Are you trying to sell your home and expecting a tax refund this year? Why not use that extra money to help get your home sold!

Instead of splurging on clothes, electronics or trips, you could use that extra cash to make your home more appealing to buyers and get your home SOLD faster.

Here are some suggestions of how a large or small tax refund can be used to increase your homes appeal:

• Painting: This can be a relatively inexpensive project, particularly if you do it yourself. Painting the entire interior and/or exterior of your home in neutral colors can add a fresh look to your home.
• Pressure washing: Hiring someone to come out and pressure wash the exterior of your home and don't forget the driveway or any walkways can increase curb appeal and make your property look brighter.
• Replace appliances: Replacing appliances that will be conveyed in a sale with newer, more modern ones can increase the appeal of your home. Buyers love new appliances particularly ones that fit the space they're in and match each other in style.
• Have your house inspected: Hiring a real estate inspector to inspect your home and provide you with a list of repairs can give you an opportunity to have these repairs completed before you are required to do them in a limited amount of time due to contract clauses.
• Update light fixtures: Add some extra style and modernize your light fixtures. There are some very inexpensive light fixtures available that can give your home the boost it needs.
• Add a deck or porch: Adding a deck or porch is more costly but it will provide so much more appeal. With the addition of either you will open up a much larger pool of buyers as some buyers will not even look at a home without a deck or porch.
• Update landscaping: Tiding up flower beds, replacing dead grass, adding more flowers, bushes and trees, all of these can greatly increase your curb appeal.

Using that extra money in invest in your home for sale can increase the money in your pocket, it can also decrease the time your home is on the market. Contact me if you need some help or advice on the best types of projects to embark on that will increase your homes appeal. 

So you've been pre-approved for a home loan, your under contract to buy your dream house, the inspection goes well and there's only the lender appraisal to go.

Then the appraisal value comes back lower than the agreed upon purchase price and your lender won't approve the purchase.

Now what?

You still have some options and there are ways to fight a low appraisal. Sometimes they're successful, other times they're not but don't kill the deal because of a low appraisal without trying some of these options first.

1. You can go back to your lender and appraiser and ask them to review the appraisal. You can have your REALTOR compare the properties that were used by the appraiser to make sure that the most current local comparable properties were chosen in order to establish value. If there is other pertinent information that was not included in the appraiser report that could affect the value, you can inform the lender and ask for a second appraisal to be done.

2. You can hire your own appraiser (for FHA loans make sure the appraiser is on the approved appraisal vendor list) and conduct a second appraisal. You can then present it to the lender and ask them to compare both appraisals.

3. You can ask the seller to lower the purchase price to match the appraised value. This can be a tricky situation, although, provided that you have a financing contingency within the contract, if the seller refuses to lower the purchase price you can still walk away from it and get your earnest money back. A savvy seller, however will realize that if the appraisal is correct and they don't lower the purchase price to match it then it's likely that the same problem will occur with a new buyer.

4. You can increase the downpayment to match the difference in the appraised value and the purchase price however you need to make sure to discuss this option with your lender before making the decision. The increase in downpayment may affect your loan and your lender evaluation of your loan. Only choose this option if you believe that the purchase price of the property is the true value of the property to you.

5. You can ask the seller to take a second note for the difference. This is also a risky option as the lender may protest, so make sure you discuss it with them prior to approaching the sellers. In certain circumstances the lender may approve and the sellers may be in the position to finance the difference.

6. You can walk away from the property.Provided that a financing contingency is in place, you can get the earnest money back. If the appraised value is accurate and correct and the purchase price is more than the appraised value then very often this is the best option but it shouldn't be your first option. Having your REALTOR recheck the appraisal comparables and asking your lender to re-evaluate the appraisal using additional information or more accurate comparable properties can at times adjust the appraisal value.

Communication is key and working with a professional REALTOR and lender can make all the difference. Make sure that you are informed of all the options that you have but understand that time is of the essence. Your contract with the seller is also bound by time, so it is very important that you are informed of the options immediately, if not prior, upon recieveing a low appraisal, you will then be in a better position to decide your next course of action.

This is a buyers market and there are new properties coming on the market every day, perhaps a low appraisal just means that there is a better valued property waiting for you to find it. 

Last Friday I received a phone call from a woman at a title company asking me if we knew where the Home Owners Association (HOA) dues were to be sent for a particular subdivision. I had no idea!

So while still on the phone with this escrow officer we began doing a search online for any information about that subdivisions Home Owners Association. We found nothing, nadda, nix. 

We found plenty of market statistic blogs that we had written for the subdivision, we also found the facebook page we created for the subdivision and lots of listings but absolutely no information on the Home Owners Association. 

This isn't the first time I've had these type of calls. Just a few days ago I got a call from a woman who was receiving checks in her post office box for yearly HOA dues for another subdivision. She didn't even live in the subdivision. Again we did a search online to try and find out where the checks were supposed to go and although we did find two email addresses, the woman informed me she had already emailed them several times but had heard nothing back. There were no mailing addresses or phone numbers so there was no other way to contact them except by email.

I began to wonder why some of these associations are not online. How can a home owners association possibly manage its affairs, if residents of the development or even outside entities cannot contact them?

In both of the above instances, someone was trying to pay their dues to the association but couldn't. In both cases the person trying to pay will either be late or in default just because they couldn’t contact their association.

What about deed restriction violations? What about transfers of property? What about new construction? How can any of the Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions (CC&R) be enforced or abided by, if a home owner can't even find online an address of where to send their HOA dues?

Can you find your Home Owners Association online?