About Essex County, NJ

Smart buyers kept home sales strong through the usually quiet month of August, locking in their mortgages at the current low rates. If you’ve been waiting to "time the market", you might want to move quickly to avoid rate increases and to capitalize on a rare gift from the Federal Government: you can now borrow up to $729,750 without tipping into the more expensive “jumbo” category. In January, that maximum is scheduled to fall back to $417,000. This is a great time to buy! We’re on our way back up from a market bottom that had far less impact on our area than it did nationally. Why? We’re a local market where people buy houses to live in them. That spared us the sharp value falloff of speculative markets where investors bought homes to flip them and got caught holding the bag in the downturn. For more information about the following communities, please visit www.maggeemiggins.com • Belleville • Bloomfield • Chatham • Livingston • Madison • Maplewood • Millburn/Short Hills • Montclair • Mountainside - New! • Scotch Plains - New! • South Orange • Springfield • Summit • Westfield • West Orange

In the perfect vision, buyer meets seller, buyer loves the home the seller has to offer, buyer has the resources to purchase the home, buyer buys the new home, and both buyer and seller leave the transaction with a good feeling and with the feeling of getting a good deal.

So where does this whole process start? According to expert John Peek, President and owner of Peek Brothers Contractors, " Getting your home ready to close the deal, for the most money, starts with knowing where to begin, and, often, that means quite literally, you need to paint the perfect sale."

Simple and relatively inexpensive tasks like cleaning, wallpaper, and painting of the walls are well known to significantly influence a buyer in a home sale. And there are expert contractors in all areas of the country ready to help with your needs and answer your questions.

To paint the perfect sale, Peek also suggests carefully looking around your home for holes that frequently don't get filled in after taking down family photos or artwork.

"I'll often times go into homes and homeowners have put spackle up and they've just smeared a big chunk on the wall and then let it dry," says Peek.

He offers this little trick to get a better outcome. "Take the spackle and put it in the hole and then take a wet sponge and lightly wipe the surface. It removes all excess spackle from around the hole and it just fills the hole itself. Often times you can get by without having to touch it up," says Peek.

If you do need to paint the interior or exterior of your home, Mike Chism, President and Owner of Chism Brothers Painting, says you can avoid painting the whole house by touching up critical areas such as the front door, trim, and fascia board.

"With exterior painting, usually the house doesn't go bad all at once," says Chism. He adds, "Sometimes windowsills or thresholds can get a lot of sun and can be prepared and touched up extending the life of the entire paint job for several years."

More advice from the experts at Service Master to increase sale value of a home include: Repaint walls in rooms that have high visibility (kitchen, baths and living areas). Choose a neutral paint color scheme. And to help paint the "sale" vision in the buyer's mind, replace all burned-out light bulbs to add warmth and create an inviting atmosphere.

At the NaturalHandyman.com website, a colorful vision is painted by replacing old, worn grout. Imagine a tile floor that would be beautiful... except for the dingy-looking once-white grout that looks filthy even after cleaning! Or have you ever considered how attractive your tile floor would be with a different color grout?

The solution is here: restore grout to an attractive, uniform color... apply an epoxy grout colorant. Also known as grout paint, it is available in shades of white, many premixed colors and even custom blends. Today's colorants are easy to apply, can last up to fifteen years and, best of all, actually look good!

As you can see, there are many simple, fairly inexpensive ways to "paint the vision" of a beautiful home sale. Simply call or visit your local contractor or paint store today for easy solutions to increasing value of your home.

Plan/Prepare

The home-selling process typically starts several months before a property is made available for sale. It's necessary to look at a home through the eyes of a prospective buyer and determine what needs to be cleaned, painted, repaired and tossed out.

Ask yourself: If you were buying this home what would you want to see? The goal is to show a home which looks good, maximizes space and attracts as many buyers - and as much demand - as possible.

Get a Pre-listing Inspection

Having your home inspected by a professional home inspector before you list is a recommendation from Hud.gov to help eliminate selling "stumbling blocks" in a sale.

Eventually your buyers are going to conduct a home inspection. You may as well know what they are going to find by getting there first. Having an inspection performed ahead of time helps in many other ways:

Copies of the inspection report along with receipts for any repairs should be made available to potential buyers.

Be sure the inspector you use is insured and licensed or certified (if your state requires) or at least belongs to a professional organization such as NACHI, ASHI, NIBI.

Find Out How Much You Can Afford & Learn About Loans and Homebuying Programs

Hud.gov advises to start with learning about your finances. What you can afford depends on your income, credit rating, current monthly expenses, downpayment and the interest rate. The calculators below can help, but it is best to visit a lender to find out for sure.

FHA loan programs offer lower downpayments and are a good option for first-time homebuyers.

Thinking Ahead About "Buyer's Remorse"

If you are thinking of buying your first home, you should take out a pen and paper right now and draw a line down the center of the paper. Calmly and logically, think of all possible advantages to buying a home and write them down on one side of the page. Afterwards, you should list all the disadvantages.

Don't Bite Off More Than You Can Chew

Many people dream of home ownership but it mandates homework, legwork and considerable effort on your part to ensure that the process goes as smoothly as possible.

Strengthen Credit, Determine How Much You Can Afford, and Get Pre-Approved.

Get a Realtor

More than 2 million people in the United States have earned real estate licenses. However, real estate is a tough business with a steep dropout rate, and the result is that only a small percentage of those with licenses actively help buyers and sellers. Find the expert that will help you find the perfect home for you.

A large majority of realtors are hard working honest people, but every once in a while you run into the apple that makes it look bad for the rest of the bunch. If you want to find out more about the real estate agent that is selling you or helping you buy a home it is very simple. Just go to www.GOOGLE.com and type in the Name of the agent and the office they work for in the search area, for example, If I were looking for me I would type in "Matthew DeFede + Coldewell Banker + Nutley" that would pretty much give me the results that I am looking for you can also do a search like this "townomes +for sale + nutley" So before you sign on the dotted line and put your number one posession in the hands of an agent who is not what they appear to be, give it a shot you may be suprised as to what you find and it will give you the power to make better decisions. Matt

The Calandra Family is pleased to announce that Calandra's Bakery in Caldwell is now open for limited business. Located inside Calandra's Italian Village (234 Bloomfield Ave, Caldwell, NJ), their newest store is now open and serving bread only. At this time we will be open from 11:00 AM until 7:00 PM daily and serve hot bread every hour while offering you the same great service that you have come to know and expect at Calandra's Bakery. Soon our bakery will be open from 6:00 AM until 10:00 PM daily including holidays.

Come visit Calandra's at their newest location. Walk around and explore Calandra's Italian Village (now partially open). Visit La Taverna, now open for drinks and cocktails (lighter fare lounge menu coming soon). Peak in at iL Vecchio Cafe (not yet open for business). Stay tuned and watch for announcements and special offers from Calandra's new venture over the next few months!

Information supplied by your community sponsor and West Caldwell/Caldwell Real Estate Team

Jim Albano and Jean-Marie Vantuno

973-256-0303 ext 218

Please visit our website:

www.yourhomenorthjersey.com