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Overwhelmed at the thought of owning and caring for your own home? It is a big responsibility – but it’s a big responsibility that comes with huge rewards. The right repair tools and good home maintenance tips can turn this “big responsibility” into a road to the easy life. Stick to the home maintenance basics on a month to month basis and run through seasonal home maintenance checklists as the seasons change. You may find that the rewards for maintaining your new home far outweigh any of the difficulty you may have feared.
It is similar to visiting a doctor. You can wait for a medical catastrophe to force you to seek assistance from a healthcare professional, but most find it more advantageous (and pleasant) to consult with a doctor regularly. It allows them time to address small issues before they escalate into dangerous problems. Regular checkups are just like routine maintenance of your home. Regular, routine home maintenance can help homeowners to prevent costly repairs in the home and keep new homes looking just as fabulous as they did on closing day.
Routine Maintenance: This can be as simple as keeping an eye on things around your home and completing monthly home improvement projects so it’s easier to follow the planned maintenance schedule. Sticking to a schedule or “routine” in home maintenance saves homeowners time and money.
Monthly Routine Maintenance Checklist:
Spring Seasonal Maintenance Checklist:
Sticking to the routine of monthly and seasonal maintenance makes it easier for homeowners to get to know their new home and keep the different systems in the home running smoothly.
For additional hints and tips on how to maintain your new Lennar home, please visit www.Lennar.com.
Lennar’s Easy Street gives homebuyers the opportunity to tour 13 model homes at Concord Station in Land O’Lakes.
When looking for a new home, we understand that homebuyers want to know exactly what they’re getting before they make a purchase that will affect their entire family. Looking in a master-planned community comes with the advantage of being able to tour a variety of model homes with different floor plans and features before making the big decision.
Often times, however, there is only a small selection of models and floor plans. On top of that, many builders’ model homes are shown with features that don’t come included in the list price, which doesn’t give buyers a complete picture of what their new home will be like.
Lennar’s new Easy Street model showcase center in Land O’Lakes takes the guessing game out of buying a home and makes it convenient for buyers to see all of Lennar’s floor plans in one location. Here’s how Easy Street makes buying a Lennar home in Pasco County, well, easy:
Tour 13 model homes on one convenient block
Easy Street visitors can see the debut of 13 of Lennar’s newly launched floor plans ranging in size from 1,612 to 3,770 square feet. All 13 model homes are on one walkable block in the community of Concord Station, just north of State Road 54 and east of U.S. Route 19 in Land O’Lakes.
From a one-story home with three bedrooms to a two-story home with five bedrooms, Easy Street has a home that fits your family, lifestyle and budget.
With Lennar’s ‘Everything’s Included’ program, your new home comes with all the upgrades
The homes on Easy Street are part of the “Legacy Series,” and are outfitted with some of Lennar’s most popular luxury features. Instead of costing extra, each of the features in the model homes, such as GE® stainless steel appliances, granite countertops, ceramic tile flooring and more, come included with the list price as part of Lennar’s “Everything’s Included” program. That means all the upgrades in the model will also come in your new home.
Find the perfect home for your family
Easy Street was designed to make the process of buying a Lennar home as effortless and enjoyable as possible. With so many floor plans available to tour, you’re bound to find the perfect fit. Easy Street at Concord Station is located at 19025 Umberland Place in Land O’Lakes. For more information, call 877-202-4749 or visit LennarEasyStreet.com.
Lennar San Antonio is proud to announce it has opened a new section of homesites in its popular Willow Grove community in Schertz.
Featuring the Oak Knoll III and Lakeside Collections, Willow Grove currently offers 12 open and flowing floor pans, including The Home Within a Home® floor plan. The new homes range from 1,771 to 3,000 square feet, include one- and two-stories and currently start from the $240’s. Standard features include granite kitchen countertops, 9-foot ceilings (per plan), covered patios, fully sodded front and back yards and much more. Quite of few of the new homesites feature beautiful, large native trees, making for some of the best available homesites in the Schertz area.
“Willow Grove is incredibly convenient to Randolph Air Force Base, literally just a few minutes from base,” Tony Cerna, III, Director of Sales and Marketing for Lennar San Antonio, said. “We have homes available right now and in the coming months for military personnel and civilian contractors. You couldn’t ask for an easier drive to work.”
Residents attend Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City ISD schools, and the local junior high school is right across FM 1518 from the community. Residents can enjoy nearby Veterans Park, which features eight acres of mature trees along picturesque Cibolo Creek.
To visit Willow Grove and see the available new homes for sale, from IH-35 North and Loop 1604, take Loop 1604 east, exit FM 78 and turn right towards Randolph AFB. Follow FM 78 past Randolph for approximately for 2.4 miles, and turn right on FM 1518. Willow Grove will be about 2.2 miles down FM 1518 on the right. The Lennar Welcome Home Center is located at 10203 Colonel Ridge, Schertz, TX 78154. Call 210-202-3520 for more information.
