Barb Goerss

Buying a home in Roseville, Minnesota is an exhilerating, complicated process. One of the many details you need to sort through is homeowners insurance. Where do you find it? How much coverage do you need? What does it cover and not cover? Particularly for a first-time home buyer, these questions can seem daunting. Here is some good information to get you started down the road to getting a good policy:

1. Start with what you already have.
It’s quite likely that if you’re happy with the company you use for your auto insurance, you’ve already found your homeowners insurance company. Many companies will offer good discounts for bundling your various insurance policies with them. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t shop around, but definitely check with your current company first and use their number as a baseline, as it will usually be your most reasonable number. As the article states, anyone with a connection to the military should look into USAA – their prices are often far lower than others.

2. Decide what you need.
You should be insured for the amount it will take to rebuild your home, and most policies will cover your belongings for about 75% of the value of your home. This percentage usually works out well for most people, but if you have rare art or very expensive jewelry, you probably need some additional coverage for those items. Choosing a slightly-higher-than-the-minimum deductible will allow you keep your premiums low and still allow for a deductible you can manage in the event of a disaster.

3. Choose extras if you need them.
Flood insurance may or may not be an issue for you in Roseville, depending on where you’re located. If you’re buying in a low-lying area or very close to a lake with a record of flooding, definitely look into a flood policy. For a relatively small amount of money you can protect yourself from huge damages to your home that a regular homeowners insurance policy won’t cover.

Adequate insurance coverage for your home is a must, and doesn’t have to be an overwhelming process. Taking the steps to get the right amount of coverage now as you buy your Roseville, MN home will save you immeasurable work and stress later.

Whether you’re buying or selling a home in Hugo, MN, you may find yourself wearing a beautiful pair of rose colored glasses. Buying or selling a home can be an emotional process, and sellers and buyers have different blind spots that they are susceptible to in a sale or purchase. This article outlines a few of the ways that you can prepare yourself for a successful transaction by taking off the glasses.

As a seller, you have an emotional attachment to the house you’re selling, particularly if you’ve had it for many years or if you’ve raised a family in it. It’s easy to subconsciously expect potential buyers to see what a wonderful home you have; how full of love and life it is. But it’s imperative as a seller to see your house through the eyes of a buyer who doesn’t have your emotional attachments:

Taking care of your home and keeping it from falling into a state of disrepair protects your investment and maybe your equity, while providing a safe, happy and healthy environment for your family but does not equate to a family room addition, a newly finished basement, a stylish new kitchen or master bedroom suite.

The buyer doesn’t know or care about how many trees you had to remove to put up the fence or how many you had to plant to block out the noise from the street.

Nor does your buyer receive the emotional value of your home, beautifully gift wrapped as a house warming present. They come with their very own set of hopes and dreams.

As a buyer, you also have perspectives that can cloud your judgment. The fact that it’s a strong buyer’s market has the potential to leave buyers feeling like they need to get not only a good house for a good price, but a mansion for a fire sale price. This can lead to disappointment over anything less than a steal, and an inability to move ahead on a good property for a good price.

A well cared for, meticulously maintained home may provide the perfect foundation for creating your dream home. Don’t overlook great “potential.” If the location is great, the structure secure, the heat, plumbing and electrical updated or declared safe by a licensed professional you may have stumbled upon a hidden gem.

Everyone wears glasses – colored perspective – when they enter into buying or selling a home. As you work toward selling your current or buying your future home in Hugo, MN, do what you can to see the other side of things. You’ll be well on your way to a successful closing!

Looking for a new home in White Bear Lake, MN? Once you've made the decision that it's the right time to buy, it's so tempting to just get out and start looking. But there is some very important financial groundwork that you should lay before even stepping inside a house for sale.

This CNNMoney article gives some very good tips on what you should know and do before you start the process of buying (or even looking at) a house:

Start with your credit
It's never been more important to have good credit when buying a home. Lenders are much more cautious than they were in the past, and with good reason. But even if you've never missed a payment on any loan, your credit reports might have errors on them. Get them, scrutinize them carefully, and have any errors corrected before you work on securing financing for a home.

