you know how much house you can afford. Your time is valuable; don’t waste your time or the seller’s, looking at houses you may not be qualified for. Getting pre-approved helps you put together a realistic list of properties to choose from.

2. Know the total costs involved. Once you get prequalified, make sure your mortgage specialist explains all the costs associated with buying a house. Especially out-of-pocket expenses, such as the down payment. Also, there will be closing costs as well. If you are qualified for a $300,000 loan and you buy a $300,000 house, the closing costs are above and beyond the cost of the loan, and you will have to pay them out of pocket. You will also need to factor in costs for the home inspections and real estate attorney.

3. Have an eye to the future. When you are looking for that perfect house, what fits today may not fit in a few years. Make sure you choose a house that you can grow with. That little bungalow may be wonderful as newlyweds, but it can get awfully crowded once the babies start coming.

4. Home inspections – absolutely. You may be thinking, “I could save a few bucks by skipping on the home inspection,” but that would be a fatal mistake. Home inspectors are specially trained to find defects that are much deeper than cosmetic. They will alert you to serious structural defects that can end up costing you thousands of dollars down the road and can seriously hamper your ability to sell later. Remember, information is power.

5. Don’t put too much faith in online home values. We have become a do-it-yourself nation when it comes to the Internet, and it’s no different when it comes to buying a house. Websites such as Zillow and Trulia may seem like a great tool to search houses, but they can give buyers a false sense of home values. You need to work with a realtor who truly understands the local market that you want to buy in.

6. Don’t put the car before the home. Your debt-to-income ratio is one of the first things lenders look at when determining if and how much you qualify for and your ability to make your mortgage payments. Make sure your finances are in order; you have a history of good credit practices and saving.

7. Don’t hold out for the perfect house. Don’t let the right house slip by while you were looking for the perfect house. When you are searching for a home, you want to look at as many houses as you can and then eliminate the ones that don’t fit. Houses are always coming on the market, so always remain open. You can ask your real estate agent for a comparative market analysis. This will show you homes that have recently sold or are still for sale.

8. Know that you are buying more than just the house. Make sure you have a list of concerns and questions prepared for your realtor for each property. Ask about costs of utilities, crime rates and any environmental concerns. If you have children, you will want to know about the schools. Ask about any potential re-zoning that may occur; you don’t want to end up with a McDonalds in your backyard.

9. Stay in constant contact with your real estate agent. The housing market is fluid and ever-changing. Make sure your realtor has a reliable means to get a hold of you. They need to be able to respond quickly to meet your needs. It would be a shame if you lost your dream house because you waited too long to call your agent back.

First-Time Homebuyer Mistakes You Don’t Want To Make | Thrillist

You really, really don’t want to make mistakes when you buy your first house. It could be a costly error — even more costly than the time you dropped $10,000 on rare Beanie Babies in the ’90s. Unfortunately, mistakes seem to be part of the home-buying process. To find out some of the more common screw-ups first-time homebuyers make, we spoke to Sandra O’Connor, a Realtor for 29 years and the regional VP of the National Association of Realtors. Turns out, most of them are avoidable if you know what you’re doing.

Making huge purchases right before you close on the home
Before you go buy that new electric BMW just because Katie Couric and Bryant Gumbel told you to in a commercial, you might want to hold off until you close on your new house. O’Connor says lenders will re-check your debt load right before closing, and if you have a big ol’ car payment on the books, they might rethink your ability to pay off the home loan. She’s seen lenders back out at the last second. This also goes for big furniture or appliance purchases, too. Might wanna keep that Sears card in your wallet until you move in.

Not getting your finances in shape
If you assume you’ll have enough money to buy a home because you have the down payment in hand, guess again. First of all, checking your credit score is key — it can determine the interest rate and insurance costs related to your new home. And there are plenty of pre-buying expenses you might not realize you need to pay for as well. “The more you can invest up front, the easier the loan process will be,” O’Connor says. “But throughout that process, in addition to applying for the loan, you also have to do things like get insurance for your homeowners policy in place. You need to have inspections. The lending institution will probably charge them a fee to have an appraisal, as well.”

