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School is in! Is Your Home Ready?

7/30/2018

We’re not quite sure where the summer went here at Howard Hanna Insurance Services but, if you haven’t noticed, it’s already time for the new school year! As you think about how to get your kids organized and ready, consider doing the same thing for your home. In many instances, removing clutter also means removing distractions, which can help both you and your kids focus.

Staying on top of things: You’re off to a good start in the battle against clutter — so keep things rolling! Each week, set aside time to go on a “search and destroy” mission. And make sure the kids are involved, too. Everything — homework, school forms, backpacks — should have a home. And when everything has a home, you’ll be happier in yours!

Getting started: You can start wherever you like, but it might be best to organize your activities before you start in on the daunting task of tackling all of your stuff. With sports and other activities, the school year can be a blur for parents. A family calendar — whether it’s a dry-erase board or a printout on the fridge — will ensure everyone knows where they’re going, and when.

Reducing your stuff: Eliminate as much clutter from the house as you can, perhaps by following the classic 80/20 theory: 80% of the time, most people use only 20% of their stuff. If the item you’re looking at isn’t in that 20%, ask yourself: Do I really need this? Donate stuff that doesn’t fit or that your kids simply don’t like and won’t wear anymore.

Buying new stuff: Now that you’ve de-cluttered, don’t head out for back-to-school shopping just yet. First, do an inventory of school supplies, clothes and shoes so you aren’t buying things you don’t need. If you’re going through a closet and you’re not sure what fits, have kids try on pants until you find a good pair. Then use that pair to compare the length of all the other pants.

Doing homework: If possible, designate a study space where your kids have the tools they need for success. It should be well-lit, quiet and free of distractions. Different kids have different learning styles, so pay attention to what works well and what doesn’t, and adjust as needed.

If you are in the need of an experienced, full time agent, then give me a call to discuss your Real Estate needs.

Eric Bengel
Howard Hanna Real Estate
1090 Freeport Road * Fox Chapel, PA 15238
Direct Phone: (412) 889-6661
Office: (412)-963-6300
email: ericbengel@howardhanna.com
Website: EricBengel.howardhanna.com

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July 18th, 2018

7/18/2018

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Garden Planning Tips

7/9/2018

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Summer is in full bloom, and with it, countless gorgeous gardens. But what do you do if your perennial plantings aren’t as pretty as you had hoped? Not to worry! There is always another summer ahead, and it’s never too early to take stock of your current setup and start planning next year’s perfect plot. The following tips can help make sure that the garden of your dreams is only a few months away!

Manage Microclimates

Weather-related considerations don’t stop with your Hardiness Zone, however – the unique geography of your garden and the position of its elements can create microclimates that have an enormous impact on anything planted in them. Important factors include the locations of sunny and shady areas, the amount of wind, and the distribution of walls and hardscaped areas.

Areas in the sun will receive more light and heat than ones shaded by overhanging trees, keeping the plants in those spots warmer than the average for your garden.
Walls and paved paths absorb sunlight and retain heat, which is distributed into the ground beside those areas over an extended period of time.
Wind extracts both moisture and heat from the areas where it blows, and strong gusts can damage tender plants.

To get the most out of your garden’s microclimates, draw up a map before your shovel hits the dirt, to ensure that everything you want has a suitable location available. Plastic sheeting can warm and dry soil, and plants that are on the borderline for your hardiness zone can benefit from a location beside a sun-facing wall that will keep them nice and toasty all day long. Walls can also serve as windbreaks, as can mid-sized shrubs or hedges, shielding your fragile specimens.

Don’t forget that an indoor environment is the most-controlled microclimate of all. If there are out-of-zone plants you can’t live without, portable container plantings can be a good alternative, letting you bring your hothouse flowers in from the cold when the weather turns in the fall.

Study Soil pH. Soil pH is another significant factor that can separate success from failure when planning a home garden. A garden is only as good as its dirt, and if the soil in your beds is too acidic or alkaline, that can prevent your plants from properly absorbing the nutrients they need to thrive.

Lower pH numbers tell you that you have acidic soil, while higher ones indicate the reverse. Soil pH typically ranges between 3 and 10, and most plants enjoy very slightly acidic soil, so a pH of 6.5 is often a good overall target for your garden.

There are some exceptions on both ends of the spectrum, however. Blue hydrangeas and rhododendrons are two common plants that require more acidic soil, while clematises prefer an alkaline environment, so when planning your beds, keep species’ specific requirements in mind before you group them together.
An inexpensive soil-testing kit purchased from your local garden center is a good way to measure soil pH. If the results come back outside of the desired range, you can adjust it by adding various substances. Agricultural lime (powdered limestone) and dolomitic lime will raise the pH of acidic soil, while ammonium sulfate and elemental sulfur will lower soil pH.