Know what you can afford
You may have a dollar figure in mind, and it might be accurate. But, especially if this will be your first home purchase, there may also be areas of expenses that you haven't factored in. Shop lenders, watch interest rates, and find a lender who offers a good rate on the right kind of loan for your long-term plans. Your lender will pre-approve you for a certain amount of money. This number will help you get a better feel for the price range you should be looking in, but doesn't necessarily mean that you should get a loan for the upper end of what you're approved for! You need to consider a multitude of expenses like utilities, taxes, trash collection fees, housing association fees if applicable, maintenance and repairs, etc. Sit down and create a careful budget. Doing this BEFORE looking at homes will help you narrow your focus (hence not waste your time) and prevent you from falling in love with a house that's completely out of your price range.

Line up cash
In a perfect world, you have at least 20% to put down on your new house. If you don't, there are still options available to you, but it's harder to secure those loans. And don't forget about the other fees you'll need to have money to pay: Once you've considered the down payment, make sure you've got enough to cover fees and closing costs. These may include the appraisal fee, loan fees, attorney's fees, inspection fees, and the cost of a title search. They can easily add up to more than $10,000 - and often run to 5 percent of the mortgage amount.

If you take the time to get your financial house in order, you'll be well on your way to buying a new house in White Bear Lake, MN!

We're mid-way through the summer, and you may be wondering if you've missed your best chance at finding a home in Stillwater, Minnesota. The answer is "no"! It's true that many home owners list their homes for sale in the spring, because many buyers want to be moved into their new homes well before school begins.

But there are other advantages to finding homes for sale later in the summer!

Good deals on the "leftovers"
If you're looking at "old" (i.e. initially listed in April or May) listings, it's very probable that the price on the homes are finally at the level they should have started at. If they didn't sell when listed, it's possible that the sellers priced them too high. Meanwhile, April and May buyers moved on to others homes and bought, leaving perfectly good homes on the market to be marked down to realistic levels for you!

Summer is a better time to get to know the neighborhood
Particularly in cold winter weather places like Minnesota, it can be very hard to get a good feel for what the neighborhood is really like when you're looking in the winter or even the spring (our summer started late this year!). You can see your actual (potential) neighbors out and about, get a feel for whether there are lots of kids in the area (whether that's a positive or a negative for you!), etc. If you have kids, you can bring them along with you and make them part of the process and see if they like the area.

It might be hot!
One tip, especially if you are looking at short sales or foreclosures, is to dress for heat. Many bank-owned homes have the utilities turned off, which means that a showing could be a very warm experience! Plan on more traffic in the fall. One area where you could get an unrealistic perspective on a neighborhood is that of traffic. In summer, it will be lighter. If the home is anywhere near a school, plan on a lot of extra traffic in the morning and afternoon. There are plenty of good homes on the market right now, and you can find one and be moved into your new home in Stillwater, MN before the summer is over! Call us to get started today!

As you prepare your Forest Lake home for sale, don't neglect the garage! It's easy to allow garages to become (or remain) catch-all holding tanks for your possessions, especially as you prepare to move. It's a mistake, however, to treat the garage any differently than you treat the rest of your house as you clean and stage it. Garages are huge selling points to many people, and seeing one in disrepair or completely filthy has a proportionally inverse effect on many buyers' desire to live in your house.

Here are a few good tips to prepare your garage for sale:

1. Clean it Up
No-brainer, right? You'd be surprised at the number of people who don't really take this to heart, though. When I say "clean", I mean "clean like your living room is clean before a showing". Yes, please do remove the squirrel droppings in the corner, as the article suggests (need I elaborate on the relatively few numbers of buyers who wish to evidence of animals living in your garage?). But beyond that, you need to paint the floor and walls and make it look as new as possible. To the greatest extent possible, remove everything from your garage and store it elsewhere. Keep necessary tools in your car or truck if you can. Just as people want to visualize themselves living in your house, they need to see a blank canvas for their own activities in your garage.

2. Add Shelves and Cabinets
Even with all of your stuff gone, shelving is an attractive feature to many buyers. It's particularly important to get good shelving and cabinets if you have no option but to keep some of your things in the garage during showings.

3. Renovate
This step is obviously more costly, but home owners often overlook the potential that may exist in their garage for additional living space. Rec rooms, "man caves", etc. can be a boost to your home's value. Definitely talk to your realtor about the specific value to your home, as well as the kind of zoning regulations you'd need to think through before beginning a project of that magnitude. Be sure to see your garage as an extension of your home and not just the place everything in your home goes before you move. A clean, functional and empty garage will help sell your Forest Lake, MN house!