What Is A Tiny Home?
You may have heard of the Tiny Home movement and been curious about what exactly is a tiny home and why would anyone want one. A tiny home generally is a home that is generally under 500 square feet. Tiny homes contain all the features of a regular home including bathroom, kitchen, dining and sleeping areas. Tiny homes are generally designed to be energy efficient and usually built with green materials. One of the goal of the tiny home movement is to reduce the environmental impact of housing both in terms of the actual building of the home as well as through reduced energy consumption while the home is in use.
Not only is money saved through energy efficiency but the total overall cost of the tiny home can be much lower than that of a traditional house. The average cost of a tiny house can start at $5000.00 and go up to $70,000.00 which is much cheaper than the average suburban home. At the lower end of the pricing scale many may not even need a mortgage, whereas at the higher end a mortgage may be desired.
Tiny homes are generally built to last as long as a traditional home would. Some tiny home owners have built the homes themselves using kits that contain most everything needed to assemble the basic home. Additionally tiny homes builders and developers are working to put tiny homes on wheels so 
they are more mobile.
Tiny Homes and Zoning
Since tiny homes is a relatively new movement in relation to the current housing...
Luxury Home Buyer's Guide To Getting A Mortgage
Purchasing a luxury home requires a slightly different approach than if one were buying a non-luxury home. Generally a luxury house is considered luxury because the price is higher than $500,000.00 and offers luxury amenities not commonly found in non-luxury homes. While the $500,000.00 is a general guideline that does not mean that amount applies the same to every area in classifying a home as luxury. In the Greater Cincinnati, Ohio and Northern Kentucky Real Estate Market homes $500,000.00 and above generally will be considered to be luxury homes. Other areas may be different based on the real estate market in those locations since real estate is all about location.
Buying A Luxury Home With A Jumbo Mortgage
If you plan on purchasing your luxury home with cash then this may not apply to you. However with mortgage interest rates as low as they are, borrowing money to purchase your luxury home while at the same time using your cash in different higher rate of return investment may make sense for you. Additionally you may qualify for the mortgage interest tax deduction which could reduce the amount of taxes you owe each year you pay interest on your mortgage.
Luxury mortgages are a little different compared to mortgages for non-luxury homes. When borrowing more than $424,100.00 to purchase your luxury home the mortgage loan product used for those types of loans are called jumbo loans. ...
A Look Back At Some Of The Great Real Estate Articles From 2016
The year 2016 saw many real estate related articles published with the intent of informing readers about various issues in the real estate area. Some articles while trying to be informative may miss the mark and instead up trying to sell something rather than inform. Many other articles though succeed in informing readers so that they have the latest and greatest knowledge needed to help them with their real estate. In this article I highlight some of those great articles from 2016 and hope you enjoy them as much as many others did.
best Articles from 2016 for home sellers
Best Way To Remove Wallpaper
One of my favorite articles from 2016 was a very helpful post from Bill Gassett, one of the top real estate agents in Southborough Mass. One of the things Realtors are constantly doing for their clients is recommending improvements that can be made that either help the salability of a home or bring more money. One of the features that impacts the sale of a home in a negative way more than any other is wallpaper. Unfortunately, wallpaper dates a home! It is a very personal choice that is almost always a love or hate thing. Far more often, however, people hate wallpaper. A good real estate agent...
5 Reasons Why Your Pending Home Sale Can Fall Apart
5 Reasons Why Your Pending Home Sale CAN Fall Apart And How To Prevent It
Selling a home is not a fast activity like going to a store and buying a new television. In most cases you go to the store pick out what TV you want and after paying for it you can leave and enjoy the TV. Selling a home on the other hand is a more involved process. The instant an offer is accepted by the seller there still is a period of time where the deal to purchase the home can fall apart. Here are the main areas where a home sale can fall and how to avoid those pitfalls.
Appraisal
Every house that is going to be purchased with the use of a mortgage loan needs to be appraised in order to ensure the amount being lent to buy the home is not more than the actual value of the home itself. Mortgage lenders are able to lend for long term periods and with low interest rates due to the fact that if the borrower can no longer pay for the mortgage loan the lender can foreclose on the property. After foreclosing on the property the lender should be able to recover some if not all of the money lent for the purchase of the home.
The mortgage lender will order an appraisal to be performed by a licensed appraiser. The appraiser will look at the condition of the home as well as look at the updates and upgrades that have been made. Through the appraisal process the house is compared with recent sales of homes which are similar to the home being evaluated...