Peace of Mind Prop. Mgmt. & Real Estate, Inc.

At Peace of Mind, we help you BUY the HOME you love, SELL the HOUSE you’re ready to leave, and BALANCE your INVESTMENT portfolio, “so you can sleep at night.”

Sellers Resources

Seller Tips Video #1 – Are you ready to Sell?

Top Tips for Getting Your Home Ready for the Fall Selling Season

It’s officially autumn! In preparation for the fall selling season, we reached out to three of the top real estate professionals in New York City to get their take on the best ways to get your home ready to be viewed by potential buyers.

“In a competitive market, it’s essential that a seller focus on the little details to ensure their property makes a great first impression,” says Lisa Lippman, an agent at Brown Harris Stevens.

Here are some of the top ways to get your home ready for the fall selling season in any market:

In addition to smaller details—such as touching up paint, buying radiator covers and fixing or replacing kitchen cabinets—Lippman suggests the following:

  • Color-coordinate the clothes in your closet for the appearance of more space.
  • Stage vacant or sparse rooms.
  • De-personalize your home–remove photographs and personal collections, and aim to keep trinkets to a minimum.
  • Refresh and replace grout as needed in your bathrooms and kitchen.

“Fall is the time when the leaves start to change colors and dictate new design color schemes…and with the change of pace, the sales dynamic changes as well,” says Aleksandra Scepanovic, managing director at Ideal Properties Group.

Besides cleaning all the nooks and crannies in your home, and replacing any broken lightbulbs, Scepanovic suggests:

  • Create a narrative that speaks of ease and joy of ownership…of this specific space, this specific home. Think about what the buyer would see, and what you’d want them to see.
  • Check off the “grand negative impact” items from your list first: a leaking bathtub, a scraped up section of drywall, chipping paint, broken tiles, etc.
  • Make spaces neat, open, bright and airy. Start with a neutral base and venture into bolder accents only if your buyer research warrants them.
  • Less is always more in a property’s sale preparation. Resist the urge to over-decorate.

And here are some suggestions provided by Paula Del Nunzio, an agent at Brown Harris Stevens:

  • Eliminate odd odors, and do not use scents as the buyer may dislike the ones you choose.
  • Deep-clean all surfaces, wash windows and keep them spotless.
  • Remove all cat litter boxes and dog toys a buyer can trip over.
  • If you have a garden, keep it colorful with plants that can be replaced if they should die.

Agents, are there any other tips you’d suggest to sellers in preparing their home for the fall selling season?

Should You Use a HELOC to Pay off Credit Card Debt?

Many people struggle to pay off credit card debt. Interest that accumulates each month can make it difficult to make a dent in balances. Juggling multiple credit cards with different minimum payments and due dates can feel overwhelming. Missing a due date can lead to fees and possible damage to your credit score.

If you have lived in your home for several years, you may have built up a large amount of equity. You might be able to use a home equity line of credit, or HELOC, to pay off credit card debt. You could draw from a line of credit at the times and in the amounts of your choosing and consolidate your credit card debt to make one monthly payment instead.

Reasons to Use a HELOC to Pay off Credit Cards
If you have substantial credit card balances with high interest rates, using a home equity line of credit to pay them off might make sense. The interest rate on a HELOC could be significantly lower than the interest rates on your credit cards. That means interest would accumulate at a slower pace and more of each monthly payment would go toward principal, so you could pay off the debt faster.

Paying off credit card balances with a home equity line of credit could help your credit score. Reducing those balances to zero would lower your ratio of debt to available credit, and making HELOC payments on time each month could help you build a positive credit history.

Reasons to Think Twice
You would need to pay closing costs to obtain a home equity line of credit. Talk to your lender to find out exactly how much that would add to your total. Depending on your lender and the interest rates on your credit cards and a HELOC, you might or might not save much money.

A home equity line of credit could be risky. Using your home as collateral means that if you failed to make HELOC payments on time, you could risk foreclosure. That could cause major damage to your credit score.

If you got into debt because of a job loss or some other unforeseen situation, using a HELOC to manage credit card bills might make sense. If, on the other hand, you accumulated debt because you make frequent impulse purchases or don’t know how to budget, using a HELOC wouldn’t address the core problem, and you could wind up in the same situation again. Getting in the habit of accumulating debt and using your home’s equity to bail yourself out could be dangerous.

Is a HELOC a Good Idea?
A home equity line of credit could help you escape the trap of high-interest credit card debt, but it should be used responsibly. If you have a spending problem, a HELOC alone wouldn’t fix things. You would also need to change your spending patterns to get out of debt and stay that way.

Maintaining the Beauty of Your Natural Stone Fireplace

Maintaining the Beauty of

Your Natural Stone Fireplace

In your home or in your vacation cabin, a handsome stone hearth is often the gathering
place for comfy family evenings. But accumulations of dirt, soot and ash can make your
fireplace less efficient and ruin the lovely patina of natural stone.

You can help maintain its beauty and safety with this once-yearly facelift routine:

Clean the firebox. At least 12 hours after extinguishing the last fire, or preferably
before lighting the first fire of the year, lay drop cloths around the fireplace area to
protect against airborne particles. Put on gloves and a dust mask and use a small
shovel to scoop any remaining ash from the firebox. Place the ashes in a metal
container with a tight-fitting lid and store it outside, away from flammable materials,
until you’re ready to discard it. Run a small vacuum cleaner in and around the firebox
and surrounding area.

Scrub the stone. Dilute a quarter cup of dish soap with hot water in a bucket and
use a small scrub brush dipped in the solution to clean the stone surface from
top to bottom. You may be surprised at how much trapped dirt and grit you can scrub out.

Gauge the need for deeper cleaning. If the fireplace has not been used for a long
time, you may find that soapy water is not enough to remove old smoke stains. In that
case, dissolve a half-cup of TSP cleaning powder in three-quarts of hot water and try again
with a stiff brush. TSP is both a de-greaser and a heavy-duty cleaner, making it more
effective than soap alone for eliminating stubborn stains and creosote.

Rinse it down. Empty the soapy water and refill the bucket with cold water. Use a
clean rag to make one or two passes over the entire stone surface, wiping away any
soap suds and loosened dirt. Go over it again with a dry rag, then let the surface air-
dry before lighting a fire.