These articles have been published in recent months, with more on the way!
From Old Town Spring Magazine:
Ten Things You Can Do on the Cheap to Update Your Home
By PJ Rice, Realtor, Realm Professionals
1) Throw on a plastic glove, grab a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser with just a tiny bit of water, and scrub down your light switches and plates. You’d be amazed to see the difference removing the dirt, skin oils and dust can do to improve the look of the rooms. If that doesn’t make a better impression, new switches and plates are inexpensive to buy and don’t take a lot of time to replace.
2) Change the plates on the outlets and the outlets if they don’t match, don’t hold the plugs in securely, are damaged, or have paint on them. A uniform look to small details like these makes a room nicer. You may not notice them once they are replaced, but when they don’t match or look shoddy, they bring down the overall look and value of your home.
3) Change the light bulbs everywhere in the house. Dusty light bulbs over mirrors make bathrooms look outdated. Dim bulbs in other areas make rooms look smaller, dingier, and make it harder to focus on the positives of the room. Brightly lit rooms make it easier to clean and can positively affect your moods and energy levels.
4) Stain your wood fencing. Even somewhat damaged fencing is going to look better with a uniform stain on it, which invokes a clean, new appearance.
5) Stain your grout. In most homes, the grout looked great when new and before high traffic turned some areas darker. Adding a slightly darker color to the grout to make it uniform is easier in most cases than trying to lighten the darker areas of grout and brings freshness to the flooring.
6) Paint or change the mailbox. If the mailbox is in great shape, painting the pole a shiny black or red can make it look even better. If it’s enclosed in brick, power wash the brick for a nicer appearance. If the brick is out of date, white paint can update it cheaply enough, and allows you to paint the house number on it more easily.
7) Power washed the front walkway but it’s still boring and stained? A couple coats of grey paint for patios can neutralize the inconsistencies and bright flowers on each side in pots every few feet can change the whole impression to something in 2008, not 1988.
8) Cut down low-lying branches of trees and those within three feet of the roof. Natural sunlight on the siding can help inhibit mold growth and enters the home to brighten rooms without needing extra lighting for longer in the day. The reduced shadows in the yard make it appear larger and cleaner.
9) Fertilize the yard once a month and water well. A bright, green, lush lawn cut and edged well makes the home look well-kept and worth more.
10) Grab that Mr. Clean Magic Eraser again and clean the walls with washable paint on them, particularly in the stairwell and hallways. Doorjambs and the handrail get more than their share of fingerprints and grime, and cleaning that off can brighten the areas within minutes, without needing to repaint to bring a more updated look to the space.
For more tips or helpful suggestions for updating or ensuring the value of your home, whether you plan on selling, leasing, or staying a while, contact PJ and Michael Rice, the Rice Family Team with Realm Professionals at 832-265-2224 or online at http://www.ricefamilyteam.com/. Happy homeowners are our specialty!
From The Visitor's Guide of Old Town Spring:
Keeping Money in Your Pocket Through Your Home, Part I
By PJ Rice, Realtor, The Rice Family Team
It’s great to turn out the lights when you aren’t in the room, turn off the water while the toothbrush isn’t underneath it, but are you missing another way to reduce your expenses when it comes to your home, and something you can do by April 30th to ensure your savings?
There’s a murky side to homeownership. It can be confusing and intimidating when you look at paperwork concerning your home, and most people take the huge legal-sized folder they got at closing and promptly put it away to collect dust. It’s filled with terms you don’t usually use, and forms that you assume benefit you in some way, but you assume if it’s important, the mortgage company will send you letters reminding you of it. Not true.
Mortgage companies do not handle things like your homestead exemption or tax protests, both of which can save you money. They won’t send you the forms, and they don’t care if you have the tax breaks working for you. But we do. We were once very clueless about what the process was, and we see it quite often in other homeowners, especially new ones. It doesn’t need to be so hard.
If you bought your house last year in 2007 in Harris County, you were most likely given a form to apply for Homestead Exemption. If you do not know if you got it, or you have no desire to look through the 1500 pages of stuff in your closing folder, you can go to http://www.hcad.org/ and click on forms, then scroll down to residential forms, then click on Form 11-13. They have a fillable version as well if your handwriting leaves something to be desired. 3 simple steps to get to a money-saving form that works for years once it’s filled and sent in.
The form has descriptions on the second page to help you determine which exemption works best for you. Generally, if you own one home, are under 65, and not legally classified as disabled, you will check the box for General Residential Exemption. What this does is gives you extra protection for this property in case you ever had to face a foreclosure, and gives you a tax break once it’s processed and for as long as you own the home, unless you fill out of form to switch it to another house.
