4 Ways to Get Involved in Your New Community

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Moving to a new place can be an exciting time, with so many new experiences before you. But it can also be intimidating, especially if you don’t know anyone in your new community. Taking the first step to meet people or to become more actively involved in your community is often met with no small amount of nerves, but just because it’s daunting doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Here are a few ways to become more involved in your community, and possibly make connections along the way.

Introduce Yourself to Neighbors

This may feel a little old-fashioned in the digital age, but it’s still effective. Once you’ve moved in, go around and say hi to your neighbors. You can introduce yourself and tell them a little bit about your story — how you came to live in the area and what you do. Make sure not to be self-centered in your conversation. Ask them about themselves, as well. Don’t feel comfortable going door-to-door to introduce yourself to your neighbors? Consider using social networks like Meetup to find groups for people who are new in town.

Volunteer

We’ve discussed volunteering before in 4 Places to Volunteer in Bryan-College Station. Volunteering is a way to be a part of something good and to give back to the community, but it’s also a way to meet people and become more involved in your community. Find a cause that you’re passionate about, whether it’s child illiteracy or poverty or homelessness. From there you can find a place to volunteer in your community, and in doing so you may learn of other opportunities that interest you.

Take a Class

Another way to find your people in your new community is to take a class based on your interest. If you’re crafty, you can take a painting or a pottery class. If you’re interested in cooking, take a cooking class. Why not celebrate your home in a new place by trying something new, like learning to play a musical instrument or starting yoga? It’s up to you, but in choosing something that interests you, you’ll be able to find others that have something in common with you.

Start a Group

Struggling to find something that strikes your interest in the classes and groups available in your city? Why not start a group? It can be a gaming group or a creative writing group or a group for new parents to swap advice. It may be slow-going at first, without a built in community, but you can promote your group through social media or put up flyers in relevant stores or coffee shops. Even if you start with a small group, that’s still the beginning of getting involved in your community.

Getting involved in your community can be the best part of your adventure in your new home. But it starts, of course, with finding your dream home. For that, contact a College Station realtor today to help you find your dream home in the neighborhood of your dreams.

Are You Ready For Your Open House

Open houses aren’t for every home seller, but if you have the right location and a housing market that works in your favor, it can be a great advantage when it comes to selling your house. Talk to a College Station realtor about whether or not an open house is the right choice for your listing. If so, however, it’s not a process you want to rush. How can you be sure that you’re ready for your open house? Follow these tips before you start to promote the big day.

Is Your Home Upgraded?

Before you even start listing your home, you should make sure you’ve repaired everything that needs to be repaired and made upgrades that will give you an edge in the market. Swap out your outdated kitchen and bathroom appliances for more modern ones. Invest in energy efficient windows and doors. Is your exterior paint fading? Time to repaint for a fresh look. Keep your lawn in trim shape and maybe add a few attractive features to boost your curb appeal.

Have You Staged Your Home?

Staging is an important step whether you plan open house or private viewings. It can also be a painful process for homeowners. Essentially, you have to remove the personal elements that made your house your own from view so that prospective buyers can see it not as your home but, hopefully, as their future home. Photos, toys and trinkets, and anything personal to your family should be removed. You may also have to rearrange your furniture to create a layout that appeals to more people, and may even need to remove some of your furniture for the time. If you have pets, you’ll want to keep them with friends or at a kennel for the day, and make sure to clean up any dander. Your realtor can help you determine what needs to stay and go when staging your home.

Have You Picked the Best Time?

Timing is everything when it comes to planning your open house. If potential buyers have to even consider taking time off work to view your house, there’s a good chance they’ll decide to skip it. The timing should be convenient to the most potential buyers. Sunday afternoon for about 2-4 hours is usually the most popular time. You also want to keep an eye on the weather. If it’s rainy or there’s some other adverse weather, you might have a smaller showing than you’d like. Better to have to reschedule for a fairer weather day than to stick to the original date and expect potential buyers to brave cold or stormy weather.

Once your house is staged and upgraded and the date is set, time to start printing out flyers with pictures of your house, posting social media events, and spreading the news. Of course, your realtor will be your best resource when it comes to marketing your open house and the listing in general. Talk to a College Station realtor today to get ready for your open house.

The Best Remodeling Projects That Add Value to Your Home

Thinking of making updates to your home before you put it on the housing market? Or maybe you’ve just bought your dream house and you want to put your own stamp on your home. Even if you’ve just moved in, you want to start thinking about things like home value so that you know you can get your money’s worth from your new home. These remodeling projects will not only make your home more comfortable to live in, but will help to optimize your home value.

Bathroom

An outdated bathroom can be a turn-off when viewing a home. It makes a clean space feel dirty, whether it’s simply old tiles or it lacks some of the most recent conveniences. On the other hand, a modern, updated bathroom feels sleek and clean, making an exciting impression on prospective buyers that justifies a boost in value. You can simply update existing features with newer versions, or add extra storage, better shower heads or upgraded faucets.

