We are also currently working on our first HAFA short sales, which we expect will move quickly as well thanks to the HAFA government guidelines which require the banks to approve or reject short sale offers in no more than 10 business days.

With short sales becoming the main stream real estate sell, it is a good thing that banks like BofA have grasped this concept and are helping to move the process on as quickly as possible. Wells Fargo and Wachovia are also getting much easier to work with and getting approvals at a faster rate.

If you or someone you know are facing a foreclosure, let Newton3 Real Estate Services help through the process. Save your credit and move out on your terms not the banks.

Visit: ShortSellOption.com for more information regarding a short sale

Newton3 Real Estate Services

This Micorsite is also great for the current and future buyer that wants to learn more about the Pacific Highlands Ranch community. It will also help the buyer to know what to expect for the current market and prices of the homes in the neighborhood.

View The Microsite Here:    

If you have any questions about the community of Pacific Highlands Ranch please call Newton3 Real Estate Services for more information.  (619)987-6987 . If you currently live in PHR and would like a detailed market snapshot of your property please give me a call!

Dave Norberg a business associate and myself met with Daniel Zia and his wife to discuss the sale of Daniel’s wifes grandparents home on Mt. Helix. Because Daniels business is so far from San Diego he wanted to reach out and let an Agent who knows the San Diego Market and the Mt. Helix market help with the sale of the home. Daniel interviewed 4 agents in the area, we were last so I think we have a great shot of helping Daniel and his Wife Sarah List the Summit Dr. Home on Mt. Helix and sell it quickly.

If you would be interested in buying this property on Mt. Helix please give me a call so I can give you the details of the property. (619)987-6987 This is a tradtional equity sale, not an REO, or Short Sale, so it will be priced to sell, and it will sell quickly. Please call me at (619)987-6987 to get information on the home today!

Please remember if  you are looking for property in the Santa Barbara area contact the ZiaGroup!

The positive impact of the federal home buyer tax credit is clear. Nearly 40 percent of first-time home buyers said they would not have purchased a home if the federal tax credit for first-time home buyers was not offered, according to C.A.R. research conducted last year.
 
The state’s previous home buyer tax credit program was so successful that it ran out of tax credits by the end of June 2009, eight months before it was set to expire and just as housing markets appeared to be turning a corner.  Unlike last year’s legislation, AB 183 adds a tax credit for the purchase of an existing home by a first-time home buyer.
AB 183 will significantly contribute to the effort to stimulate jobs-creation within California’s housing market by helping to incentivize first-time home buyers to purchase homes that have been abandoned, foreclosed upon and returned to the lender, or have been sitting on the market for extended periods of time. It is these homes that will require substantial rehabilitation by the new owners, which will in turn generate a tremendous increase in jobs and accessory purchases connected to home improvement activities.
 
Your Association’s efforts at the state and federal level to help protect private property rights and your right to conduct business are ongoing. This promises to be another busy year in the state legislature and in Washington, D.C. 

               (619)987-6987

Fixing mold damage can be one of the most expensive repairs you’ll ever perform on your home, so here’s how to prevent it!

Setting your thermostat at about 78 degrees F provides the optimal temperature for preventing moisture problems. Image: Image: Tetra Images/Getty Image

It’s no wonder homeowners fear a mold diagnosis: Besides the health problems mold causes, the cost of an extensive mold remediation project can reach five figures.

You can’t totally eliminate mold from your home no matter how vigilant you are, because mold spores are always present in indoor air, particularly in more humid areas of the country such as the Southeast and Northwest. What you can control—by spending an hour or two inspecting key areas of your house and investing in a humidity monitor—is the moisture that allows spores to colonize.

Eliminate clutter

1. Pare down your stuff. “Clutter creates microclimates where humidity is higher than the ambient humidity in the room,” says Jason Yost, owner of Solutions Indoor Environmental Consulting in Terre Haute, Ind. “Mold develops because clutter blocks airflow, and your HVAC system can’t process air properly.”

2.  Don’t obstruct air return and supply grilles with furniture or draperies. Surfaces adjacent to grilles cool to temperatures well below your thermostat setting and well below the dew point for the room, meaning condensation is likely.

Control the indoor climate

Mold problems often emerge in summer, when outside air tends to be humid. (If you have a window air conditioning unit, baseboard heating, or other localized devices and suspect you have moisture problems, consult an HVAC or mold inspection professional for guidance.)

3. Keep the thermostat set at a moderate level in summer. Set it too high, and the air conditioner won’t run often enough to dehumidify your air effectively; set it too low, and you create cold surfaces where water vapor can condense.