If you have owned your home for a while, you probably filled out the form for Homestead Exemption, but to be sure, you can go to http://www.hacd.org/ and click on records search. We usually search on real property search using owner name, and then click on the account number next to the name to pull up the home’s info. Halfway down the page on the home’s info, there is a spot on the left that says your exemption type. Does this type of exemption still describe you? Or, for example, have you turned 65 and can apply for a new exemption? If your status has changed, you can get a better tax break by filling out a new form and sending it in with the paperwork they need. Deadline for filing the Homestead Exemption form is April 30th, 2008.
This is a great tool to save money, and there’s no need to clip coupons or scour the sales rack. It’s used to reduce the percentage of value of your home they collect taxes on. Depending on the value of your home based on HCAD’s assessment, this can be a substantial savings yearly. Reducing the assessed tax value of your home can also save you money, and we’ll detail how to do that and how we can help next month! Until then, get your form filled out and sent in, check to make sure you are getting the exemption you deserve if your status has changed, and call us with questions. We’d love to help. Happy homeowners are our specialty!!
Michael and PJ Rice, Realtors The Rice Family Team 832-265-2224 http://www.ricefamilyteam.com/
and the wonderfully written follow-up:)
Keeping Money in Your Pocket Through Your Home, Part II
By PJ Rice, Realtor, The Rice Family Team
So you got your Homestead exemption is, or it has been in for a while at the Tax Assessor’s office. Now you just sit back and allow the tax assessor’s office to assess your property at full market value and pay your taxes like a good citizen? Well, kind of. Protesting your taxes is not unpatriotic, pulling one over on the government, or hard to do. It is simply making sure you are paying more than you should in taxes, like checking the receipt at the store to make sure you weren’t overcharged.
When you find out the tax assessed value of your home (in Harris county, the site is http://www.hcad.org/ and in Montgomery county it is www.mcad-tx.org/html/records.html ), you need to decide if you think that is a fair assessment or if it off the mark completely in regards to your comparable neighbors. If you think it is unfair or unequal or there are errors in how your property was assessed, you can protest your tax assessment and try to get the value decreased, which helps save you money without having to change your lifestyle.
Both sites have a Forms page, where you will need to click and then print out a form to protest your taxes. For HCAD click on Forms, then General Forms, and is 41-44 Notice of Protest. For MCAD click on Forms, then Notice of Protest. Fill in as much as possible, checking off the boxes pertaining to why you are protesting your taxes. Both county’s forms have a Section 4, where you can give an opinion of value. I would recommend leaving that blank until you have further research if you are wanting to protest based on unequal or unfair value. The forms are due into the appraisal office by May 31 at midnight. Then they will process your paperwork and schedule a hearing.
You can enlist that tax site in your research, by searching your street and other properties in your section, noting which houses have a similar square footage and grade of condition and lower appraised market values. Those are great comps that you can print out and use in your protest. There are the occasional larger homes assessed for less than or equal to yours. That is a good one to present, as it can show that your assessment is too high.
Sales made in the last calendar year (you’re protesting 2008’s tax value now, based on 2007 info) are what the appraisal boards use to assess your home’s market value, but numbers are not everything. Foreclosures usually are not included, but sometimes, if that’s the majority of the comps in your neighborhood or there are so many listed that you’d have a hard time selling yours for a better price, the assessor will reduce your appraised market value to lower, if you can present your argument with verifiable facts about why your owner-occupied home cannot sell for the tax assessed market value.
Good tools to have on hand when you go for your hearing, which is usually an informal one first and if you are unsatisfied with the result, you can have a formal hearing before ABR (Appraisal Review Board) members and a representative for the appraisal board, and present your data:
1) Comps from the appraisal board’s own site, in your neighborhood and section, for similar square footage and condition
2) Listings from your real estate agent that show why homes sold, or in some cases, could not sell at the asking price similar to your appraised value in a reasonable amount of time. If there are owner-occupied homes that sold for less than your appraised market value, those are great comps.
3) Any estimates in repairs that need to be done, and pictures of areas in need of repair, that can bring down you home’s value from market value.
The assessor’s office sometimes does not take all that into account when they assess your property. You may be overcharged, and it is your right to protest and reduce it to fair market value. They don’t always see it the same way as you, so have your data ready, not just your verbal opinion on what Sally and Stan said they sold their house for.
Any questions on why this is an important piece of homeownership and saving money? Call us. We’d be happy to help. Happy homeowners are our specialty!
