Studio City Real Estate - Sherman Oaks Real Estate


Heather Farquhar - REALTORĀ® Helping home buyers and home sellers in Sherman Oaks - Van Nuys - Studio City - Valley Glen - Valley Village - Toluca Lake - Van Nuys - North Hollywood - San Fernando Valley since 1988

Helpful Articles

Energy Saving Upgrades for Your Older Home

Check out Southern California Gas Company  to find money-saving rebates on qualifying energy-efficient appliances or upgrades for your home.

If you live in an older Studio City or Sherman Oaks  home, chances are that you don't have a lot of energy saving features. You may have and old and inefficient heating system, poor insulation, and energy draining windows and doors. The good news is that there is probably a lot of "low hanging fruit," easy and inexpensive projects that you can do yourself to save money and improve the comfort of your home.

Windows and Doors

Does your home have single paned windows? Can you feel drafts around your windows when it's windy outside? If so, you need to give your windows some attention. Apply weather stripping to your windows so that they have a better seal on them.  When the wind is blowing, single paned windows have almost no insulation capability, so you need to isolate the windows from the air in your home. Window coverings, particularly ones designed to provide some level of insulation, can help mitigate the poor insulating ability of your windows. You can also cover your windows with plastic during the winter to help reduce drafts. Most home improvement centers sell various window covering products that can help you save. Xcel Energy, one of the largest utilities in the country, estimates that you could save up to $40 per heating season in cold climates.

Inspect your exterior doors for drafts. If you discover a significant amount of air moving into your home, apply weather stripping to stop the inflow of outside air. When replacing doors, look for a replacement that is energy star certified.

Attic Insulation

Take a look up in your attic. How many inches of insulation do you have installed? What type of insulation is? A poorly insulated attic can be a significant drain on your home's warm air during the winter. The result is you need a larger furnace that runs more frequently, costing you money. If you're a do it yourself type, you can probably save a significant amount of money on your heating and cooling bills by increasing the insulating capability of your attic to at least R40. The R value of insulation is a measure of the thermal resistance of the insulation, the higher the number, the better the insulation. Insulating materials usually are rated by R value per inch thickness of material. Once you've determined what type of insulation you have in your home, you can measure your attic's current R value by simply finding the average thickness of the insulation and multiply by the rated R value of your insulation.

Drafts and leaks

Drafts and leaks around windows and doors are often easy to detect and correct, but they generally aren't the biggest source of air entering your home. Check the exterior walls of you home for cracks and gaps that are not plugged. Pipes and wire conduits should be caulked to prevent air leaking in around them. Make sure that your fireplace's damper is closed when the fireplace is not in use. Before you seal things up too tightly, you may want to have your radon levels measured. Once you plug leaks and seal your home more effectively, you may need to install a radon mitigation system.

Ducts and the Furnace

Uninsulated and leaky ducts can dramatically reduce the efficiency of your heating and cooling system. Sealing leaks and applying insulation to exposed ductwork, particularly when located in unheated crawlspaces and basements, should be a big part of any upgrades that you perform to your heating and cooling system. Before you insulate exposed ductwork, make sure that you inspect the ductwork for gaps and leaks. Seal these with duct mastic, a product you can find at your local home center. Don't use standard duct tape.
You can buy duct insulation at your local home center. It usually comes in packages that cover 5 feet of duct and is usually rated between R-6 and R-8. Buy the highest R value product that you can find. Each 5 ft. segment will cost about $5-$10 to insulate.
If you have an old furnace, consider replacing it with a new, high efficiency model. If you can afford a new furnace at the moment, make sure your existing one is properly maintained. This will ensure that it is running as efficiently as possible. During the heating season, change the furnace filter a regular intervals to ensure proper airflow through the furnace. Have your ducts cleaned every couple of years to improve air flow and air quality.

Lighting

Replace the light bulbs in your home with compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs). These use a quarter of the energy of incandescent bulbs. They also last considerably longer. They do cost more than incandescents, but you'll save money over the life of the bulb. CFLs can also improve the comfort of your home because they don't put out nearly as much heat as older bulbs.

For More Tips visit Flex Your Power

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4 Secrets for Investing in Real Estate

Buying Real estate has been a reliable way of increasing financial assets for as long as anyone can remember. The flexibility of real estate as an investment lies in the fact that you can live in it. Recent decades have also seen a lot of "flipping," which is buying a house to remodel and sell at a higher price. Some people still so that, and profitably, but it has gotten harder to succeed. From the point of view that an investment may be sought for profit or for your own living space, behaving like an investor can be a good technique in either scenario. All investments require a well thought-out strategy, if you are to be successful. In the case of real estate, particularly if you want a place to live, this will often be the most important element of the whole scenario. The planning must be set in stone before you can get started on the task of choosing a property as the investment target.

