Buyers want to know all about your home

June 8, 2019

Sellers in today’s market are looking to make their homes more appealing to buyers. Besides having your home professionally staged, having your home professionally inspected is a benefit to both you and the buyer. A homeowner who has had a pre-home inspection takes the risk out of losing a potential buyer when the buyer obtains their home inspection. There are over 33 areas home inspectors will check. One would be the furnace and central air unit. A cracked heat exchanger on older furnaces is among one of the more expensive repairs. Realtors will sometimes suggest you call a ...

Looking back on lack of luxuries

June 6, 2019

There are times when we go through difficult experiences. This spring has been one of those times for us. I lost a brother and sister within three weeks of each other. As you can guess, it leaves a void in my life. While my brother lived in Arizona, I could still pick up the phone and talk to him. My sister lived in Sebring and I could get down to see her occasionally. One of the things both families wanted me to do was make some comments at their memorials about our experiences when we were growing up. This caused me to reflect about what life was like as a family back in the 1930s ...

Financing and land contracts, part 3

June 1, 2019

Land contracts can be a very valuable tool for buyers or homes that don’t normally qualify for a typical mortgage. However, recently, there has been a wave of unscrupulous sellers who have been using them to lure buyers into homes under terms that are unethical, if not illegal. Here is where the old adage “if it seems to good to be true, it probably is” comes in. First, buyers should not treat a land contract purchase any different than any other sale. Buyers should tour the home with a Realtor to make sure the asking price is in the proper range. If the buyer and seller come ...

Viewed history in the making

May 24, 2019

As a senior citizen, I often wonder how time flies by so quickly. Sometimes, it astounds me to reflect on how many historic and society-changing trends and events I have witnessed in what seems like such a short time. I was born on Aug. 14, 1941, in a small hamlet called Bridgeburg in western Pennsylvania, just a few months before Pearl Harbor. Naturally, I do not remember the Japanese attack on that Dec. 7, 1941. However, as a 4-year old, I do remember V-J Day as sirens blew constantly in celebration at our nearby brickyard where my father was employed. As a 6-year-old in 1947, I ...

Partner public, private for EV growth

May 19, 2019

Editor’s note: Editor Brenda J. Linert’s column will return next week. When I worked in Mahoning Valley economic development several years ago, I had a conversation with a local political leader regarding the auto industry. He wanted to propose a state bill to incentivize businesses to convert vehicles to run on compressed natural gas, or CNG. I thought it was a great idea, but why not include all forms of alternative fuels, including electric? States like Colorado already had introduced such tax credits, allowing the market to determine which technology is best. The politician ...

Financing homes and land contracts, part 2

May 18, 2019

As we discussed last week, land contracts have one huge difference from cash or bank financed sales — the seller has risk after the sale’s closing. If the buyer defaults (doesn’t pay the mortgage), the seller still has the house and is not getting money. For this risk, most sellers expect to be paid a higher interest rate. This is usually accounted for in both a higher interest rate paid to the seller and specific terms that might allow the seller some control over the house until it is paid off. These terms might prevent the buyer from making substantial changes to the house, or ...