Landscape

Not all remodeling projects have to take place inside. Taking care of the scenery around your house is a critical part of boosting your curb appeal and thus, your home value. If your front lawn is too overgrown, time to trim those bushes to improve your view from the front window and start to mow the lawn regularly. Does your backyard look a little bare? Start planting a garden, whether it’s a traditional flowerbed or a more eco-friendly succulent garden. You can organize the landscape by creating a serene walkway or, if you feel like adding a water feature like a man made pool or a fountain.

Kitchen

Does your kitchen leave something to be desired? Maybe you need to add more lighting or update your countertops. Maybe you need more child-safe storage or more compact storage to leave a little more open space in the kitchen. A modern kitchen, like a modern bathroom, is an impressive draw to homebuyers and can make your home much more enjoyable and comfortable. You may also be able to make small changes that make a big difference, such as sanding and repainting your cabinets rather than buying new cabinets or changing the backsplash rather than repainting the entire wall.

Door and Window Replacement

This is a fairly small remodeling project, but makes a big difference. Your windows and doors not only add style and function to your home, but they have a strong impact on your home’s insulation and energy efficiency. If your windows and doors let in too much air, they can cause drafts and spikes in your heating and cooling. Consider replacing wood windows and doors, which require heavy maintenance, with more durable, energy efficient options like fiberglass. Fiberglass and steel entry doors, especially, are seeing a boost in home value.

Want to learn more how to get the most out of your dream home — or out of listing your home on the College Station housing market? Contact an expert College Station realtor today to help you through the process.

How to Know When It’s Time to Sell Your Home

It can be hard to know when you’re ready to sell your home. Maybe you’re eager to move and find a change of scenery. On the other hand, maybe you’ve lived in your home for years or decades and it’s hard to objectively tell when it’s the right time to let go. However, timing when it comes to selling your home is as important as timing in buying a home. If the housing market is wrong when you list your home, it may be on the market for months. If your finances aren’t ready, you could easily find yourself overwhelmed. Here are a few ways to know that it’s time to sell your home.

You Have Positive Equity

Don’t even consider selling your home without first figuring out how much equity you have. Equity is your home value less the amount of money that you owe on the home. In a housing crisis, many homeowners have negative equity, which means that paying off their mortgage would cost more than they would be able to get for the home. This is obviously not ideal unless you’re simply desperate to move. Ask a real estate agent to come up with an estimate for your home’s market value and compare that with the amount you still owe on your mortgage. Are you in the black? Then you’re probably safe to sell your home.

You’re Prepared For Obstacles

Everyone would love their home sale to go off without a hitch. They find the right real estate agent, list their home, and find the perfect buyer who makes a fair offer almost right away. However, it’s most likely that you’ll run into one problem or another when trying to sell your home. Maybe you struggle to find the right buyer. Maybe you need to make major renovations before you can list the home. Or maybe you receive an offer that seems perfect right away or multiple offers at the same time, but you want to ensure that you don’t rush into things. Do you know how you’ll respond to these obstacles? Discuss with your realtor common problems that might come up when selling your home and how to approach them.

You’re Emotionally Ready

Your feelings do matter when it comes to selling your home. After all, selling can be a stressful process, as well as a draining one. Your home is full of memories, and sometimes it can be hard to let go of those memories, even when you have to. Take some time to make sure you’re emotionally ready to let go of the home. If you live there with your family, sit everyone down and discuss the move so that you can know how everyone feels. You can discuss where to go in the next chapter of your life together, and you may find yourself excited about what comes next. Selling your home may not ever be easy, but you can be sure that you’re ready to move on before you do.

So is it the right time to sell your home? Talk to a College Station realtor today about how to ensure you’re ready and the steps to take to ensure a successful sale. How to Know When It’s Time to Sell Your Home

Best Places to Bike in Bryan-College Station

May is National Bike Month, as well as a beautiful, mild time of year for avid cyclists to break out their bicycles and and explore the community of Bryan-College Station from a new perspective. If you’re new to town, this is a great way for you to get to know your surroundings. Consider biking to work, or biking to the A&M campus if you’re a student, to save money on gas and lower your carbon footprint. Even if you’ve lived here for years, however, there may still be recreational bike trails that you haven’t tried out yet. Here are a few of our favorites.

Parks Loop

For a brisk bike ride that allows you to take in the beauty of College Station, try the Parks Loop. This route is only 6 miles, all told, but it takes you through various parks throughout College Station. It starts with Bee Creek Park, offering views of the eponymous creek, as well as smooth walking and biking paths and pavilions and greenery where you can rest. From there, you’ll head to Central Park, riding past the ponds and fountains that make this park stand out. Next, you’ll bike through Wolf Creek Park, a lakeside park perfect for camping or hiking various nature trails. On your way back to Bee Creek Park, you’ll also pass the Texas A&M Golf Club with beautifully kept greenery of its own.

Texas A&M

Whether you’re a student, a professor, or simply a local, you may have been taken by the beauty of the Texas A&M campus at some point or another. The 5,200 acres is full of classic architectural styles, beautifully old trees, and famed sports centers. Riding your bike around campus is a great way to get from one class to another easily while still taking in the scenery. However, even on the weekend, a loop around campus can be an invigorating and enjoyable workout. Even if you’re no longer a student, the size and scenery of the campus can offer a terrific guide when it comes to deciding where to bike on a sunny May morning.