Michael and PJ Rice, Realm Realtors, 832-265-2224 www.ricefamilyteam.com
From Old Town Spring Magazine:
Ten Things You Can Do on the Cheap to Update Your Home
By PJ Rice, Realtor, Realm Professionals
1) Throw on a plastic glove, grab a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser with just a tiny bit of water, and scrub down your light switches and plates. You’d be amazed to see the difference removing the dirt, skin oils and dust can do to improve the look of the rooms. If that doesn’t make a better impression, new switches and plates are inexpensive to buy and don’t take a lot of time to replace.
2) Change the plates on the outlets and the outlets if they don’t match, don’t hold the plugs in securely, are damaged, or have paint on them. A uniform look to small details like these makes a room nicer. You may not notice them once they are replaced, but when they don’t match or look shoddy, they bring down the overall look and value of your home.
3) Change the light bulbs everywhere in the house. Dusty light bulbs over mirrors make bathrooms look outdated. Dim bulbs in other areas make rooms look smaller, dingier, and make it harder to focus on the positives of the room. Brightly lit rooms make it easier to clean and can positively affect your moods and energy levels.
4) Stain your wood fencing. Even somewhat damaged fencing is going to look better with a uniform stain on it, which invokes a clean, new appearance.
5) Stain your grout. In most homes, the grout looked great when new and before high traffic turned some areas darker. Adding a slightly darker color to the grout to make it uniform is easier in most cases than trying to lighten the darker areas of grout and brings freshness to the flooring.
6) Paint or change the mailbox. If the mailbox is in great shape, painting the pole a shiny black or red can make it look even better. If it’s enclosed in brick, power wash the brick for a nicer appearance. If the brick is out of date, white paint can update it cheaply enough, and allows you to paint the house number on it more easily.
7) Power washed the front walkway but it’s still boring and stained? A couple coats of grey paint for patios can neutralize the inconsistencies and bright flowers on each side in pots every few feet can change the whole impression to something in 2008, not 1988.
8) Cut down low-lying branches of trees and those within three feet of the roof. Natural sunlight on the siding can help inhibit mold growth and enters the home to brighten rooms without needing extra lighting for longer in the day. The reduced shadows in the yard make it appear larger and cleaner.
9) Fertilize the yard once a month and water well. A bright, green, lush lawn cut and edged well makes the home look well-kept and worth more.
10) Grab that Mr. Clean Magic Eraser again and clean the walls with washable paint on them, particularly in the stairwell and hallways. Doorjambs and the handrail get more than their share of fingerprints and grime, and cleaning that off can brighten the areas within minutes, without needing to repaint to bring a more updated look to the space.
For more tips or helpful suggestions for updating or ensuring the value of your home, whether you plan on selling, leasing, or staying a while, contact PJ and Michael Rice, the Rice Family Team with Realm Professionals at 832-265-2224 or online at http://www.ricefamilyteam.com/. Happy homeowners are our specialty!
From The Visitor's Guide of Old Town Spring:
Keeping Money in Your Pocket Through Your Home, Part I
By PJ Rice, Realtor, The Rice Family Team
It’s great to turn out the lights when you aren’t in the room, turn off the water while the toothbrush isn’t underneath it, but are you missing another way to reduce your expenses when it comes to your home, and something you can do by April 30th to ensure your savings?
There’s a murky side to homeownership. It can be confusing and intimidating when you look at paperwork concerning your home, and most people take the huge legal-sized folder they got at closing and promptly put it away to collect dust. It’s filled with terms you don’t usually use, and forms that you assume benefit you in some way, but you assume if it’s important, the mortgage company will send you letters reminding you of it. Not true.
Mortgage companies do not handle things like your homestead exemption or tax protests, both of which can save you money. They won’t send you the forms, and they don’t care if you have the tax breaks working for you. But we do. We were once very clueless about what the process was, and we see it quite often in other homeowners, especially new ones. It doesn’t need to be so hard.
If you bought your house last year in 2007 in Harris County, you were most likely given a form to apply for Homestead Exemption. If you do not know if you got it, or you have no desire to look through the 1500 pages of stuff in your closing folder, you can go to http://www.hcad.org/ and click on forms, then scroll down to residential forms, then click on Form 11-13. They have a fillable version as well if your handwriting leaves something to be desired. 3 simple steps to get to a money-saving form that works for years once it’s filled and sent in.
The form has descriptions on the second page to help you determine which exemption works best for you. Generally, if you own one home, are under 65, and not legally classified as disabled, you will check the box for General Residential Exemption. What this does is gives you extra protection for this property in case you ever had to face a foreclosure, and gives you a tax break once it’s processed and for as long as you own the home, unless you fill out of form to switch it to another house.