According to RealtyTrac’s 2015 U.S. Home Sales Report, released last week, home sellers experienced an average price gain of 11% last year since the purchase of their home. That was the largest price gain for home sellers since 2007. This Bloomberg article from Steve Matthews highlights some of the details of the RealtyTrac report findings, as well as a Federal Reserve report on rising home’ equity.
Home-price appreciation is a welcome development for households whose nest eggs were shattered by the residential real-estate bust that began a decade ago.
The 2006-2009 housing slump reduced wealth by $7 trillion. Since then, the value of homeowners’ equity in real estate has more than doubled from a low in the first quarter of 2009, a Federal Reserve report showed. What’s more, housing wealth is poised to reach a new record as early as the second quarter, say economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and Pantheon Macroeconomics Ltd.
Some cities, including Charlotte, are already seeing prices at all-time highs. Home values in Dallas, Denver, and San Francisco and Portland, Oregon, all hit records in December, while they’re down less than 1 percent in Boston from an August peak, according to S&P/Case-Shiller indexes. About 38 percent of 87 U.S. metropolitan areas were in record territory last year, data tracker RealtyTrac figures show.
Foreclosures were filed on just 95,186 properties in January, an almost 10-year low, RealtyTrac data show.
Even in the worst-hit markets, home equity is being restored. Just 8.5 percent of properties had so-called negative equity in the fourth quarter, with debt exceeding their value, according to a report Thursday by consumer analytics firm CoreLogic Inc.
The number of homeowners with at least 20 percent equity is “rising rapidly,” Anand Nallathambi, president and chief executive officer of CoreLogic, said in a statement. “In 2016, we expect home equity levels to continue to build.”
Forbes has released its newest list of America’s Fastest Growing Cities, factoring in metrics including estimated population growth, job growth, economic growth and median salaries in 100 metros. Topping the list was Austin, pictured above, followed by cities including San Francisco, Dallas, Seattle, Orlando, San Jose, Raleigh, Cape Coral/Fort Myers, Denver, San Diego, Oakland, Charlotte, Phoenix, Portland, Las Vegas and Ft. Lauderdale. Here are some of the details from Erin Carlyle of Forbes.
California and Florida each place four metro areas on our 2016 list, while North Carolina and Texas scored two cities each. Austin regains the No. 1 spot after being toppled by Houston last year. Thanks to its booming technology, pharmaceutical and biotech industries, low cost of living, and cachet, the Austin economy remains on fire. Hordes of people are moving in (Austin’s projected 3.15% population growth rate in 2016 is the highest among the 100 metro areas we examined) to take advantage of Austin’s job opportunities (employment expanded 3.28% last year). The city has topped our list of Fastest-Growing Cities for five of the past six years (last year it slipped to second place).
The Golden State is well-represented on our list, with both San Francisco (No. 2) and Silicon Valley (No. 8) up significantly compared to last year, when they were seventh and 17th, respectively. The tech boom is paying well for college-educated workers in the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara MSA (Silicon Valley), where the $106,000 median pay is the highest among America’s 100 largest metro areas. San Francisco stacks up second in the nation at a median pay of $89,100.
Is downsizing to a new home the right financial move for retirees? It depends on your personal situation. But if you’re serious about cutting expenses, moving to a smaller home can be a terrific way to save, according to this CNBC article by Jeff Reeves of InvestorPlace.com.
When it comes to retirement planning, there are a lot of opinions on how much you need to save; eight times your salary and the 4% rule are just a couple rules of thumb out there.
Equally important to a comfortable retirement is not just the money you have, but also the expenses you’re tallying up, too. And reducing your monthly bills can be a powerful tool for savers who are either behind on savings or simply looking to do more with less.
If you’re serious about cutting expenses, the most obvious place to look for savings is your home.
“Often a house is the most valuable asset that people have, so it is the source of potential wealth in retirement,” Lori Trawinski, director of banking and finance with AARP’s Public Policy Institute.
Yes, there are potential savings by moving to a smaller place, even for someone with a significant mortgage or even someone who rents. But if you’re near retirement you should do some careful calculations before deciding to downsize.
Done right, there are a host of cost savings that can be found from a change in scenery. But you have to know what to look for beyond simply selling your house for more than what you paid.
“I think you have to look at it holistically, and I think it’s hard to look at any one lever to pull for savings,” said Chris Blunt, president of the investments group at insurance giant New York Life.
The good news, Blunt adds, is that a variety of items can add up to a pretty big difference in the monthly budget of Boomers who are willing to downsize. Those items can include taxes, access to public transit, health care, and the lower costs of utilities and insurance that come with a smaller home.