To maximize energy efficiency, most electric utilities recommend setting the thermostat around 78 degrees F; this setting is also optimal for preventing moisture problems.

4. Never keep windows or doors open while the air conditioner is on. This introduces humid outside air into a sharply cooler environment, which can cause condensation. When you go on vacation, don’t bump the thermostat up to 85 degrees—or, worse, turn the air conditioning off entirely. That tiny utility bill savings would be dwarfed by the cost of a mold remediation if your indoor air weren’t sufficiently dehumidified. (Eighty degrees is recommended; if you have a window unit, leave it on at the lowest setting.)

5. Make sure your air-conditioning unit is properly sized for your house. Some HVAC contractors recommend oversized units for quick cooling, but this might remove less humidity from the air. Consult Energy Star to find out what size unit you really need.

6. Supplement an old air-conditioning unit that isn’t removing as much moisture with a dehumidifier. 

Monitor moisture

To see if you need a dehumidifier, measure humidity—the amount of water vapor in the air compared with the total amount it can hold. Start with an under-$20 monitor from various online retailers, Yost says. More sophisticated and expensive models—ranging from $45 to $300—have remote sensors that simultaneously track several rooms all over the house, which is useful if you have basements, crawl spaces, or other areas that you don’t visit often.

An ideal indoor reading is between 35% and 50% relative humidity; in very humid climates in the height of summer, you may get readings closer to 55%. But if you reach 60% relative humidity, it’s time to look for the source of the moisture. Above 70% relative humidity, certain species of mold can begin growing on surfaces even if water isn’t visible.

7. If you get a high humidity reading, check your air conditioner first.

• Is it set to the proper temperature?
• Is it cycling on and off periodically?
• Does it blow cold air when it reaches the set point?

8. Check that the condensate drain pipe (the narrow white pipe sticking out the side) is dripping regularly. If it isn’t, the pipe is blocked, water may be accumulating inside the unit, or the unit isn’t working correctly. If you suspect a problem, call your HVAC professional.

9. If the air conditioner isn’t the issue, look for signs of standing water or chronically damp soil in your crawl space or basement or near your foundation.

10. If you have a crawl space, make sure you have a plastic vapor barrier covering the dirt floor and that it’s intact. Moisture below the house affects the humidity indoors by infiltrating unsealed penetration points, such as where electrical conduits and plumbing enter the house. Water can even diffuse through plywood and finished flooring—and you won’t necessarily see wet spots when this happens.

Find a qualified pro

If you can’t find the moisture problem on your own, or you aren’t sure how to correct a problem you do find, it’s a good idea to call a home inspector or indoor air quality consultant. Look for credentials from a respected industry organization, such as the American Society of Home Inspectors or the Indoor Air Quality Association. A house call will likely run $250 or more.

Keep in mind the mold field is largely unregulated, so there are few industry norms for pricing.

Mold and insurance

Mold remediation isn’t necessarily covered by homeowners insurance, which typically pays only if the problem results from a sudden emergency already covered on your policy, such as a burst pipe. Insurance usually doesn’t pay if the problem results from deferred maintenance or floodwaters (unless you have flood insurance).

Water emergencies

A note about emergency situations: If you have a flood or a leaking or burst pipe, act immediately to remove the water and run a dehumidifier—don’t wait for an insurance adjuster, inspector, or water extraction/mold remediation company to arrive. But take photos or video of any damage for your insurer.

The main thing to remember is to monitor moisture before problems develop—and if something seems wrong, don’t hesitate to call for professional help.

Karin Beuerlein has covered home improvement and green living topics extensively for HGTV.com, FineLiving.com, and FrontDoor.com. In more than a decade of freelancing, she’s also written for dozens of national and regional publications, including Better Homes & Gardens and the Chicago Tribune. She and her husband started married life by remodeling the house they were living in. They still have both the marriage and the house, no small feat.

New York—U.S. home prices rose 3.1 percent in the third quarter of 2009, posting the second consecutive quarterly increase this year, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices.

Q: What is a Short Sale?

Answer: In a short sale, the lender agrees to settle the debt owed on the property for less than the full amount. “Settled” means that the lender is writing off the debt (which is why you get a 1099 after a short sale for the amount of debt forgiven) and that they are not going to go after you for the money they lost by filing a deficiency judgment in the future.

Q: How will I know if I will qualify for a short sale?