Underestimating the ease of home improvements
If you buy a fixer-upper, there are going to be myriad costs and time spent on getting the place in shape. But even if you buy a home that needs a few updates — refinishing hardwood floors or remodeling a bathroom — O’Connor cautions that “the projects will always take longer and cost more than you think.” Unless you buy a house that’s on an episode of Property Brothers, and then the whole job will only take about 45 minutes.

Not working with a trusted adviser
It might seem a little conflict-of-interest-y that a real-estate agent would recommend you work with a realtor when buying your first house instead of going it alone… but that advice also has the benefit of being a good idea. “If you have a professional helping coordinate everything, then the [home-buying] process will be smoother,” O’Connor says. “And they’ll also be alert to what might be coming up along the way. There are ways, if you have an agent representing you, that they can negotiate with the seller to pay your closing costs.” And it’s not just your agent that can help — if they work from an office, “they bring to the deal a whole team to support the process and guide you right.” Just because you read one news article on Trulia about how to buy a house, that doesn’t make you equal to an agent’s years of experience in buying and selling real estate.

3 Ways To Prepare Your Home For A Winter Sale | Patch

Thinking of selling your home this winter? There are actually some benefits to selling at this time of year because there are fewer homes on the market, so your home will get more attention from buyers. Winter is also a great time to sell because the buyers who are looking to purchase are motivated.

 

To make your home really stand out from the competition during the colder months, here are 3 tips you can use to make your home more appealing to buyers:

1. Winter Curb Appeal
Curb appeal is just as important in the winter as it is in the warmer months. First, make sure all fall leaves and branches are cleaned up. When it snows, make sure all walkways, entryways, and the driveway are shoveled. Make sure to treat surfaces with a de-icing product because the last thing you want is a potential buyer to slip on a walkway before they even go inside Don’t make them climb over snow banks or walk through slush. Clear the entry areas around your home to make it easy for buyers to get around.

2. Increase Lighting
The days are shorter during these months, so be sure to have extra lights on during the day and the evening as well. Use higher-wattage bulbs and keep drapes and shades open to allow more natural light into the home. Make sure outdoor lamps are on and use spotlights on landscape features you want highlighted. Path lights are another way you can brighten up walkways.

3. Turn up the Heat
Homeowners often turn the heat down in the winter months to save money. Home sellers should turn the heat up to make it more comfortable for buyers. It doesn’t have to be tropical in the home, as buyers will probably have their coats on during the showing, but you want the home to be warm and inviting. If the home is too cold buyers won’t want to stay and look at all your home has to offer.

If you’re selling your home in the winter, you’ll need to be a little more patient. Selling the home may take a little longer for a couple of reasons. People have hectic schedules during the holidays and the weather will play a factor as well, so you may not have as many viewings as you first expected.

5 Unexpected Advantages Of Using A Real Estate Agent – Real Estate 101 – Trulia Blog

A good real estate agent makes selling a house look easy, but consider these five factors before you go full-on FSBO.

We totally get it: At the end of the already arduous selling process, it can be painful to turn over that 6% commission. And when you really start to crunch the numbers, it’s very tempting to forgo the listing agent altogether and enter the “For Sale By Owner” (FSBO) fray.

But there are advantages of using a real estate agent that you might not be counting on. Maybe your real estate agent is also an expert stager. Maybe they’ve got handyman friends and can help you get a really good price on a little fix-it work before your home joins the ranks of homes for sale in Fort Lauderdale, FL. Maybe they’ve connected you with the most honest mortgage lender in the city.

Never mind that a great agent also can get you a better sale on your property. “The agent can save you time and money and fetch a higher selling price by driving more traffic to the home and creating a buzz,” says Katherine Salyi of The Serhant Team at Nest Seekers International in New York.

Here are five reasons to opt out of FSBO hell and hire a real estate agent to help with selling your home.

They market your home for free

Selling your house is really about marketing your house, which means producing marketing materials for said house. Translation: cash out of pocket and potentially subpar materials if you’re attempting to tap into those long-dormant graphic design skills.

But when you sign with that magical agent, they take over. As Salyi points out, professional photographs, postcards, brochures, advertisements, and a proper floor plan are just some of the materials that an agent whips up on your behalf — then distributes to contacts you couldn’t even hope to have.

They’re stage parents

You may love your homey living-room setup, but that arrangement probably doesn’t show off the space in the best way for selling. A savvy agent will come in, objectively assess your space, and then gently tell you what to keep and what to toss (or store) so that the space presents better. An even savvier agent will redistribute your existing furniture for maximum aesthetic appeal, then add accents for flair.

