So you have bought a new house and now you need some help on how to redecorate or redesign a room.  Help is available at a great website called Houzz.  One person just posted a photo of their new bedroom and asked what in the world they could do to decorate it. The answers are quite helpful! For example,

I am in complete agreement with making the upper area of this a sitting area and placing your bed on the wall opposite to the bathroom opening. It appears the walls and the ceiling are the same color so you might want to consider changing one or the other to create some further visual interest.

I think this is a great space and I know many of my clients who are buying older homes which they had this kind of room to “figure out”

Houzz is a wonderful web resource.

When people decide to buy or sell a home, they tend to obsess.  They watch the internet constantly to see if something new has been listed.  They search photos.  They compare prices. What I didn’t realize is there are certain behaviors of real estate obsession.  Inman News columnist Tara-Nicholle Nelson wrote a funny column about how to tell if you are obsessed,

The Open House Tic. This is a hybrid online and offline version of the fixation exhibited by those who get online every Friday and Saturday to prepare their plan of attack for Sunday open houses. This behavior is completely normal and, even, advisable, in actual house hunters — people who are actually in the market to buy a home, or even home sellers who are (wisely) seeking to scope out the competition.

But it takes on a compulsive element when people who have just bought a home, or have no intention of buying a home anytime soon keep open-house hunting as a weekly habit.

To be fair, this goes on the list of relatively harmless vices, except to the extent that it signals or churns up that feeling of constant discontent, that sense that the home you have is never quite enough.

This goes with the old real estate adage that people LOVE for realtors to drive them around to look at houses. Beware the obsessed!

Thinking about braving the housing market and putting your house up for sale?  The good news is it is entirely possible to sell your house. You may need to roll up your sleeves to get the house ready and Century21AffiliatedChicago has some tips on what to do. For example,

Get real about “Spring Cleaning”: Now is the time to scrub every surface of your home– from ceiling moldings to hardwood floors. Assume any potential buyers will be wearing white gloves. Wash or dry-clean curtains and bedspreads, get the carpets professionally cleaned (or replace them), make all the windows shine. Don’t forget vents, fans and behind appliances.

Clean, shine, replace, unclutter. It’s a great plan!

Not only does THIS win the best video of the week, but it’s also the BEST HOUSE EVER!

Hiding my secret desire to take photos of barns across the southern and Midwest countryside, I do gain some satisfaction in seeing barn houses when they are listed on the real estate market.  Today’s barn house is brought to you by MSNBC.com,

While the hay barn still looks like a barn from the outside, its interior has been completely transformed into a dramatic three-level living space with 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms.

The main floor holds a gourmet kitchen with two-story living room and stone fireplace. Below, the ground level holds a family room, office and bedroom. The master suite occupies most of the third floor and includes a loft area and full bath.

Except that barns – if not properly remodeled – could still attract field mice, I’d be all in!

One of the most challenging things about being a Realtor is delivering bad news.  The worst news I had to deliver was telling my seller one day before closing that the domino effect worked against us.  We had a solid buyer who had a solid buyer for her house. Except her buyer wasn’t so solid and was denied the home loan the day before closing.  So my seller could not sell because the buyer could not buy because her buyer was out, too.

My seller spent 30 minutes yelling at me. It was terrible and one of my worst ever real estate memories. I had done MY job, but I had no way to know whether the buyer’s buyer was good.

Don’t shoot the messenger when they deliver bad news. When You hear that it hurts us as much as it hurts you, that’s true.  Alan May of Evanston, Illinois shares his own experience about bearing bad news,

I contacted the agent, told her that the inspection had been horrific, and we were canceling the contract.  She asked what the issues were… I told her she didn’t really want to know.  To her credit, she said she DID want to know… and I told her.

She took the information I gave her, and went back to her client with many of the issues that we’d found… and told him that these things needed to be fixed.  He summarily fired her.

The seller should have been grateful to have an agent who was honest, even when delivering bad news. I don’t get people sometimes.

Wow… this is amazing!

States that suffered the most during the housing recession have the most to gain back, right?  I like that theory in general, but it doesn’t necessarily explain the ghost towns across the U.S.  However, Florida is looking pretty good according to myrealtorarthurswfl,

Only Nevada and California vied with Florida for being hardest hit by the housing crash, so it’s natural for Florida to enjoy a stronger turnaround than places where prices didn’t fall as far. Florida’s relative optimism on the sales front has been a recurring theme in the Beige reports this year.

There is some reason to celebrate. Since 2008, only Nevada has seen home sales grow faster, according to the National Association of Realtors. In 2008, the real estate bubble was rapidly deflating. Since then, sales are up 47 percent in Florida. That’s far ahead of most states, but well behind Nevada, where sales are up 62 percent.

While real estate growth remains stunted, at least there is something to look forward to in the coming years.

Photo by Phillip Pessar.

When my husband and I completed our first tax form after buying a home, I nearly jumped over the moon with happiness.  We went from getting about a $1,000 refund to SEVERAL thousand.  What a joyful day!  (Then when I became a Realtor and found out how much I had to pay, all that changed!)

However, the tax advantages of home ownership remain.  According to Inman News, there are some tax breaks for home owners. Here’s one:

Closing-cost deductions. Discount points and origination fees paid to your mortgage lender and/or broker at closing are frequently deductible, but there are rules around this, which tax software and/or professionals can help you make sure you meet. Note that, according to Internal Revenue Service Publication 530, “You cannot deduct transfer taxes and similar taxes and charges on the sale of a personal home.”

If you can buy – again – this is the time to just do it!