Gerald Shelton

Welcome back to our ‘Buying a House‘ series.

Home designs and styles

We’ll start this article with a basic overview of home designs and styles. The different types are as follows:

Ranch-Split Level Single
Level
Split Foyer
1.5 Story
2 Story
Patio Home
Condominiums
Townhouse

To understand the difference between the types of homes, let’s look at some things that a person would normally consider when buying a home. If someone doesn’t want to go up and down stairs, it would be a natural assumption that a ranch or patio style home would best suit their needs. Someone who doesn’t want to mow the lawn would be more interested in a condominium or townhouse. Those with kids or a growing family would probably lean towards a split level, split foyer, 1.5-story, or 2 story. Especially if they need their own space.

Is the house adequate?

When we ask whether the house is adequate, we ask a fundamental question. Does your house look like Jones’ down the street? We all want to be different in some way, but being different in real estate isn’t always a good idea. This can have drastic consequences for the value of the house you are buying. If the house is a lot bigger or smaller than the other houses in the area, it won’t suffice. When buying a house, you never want to buy the biggest house because the value will never be maximised to its full potential. If you’re going to buy a house that doesn’t conform, buy the smaller house. Think about it with this example: Would Donald Trump live near you? Would his house help or hurt your value? The answer is that Donald Trump’s house would help the value of your house because he will always have the very best house. Your house, on the other hand, would hurt Donald Trump’s value because your house would lower its value. That’s why you see similar designs and styles in a neighborhood. The reason for buying a house that is smaller than any other house around is that the only way the value can go up is The cheapest addition anyone can make to a home is adding square footage. No one ever demolishes part of their home to make it reconcilable with their neighbors.

Things You Notice But Don’t Realize

Have you ever noticed that a neighbourhood always has more condominiums, townhouses, and patio homes for sale than a traditional neighborhood? There are many reasons for this activity, but we will cover the main ones. When buying a house, you have to look at the competition. Competition is what’s for sale nearby, how much and for how much compared to the house you want to buy. They are usually the first or last home buyers for these types of homes. This means the young married couple or the elderly who have become smaller. In these neighborhoods, there is always what I call a “fire sale. Someone is expecting a baby and needs more space, so they need to sell fast. When a fire sale takes place, there is always a drop in the asking price to try and sell it to one of their neighbors. This is a good strategy for them as all houses are identical. However, this is not good for you. This is also known as the substitution principle. Why should you pay more for the exact same thing when it’s for sale on the street? The value in these neighbourhoods is difficult to appreciate and increases in value because there is so much competition compared to a traditional neighborhood.

How and why surrender when buying a house?

It’s a shame there are as many deals on the market as there are today. It doesn’t make you any less of a person to look for a foreclosure or short sale when buying a home. A house is your largest savings account. If you look at these types of houses, they probably need repairs. This is perfect for you as a buyer. The market is slow and Lowe’s doesn’t sell that much. If Lowe’s doesn’t sell that much, then contractors don’t work that much. This will benefit anyone buying a home, as they will be able to take advantage of the discounts available to them in the market. The house down the street sells for $150,000, but the foreclosure sells for $65,000. The shield looks awful and is not very attractive in its current state. Take off the blinders and imagine the house down the street once the repairs are done. Let’s say the repair cost was $30,000 with the foreclosure. You immediately saved $55,000 by purchasing the execution. If you buy the house down the street, at least paint it to your liking. You are now in debt because you paid full price and spent money afterwards. There are mortgages to buy and fix from the get-go, so take advantage of them. The most famous is the FHA 203(k) loan. There is also a Homepath sponsored by Fannie Mae. You can check their website for available homes near you. You can also visit the HUD Home Store. You are again in debt because you paid full price and then spent money. There are mortgages to buy and fix from the get-go, so take advantage of them. The most famous is the FHA 203(k) loan. There is also a Homepath sponsored by Fannie Mae. You can check their website for available homes near you. You can also visit the HUD Home Store. You are again in debt because you paid full price and then spent money. There are mortgages to buy and fix from the get-go, so take advantage of them. The most famous is the FHA 203(k) loan. There is also a Homepath sponsored by Fannie Mae. You can check their website for available homes near you. You can also visit the HUD Home Store.