Answer: Call our office and we can tell you over the phone whether you will likely qualify. We have former underwriters from major national lenders who work in our office on our short sale team. The overwhelming majority of our clients are approved for a short sale because 1) we know how to submit the short sale package in such a way that the lenders will approve them and 2) we have a tremendous amount of experience with short sales and negotiating with the lenders.

Q: How will a short sale affect my credit?

Answer: This is a great question as there is a lot of misinformation on the internet about this topic. A short sale is recorded on your credit report as “debt settled for less than the amount owed”. This typically will result in a relatively minor hit on your credit compared to a foreclosure or late payments on your mortgage. I say ‘”typically” because it affects everyone’s credit differently. The more established your credit, the less of an impact it will have on your score.

The reason you often hear and read that a short sale will drop your credit 100 points or more, is that, many people, when they do a short sale, stop making their mortgage payments. If you stop making your mortgage payments for 4 months, regardless of whether you do a short sale or not, 4 months of missed mortgage payments will have a significant negative impact on your credit. In other words, it is the missed mortgage payments that have the big impact on your credit, not the short sale itself.

With this said, if you are already behind on your payments, you have already incurred the majority of the hit that a short sale will have on your credit. Doing a successful short sale at this point will insure that your debt is settled with your lender.

If you are current on your payments and can stay current throughout the short sale process, you will save your credit to a large extent.

Finally, if you do stop making your mortgage payments, there are various credit repair agencies that can repair your credit by removing late payments from your credit report after a short sale.

Q: Will I have to pay federal taxes on the money my lender loses in the short sale?

Answer: There are several different scenarios with regard to whether or not you will owe federal income taxes on the loss the lender takes in a short sale.

When you do a short sale, your lender is agreeing to settle the debt on the property for less than the amount they are owed. The IRS therefore allows them to write off this loss, which is why your lender will send you a 1099-C after the short sale.

The IRS considers “debt relief” to be income for tax purposes. In other words, if your lender writes off $50,000 on your short sale, they will send you a 1099-C for that amount, and you would include that when you file your income taxes. The “C” stands for “Cancellation of Debt” and the law says cancelled debt is taxable as income.

There are however a few exceptions that most people who do a short sale qualify for that exclude them from having to pay taxes on their short sale.

Thanks to the Mortgage Tax Debt Relief Act that George W. Bush signed into law in January of 2008, homeowners who do a short sale on their primary residence, and have a purchase money loan (in other words, they have not pulled cash out of their home with a cash-out refinance) pay no taxes on the loss that their lender incurs in a short sale.

Homeowners who have pulled out cash from their home but have put that money back into their home to “substantially improve” their home, also are excluded from taxes on the short sale.

All other short sale scenarios – if you pulled cash out on your primary residence but spent it something other than upgrading your home or if you are doing a short sale on a second home or investment property – result in a taxable event unless you qualify for the “Insolvency” exclusion.

The IRS does not require you to pay taxes on the loss the lender takes in a short sale if, at the time of the short sale, you are insolvent. Insolvency means your debts (including your mortgage) exceed the value of all your assets. In other words, if, at the time of the short sale, you have more debt than you do money or assets, you are considered insolvent.

Many people who find themselves facing a short sale are in exactly this situation and are thus excluded from paying taxes on a short sale. We recommend you check with your CPA or accountant or go to the IRS website and look up IRS Form 982, which is the IRS form for debt relief and short sales. The IRS gives an explanation of “Insolvency” on this form.

Finally, the time period for The Mortgage Tax Debt Relief Act was originally only slated to go until the end of 2008, however it has now been extended to the end of 2012.

Q: Will I have to pay CA state taxes on the money my lender loses in the short sale?

Answer: California has passed its own version of the federal Mortgage Tax Debt Relief Act. It is Senate Bill 1055, which conforms to the federal law described in detail above, but applies to California state income taxes on a short sale.

There are differences between the state and federal law. For example, the term of the California law was only until the end of 2008. As of Jan 2009, this law is no longer in effect.

However, CA Revenue & Taxation Code Section 17131 provides that, unless there is some specific California statute to the contrary, California law tracks federal law on what income is excluded from taxation. Since there is currently no specific California law on this issue, short sales do not produce taxable income under California law as long as the Federal Mortgage Tax Debt Forgiveness Act is in effect (until the end of 2012).

With this said, we recommend you review your specific tax scenario with your CPA or accountant and have them answer any tax questions that you have. We are not tax advisors and do not dispense tax advice.

Q: Can my lender go after me for the money it loses in the short sale?

