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Improvements & Security
• Be very, very careful picking somebody to remodel your home. Do not hire people who drop fliers off in your mailbox, or who ring your doorbell and tell you your roof or gutters need fixing.
• For a minor renovation job, take recommendations for a remodeler from friends and neighbors. For a major renovation job, anything above $10,000, get recommendations from the National Association of the Remodeling Industry (NARI) or the Remodelors Council of the National Association of Home Builders.
• Ask candidates for your remodeling job for the last 10 homes they've worked on, a description of what they did, the dates they started those jobs, the dates the jobs were completed, and how to contact each owner.
• Ask what kind of insurance each contractor carries. Protect yourself by hiring people who have a current certificate of insurance or by making sure you have enough liability coverage in your homeowner's policy in case someone who's uninsured is hurt on your property.
•Don't sign a standard builders supply house contract for a remodeling job. Instead, consider using a contract from the American Institute of Architects (AIA).
•Get subcontractors to waive their right to place a lien on your home if they aren't paid by the contractor.
•Never agree to any contract that calls for a large payment up front. Devise with the contractor a reasonable timeline and pay schedule, under which the contractor is paid as work is completed. In the contract, include penalties against the contractor for failing to complete the job on time.
Home buying and selling mistakes
We're coming up one of the housing market’s peak buying and selling times. With that in mind, what are the biggest mistakes made by both sellers and buyers? For sellers, I find the number one mistake they make is in selecting an agent. If you're interviewing agents, don’t list with ...
Honda offering deals on home solar installation
Ever considered solar power for your home? One very unlikely company is offering favorable financing to sweeten the deal for you.
House flipping makes a comeback
One of the most egregious practices that fueled the housing meltdown -- flipping houses -- is roaring back in a number of cities around the country. You remember flipping, right? It entails buying a home that is so sad no one else is interested in it, typically from the bank, ...
Nest programmable thermostat offers smart energy savings
A former Apple executive has given the lowly programmable thermostat in your home a high-tech makeover. The Nest Learning Thermostat is the brainchild of Tony Fadell, who had a role in the design of the iPod and iPhone, according to The Los Angeles Times. The Nest is a device that ...
Protect your belongings by videotaping them yearly
If something ever gets lost, stolen or burned at your home, how do you prove it to your insurance company? Once each year, around my wife's birthday, she does a walk and talk with a video camera in hand to document our possessions. As she's going through the house, she ...
Payback on LEDs is short
My wife and I have an ongoing light bulb cold war at home! You may have heard the story about the property we sold last year that we bought 15 years ago. It had the original first-generation CFLs I put in 14 years ago. The light they gave was so ...
Is home remodeling worth the money?
Right now, renovating a home is much, much easier than it has been during the real estate bubble. But is it worth the money? I recall back during the bubble how often I'd get calls from homeowners complaining they couldn't get a call back from contractors. The frenzy around housing ...
Americans are saving more thanks to LEDs, CFLs
Lamp by lamp by lamp, I've been coughing up big bucks to put in LED bulbs at our home. LED bulbs are frightfully expensive. While a traditional bulb might cost 33 cents on sale, an LED bulb costs me around $8 a pop to buy. The reality is that each ...
Smoke detectors are cheap and save lives
You may have heard the story out of Georgia where several dozen kids and teachers were stricken with carbon monoxide poisoning at school. The sad thing is that kind of thing is so easily preventable. Unfortunately, carbon monoxide poisoning is the leading cause of poisoning death in the United States. ...
Increase in home equity bodes well for worker mobility
Equity in homes is going up for the first time since the real estate bust began. That's a clear sign of recovery in so many places. One third of Americans who have a home now own it free and clear, according to the latest data from Zillow. The cities where ...
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