When buying a house, be careful not to buy with short-sighted thoughts. Buying a home is an investment you make today, but it is one of the most important investments you make for your future. If you buy a home today, it provides the equity for security in the worst real estate market. It’s a long-term savings account to draw from if you ever need it.

Located in the region known as the Coconut Coast in Bahia, Lauro de Freitas is one of the largest job creators in the country. The city, located 15 km northeast of Salvador, is a centre of economic activity and growth in the region.

People who want to live and work in the Lauro de Freitas area can make a good investment by buying a house there.

Although Lauro de Freitas is more of an urban place, it is not far from beautiful beaches. Three excellent beaches, Ipitanga, Vilas do Atlantico, and Buraquinho, are nearby. Living in Lauro de Freitas gives you the best of city life while still being close enough to nature to enjoy its peace and quiet.

Houses in Lauro de Freitas are good investment opportunities, whether you are buying for capital appreciation, rental income, or for your own personal use.

An overview of houses in Lauro de Freitas

As in most urban areas, houses in Lauro de Freitas are usually well-planned units in nice apartments or gated communities. Typical lot sizes range from 100 to 500 square meters, although houses are also available on lots of 1000 square metres or more. You get farms where the land can be several thousand square meters.

Most houses have more than one storey, and the construction is modern with excellent finishes. Many homes have high-quality porcelain or similar floors. Swimming pools often have nice features such as LED lighting and whirlpools. Most of the houses are new, and you will also find some that are still under construction.

A two-story home in a gated community can cost anywhere from $85,000 to $450,000, depending on location, size, and facilities provided. Homes on larger lots or with many amenities will usually be priced above $500,000.

On average, the price of a home in Lauro de Freitas will be around $324,700. The prices of farms depend on the location, the size of the land, and the size and quality of the construction.

Under $200,000 for Small Homes

The lower end of the range offers compact homes in the towns of Abrantes, Ipitanga, and Buraquinho. Prices start at as low as $85,000. In this price range, you can expect houses with a built area of 75 to 130 square metres on plots of up to 200 square meters.

You will likely find houses with two bedrooms, usually at least one of which is a suite. Depending on the price, you can find houses with up to three suites.

A swimming pool and garden may be available as part of the communal facilities in some apartments. Most of the houses on offer have open parking for one or two cars, and at the higher end of the range, you may have other facilities such as a service area.

Homes priced between $200,000 and $350,000 that are comfortable.

Most of the houses in this series are located in the towns of Villas do Atlantico, Alphaville or in the town of Lauro de Freitas. The built area will range from 180 to 570 square metres on plots of 200 to 500 square metres in Vilas do Atlantico.

These houses are usually not too far from the beach. In Alphaville, you are likely to find homes built on larger plots of 300 to 800 square feet.

Homes, regardless of location, are located in areas where you don’t have to travel far for everyday needs. You will find shopping facilities, schools, hospitals, and shopping centres nearby.

In this range, you can expect houses with a minimum of four bedrooms and a minimum of one suite, but there are also houses with a maximum of six bedrooms or three suites.

Some of the larger houses have a swimming pool and a garden. There are usually multiple parking spaces available, as well as service areas, 24 hour security, a family room, a party room, a play area, a BBQ area, and water storage facilities.

Purchase a house in a nice apartment for between $350,000 and $400,000.

With this kind of budget, you can find houses in nice apartments in Alphaville or in the city in Lauro de Freitas. Houses are quite large, with 240 to 400 square metres of construction on plots of 400 to 500 square meters. A typical home has four bedrooms, with more than one suite.