Answer: The point of a short sale is to get out from under the debt of the mortgage. This is why your lender will send you a 1099-C after the short sale. The “C” in “1099-C” stands for “Cancellation of Debt.” Your lender cannot write off their loss on their corporate taxes, send you a 1099-C so you have to pay taxes on the loss, report the short sale as a “settled debt” on your credit and then turn around and go after you for the money.

If you hire and inexperienced short sale agent or negotiator who does not negotiate a full release from your lender, then, yes, you could be liable for the money the lender loses in a short sale or end up being forced to sign a promissory note to close the deal.

We do not ever recommend that our clients sign a promissory note or close escrow without a full written release from their lender(s).

Q: What if I have a first and a second loan on my property with 2 different lenders (or the same lender)?

Answer: Most people that we do short sales for have a first and a second loan, often with 2 different lenders. For the short sale to reach a successful close of escrow, both lenders have to approve the short sale and agree to settle the debt.

It is important to note that both lenders have a vested interest in doing this. The lender with the first loan does not want to foreclose, and therefore is willing to give a little money to the second in order to get them to agree to the short sale.

The second lender will get nothing if the first forecloses, so with the attitude that something is better than nothing, they will agree to take a fraction of what they are owed in order to avoid getting absolutely nothing.

Q: What is the difference between a recourse and a non recourse loan?

Answer: In general, a purchase money loan is considered to be a “non recourse” loan, while a “cash out” loan is considered to be a “recourse” loan.

The difference between these two loans is that in a “recourse loan” the lender technically has recourse to go after the borrower for the money they lose in a foreclosure. I say “technically” because, for this to happen, the lender has to file a judicial foreclosure, which is rarely done in California.

The overwhelming majority of foreclosures in California are “non-judicial” foreclosures, where the property is sold at a trustee sale.

Q: How will I know that I am being released from the debt?

Answer: It will be stated clearly on the bank’s short sale approval. Your lender will state in plain English (though in different verbiage depending on the lender) that they are “releasing the lien”, “accepting a short payoff to satisfy the lien”, “reporting the sale as a settled debt to the reporting agencies”, “issuing a full satisfaction of the mortgage”, “not pursuing a deficiency judgment”, or some other variation that states they are settling the debt for less than what they were owed.

Further, your bank will issue a 1099-C to you, the borrower, after the short sale, confirming that the debt has been written off and is settled. Your lender cannot write off the debt, issue you a 1099-C & then go after you for the deficiency.

Q: What are the advantages of a short sale vs. letting my home go to foreclosure?

Answer: The primary advantage to doing a short sale vs. walking away and letting your home go to foreclosure is that in a short sale the debt is settled and you no longer owe the bank any money. If your home goes to foreclosure, you may still be liable for the deficiency in the event that the bank files a judicial foreclosure.

A secondary (but still very important) advantage is that in a short sale, your credit takes much less of a hit compared to a foreclosure. The impact on your credit will vary depending on how established your credit is at the time of the short sale or foreclosure.

Finally, Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac revised their guidelines in August of 2008 with regard to how they view borrowers who have filed bankruptcy, gone through foreclosure or done a short sale. Through these new guidelines, they are in effect severely penalizing those who go the route of foreclosure or bankruptcy, and rewarding or encouraging those who do short sales, which they view as the borrower doing the responsible thing in light of the circumstances.

Per recent Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac guidelines, borrowers who file bankruptcy or go through foreclosure have to wait up to 7 years to buy another home.

By contrast, the new guidelines stipulate only a 24 month waiting period after a short sale, so borrowers who do a short sale can buy again in just 2 years.

Q: Are there any advantages to letting my home go to foreclosure vs. doing a short sale?

Answer: I have yet to hear a coherent argument for letting your home go to foreclosure vs. doing a successful short sale. Depending on whether you have a recourse or non-recourse loan, when you let your home go to foreclosure you either run the risk of being liable for the deficiency amount or liable for the income taxes on that loss.

Secondly, your credit will drop up to 400 points and you will not be able to buy a home or get any decent credit for up to 7 years.

Compare this with a short sale, in which the lender agrees to SETTLE the debt for less than the amount owed. If you have recourse loan, you may be liable for income taxes on the lender’s loss (just as in a foreclosure) but you will not be liable for the deficiency (and if you qualify for the “Insolvency” exclusion, you will avoid the income taxes as well).

Further, the loss that the lender takes in a short sale will be MUCH LESS than the loss the lender takes at the end of the foreclosure process. The foreclosure process takes months & months, at the end of which the lender has to process the property through its overwhelmed system (another 3 -5 months) and then put the property back on the market, all while the market continues to drop.

