Rosemary West's (rosemarywest) Blog

How to Save Money on Your Homeowners Insurance In today’s economy, homeowners need to save money wherever possible. If you’ve been the victim of damage this winter, thanks to Mother Nature, you may be confronting the not-so-pleasant realities of your homeowners’ insurance policy. From high deduct...

Top 5 Reasons Why Now Is the Best Time to Buy a Second Home With all the negative news about the economy and the real estate market, in particular, there’s a good chance you’ve put any ideas of buying a second home on permanent hold. As a Member of the Top 5 in Real Estate Network®, however, I ca...

Top 5 Tips for Securing an Accurate Appraisal When it comes to buying or selling property, a successful outcome often hinges upon an accurate appraisal. Unfortunately, due to unrest in the appraisal industry sparked by government guidelines imposed by the Home Valuation Code of Conduct (HVCC), se...

  Looking to Buy a ‘Fixer-Upper’? The 203k Program Can Help Make It Happen Today’s real estate market presents a lot of opportunity for interested home buyers—with the growing supply of foreclosure properties and short sales, there are certainly some great deals to be had. The problem in buying a...

Is Buying a Foreclosure Really a Bargain? What You Need to Know In today’s tumultuous economy, it’s no surprise that there are foreclosure properties to be found in just about every community across America—even ours. While a terrible hardship for homeowners to endure, foreclosures can present a ...

Shopping for a Condo? Ask These 4 Questions before You Buy Condominium homes have always been, and will likely always be, an efficient and economical route to becoming a first-time homeowner. They can offer the comfort, prestige, and even luxury appointments that apartment living may lack, often ...

The Right Way to Manage Your Credit Cards While one in seven Americans has at least 10 credit cards, the average is four, according to a report from Experian. Usage on credit cards has dropped dramatically in the last two years as financially constrained consumers have reduced spending and begun ...

Relocating? Top 5 Reasons to Find the Right Real Estate Agent Believe it or not, even though selling and buying a home is one of the most stressful, most important financial and lifestyle investments you’ll ever make, most people spend very little time in selecting a real estate agent to work wit...

How HAFA Can Help Financially Challenged Homeowners This past November, the Treasury Department released guidelines for its new Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives Program (HAFA), designed to help homeowners who are unable to retain their home under the Home Affordable Modification Program ...

How to Help Your Home Stand Out and Sell Faster In today’s buyers market, home-selling clients are always asking me what they can do to help their homes stand apart from the competition. As a Member of the Top 5 in Real Estate Network(R), I have seen how effective home staging can make all the di...