In addition to the facilities listed in lower price ranges, you can expect a well-designed luxury swimming pool and some additional facilities such as solar water heating and staff quarters. The apartments usually have good-quality communal facilities such as playgrounds, well-designed or landscaped gardens, clubs, and tennis courts.

Lauro de Freitas Luxury Homes in the $400,000 to $600,000 Range

In this price range, you will find houses in chic locations in Lauro de Freitas or Busca Vida in beautiful gated communities. The plot size can vary from 300 to 1000 square meters, and a built area of 300 to 400 square metres can be expected.

Most houses have three to four suites, basic equipment, a pool, a garden, and space to park several cars. You can expect the design and build quality to be some of the best in the region.

If you want to buy a house near Salvador, you should take a look at the houses in Lauro de Freitas and the nearby areas. You are more likely to find a home that fits your needs and budget if there are a lot of different kinds to choose from. This is true no matter why you want to buy a home. 

So, you want to sell your house. Have you already chosen your offer price? A lot of people drive on that number. If your home is priced right, it can mean the difference between a quick sale and months or years of hell. So, in an effort to educate sellers, I’m going to tell you how to find out what your home is really worth.

Conventional wisdom will tell you to engage a broker or broker. They will visit your home, look up comparable sales in your area, and then give you an opinion on the value of your home. But please understand their rationale before accepting that number as fact. In a nutshell, agents will often tell you a higher number and assure you that it will sell without making repairs because they want you to sign an offer agreement with them. It is human nature to choose the agent that gives you the highest number and the smallest repair list. Once you’re stuck, rest assured that if it doesn’t sell right away because your price is too high, they’ll encourage you to lower your price.

Not that it’s a bad idea to ask an agent, but make sure you do your homework too. So, how do you find out what your house is worth? Well, there are several ways, some more accurate than others.

The easy way is to just look up your home on one of the home value websites. It’s as simple as entering your address and getting a number. The problem with this is that they are not very accurate because they cannot account for the characteristics and problems of individual properties.

The proper way to do this is to look up recent sales in your area of homes that are similar to yours. Then adjust that number based on your own home and the properties around you.

Let’s take a closer look at the easy and right ways:

easy, but not very accurate.

There are several websites that will give you an approximate value for your home. Zillow.com is probably the largest and best known. You type in an address and it gives you an estimate (they call it an “estimate”) and a likely range of values for that house. It’s not bad, but not great either. I find the pit is often a bit high. I guess they inflate the numbers so as not to piss off their audience. I find the actual market value is lower, closer to the bottom of the estimated range. However, Zillow gives you a lot of other useful information. You can see price trends and home sales history, so you can see how long it took to sell and how many price reductions they had.

Other sites to check out include HouseValues.com and CyberHomes.com.

properly and most accurately.

Any real estate professional, such as a real estate agent, appraiser, or lender, will tell you that the price range for your home is determined by the recent sales (in the past 6–12 months) of comparable homes in your area. Most homes in a given neighbourhood will be of the same age, style, and size. Even if there is variety, chances are there will be several that are similar to yours. What those comparable homes sell for determines the price range for your home. If the three recent sales of comparable homes in your area sold for $190,000-$230k, your home is probably not worth $295. Be as objective as you can and compare your home to those three. Don’t worry about assigning value to bonus elements of your house just yet; just compare your house to the others based on the common features in all the houses. In particular, how do your kitchen, bathrooms, floors, and systems (oven, electrical, roof, windows, etc.) compare to those three recent sales? Let’s say yours is in between, not the worst or the best, so your home has a base value of $210k.

Good sites to find the recent sales in your area are Realtor.com (search for “Recently Sold” instead of “Homes For Sale”) and Zillow.com (once you find your home, browse about 2/3 of the way down the page and there’s a link on the right “See sales similar to [your address]”), or you can go to your local tax advisor’s website and search for recent sales.

This basis is then changed by the pluses and minuses of your individual home. If it is in bad shape, the value of the house will be reduced. If it has extras that other houses don’t (such as a large porch, bonus room, or premium kitchen or bathroom), then its value is increased.

