Jul. 27, 2007 - 4 Tips for Cooling Down Your Energy Bills

4 Tips for Cooling Down Your Energy Bills

You know August is approaching when temperatures are heating up and air conditioners seem to be constantly humming — and staying cool is on everyone's mind.

But many home owners are equally concerned about how they can cut down on their energy consumption and reduce their monthly cooling bills.

The American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) has a few suggestions:

• Clean or replace air filters in air-conditioning units to keep cool air moving and to reduce electricity consumption.
• Have an air conditioner tune-up performed by a qualified contractor.
• Make sure your attic, which traps a lot of hot air, is adequately insulated.
• Replace old equipment. A new high-efficiency unit not only pares down utility bills; it can help you qualify for a federal income tax credit. But before you buy something new, do your research. “Often people are so desperate to replace their equipment that they don’t take the time to research the investment, locking themselves into high cooling bills and less comfort,” says ACEEE researcher Katie Ackerly.

Jul. 20, 2007 - Preapproved or Prequalified: What's the Difference?

Preapproved or Prequalified: What's the Difference?

Confusing prequalification with preapproval can mean disappointment for both a home seller and a buyer. Real estate experts say it's smart to urge buyers to become preapproved by their lender – not just prequalified.

For buyers to obtain a bona fide preapproval, they must submit a loan application with the necessary documentation and fee. After the lender verifies and analyzes the application, it will notify the applicant of how much money he can afford to borrow. Armed with that information, the buyer can confidently go home shopping.

Prequalifications are simply an estimate of what a buyer can afford. A buyer who assumes that this estimate is accurate and chooses a home based on the information may, in fact, be denied a loan when he actually applies. That results in a situation that wastes his time and can put a seller in an a bad position if they've already turned away a qualified buyer. And, of course, it wastes the real estate practitioner's time as well.

Source: Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Magazine (08/01/07)

Jul. 19, 2007 - Prince William County GIS Website

A few days later he called me again. This time he had a few questions related to how he and his wife would get qualified and how I could help them write up the "offer". We plan on meeting this Sunday. As we were about to hang up, he told me how happy he was that I was able to point him to that county website. It made me feel good that I was able to help him get the information he wanted so quickly even though, it was only to a website.

I started thinking about his question and about how informative the site really is so I'm posting the link to it as well as some screen shots for others who might benefit from it.

http://www4.pwcgov.org/countymapper/

If you get stuck and are not sure what to do...they have a Help Page. It is located at http://www4.pwcgov.org/countymapper/help/help.htm

It's a good life!

-Keith

Jul. 18, 2007 - Prince William County Foreclosure Statistics for 1st half 2007

What is most interesting about this chart is the rise in foreclosures starting in March with 28 active then it lowered slightly to 25 active in April while in May they increased to 41 active and even higher in June as it topped 59 active. Foreclosures started the year with 14 sold during the month of January, 10 in February, 13 in March while in April they reached 25 units sold. The sale of these foreclosures declined in May to 8 and even lower in June with only 2 sold.
-Keith

Jul. 18, 2007 - Prince William County Real Estate Statistics for 1st half 2007

After crunching the Prince William County real estate market statistics for the period of January through June 2007 I come up with the following averages.

Average Active Listings: 5383
Average New Listings: 1742
Average Homes Sold: 463
Average Under Contract: 365
Average Contingent: 177
Average List Price of Homes Sold: $422,798
Average Days on Market: 122
-Keith