WARNING: Lime dust can cause skin, lung, and eye irritation, so be sure to read your product’s safety instructions before using.

Consider Your Climate
When picking new plants, your first step should be an excellent free tool from the federal government: the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Covering the entire United States, the map is divided into color-coded regions based on the lowest temperature typically reached in that area during winter.

Each region has its own number-and-letter pair, where numbers between 1 and 13 are followed by either the letter “a” or the letter “b.” Every number covers a ten-degree range of minimum temperatures, in which lower numbers mean colder weather in that region, and the letters split each numerical region into halves, with the “a” half of a numerical region being colder than the “b” half.

So, for example: Harrisburg, PA is in Zone 7a, which indicates a typical minimum temperature of between 0 and 5 degrees Fahrenheit. Meanwhile, Virginia Beach, VA is in Zone 8a, where the low temperature is typically between 10 and 15 degrees Fahrenheit.

Plants that will survive a balmy Virginia Beach winter might freeze and die beneath the snow in central Pennsylvania, so when choosing plants, you need to pick ones for a hardiness zone equal to or colder than the zone of your region.

To find the Hardiness Zone of your personal garden with the USDA’s interactive map, either type your ZIP code into the “Locate” link or drag and zoom the map to your area and then click on your location. Once you know your local Hardiness Zone, check the info on any seeds or plants you purchase to make sure that they can thrive where you live.

Go Native!

For particularly difficult yards, native plants can be a great option. You know up-front that they will be well-suited for your climate, and by observing them in the wild, you can get a good feel for their optimal levels of water and shade. They also typically require less fertilizer than non-native species and may have some degree of resistance to diseases and parasites, and in the case of wildflowers, will help maintain local populations of bees and other valuable pollinators. Best of all, they’re a perfect way to demonstrate hometown pride!

The perfect garden isn’t perfect without a home to match. If you’d like some help finding the home of your dreams, email or call me for the best listings in your area and information on how Howard Hanna’s one-stop shopping can make the buying process smooth and stress-free.

Eric Bengel
Howard Hanna Real Estate
1090 Freeport Road * Fox Chapel, PA 15238
Direct Phone: (412) 889-6661
Office: (412)-963-6300
email: ericbengel@howardhanna.com
Website: EricBengel.howardhanna.com

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Quick Home Staging Tips

7/5/2018

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Crushed for time? Desperate to make your house look good before people show up? We’ve got you covered!

Selling your house, unfortunately, is akin to a typical grocery experience for buyers where they go to the store, pick out what produce they like, inspect it for freshness and quality, and then determine if they’d like to make an offer. Except your house is both the store and the produce, and it means that, at the drop of a dime, you could get a call from your agent asking if now is a good time for some potential buyers to come see your house.

“NOW?! What do you mean now?!” Well, in the next ten minutes, or the next thirty minutes, depending on how far out the buyers are and how long it takes to commute to your home.
It’s okay: you have thirty seconds to panic! Grab a pillow, scream a little, get it all out.

Now that it’s all out, let’s get down to business. Whether you have two hours to tidy up the house, thirty minutes, or ten minutes, these are the essentials that should be tackled in that time frame. (Ideally, you already have a routine set in place for keeping your house clean. This will help make those last ten minutes of tidying up significantly easier.)

Stage Your Home in 10 Minutes:

If you have little helpers at hand, such as children or super intelligent animals, recruit them! The more hands available to stage the house, the quicker the process will go.

1. Put away your personal information! If you do nothing else, this is one of the most important things to do. You have no idea who is going to be walking through your home. Yes, an agent will be accompanying them, but an agent can’t make them un-see the bank records or mortgage statements or social security card you left out on the kitchen table.

2. Grab a laundry basket and toss clutter into it. There’s not time to do a thorough cleaning, so do what you learned to do as a children: toss everything into a bin or laundry basket and take it with you in the car. If you’re staying in the house, then just put the basket in the car anyways.

3. Put dirty dishes in the dishwasher. If you don’t have a dishwasher, put them in the oven. Potential buyers won’t think to open the oven and look in there for dirty dishes during their tour of the house.

4. Flush toilets and close toilet seats.

5. Close all closet doors.

6. Turn on all the lights in the house and open all the curtains. Your home will look its best when it has proper lighting. Also, if you have old CFL lights, they take a while to warm up and provide sufficient lighting, so it’s important to turn them on before buyers arrive.

7. Make the beds, if they’re not already made.

8. Wipe down all countertops and sinks with a damp cloth.

9. Take the pets with you! Or put them away. Maybe your dog is super friendly to strangers, but you have no idea what kind of day your dog is having, much less if the coming buyers are afraid of animals. If you’re not taking your pets with you, then put them in their kennels, in the backyard or the garage, and be sure your agent knows.

