Trina's Fall Home Maintenance Tips and Market Update

​Fall is my favorite time of the year. I love the crisp air and time it allows for friends and family. However, there is work to be done to ensure your property stays in tip top shape over the winter. Here is my quick and easy list to prepare. If you complete just a few of these projects each weekend, you will be able to relax and enjoy the fall colors, football games and the apple orchard with the peace of mind in knowing you are ready for the snow and ice.
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• Contact a landscaper to do a fall clean up or spend some time raking the leaves and cutting back overgrown or dead vegetation. Make sure nothing is blocking the windows or path to the entrances.
• Trim trees that are near your house to prevent branches weighed down by ice and snow from falling on your house and potentially damaging your property.
• Consider calling MassSave to have an energy audit. You will receive some free items and a huge discount on adding additional insulation in your attic. This can help prevent ice damning and also save you on heating costs. They also provide incentives for replacing that old boiler!
• Clean your gutters and add ventilation in your attic to help prevent ice damming. The main cause of ice dams is heat escaping through your roof.
• Turn off all your exterior plumbing fixtures and have your sprinkler system winterized by a professional.
• Have your driveway sealed to help it last longer through the winter frost and all the salt used on the roads.
• Have your fireplace and chimney inspected and cleaned to make sure it is safe to start a cozy fire.
• Clean out your dryer vent!  This is often forgotten and it is a potential fire hazard.
• Wash your windows and remove your screens so you can enjoy watching the leaves and early snow fall.

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​Fall Real Estate Market Update

In the past few years, the Fall Real Estate Market typically came with a slight cool down after busy spring and summer season. 2016 is different. This Fall Market is adding days, weeks, and months to the most productive Real Estate year we’ve had in a decade.

Buyers are Looking at The Numbers
Unlike the window-shoppers who come out in spring, Buyers in the Fall are motivated and ready to move. They usually have impending reason to be moving; New job, new school, new tax incentives.
Current mortgage interest rates make purchasing a million-dollar home today feel like purchasing a seven hundred-thousand-dollar home in the 1990s. They are that good. Buyers are ‘saving’ that much money. After the November elections, chances are rates will rise in 2017. So, buyers are looking to get into new homes before the fed makes them more expensive.

Inventory is Steady
During the past few years, if buyers didn’t find and close on a home in the Spring and Summer Market, they would just have to wait until next year for more (or the same) houses to come on the market. Not so this year. Home Prices have appreciated to a point that are so attractive to homeowners that many clients are contacting me to sell even though they hadn’t considered it before this season.

Enjoy the Season
If you are interested in taking advantage of this unprecedented fall housing market, give me a call and I can show your home while you’re out enjoying this beautiful weather.