If you’re lucky, they might even have staging furniture at their easy — and free — disposal. And that sharp eye can extend to lesser-trafficked rooms as well. “I often suggest redecorating instead of renovating an out-of-date bathroom — you’d be surprised how far new white towels and a shower curtain can go!” says Salyi. As for bedrooms, “simple, inexpensive changes like paint and new linens make a world of difference to potential buyers.”

They know (the right) people

The best agents are the ones who set you up with their squad. Need a backyard refresh before putting your home on the market? They’ll hook you up with their go-to, well-priced landscape architect … who just happens to be available at a moment’s notice. Need someone to tackle all those small but beyond-DIY home repairs? Agents always know the neighborhood handymen who are familiar with the architecture of the area. Freaked out about the loan process? Your agent’s mortgage broker is the one who will find you the best rate and walk you through the process without any BS.

During the stress of the selling process, it’s easy to throw your hands up and just toss money at a problem — money you don’t really have and don’t really need to spend. Your agent is there to save you from your own panicked impulses.

They’ll get you more money

Do you have any true idea of how the home-selling magic works? Don’t worry: agents do. The more you get paid, the more they get paid — and so they’ll do anything in their power to push up that price. Sometimes that means underpricing to create a bidding war; sometimes that means showing the property before listing to get that supermotivated buyer to pay all cash, with a quick closing to boot.

But whatever their strategy, they’ll have a strategy. And once an offer comes in, they’ll know if and how you should counter, and what that counteroffer should look like. Higher price, different closing date, different contingencies, fees exclusion — use your agent to get into the weeds of the final negotiations.

They save you time — and time is money

Bottom line: Your agent is there to do the things you cannot. Selling your home is an arduous process that requires multiple thinking caps you might not personally have at your disposal.

Never mind that it’s also a major time-suck. “If you have to take time off from work to show your home to potential buyers, it’s costing you money,” Salyi says. “Helping people sell their homes is a real estate agent’s full-time job. Let us do the work for you!”

Rents Will Stay High for Years, Experts Say | Zillow Blog

Like a lot of people, Mark Stevenson has had it with rent prices.

His Walnut Creek, CA apartment complex raised the rent last year, and he recently learned that his 1-bedroom unit is headed up another $351, to $1,830 a month.

“Here’s my dilemma: Renew a 12-month rental lease complete with a 24 percent mugging, or buy a condo,” Stevenson said. “I’m looking to buy now.”

That could be a good financial bet, given the findings from Zillow’s latest Home Price Expectations Survey. A panel of more than 100 experts predicted:

• U.S. home values will rise 4.4 percent in 2015, to a median value of $187,040.
• Median U.S. home values will exceed their pre-recession peak of $196,400 by May 2017.
• 51 percent expect rental affordability will not improve for at least two years.

Already, renting is half as affordable as buying, something Danville, CA broker Kevin Kieffer of Keller Williams Realty hears about all the time.

“‘My landlord is getting ready to hike the rent by $200, and I’ve got to buy:’ Since 2001, I haven’t heard that more consistently than I am now,” Kieffer said.

The issue is basic economics: Demand is outstripping supply.

“Vacancy rates on rental units in the fourth quarter were down to 7 percent, the lowest in more than 20 years,” said David W. Berson, chief economist for Nationwide Insurance.

The squeeze could continue for years, said Berson, who participated in the survey.

Rents will rise as millennials strike out on their own — but not all of them will rent. “If a larger share start to move toward [buying], the rent increase will not be quite as rapid,” he said.

The situation is worse in some places than in others.

In Dallas, for example, a renter making the median household income spends 27.7 percent of it on rent. In Chicago, it’s 31.5 percent; in New York, 40.5 percent and in Los Angeles, 47.9 percent.

More than half of the survey panelists who had an opinion said the market will correct the nation’s soaring rents, requiring no government intervention.

“Uncle Sam can certainly do a lot, but I worry we’ve become too accustomed to automatically seeking federal assistance for housing issues big and small, instead of trusting markets to correct themselves and without waiting to see the impact of decisions made at a local level,” said Zillow Chief Economist Stan Humphries.

What does that mean for the average renter deciding whether to buy?

