Throughout the homebuying process, you will encounter a number of expenses including, but certainly not limited to, an appraisal, transaction fees and a survey -- but none is more important than the home inspection. Dollar for dollar, there is no better use of your money, as a home inspection will not only outline the strengths and weakness of the house you are buying, but will show you how to operate it. Choosing the Right Type When you sit down with your real estate agent to prepare your offer, he or she will go over the different types of inspections you can choose from. While there are different inspection options -- radon, pest and mold, among others -- you first want to steal with a st

Fall is here. Days are shortening, and temperatures are dropping. Before long, many people will be firing up their furnaces for the first time in months and preparing for the winter ahead. Winter preparations for both apartment dwellers and homeowners are as simple or as involved as you want to make them. Almost every strategy is designed to save money by taking advantage of advance knowledge of the temperature change. Some strategies take more time and others save more money. Here are five changes that are simple to execute and can save money during the winter months. 1. Replace the weather stripping around your doors. If you can run your hand around the edges of an outside-facing door on a

WASHINGTON -- Routine use of small drones by real estate agents, farmers, filmmakers and countless other commercial operators was cleared for takeoff by the Obama administration Tuesday, after years of struggling to write rules that would both protect public safety and free the benefits of a new technology. The Federal Aviation Administration announced the creation of a new category of aviation rules designed specifically for drones weighing less than 55 pounds. The long-anticipated rules mean commercial operators can fly drones without special permission. Industry and government officials describe commercial drones as the biggest game-changing technology in aviation since the advent of the

glancing through real estate listings to the moment you sign the last piece of closing paperwork, the process of buying a house typically takes months. Much needs to happen during that time: showings, making an offer, completing a loan application, appraisal, and inspection. It’s enough to overwhelm even the most organized buyer. Buying a home isn’t cheap – and not just because your house is likely to be the largest single purchase you ever make. Closing on a home is a costly endeavor too. According to Zillow, U.S. closing costs typically range from 2% to 5% of the sale price. A Bankrate survey found that combined mortgage closing, origination, and third-party costs – which can all be lumped

Q. The buyer's home inspector was testing my automatic garage door closer to see if it would reverse for child safety. He placed a cardboard box in the door's path, and results were not pretty. The top panel of the door folded up under the pressure, bringing down a shower of broken glass. The inspector said this happened because the door closer was defective, and he assumed no financial responsibility for the damage that he caused. He said this was a normal testing procedure for a home inspection. Is this true? A. Compliance with child-safety standards for garage doors is an important consideration during a home inspection. However, methods for testing garage door closer's have been a subjec

A home in Albany New York should always to undergo a home inspection. More over, no matter where you live it is important to have a home inspection but in this article we would like to key in to why you specifically should get a home inspection if you are thinking of buying or selling in Albany NY (as well as the city’s/towns nearby). Before you sign a deal with the buyer or seller, it is always wise to get the home inspected to make sure that there are no hidden complications. When you are selling a home, inspections can help you find out if their are any faults and give you early situational awareness to the problems. Unless everything is in order and the home is declared fine by the ins

The recall of more than 29 million IKEA chests and dressers that have been blamed for the deaths of three children are a stark reminder of the hidden hazards in your home. While many people are familiar with the usual suspects — lead paint (common in homes built before 1978) asbestos, mold, radon, and PCBs — they may not be aware of others. Here are four hazards hidden that may be in your home: The wrong smoke detectors Most houses have smoke detectors installed (at least 96%, or 111 million, homes in the U.S. have at least one, according to the U.S. Fire Administration), but many of them could be the incorrect type — and potentially deadly. There are two major kinds, ionization and photoele

Renovations can take weeks — and sometimes months. That means endless days of subcontractors traipsing through your home, noisy tools, and major dust. Even some minor projects can disrupt your daily routine. Before you begin to remodel, know what’s in store for you and your family. We’ve highlighted nine common remodeling projects that homeowners are likely to undertake — projects that require professional contractors and that take at least one week to complete. We also talked with veteran remodeler Paul Sullivan, who has renovated homes for 34 years and is president of The Sullivan Company in Newton, Mass. Sullivan helped us rate each project on a “disruption scale” of 1 to 10, with 1

A man’s home is his castle, as goes the famous saying. Every man working today is aiming to build a house one day, small, large or exclusive

One of the oldest dreams in our current capitalism driven world is to buy you a house (with white picket fences, and a two car garage). This

Every man wants to built a house for himself, be it an ordinary bar tender or the President of the United States; both of them want to have

Buying a house and making it into a home is one of the largest pursued dreams in the world. Nobody wants to pay rent all their life or end u