What do you like most about your home?
What do you like most about your home?
Hometown Realty Poll
When selecting a real estate agent to buy or sell your home, there are a lot of options to choose from. What's the most important decision in choosing an agent?
Passing Title to Children
Passing life estate title to children Many people as they age decide to put the title to their homes into their children’s names. Usually there is a life estate retained by the parents. I’ve written before about some of the pitfalls that may not be considered at the time decisions like this are [...]
Hometown Realty – Winter 2012 Newsletter
Everyone knows from listening to the media, that the 2012 real estate market showed many positive signs of recovery. Locally, we saw the number of days on the market decrease (34%), the number of homes for sale decrease (4%), and the number of homes sold increase (12%). What we didn’t see locally was the average [...]
Minnesota Building Permits Up in 2012
According to recent figures by the National Association of Home Builders, the number of building permits in Minnesota (both Single and Multifamily) was up considerably in 2012 compared to 2011. The NAHB reports the overall increase in Minnesota's single family building permits increased by 36% and 255% for multi family permits. Here is a breakdown [...]
Average Buyer Expected to Stay in a Home 13 Years
The National Association of Home Builders last published an article on how long buyers remain in their homes in early 2009. The 2009 article showed that, based on a long-run calculation that averaged the available data over the years 1985 through 2007, the typical buyer could be expected to stay in a single-family home roughly [...]
Attic Insulation Saves You Money
Save about $600 per year by boosting the amount of attic insulation from R-11 to R-49. Depending on the type of materials you use, figure on paying an insulation contractor about $1,500 to insulate an 800-square-foot attic, which pays back your investment in three years. You’ll spend about half that to do the job yourself. [...]
Wood Fireplace Safety Tips
There are few things more cozy on a cold, wintry day than sitting beside a nice, warm fire. With this winter already blessing us with large amounts of snowfall and cold temperatures, the Hometown Realty staff in Hutchinson, MN would like to pass on some of these wood fireplace safety and efficiency tips for local [...]
Air Seal and Insulate with ENERGY STAR
Winter is upon us and as the temperatures continue to drop, our heating bills continue to rise. There are a number of things you can do to help reduce your heating bills. Hometown Realty recommends following some of the basic steps listed below courtesy of energystar.gov. Sealing and insulating the "envelope" or "shell" of your [...]
Home Sellers Handbook
There are many reasons for moving. Maybe you got that once in a lifetime job offer or your family is growing and quickly running out of space. Maybe you want to relocate to a new neighborhood or find a house with a bigger backyard. Whatever reasons influence you to sell your home, you have some [...]