Homeownership certainly isn’t for everyone. Renters should consider how much they have in savings, how long they expect to live there and other factors — but they shouldn’t expect a break on rents.

Higher interest rates rattle sellers, too – The Washington Post

The Nov. 26 front-page article regarding buyers’ rising stress levels because of anticipated higher interest rates neglected to consider the other side of the transaction [“For home buyers, rates of stress rise”]. While it is true that higher interest rates would increase the monthly mortgage cost for a given home value, they also would put pressure on sellers to reduce their price, mitigating somewhat the burden on buyers.

The effect of increasing interest rates is similar to an increase in the sales tax. If the sales tax were to rise from 6 percent to 7 percent, retailers would bear some of the burden of the increased tax by lowering their pre-tax sales prices. The same is true of home sellers.

Home buyers approach the market with a certain budget in mind. If interest rates rise, they may have to accept a lower-priced house than they otherwise would. Sellers would then see a reduced demand for homes, forcing them to accept lower prices.

Ultimately, both the buyer and the seller must share the burden of any increase in interest rates. Sellers will be stressed, too.

Is Your Home a Ticking Time Bomb? | Zillow Blog

There are some maintenance and repair issues that homeowners just hate to deal with — either because they take time, cost money or just don’t seem, well, urgent. But, some of these problems can become ticking time bombs, poised to explode if they’re not defused early, when they are more like firecrackers than bombs.

Here are some of the top structural and mechanical time bombs in your home that experts say have the potential to blow up and are worth squelching now — before the big boom.

The foundation

Why it’s explosive: Houses settle. But not all settling is the same. “A lot of times people will ignore the cracks in the brick veneer on the outside of the house, even when they get to be a half-inch or more,” says Bill Loden, incoming president of the American Society of Home Inspectors (ASHI). Even though that brick is often just the “skin” of the house, a crack that large can signal much deeper problems with a moving foundation, Loden says. Caught early, a repair might cost a few thousand dollars. Caught too late, the tab could run $20,000 to $50,000.

Snuff the fuse: Some cracks in your house are essentially cosmetic — the result of natural settling. When is a crack something more? “If you see a crack big enough to put a No. 2 pencil in, you’re looking at a problem,” says Loden, who also owns Huntsville, AL-based Insight Building Inspection. Other signs of trouble: a tilting chimney or windows and doors that stick or jam, which can be caused by a moving foundation that is twisting their frames. If you suspect foundation issues, hire a structural engineer to evaluate your house, he says.

The roof

Why it’s explosive: ”Most people don’t pay any attention to their roof until they see water coming through the ceiling!” says Bill Jacques, outgoing president of ASHI and owner of American Inspection Service in Charleston, SC. But if you see drips in your living room, the problem is already far gone. A new roof could cost you “probably $8,000 to $10,000,” according to Jacques.

Snuff the fuse: “Some people say, ‘I’ve got a 20-year shingle. It’s gonna last 20 years.’ Well, no it’s not,” he says. “I would just recommend that about every five years they have the roof inspected.” One of the telltale signs of a wearing roof is coarse sand pooling at the base of gutter downspouts; the sand is most likely caused from granules of the shingles washing off. If you see a lot of it, then it’s a good idea to have someone climb higher. If you can safely get on the roof (be careful!) and the surface feels slippery, that’s another sign that the shingle material is coming off, Jacques says.

You can find evidence of additional problems under the roof. Water will usually enter the attic first. Hire an inspector, or look for stains around the chimney and the stack vents, or around other venting pipes that exit the house. Those are places where the metal flashing can fail, says Jacques. Also, look around the attic for wet and/or damaged insulation. Discovering issues early could mean the difference between repair and replacement — or a few hundred dollars rather than thousands.

The septic system

Why it’s explosive: Homeowners who have septic tanks don’t always like to think about them, Loden says. That’s a mistake. “A septic tank is gonna work until the day it quits,” he quips.

Generally speaking, a septic system breaks down the solids and liquefies them. The liquid then goes out into lines and is dispersed into the surrounding ground. But other materials also reach the septic tank — from sanitary napkins and cigarette butts to foodstuffs such as coffee grounds and grease (particularly if you have a garbage disposal). Over time, the baffles that stop the larger solids from going into the lines can get blocked. If that happens, the system can back up into your house. “That’s not a ‘check engine’ light; that’s an ‘engine failure’ light,” Loden says. “That’s when you end up with a backhoe in your yard.”

