The Best Kitchens For Families

BEST KITCHEN IDEAS

It can be easy to get carried away in the kitchen. And we’re not talking about cooking.

Great Kitchens

This area is typically the most used, most coveted, and most expensive part of the house to deck out. And if you have kids, extra measures might need to be taken in order to create a kitchen that is family friendly and still as sexy as you want it to be.  Whether you’re just building a home, renovating your existing kitchen, or want to come up with a few easy tricks for making it more functional, we’ve got some tips.

This chic kitchen proves easy care can also be easy on the eyes. “In this Carpinteria, California, kitchen, Verner Panton children’s chairs add a dash of color. The Tulip chairs and side table are Eero Saarinen designs,” said Architectural Digest.

Notice how the surfaces- both those that are built in and the ones on the furniture – can be wiped clean without much effort.

Gray family kitchen

 

There may be no more difficult decision you’ll make in your kitchen than what surface to dress it up with. The most on-trend countertop surface today is quartz, which is great for families since it is practically indestructible. It also looks chic on this oversized island that offers plenty of work and play area.

Another advantage of this kitchen for families is the placement of the microwave, which gives small kids easy access.

 

White family kitchen

 

Keeping countertops at one height instead of adding a higher breakfast bar keeps the floorplan more open and helps to protect young kids from falling from high distances. This kitchen’s task lighting helps illuminate the workspace, and the two built-in drawers give kids a convenient place to stash their gear.
Open sightlines to the outside allow the cook to keep an eye on the kids while they’re out playing. This kitchen also features separate beverage refrigerators – a great tip for those who want to keep kids’ and adult beverage easily accessible.

Kids Kitchen Drawer

If you have young children, you’re bound to have stacks of sippy cups and plastic silverware, plus enough art supplies to fill several shelves at Michael’s. Thinking smart about storage can help keep the mess at bay. A low drawer or two designated as the kids’ space for all things plastic will help them know where to go when looking for a drink, and may also encourage them to help set the table for dinner and help you cook.

“The design of your kitchen has a big impact on how easy cooking with children can be,” said Case Remodeling. “If you’re doing a kitchen renovation, ensure that the design allows the children to see you cook when they’re at the table or elsewhere in the room. They will learn by watching and it will spark their enthusiasm.”  This smart solution for organizing art supplies adds a useful drawer to a bench in the nook, which keeps paint and crayons in one place instead of scattered throughout the house.

Children in the Kitchen

We always wanted a desk in our kitchen—a place where we could line up cookbooks and that could serve as a homework station. But, the sad truth is, unless you have a massive space for a massive desktop, it’ll probably end up looking like ours: covered in bills and school papers and never used for homework or any other function besides being a paper trap. This is why creating a breakfast nook is so ideal. Having a separate (but nearby) space for kids to study, do homework, craft, or play games allows you to keep your eye on them while working in the kitchen and helps build family closeness.

Just because you have a smaller space doesn’t mean you should sacrifice function. Don’t have room for an island and a breakfast nook? Combine the two!

Kitchen with blue ceiling lights family

 

Written by Jaymi Naciri

The Sweet Spot Of Pricing Your Home

Pricing Your Home is An Art and A Science

When you and your REALTOR® sit down to begin pricing your home, you’ll be looking at competitive homes that are the most similar in size, location and amenities as your home. You may find that prices can be thousands of dollars higher or lower. It’s tempting to pick the highest price and say, “Let’s list it here.” But what if your home doesn’t sell at that price?

High prices are a strategy that can work in an accelerating market, but it’s risky. Your home can sit for months without selling and you’ll end up marking the price down, perhaps lower than it should have sold for in the first place.

Pricing your home is a science. The science is choosing the right price at which your home will sell quickly. How do you do that? By analyzing your local market conditions and where your home fits in the spectrum.

The only way your home will sell at the highest price possible is if your buyer agrees to your home’s value. To best determine market value, you have three important tools: CMAs, appraisals, and your REALTOR’s®knowledge of the market.

Selling Your Home

The comparative market analysis

A comparative market analysis (CMA) is a side-by-side comparison of similar homes for sale as well as homes that have recently sold in your neighborhood. REALTORS® use CMAs to compare the features that make each home unique, including age, location, number of bedrooms, baths, room sizes, updates, condition, etc.