1. Start Early
Begin your search well in advance of needing to move. before you would like to move to begin looking and learning. Sign up with multiple home-search Internet sites. Explore different companies to find out what their listings are and what is available. Sticking with just one could limit your options, putting you at a disadvantage. A home purchase involves significant time, financial resources and commitment whether you plan to use it as an investment, and doing it in a hurry could hurt you financially.

2. Get Yourself Prequalified
Another step you should take towards buying real estate is getting prequalified with a lender. Make sure your lender is located in the community and should have a good reputation. This will help you in deciding a maximum price for the transaction. A lender should be able to help you figure out a reasonable amount to spend with your household income and outstanding debts. In addition, knowing that you have a lender that is willing to give you a certain amount can boost your confidence. It is terrific to have that guideline as you look for your best deal.

3. Be Sure of What You Want
You have to be absolutely clear in knowing what it is that you want. People who don't take this vital step find themselves accepting the choices of anyone who comes along. Set the highest standards you can. If you shoot high, you can always adjust as necessary. You shouldn't have a mentality of doing with the bare minimum when it comes to buying your home. You should aim for what will make you feel very satisfied, within your budget of course. There is no great loss in bringing it down a bit to accommodate changes, or to be more realistic. Sometimes, some features just aren't realistic in the area where you are looking.

4. Find a Realtor to Represent You as the Buyer
Many Realtors make a specialty of working on the behalf of buyers. Find one, someone you get along with and can work with. Don't rely on the agent selling the home. That agent is obligated to look out for the seller. Choosing a Realtor is an important step. You have to do this carefully. seek out and talk with a few Realtors and go with the one who not only makes you feel at home on the relationship level but who has demonstrated professional accomplishments and is well known in the community.

There, that's not as complicated as it seems at first. Don't rush, determine how much you can afford, determine your standards, and find a reliable agent. Following these four steps will help you find the right home for you.

This article was furnished by Automated Homefinder, your Boulder real estate specialists of Colorado.

 Price With Precision

 

How to Prepare Your Home for Sale Year-Round

Putting your home up for sale can be an intimidating task. The preparations going into selling are usually stressful, trying, and demand a lot of hard work. This is especially the case if you're like most people and get your home ready for sale just a few weeks before putting it up for sale.

Your home's "curb appeal"
If you know in the fall that you might be selling in the spring, be sure to plant bulbs in September/October so your buyers can see a beautiful flower garden when they visit your home. Many homeowners focus so much on things like paint, organizing the kitchen, and arrangement of furniture that they forget that the yard will be the first thing that potential buyers will see when they pull up. A green, clean-cut lawn will go a long way towards getting would-be purchasers to believe your home is the place they want to be.

Your "honey-do" list
Save a few bucks by planning ahead and hiring contractors in the off-season. Painters are not as busy in the winter so negotiating a painting contract in the winter months will allow you to get the job done for a better price. The same goes for heating and air conditioning contractors, and movers that may be needed to move items into storage.

Your home's "photo shoot"
Pictures are worth a thousand words, and when it comes to marketing your property, you need to make sure that picture is as striking as possible. If not, your potential buyer won't likely even read the description about your property. One of the best things you can do to get ready to sell is to keep a camera handy for taking photos when your home won't be washed out and colorless because the picture was taken at high-noon. It never fails; if you wait until the last moment to take the listing photo for your home, it will be dark and cloudy the day your agent shows up to take a picture.

Even if you're not moving soon, the next time after it rains, see if you can take a picture of your home with a rainbow behind it. Come springtime, make sure to get an early morning picture with the gentle glow of the sun shining down on your beautiful flower garden. Little things like that make a huge impact.

With just a little foresight, you can get as much as possible selling your house.


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 When Your Selling Price is too High, Beware!



 

SOUTHLAND REGIONAL ASSOC. OF REALTORS SALES STATISTICS BY ZIP CODE


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PROTECT YOURSELF
CONSUMER PROTECTION TIPS FOR HOME BUYERS AND SELLERS

FROM THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS


Income tax advantages of homeownership detailed in California Association of REALTORS Research Briefing Paper