Finally, the impact on your credit from a short sale will be significantly less than with a foreclosure and you will be able to buy again within 2 years, compared to up to a 7 year waiting period to buy a home after a foreclosure.

Q: How much will a short sale cost me?

Answer: A short sale costs the seller nothing – the lender pays all closing costs, escrow fees, commissions etc. The lender may also pay any outstanding property taxes.

Q: How long will a short sale take?

Answer: The short sale process typically takes about 4 months, start to finish. It can take longer depending on how backlogged the lender is. You can live in the property for the entire duration of the short sale or you can move out whenever you wish.

Q: Do I need to be behind on my payments to do a short sale?

Answer: No. This is a common misconception. You do not need to be behind on your payments or have been late on a payment to do a short sale although the lenders are more motivated to do the short sale if you are not making payments.

Q: Do I need to hire an attorney to do a short sale?

Answer: It is our belief that you will be best represented in a short sale by a competent, experienced real estate agent who works every day in the real estate business, will market your property aggressively in order to attract buyers, and who is experienced at doing short sales and negotiating with lenders. In our view, an “experienced short sale agent” is one who has done at least 50 successful short sales in this downturn cycle (i.e. since 2006).

If you have questions about the tax implications of a short sale, we recommend you seek the advice of a qualified CPA or tax accountant.

If you want to explore filing bankruptcy, we recommend you seek the advice of a competent bankruptcy attorney. Call our office – we can recommend several.

With this said, a word of caution. Many attorneys seem to be preying on the fear and desperation of people facing foreclosure. Their websites use scare tactics to make people think that they would be crazy to do a short sale without first hiring an attorney, that attorneys are the only ones qualified to interpret a short sale approval, and that hiring an attorney is a normal and accepted part of doing a short sale, like hiring an attorney for divorce proceedings.

The bottom line is that this is just not the case. The overwhelming majority of short sales are conducted by real estate brokers who are experienced at negotiating with the lenders and charge NO UPFRONT FEES for their services.

Finally, many of these attorneys do not even negotiate the short sales themselves, and instead subcontract out all of the short sale negotiations. In our opinion, these short sale negotiation companies (known in the industry as “short sale mills”) are absolutely the wrong entities to entrust with the negotiation of your short sale. See the following FAQ.

Q: I found an attorney’s short sale website that talks about a new law in California that, as of July 1 2009, supposedly limits negotiating short sales to attorneys ONLY. It says that from July 1 on, all short sales have to be negotiated by attorneys and not realtors. Is this true?

Answer: No. There has been a good deal of misinformation put out of late regarding this law by attorneys looking to get into the short sale business. We recommend you be very wary of any attorney trying to distort or interpret the law for his or her advantage.

The California Foreclosure Consultant Act (July 1 2009) applies to foreclosure consultants – those who collect an advance fee for modifying loans or helping borrowers avoid foreclosure in situations where a Notice of Default has been filed on the property. This Act has an exclusion in it for licensed real estate agents.

Per CA Civic Code and the CA Assoc of Realtors, The California Foreclosure Consultant Act does not apply to real estate agents facilitating a short sale except in the extremely unusual event that an agent is 1) Making a direct loan for a residence in foreclosure, 2) Acquiring an interest in a residence in foreclosure, 3) Receiving an advance fee before performing services for a residence in foreclosure, or 4) Assisting an owner in obtaining the remaining proceeds if any from a foreclosure sale of an owner’s residence.

That’s it. 99% of the short sales in CA have always been, and continue to be, negotiated and completed by licensed Realtors, not attorneys.

Q: Who will be negotiating my short sale with the bank? Do you do this in your office or do you sub it out to an outside company?

Answer: Our short sale team consists of nine professional staff members here in our San Diego office. You are welcome to come in and meet with us in our office, meet our team and get a first hand look at our systems. Among our staff are 3 former underwriters from major national lenders. We have negotiated 100’s of successful short sales and handle every aspect of the short sale process ourselves. We do not farm any part of the negotiations out to an outside company and recommend you be extremely skeptical of any agent or attorney who uses an outside company to handle their short sale negotiations.

Real estate agents & bankruptcy attorneys are solicited on a daily basis by the many “short sale negotiation” companies that have sprung up on the web over the past couple of years. For the agents or attorneys that use these companies, it’s a very attractive set up: they just take the listing and refer the file out to the negotiation company, and wait to see what happens.