As a seller, you should be able to see where your home fits — in the top or lower price range of similar homes. For example, if a similar home to yours has been recently renovated with a new kitchen, expect it to sell for more than your home if your home has not been improved.

The appraisal

An appraisal is a market analysis performed by a professional appraiser using a variety of sources, including multiple listing system data and conforming loan formulas.

Appraisers most often work for lenders to determine market values, so that lenders can weigh the risk of making a loan to a homebuyer. Appraisals come after an offer is made when the buyer applies for a loan. Even though the buyer pays for the appraisal, the lender uses it to determine whether or not to make the loan at the contract price.

Other market data

Your REALTOR® has access to data that may not be public through the Multiple Listing Service. This data is provided to broker members to track market trends over weeks, months and years. Some brokers pay data companies for specific markets that help them plan their business, such as the number of listings on hand, which zip codes are the hottest, and whether closings are trending up or down over last month or last year.

Your REALTOR® uses all this data to help you hit the sweet spot of pricing. That’s high enough to reflect your home’s value, but attractive enough to buyers to get it sold quickly.

Written by Blanche Evans

Top 3 Reasons A Buyer Choose Their Home

What Makes A Buyer Choose Your Home

You may think buyers will love your home because of your extraordinary taste in home furnishings or the incredible job you did with your home addition. Nope, it’s not the décor or the vast add-on that gets them to commit, although they may help. There are three top reasons a buyer chooses to buy a home — price, condition, and location.

Price

Let’s start with Price. To choose the right asking price for your home, you need to know if your neighborhood is in a buyer’s market or seller’s market. A buyer market is characterized by large inventories of six months’ supply or higher, few buyers making offers, low offers, and many other concessions asked of sellers. A seller’s market is characterized by low supply of six months on hand or less, heavy buyer traffic, multiple offers, and close to full price or full price offers.

Bankers, buyers’ agents and buyers all have access to the same market information that your agent has given you. If you overprice for the current market, your potential buyers won’t get to see your home, and even if they do, they won’t get their loans approved.

Condition

Allow your real estate agent to help you market your home by putting it in the best condition possible. Buyer pet peeves may be easy items to fix, but you don’t want your house to go to the bottom of their list because you failed to paint, mow, replace the carpet, etc. Sometimes you have to invest a little money to make money.                                                                                            Buyer Home Choices

Remember, today’s buyers are more skeptical about buying a home, so creaky steps, dripping faucets, and outdated wallpaper just give buyers a reason to skip your home.

Location

You can’t do much about your home’s location, but you can make your home more attractive with lovely landscaping, fences to block out ugly views and sounds, a lower price and immaculate condition.

If you do have a great location, don’t overprice. People expect to pay more for a great location next to schools, transportation, shopping and restaurants, but if you overprice, they will scrutinize the price and the condition.

It’s hard not to be sentimental about the home you’ve lived in for years, but to buyers, your home is a commodity. Like you, they simply want to make a good deal on a home they love.

You’ll quickly find out what real estate agents and their buyers think of your home. If you get a quick offer, you know you priced it right for the location, condition, and the current market.

If you don’t get an offer within a couple of weeks, or whatever period is normal for your area, there’s something wrong. Look at your price and condition and see if you can make your home a little more desirable.

Written by Blanche Evans

17 Things A First Time Buyer Need To Know

Lessons for the First Time Buyer

Few things in life are more exciting for a first time buyer than the purchase of their first home. The feeling of turning the key for the first time (or clicking the garage door opener) is thrilling. You’ll likely feel a sense of pride like never before. But getting to that point may be a challenge. And the challenges won’t end once you move in.

First Time BuyerThe more you know about the process, the more prepared you can be for the wrinkles that pop up, and the more you can relax and enjoy homeownership.

  1. It may cost more than you expect.

When you’re calculating your monthly payment, don’t leave anything out. Add in principal, interest, taxes, and insurance, plus any HOA fee. Then estimate landscaping, pool maintenance if needed, and any other fees there may be. Don’t forget to include your monthly home warranty cost if you have one.

Experts recommend putting aside a minimum of one percent of your home price for repairs and maintenance per year, so add that in. Think also about utilities. If you’re coming from a small apartment, you might have a bump in that monthly cost. Only by taking a real look at the numbers can you get a true feeling for what you’ll pay every month as a homeowner.