For negative items, the rule of thumb is that items that are repaired or items that are obsolete are immediately subtracted from the base number, plus 10%. The 10% is essentially there to convince someone who loves the house to go through the pain and suffering of renovations after buying the house. So if your home has an old, outdated kitchen and bathrooms and needs $25k to update them, then you should expect to subtract $27,500 from that base number. Even at that lower price, the house may not have sold overnight. Buyers today want pristine homes. Renovations are a headache buyers generally don’t want to face. With so many homes on the market, they can be picky.

Some bigger problems, like wet basements, old electricity, leaking roofs, rotten cladding and siding, and leaky plumbing, are hard to quantify. Suppose your basement has a leakage problem. The floor doesn’t even have to have standing water, just be damp and smelly. Moisture can knock $10k off the price. Wetter than that will knock $20k-25k off the home’s value. Look at it this way: pretend you’re considering two equal houses, but one has a wet basement. How much cheaper should the wet house be to make you prefer it over the dry? See how those big problems have such a big impact on a home’s value? These bigger problems deter buyers, and to get buyers over their fear of the problem, you need to present a very attractive price.

Unfortunately, extra features don’t translate directly to the home’s value in the same way that negatives do. That nice $25,000 porch you added doesn’t necessarily add $25k to your home’s value. You are probably only adding $10k to the value of your home. It’s a sad fact, but in a buyer’s market, all the numbers work in favour of the buyer, not the seller. It’s a shame, but that’s how it works.

So, if your home has a base value of $210k, requires $25k in renovations, has a wet basement, and a porch that adds $10k to the value, it is worth $172,500.That can hurt, especially if you still had a 2007 value in mind, but 2007 prices are long gone. You can accept it now and sell your house quickly, or learn it the hard way through several price cuts over a very painful 12–18 month period.

You can, of course, solve those drawbacks yourself. But are you willing to hire a good contractor (one who does the job well, is insured, licensed, and handles all permits and inspections), check them to make sure the job is done right, and pay out of pocket for all those repairs? In this market, you probably won’t make a profit on your repair investment, but it can help the house sell faster. Or you can just sell it “as is” to someone like me, a real estate investor, and save months of work and worry, and get on with your life.

Turning your home into a vacation rental can seem overwhelming at first, but it doesn’t have to be. This is a process that you can really enjoy and have fun with! I’ve set up homes as vacation rentals dozens and dozens of times, both for my clients’ properties and my own homes. I understand what is involved and required in every aspect, from assuring that the property complies with the rules and regulations of the government authorities to making sure it has all the essentials that most guests need to have. In my dedication to ensuring that my clients continue to be successful with their vacation rentals, I often find myself in the role of a “Vacation Rental Consultant,” usually relating to government agency and code compliance, quality assurance, and ongoing property maintenance required to meet the current industry standards.

With that in mind, it’s important to start with the basics when deciding to offer your home as a vacation home to travelers. In this article, I’ll give you the five most important steps you need to follow to ensure your vacation rental’s success. As you read this, I suggest you remember that your home is in a unique town or city, that this article is a general guide, and that it’s critical that you become aware of your sentiments and rules. local community and regulations on short-term rentals. Always remember that your home is a private property, not a hotel, and preparing your home and managing it as a tourist resort should be done carefully and carefully.

1—Laws, Regulations, Rules, and Regulations

The very first thing you need to do is educate yourself about the laws, ordinances, and regulations of your local city, county, and state regarding listing your home as a vacation rental in your unique neighborhood. Please don’t assume that it is your property and that you can do whatever you want with it. And please don’t put a lot of effort and expense into setting up your home as a tourist rental until you rule out the possibility that there are laws preventing you from doing so. Many local and state governments have clear rules that if you rent out your home as a vacation rental, you are running a business, and you will probably need city, county, and/or state permits.