Snuff the fuse: If you have a septic tank, have the tank pumped every five years. “And, if you have a garbage disposal, you might want to have it done every three years,” Loden says. In his area of the South, the cost is “between $300 and $500,” he says. “It’s really relatively inexpensive to have it pumped. A lot of those guys will pump it and inspect it at the same time.” It’s particularly cheap when compared with the cost of digging up your yard to repair your system, which can run thousands of dollars.

Old electrical systems

Why it’s explosive: Homes built after World War II, as well as homes built earlier, “didn’t have the same requirements for power that we do now,” Loden says. Homes built today can’t have more than 12 linear feet of space between electrical outlets. This stipulation was intended to minimize the use of extension cords, which can cause fires. The electrical systems of older homes, particularly those outfitted with lots of appliances and amenities, just can’t handle modern electrical demands. Sockets can actually wear out, and switches, too. Breakers become less reliable as they age. The upshot can be a fire.

Snuff the fuse: “Probably every 20 years,” a home should have a thorough inspection of its electrical system, Loden says. Homes built prior to 1980 should definitely be looked at, “and another break point in my region — the Deep South — is 1965. There were a lot of improvements in the 1960s,” he says. You could call an electrician, although Loden cautions that “an electrician may see it as a sales call. Like any trade, they’re there to fix things.” An alternative: Consider calling an experienced home inspector.

The crawl space

Why it’s explosive: Few homeowners ever pay attention to their crawl space — that often dank, dirt-floored area beneath many homes. “And why would they?” says Jacques, of ASHI. But you should, because the crawl space is sort of a window into the belly of your home and all of its inner workings, he says. It could reveal all sorts of problems before they get bigger:

• “You might have a leak in the bathroom under the commode or in a supply line that could be weakening the floor,” Jacques says, and you’d never know it until the day a sag appears in the floor and you need major repairs.
• Termite damage can usually be seen there before it appears elsewhere.
• Many crawl spaces carry the heating and air-conditioning ductwork that runs throughout a house. But when repairmen clamber about in this cramped space, over time “they might cause some damage to the insulation or to the ductwork. So you could be pumping your nice cold air into the crawl space itself,” Jacques says.

Snuff the fuse: Jacques recommends homeowners periodically spend a few minutes with a flashlight looking inside the crawl space as a precautionary measure.

He also recommends occasionally hiring a home inspector to do a more thorough examination of the space. An inspector can look for leaks in plumbing and find faulty or damaged ductwork and worrisome wiring. As well, while often not licensed to inspect for termites, an inspector usually knows enough to point out suspected trouble and recommend treatment or repair. (Find an ASHI-certified home inspector in your area here.)

An unexpected surge: Home prices rise 5.5% in September | Construction Dive

Dive Brief:

• Home prices across the U.S. rose 5.5%, more than the expected 5.2%, between September 2014 and September 2015, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller 20-City Composite Index.
• San Francisco, Denver, and Portland, OR, saw the greatest year-over-year gains again this month — as they did in last month’s report — but San Francisco was the standout, up 11.2% year-over-year. The National Home Price Index, which measures all nine U.S. census divisions, rose 4.9% in September from the same month in 2015.
• The general consensus, according to the report, is that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates in December. But David Blitzer, managing director and chairman of the index committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said 30-year mortgage rates likely still won’t exceed 4%.

Dive Insight:

Blitzer said this month’s report indicates continuing strength in housing as home prices rise at more than twice the rate of inflation. “The general economy appeared to slow slightly earlier in the fall, but is now showing renewed strength,” he said.

Svenja Gudell, chief economist at Zillow, said the threat of rising prices could negatively affect housing affordability, as homebuyers today are already finding it more difficult to save up for down payments.

“Rising home values and rents alike can make saving a suitable down payment very difficult, and continued shortages in for-sale homes means even qualified buyers with decent savings are often left out in the cold,” she said.

Recent analysis of the real estate market has revealed that young people, who are also burdened with student debt, are having the significant difficulties coming up with down payments because rents are rising, as well as home prices, making it increasingly difficult to save money. In fact, the first-time homebuyer share of the market is at a 30-year low.