If you have owned your home for a while, you probably filled out the form for Homestead Exemption, but to be sure, you can go to http://www.hacd.org/ and click on records search. We usually search on real property search using owner name, and then click on the account number next to the name to pull up the home’s info. Halfway down the page on the home’s info, there is a spot on the left that says your exemption type. Does this type of exemption still describe you? Or, for example, have you turned 65 and can apply for a new exemption? If your status has changed, you can get a better tax break by filling out a new form and sending it in with the paperwork they need. Deadline for filing the Homestead Exemption form is April 30th, 2008.
This is a great tool to save money, and there’s no need to clip coupons or scour the sales rack. It’s used to reduce the percentage of value of your home they collect taxes on. Depending on the value of your home based on HCAD’s assessment, this can be a substantial savings yearly. Reducing the assessed tax value of your home can also save you money, and we’ll detail how to do that and how we can help next month! Until then, get your form filled out and sent in, check to make sure you are getting the exemption you deserve if your status has changed, and call us with questions. We’d love to help. Happy homeowners are our specialty!!
Michael and PJ Rice, Realtors The Rice Family Team 832-265-2224 http://www.ricefamilyteam.com/
and the wonderfully written follow-up:)
Keeping Money in Your Pocket Through Your Home, Part II
By PJ Rice, Realtor, The Rice Family Team
So you got your Homestead exemption is, or it has been in for a while at the Tax Assessor’s office. Now you just sit back and allow the tax assessor’s office to assess your property at full market value and pay your taxes like a good citizen? Well, kind of. Protesting your taxes is not unpatriotic, pulling one over on the government, or hard to do. It is simply making sure you are paying more than you should in taxes, like checking the receipt at the store to make sure you weren’t overcharged.
When you find out the tax assessed value of your home (in Harris county, the site is http://www.hcad.org/ and in Montgomery county it is www.mcad-tx.org/html/records.html ), you need to decide if you think that is a fair assessment or if it off the mark completely in regards to your comparable neighbors. If you think it is unfair or unequal or there are errors in how your property was assessed, you can protest your tax assessment and try to get the value decreased, which helps save you money without having to change your lifestyle.
Both sites have a Forms page, where you will need to click and then print out a form to protest your taxes. For HCAD click on Forms, then General Forms, and is 41-44 Notice of Protest. For MCAD click on Forms, then Notice of Protest. Fill in as much as possible, checking off the boxes pertaining to why you are protesting your taxes. Both county’s forms have a Section 4, where you can give an opinion of value. I would recommend leaving that blank until you have further research if you are wanting to protest based on unequal or unfair value. The forms are due into the appraisal office by May 31 at midnight. Then they will process your paperwork and schedule a hearing.
You can enlist that tax site in your research, by searching your street and other properties in your section, noting which houses have a similar square footage and grade of condition and lower appraised market values. Those are great comps that you can print out and use in your protest. There are the occasional larger homes assessed for less than or equal to yours. That is a good one to present, as it can show that your assessment is too high.
Sales made in the last calendar year (you’re protesting 2008’s tax value now, based on 2007 info) are what the appraisal boards use to assess your home’s market value, but numbers are not everything. Foreclosures usually are not included, but sometimes, if that’s the majority of the comps in your neighborhood or there are so many listed that you’d have a hard time selling yours for a better price, the assessor will reduce your appraised market value to lower, if you can present your argument with verifiable facts about why your owner-occupied home cannot sell for the tax assessed market value.
Good tools to have on hand when you go for your hearing, which is usually an informal one first and if you are unsatisfied with the result, you can have a formal hearing before ABR (Appraisal Review Board) members and a representative for the appraisal board, and present your data:
1) Comps from the appraisal board’s own site, in your neighborhood and section, for similar square footage and condition
2) Listings from your real estate agent that show why homes sold, or in some cases, could not sell at the asking price similar to your appraised value in a reasonable amount of time. If there are owner-occupied homes that sold for less than your appraised market value, those are great comps.
3) Any estimates in repairs that need to be done, and pictures of areas in need of repair, that can bring down you home’s value from market value.
The assessor’s office sometimes does not take all that into account when they assess your property. You may be overcharged, and it is your right to protest and reduce it to fair market value. They don’t always see it the same way as you, so have your data ready, not just your verbal opinion on what Sally and Stan said they sold their house for.
Any questions on why this is an important piece of homeownership and saving money? Call us. We’d be happy to help. Happy homeowners are our specialty!
Michael and PJ Rice, Realm Realtors, 832-265-2224 www.ricefamilyteam.com
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