A quick search of the vacation rental news shows that as short-term rentals become more popular, many communities have licencing restrictions and very specific rules and regulations regarding short-term rentals to tourists. Call your local municipality or city government and go to the appropriate licencing department that can answer your specific questions. Find out what specific permits and/or tax numbers you need to legally rent out your home and get them. I strongly recommend that you seek the assistance of an established, licenced local rental company who can properly assist you in understanding and complying with the licencing and tax requirements required in your community.

2-YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD AND YOUR NEIGHBORS

Now that you’ve established that it is legal to rent your home as a vacation rental and you’ve obtained the proper permits and tax numbers, it’s time to think about the neighbourhood where your rental home is located. This may seem silly, and many people are glossing over this important step, but trust me, you can save huge headaches and hassles with neighbours by proactively tackling this issue. Nearly every news article you read about communities resisting or trying to restrict vacation rentals points to the same problems with neighbors: rowdy tourists throwing loud parties; tourists taking parking lots from local residents; and tourists careless with their trash.

In all my years in the vacation rental business, I’ve seen several neighbour disputes involving law enforcement, the police, and even expensive lawsuits. Most of these problems could have been avoided with common sense and consideration. Find out who your neighbours are, and do your best to communicate with them and determine if they will resist renting your home to tourists.

Once you start renting out your home to vacationers, you must commit to being selective about who you rent your home to. It’s important to talk to them and determine if they’re a “good fit” for your neighborhood. Ask them directly what they plan to do while renting your home for their vacation. For example, if you discover that a potential guest is planning to rent your home for a wedding or birthday party, think about the impact on your neighbours and whether they’re okay with it. Some of the properties I manage are in neighbourhoods that only tolerate very quiet couples. Others are set up to accept larger groups, and the neighbours are clear about this and understand the rules. Know your neighbourhood and create your own ‘House Rules‘ that your tourist tenants must adhere to.

The biggest complaint most neighbours who live next door to vacation homes have is noise. Some neighbours are more “noise sensitive” than others, and you should know if your neighbour is going to call the police every time a group of holidaymakers sit around the pool and listen to music. Give neighbours who live next door to your rental home your phone number and ask them to call you immediately if there is noise pollution. And if there is a problem, call the guests and ask them to calm down. Since you are renting out your home to tourists, it is your responsibility to ensure that the guests you bring to your rental home are respectful of the local neighborhood.

3-YOUR HOME FURNISHED AS A HOLIDAY HOME

Decorating your home can be a chore if you’ve never done it before. Below is a very detailed list of basic home furnishing items that you should provide. This includes suggestions for bed configurations, kitchen supplies, soft goods, and household items. Your guests will be looking for the basic comfort that most of us look for in our daily lives.

Enjoy furnishing your home for tourists and strive for a balance between being nice and being frugal. If you’re aiming to attract a “higher” clientele, add some nice touches and things you’d appreciate being “a guest in your own home.” You don’t have to buy all the new items, but please don’t use clutter or your house will start to look like an unattractive garage sale. Add some interesting artwork, wall mirrors, artificial plants, and some nice trinkets—be careful not to overdo it or it could look messy. Some personal photos (a photo with your friends or family members) are fun to put on shelves; it reminds guests that they are in someone’s home and not a hotel.

Layout of suggested bed sizes

Your holiday home must be practical and ‘user-friendly’ as well as beautiful to look at. I have found the following general layout to meet the requirements of most guests: As a general rule, don’t put too many extra beds in a bedroom; you don’t want to send the message ‘the more the better’. If your home has an office or study, adding a desk or furnishing an office is a great feature.

Try to turn the “nicest” bedroom into the master bedroom. The most beautiful bedroom is usually determined by its view and features—such as an en-suite bathroom, private terrace, French doors leading to the pool or veranda—or it could simply be the largest bedroom if the property has no other unique features. offers. If your property has more than one bedroom with an en-suite bathroom and/or a view, then you are lucky to have a property that can be sold with more than one master bedroom or suite, which is a fantastic property. So couples travelling together don’t have to ‘flip’ for the best bedroom!