  1. You may only have to put three percent down.

FHA loans aren’t your only low down payment option anymore. Ask your lender about 97% LTV loans that require only three percent down for the first time buyer.

  1. You can probably afford it more easily than you think.

Rents have been going up way more than home prices in many real estate markets. A recent analysis by RealtyTrac found that, “Payments on a mortgage used to purchase a three-bedroom home were more affordable than paying rent on a similar home in 66 percent of the counties.”

  1. But…know how much you can really afford.

Your loan approval will tell you how much the bank thinks you can afford. But they only know so much. If you’re planning to have a baby or change careers sometime soon and your income could be affected, you may want to stay lower on the payment scale, which means a higher down payment or a less expensive house (or both).

  1. You need a preapproval.

Your REALTOR® will tell you this. Believe him. Even if he takes you out to look at houses without a preapproval (many won’t, since it could be seen as an indication that you’re not serious about buying), you won’t be in a good position to make an offer if you find a place you like. And in a competitive market, that could be disastrous.

  1. It may be easier to buy a single-family home than a condo.

Strict FHA restrictions on condos can make for a limited pool of options, and, if you can find one that is approved, it might have a higher interest rate. Be sure to ask your lender to provide a side-by-side analysis of a condo and single-family home in similar price ranges; a home that is priced slightly higher may end up being the answer when you examine the numbers carefully.

  1. You might be able to get money to fix up your home.

Fashion yourself a DIYer? Ask your lender about 203(k) and HomeStyle loans. “Fannie Mae and the Federal Housing Administration have home renovation mortgage programs that allow buyers to borrow based on what the house is expected to be worth after the home rehab is completed,” said Bankrate.

  1. You might be able to get a gift for your down payment.First time buyer down payment                                                                                                                                                                                     

“Cash gifts are also allowed for low-down payment mortgages including the FHA purchase mortgage, which requires a 3.5% down payment and the Conventional 97 mortgage from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac which requires just 3% down,” said The Mortgage Reports.

They’re also allowed on many other conventional loans, and can help a first-time buyer get to a 20 percent down payment that would help them qualify for the lowest rates. Check out The Mortgage Reports for important details about down payment gifts. Do it wrong, and your application can be rejected. There also may be tax implications for improper gifting.

  1. Gift funds may also be allowed for your closing costs.

Be sure to ask your lender. Not having to come up with thousands of dollars at closing means money for new furniture!

  1. You’ll have a love-hate relationship with your HOA.

You’ll appreciate them when the car up on blocks for a week in front of the neighbor’s house is towed. Not so much if it’s your car up on blocks.

  1. You’ll want to thoroughly check out the neighborhood.

Make sure there are no development plans that may affect your home value in the neighborhood you’re looking at. Talk to the neighbors. Check for sexual predators nearby. And spend some time in the area at different times and on different days so you can observe the neighborhood flavor. You also might want to arrange to commute from/to the house one day to see what you have in store.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Children on a playground

  1. You’ll want good schools. Even if you have no kids.

Families inherently seek a neighborhood with quality schools. But studies show that good schools can dramatically affect home value, making these neighborhoods desirable to buyers without kids as well. “Living near a high-scoring school can increase your home’s value by over $200,000, according to the Brookings Institution,” said AOL.

  1. You can derail your loan approval.

This is something a first time buyer doesn’t realize.  Don’t check your credit, get a new store credit card, close an account, or buy a new car while you’re in escrow – you might not stay in escrow. Listen to your lender and hold off on anything that could affect your credit or financial situation until you close.

  1. The home inspection will reveal some issues. It always does.

Keep a cool head and let your Realtor handle any negotiations. You just might come out better than before.

  1. You’re gonna get a tax break.

You’re probably already looking forward to this, but do you know the details? Your mortgage interest is a write off. So are your Private Mortgage Interest (PMI) fees and any points you pay to buy down the rate on your mortgage. All told, you could be getting a nice little return come tax day. Check out this calculator to estimate your tax break.

  1. It will be more work than you imagined.

Stuff leaks, breaks, makes weird noises, shuts down, peels, crumbles, flames out, and falls off. You will learn how to fix it all, or at least how to make a phone call to someone who can.

  1. It will all be worth it.

 

Written by Jaymi Naciri