10. Get out of Dodge! How many times have you considered buying a house where the sellers stalked you from room to room, preventing you from sharing with your family what your thoughts were on the home? Exactly. Give the buyers the space they need to determine if they want to buy the home or not, and give yourself some peace of mind by taking the opportunity to relax outside of the house.

Stage Your Home in 30 Minutes

Do everything in the above “Stage Your Home in 10 minutes” list plus the following:

1. Clean up the yard. First impressions are lasting: if there are toys in your front yard, dispatch the children to collect them quickly. If you were in the midst of doing yard work, put away the rakes, the lawn mower, the hose, and anything that could be considered a tripping hazard.

2. Empty the garbage cans and take the trash out.

3. If you have cats, clean the cat litter box(es).

4. Toss dirty laundry into the washer. Don’t worry about turning the machine on, you can do that when you get back. Also, the noise of a washing machine might distract buyers from appreciating the remodeled look of the laundry room.

5. Light candles and spray some air freshener in the rooms. People will see the lit candles and assume the scent comes from them, so if they are normally averse to air freshener and prefer candles, they will react to the pleasant scent more positively.

6. Sweep the hardwood or tile floors and spot-clean anything that looks suspiciously sticky or gross.

7. Vacuum the carpets.

8. Put up your “show” accessories, if you have any. For example: a vase of fresh flowers on the kitchen table, the bathroom towels that are meant for when guests are over, etc.

Stage Your Home in 2 Hours

You lucked out! You have two full hours to get the house ready. Be sure to get everything in the above two lists done plus the following:

1. Clean all glass and mirrored surfaces.

2. Put clutter away as much as possible. You don’t want your emergency laundry basket overflowing too much! For example: pet toys should go in their proper place, magazines should be stacked and put away, books back on the bookshelf, the throw blanket should be folded neatly, etc.

3. Scrub toilets and sinks.

4. Wipe down kitchen cupboards.

5. Wash and put away the dishes (or run the dishwasher). Be sure to start the dishwasher first so it has time to run through the noisy cycles before the potential buyers arrive.

6. Fold and put away clean laundry.

7   Dust everything.

8   Sweep the porch and walkways.

Selling your home doesn’t have to be stressful or headache-inducing. At Howard Hanna Real Estate Services, our goal is to simplify the home buying and selling process for you, and help you make Home Happen Here.® With our one-stop shopping, we offer real estate services, mortgage services, title and escrow services, and insurance services, taking the worry out of moving by walking you through your entire home buying or selling experience.

If you are in the need of an experienced, full time agent, then give me a call to discuss your Real Estate needs.

Eric Bengel
Howard Hanna Real Estate
1090 Freeport Road * Fox Chapel, PA 15238
Direct Phone: (412) 889-6661
Office: (412)-963-6300
email: ericbengel@howardhanna.com
Website:  EricBengel.howardhanna.com

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Should GETTING PRE-APPROVED BE YOUR FIRST STEP in the Home Buying Process?

7/2/2018

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In todays hot Pittsburgh real estate market, the number of buyers searching for their dream homes is greatly outnumbering the number of homes for sale. This has led to a competitive marketplace where buyers often need to stand out. One way that you can show sellers that you are serious about buying your dream home is to get pre-qualified or pre-approved for a mortgage before starting your search and to show them this pre-approval when you make your offer.

Freddie Mac lays out the advantages of pre-approval in the "My Home" section of their website:
“It’s highly recommended that you work with your lender to get pre-approved before you begin house hunting. A Pre-approval will tell you how much home you can afford and can help you move faster, and with greater confidence, especially in competitive markets.”

One of the many advantages of working with a local real estate professional is that many have relationships with lenders who will be able to help you with this process. Once you have selected a lender, you will need to fill out their loan application and provide them with important information regarding “your credit, debt, work history, down payment and residential history.”

Freddie Mac describes the ‘4 Cs’ that help determine the amount you will be qualified to borrow:

Capacity: Your current and future ability to make your payments
Capital or cash reserves: The money, savings, and investments you have that can be sold quickly for cash
Collateral: The home, or type of home, that you would like to purchase
Credit: Your history of paying bills and other debts on time

Getting pre-approved is one of many steps that will show home sellers that you are serious about buying, and it often helps speed up the process once your offer has been accepted.

Bottom Line: Many potential home buyers overestimate the down payment and credit scores needed to qualify for a mortgage today. If you are ready and willing to buy, you may be pleasantly surprised at your ability to do so as well.

If you are in the need of an experienced, full time agent, then give me a call to discuss your Real Estate needs.

Eric Bengel
Howard Hanna Real Estate
1090 Freeport Road * Fox Chapel, PA 15238
Direct Phone: (412) 889-6661
Office: (412)-963-6300
email: ericbengel@howardhanna.com
Website: EricBengel.howardhanna.com

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