The agent has invested almost no time or effort into the deal, so if it closes, great, they pay a referral fee to the negotiator and keep the rest of the commission. If the negotiator tells them they couldn’t get an approval, or that the bank wants an unreasonable amount of money for the property, or the bank wants the seller to sign a promissory note, well, the agent has invested almost no time or money into the deal, so…who’s next?

Q: Should I file bankruptcy? Will it allow me to keep my home? I’ve heard the lender cannot foreclose if I file bankruptcy.

Answer: There are 2 types of bankruptcy commonly used by individuals – Chapter 7 (“Fresh Start”) and Chapter 13 (“Wage Earner”). Chapter 7 can enable individual filers to wipe away debts such as credit card and medical bills so they can continue to make their mortgage payments.

Chapter 13 involves setting up a 3-5 year repayment plan to repay your debts. Chapter 13 requires that you are earning a steady income, as you will be repaying all of your debt. Both have a very negative impact on your credit and remain on your credit report for 10 years.

Because of the new 2005 bankruptcy law, which raised the bar for people to qualify for Chapter 7 “fresh start” bankruptcy proceedings, fewer and fewer people pass the “means” test to qualify for Chapter 7 and for this reason can only qualify for Chapter 13 bankruptcy (a 3-5 year repayment plan).

While both Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 can temporarily delay foreclosure proceedings, neither will allow you to keep your home unless you can bring your mortgage current.

If you would like more information on whether a bankruptcy is right for you, we recommend you consult a competent bankruptcy attorney, as we are not attorneys and do not dispense legal advice. Call our office – we can recommend several.

Q: Can any agent do a short sale?

Answer: Absolutely not. Many agents have no interest in doing short sales because they require a tremendous amount of time and expertise, and if you do not know what you are doing, they often go to foreclosure and then the agent does not get paid. If an agent is not extremely experienced at doing short sales – in other words they have done at least 50 of them successfully in the past 2 years – then I would not use them.

Lest you think I am simply trying to toot my own horn, this site gets visitors from all over the country. In every market, there are agents who specialize in short sales and have a team of staff members assembled to work on them, and then there are agents who are inexperienced at short sales and just recently started trying to do them, learning as they go, because they’ve realized they have no choice due to the state of current market.

You get one shot at doing a short sale – if your agent does not know what they are doing and has not learned the many tricks to the trade, you will likely find yourself being asked to sign a promissory note or worse, be denied by your lender or lenders and go to foreclosure.

In other words, let the inexperienced agents and/or attorneys learn the short sale process on someone else’s property – as the saying goes, don’t allow yourself to be one of the surgeon’s first patients.

Q: Why should I use Newton3 Real Estate Services?

Answer: To put it bluntly, because, 1) I believe we will do the most effective job at marketing your property (remember, we have to generate offers from qualified buyers & sell your property) and 2) I believe that we are the most experienced and the most effective short sale negotiators in San Diego County.

Call us today to discuss your unique situation or simply fill out the form below.
 

Don’t believe everything you hear about home improvement, especially these four myths.
 

Myth #1: Any remodel is a good one.

You may think any home improvement is a good one, but not all improvements are created equal. For example, one homeowner had a concert hall of his very own built in his ranch-style home. Unless the next homeowner is an opera singer, he may not want a balcony in the den. When making a renovation like this, keep in mind you might want to sell the place one day.

Myth #2: I can do it myself.

You may be convinced that you can do it just as well as a contractor, but news flash! You can’t. You may just have an unrealistic idea of your “knack” for remodeling. Doing it yourself can sometimes save money, but know your limits. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Certain low-risk projects are simple to tackle on your own, but there are others (like electrical work) for which you need a professional.

Myth #3: Pools add value.

A lot of people think adding a swimming pool or hot tub is a sure seller. That’s not always true. Location is extremely important. If every day is summer in your climate and it’s a pool-friendly region, that’s one thing, but if you live in a cooler climate it could be different story. In most areas of the country, adding a pool is a scary proposition. It’s a big liability and can be a lot of work to maintain in the off-season. You should think long and hard about building a pool. It could end up being a big money pit.

Myth #4: Follow the latest design trends.

Many homeowners think it’s a good idea to follow the latest design trends. Not true. For instance, peach wallpaper went out in the ’80s. Outdated features must go before a house goes on the market. Granite counters could be shag carpet of the future. Neutral colors or palettes have more of a timeless feel and will appeal to far more people.

                      “EXPOSURE” That Sells Your House