Lake Bryan East Loop

This singletrack loop is an excellent option for more athletic cyclists. Scale hills and wild natural paths and get away from the day-to-day city life with the rugged Lake Bryan East Loop. However, because this is a pretty popular trail, you also don’t have to be a cycling expert to take it on. The paths are carefully maintained and well-loved, making it a good intermediate challenge. It contains twelve trails in total, from the twisty Octopus trail to Peaceful Woods. You can even bring a dog with you to run alongside your bike, as long as they’re kept on a leash.

Bryan-College Station is an excellent place to live for bike lovers, both during National Bike Month and throughout the year. Talk to a College Station realtor today about finding your dream home in the area and get started cycling.

3 Reasons to Buy Your First Home This Year

Everyone aspires to own their own home someday, but most of us don’t move out of our parents’ home and into our first purchased house immediately. Apartments tend to be a more common starter home, or rented houses. Renting has downsides — as the months or years go on, you could be paying more for a rental property than you would for a purchased house. But because the initial down payment to buy a home is so much more than monthly rent, many millennials and young professionals put off buying their first home until the right time.

If you’re looking for the right time, 2019 may very well be it. According to the 2018 Home Buyer and Seller Generational Trends, millennials actually led the way in terms of home purchases in recent years, despite the stereotype of millennials not buying homes. Here are a few reasons why it’s never been a better time to buy your first home.

More Homes On the Market

Last year, and even in the beginning of this year, there was a fear throughout much of the country of a “housing bubble,” in which the demand for housing far exceeds the supply, causing prices to shoot upwards. However, more and more homes are becoming available in 2019, so you have a better chance of finding your dream home without a long, stressful house hunt or bidding wars. As more houses become available, there’s also a chance that the market will swing in favor of buyers again. Since housing market trends can be rather fickle, it’s best to jump on this when you have a chance.

Sellers Are More Open to Lower Bids

Again, in the past couple of years, this wouldn’t have been true. In a housing bubble, buyers are lucky to get the house they want by offering the asking price. There was often a chance of entering a bidding war and having to offer something higher. Now, as we move back into a buyer’s market, sellers are more open to lower bids, especially if the alternative is that their house stays on the market for a month or longer.

Mortgage Rates Are In Decline

Mortgage interest rates can be a daunting prospect for first time home buyers. After all, why not just pay rent if you’re going to be paying mortgage for what seems to be forever? However, towards the end of 2018, mortgage interest rates began to drop. 2019 started the year with an average 30 year fixed mortgage rate as low as 4.45%. Much like the housing market, mortgage rates can change quickly, so applying for a mortgage while rates are still low is a good thing to take advantage of.

Buying a house for the first time can be an exciting process, as well as an involved one. To make sure you’re prepared to enter the house hunt and find the house of your dreams, reach out to an expert College Station realtor.

3 Reasons Your Home Isn’t Selling

Home sellers are often so anxious to close on the house so they can continue with their move that any amount of time on the market can feel like too long. However, if your home has been listed for longer than 30 days and you still haven’t found a buyer, there could be an actual problem with your listing. Whether it’s the house or the list price, it’s something you’ll want to take care of as soon as possible. The longer your house is on the market, the harder time you’ll have finding interested buyers. Can’t put your finger on why your home isn’t selling? Here are a few common reasons.

Your Online Listing

As we move further and further into the age of social media, online listings that are easy to find are essential to selling your home. A 2017 survey by the National Association of Realtors® found that 44% of buyers look at online properties first to narrow down their list. Additionally, your listing photos should be high quality. 89% relied on listing photos. If your listing photos don’t grab the attention of buyers from the moment they find your listing online, they may never bother to see your house in person.

Your List Price

Can’t find anything wrong with the staging of your home? Maybe you’re scratching your head because you’ve made all the necessary upgrades and repairs and your curb appeal is neat and eye-grabbing, but your house still won’t sell. If you can’t find anything wrong with the property itself, chances are your list price is too high. Talk to your realtor about what’s realistic for your property and lower it accordingly. If you don’t think the price needs to be lowered, consider changing your marketing strategy to attract buyers who will see the value in the home.

The Time of Year

There are no strict seasons when it comes to buying and selling homes. You can choose to list your home at any time of year, and there will be people who choose to move at any time of year. However, there are times when it will be easier to sell your home than others. In College Station, late spring/early summer is the time when people are most likely to move, especially for family homes. It allows kids in school to finish out the year in one place and start the year fresh in the next place. College students at Texas A&M will also be more likely to move around that time. You’ll have the best luck selling your home when you plan it according to market trends throughout the year.

Selling your home can be a tricky process, with so many variables that are important to your success. It helps to have a professional on your side to guide you through the process and negotiate with your best interests in mind. Contact your experienced College Station realtor today for more information about how to get your home off the market sooner.