Real Estate Newsletter for April 1999

Your REALTOR:
Bonnie Fagoh
April 1999
Buyin' or Sellin'....Call Bonnie Helen! (Fagoh)(813) 390-7606
Copyright © 1999 Realty TimesAll Rights Reserved.
Pricing Your Home To Sell Real estate agents know that a house properly priced is half sold. Set your price too high, and no one comes to look at it. Set it too low and you have a quick sale -- but you short-changed yourself.
If you offered your house for sale at $2 million it would never sell (or it would remain on the market until inflation caught up with your price.)
If you asked $10 for the property, you'd have a sale before your ad ever hit the papers. The supervisor at the newspaper's classified ad department would be at your door five minutes after you called.
So you need only search for the figure, somewhere between $10 and $2 million, which will attract buyers and still bring you the most money possible.
Mortgage RatesNational averages as of March 31, 1999:
30 yr. fixed: 6.86%15 yr. fixed: 6.47%1 yr. adj: 5.65%
Get today's rates
Several factors should not influence your asking price:
Your cost. Suppose you had received the place as a gift. Must you then give it away?
Your investment in improvements. You put in that purple kitchen because you enjoyed it, but you are not likely to
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Wondering What Your Home Is Worth?Let me show you.
Planning Your Estate "Will my estate have to pay taxes after I die?"
It depends. The federal government imposes estate taxes at your death only if your property is worth more than a certain amount--$600,000 to $1 million, depending on the year of death. But there are a couple of important exceptions to the general rule. All property left to a spouse is exempt from the tax, as long as the spouse is a U.S. citizen. And estate taxes won't be assessed on any property you leave to a tax-exempt charity.
Year
Exempt Amount
1998
$625,000
1999
$650,000
2000,2001
$675,000
2002,2003
$700,000
2004
$850,000
2005
$950,000
2006 and after
$1 million
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Cheap Tricks For Decorating Your House or Apartment Just because you are on a shoestring budget doesn't mean you have to be hamstrung when it comes to style. Your job is to shoot higher than making your house or apartment habitable - you want to make it comfortable, attractive and a place to which you want to come home.
You'll be able to achieve a lot of bang for the buck with a staple of first-time renters and home buyers - the ordinary bed sheet.
As a textile resource, the bed sheet is a relative bargain. It can be cut, trimmed, disguised and reborn for all kinds of uses - decorative pillows, cafe curtains, placemats, vanity skirts, tablecloths, shower curtains, and they can even be painted as a dramatic backdrop for a living area or bedroom. Flat sheets can be found on sale almost any time of the year, and in a wide assortment of colors and patterns.
For most of these color-enhancing and practical products you don't even need to know how to sew. Fabric glue, scissors, some trim goods and patience are all you need to brighten a sofa or a tabletop with color. Straight pins will secure your fabric
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Location, Location, Location:How To Decide? Finding your dream home is often easier than finding your dream neighborhood. Some homebuyers find the "perfect" home, then immediately put on their rose-colored glasses, tuning out such factors as nearby congestion (for example, if a local business causes perpetual traffic jams on the street); proximity to higher-crime areas or "seedy" hangouts; failing to calculate the commute time to your new job (it could be much longer than you think if you don't test it during peak rush hour times); or failing to calculate the distance to your children's new schools. Perhaps you've got your eye on a fabulous downtown loft ... only to discover, once you've moved in, that a "quick trip" to the grocery store means a 20-minute drive to the suburbs, and that the nearest gas station is nowhere near your new home.
Before you say "No location is perfect," some of us do come mighty close. And it's not always due to sheer luck. You can narrow down your list of perspective new neighborhoods by creating a checklist for yourself. While you won't always find the perfect home in the perfect neighborhood that satisfies every preference on your list, you can through a process of elimination find a home in a neighborhood that meets most of your criteria. In other words, with a little homework, you can find something you and your family can live with. While we
CONTINUED >>>Local Market Conditions
Daily News and Advice -->Read about the events shaping the Real Estate market today, find current interest rates, or browse the extensive library of advice and how-to articles written by some of the top experts in Real Estate. Updated each weekday.
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Bonnie Fagoh E-mail: bonniefagoh@century21beggins.comWeb: http://bonniefagoh.mfr.mlxchange.com813-390-7606
Century 21 Beggins Enterprises813-390-76066542 U. S. Hwy. 41 N.Apollo Beach, FL 33572
Equal Housing Opportunity


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