Register Real Estate Advisors

As a new homeowner, what should you do?  Ever wonder what’s important after you move in?

Most likely your  builder gave you a homeowner’s book or guide for your new house.  Shortly after unpacking and settling into your new home, you should make a home maintenance checklist.  There are many systems in a new home that will require checking and testing regularly.  Some will need maintenance and repairs each year.  The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has a Home Maintenance Checklist that you can download from their website www.hud.gov.  It provides guidelines for keeping your home dry, clean, well-ventilated, free from contaminants, pest-free, safe and well-maintained.  This, plus your builder’s guide, should help you maintain your new home.

Next, protect your home from breakins.  Make sure you re-key your new locks.  If there is no glass in your front door, install a peep hole so you don’t have to open the door to see who is knocking.  Secure sliding glass doors with a long stick in the track that will prevent the door from sliding open.  Make sure all entrances to the home are well lit areas.  As your new shrubs grow, prune them so noone can hide in them.

Make a wildfire checklist of items to pack in case of wildfire in Texas.  Also, you will want to have a hurricane evacuation checklist, as Texas has a large coast.  Keep an emergency first aid kit and survival kit in case of a disaster.  Plan for services to be turned off (sewage, power, gas, electricity, water, telephones, and mobile devices.)  The Federal Emergency Management Agency recommends stockpiling at least three days worth of food and water for your family.   Their website www.ready.gov offers a list of items to include in a basic emergency preparedness kit, as well as guidelines on food and water storage and protecting yourself from airborne contaminants.

You should confirm that you have adequate insurance coverage, although if you went through a lender for a mortgage, they most likely confirmed your coverage.  However, if you paid cash, you will be the only one reviewing your policy to make sure you have enough coverage.

Most new homes are very energy efficient.  To save money on utilities you can still check your bulbs for necessary improvements.  If you don’t have a programmable thermostat, you may want to consider changing yours out.  Also, adding attic insulation and wrapping water pipes and water heaters can save on power bills.  The U.S. Department of Energy has an online Home Energy Saver™ tool for homeowners at www.hes.lbl.gov that recommends energy-saving upgrades that are appropriate for the home, the climate and local energy prices.

As a member of the GHBA, RREA received the Houston Custom Home Builders Resource Guide.  The article below was reprinted from an article in the 2011 Resource Guide.  I felt it was very informative for consumers and wanted to share it with you so when you purchase a new home, you will know how to maintain it.  It’s very important that you maintain the home so that the warranty will work in your favor.  I hope you enjoy this information:

Maintaining a clean home is one way to ensure its longevity.  Here are some tips for properly maintaining some of the systems in your new home.

Heating and Cooling Systems

• Late summer or early fall are the ideal times to do an annual inspection and cleaning of these systems.
• Change or wash the filters every three months.
• If you have a gas furnace, keep your pilot light burning during the summer to help keep the furnace dry and prevent corrosion.
• Registers help regulate the flow of air and maintain the desired temperature in your home.  Keep registers closed in rooms you don’t use to save on cooling/heating costs.

Plumbing

• Every member of your family should know where the intake valves are located.  Label each one.
• If any of your appliances develop a leak, inspect your drain trap.  A partially clogged drain can cause overflow.  Use a plunger or a plumber’s snake to unclog the drain.  If you need to, use boiling water to help unclog a partially opened drain.  Call a plumber if these techniques don’t work.
• A worn washer, a loose part in a faucet or steam in a hot water pipe are generally the causes of a noisy pipe.  Do not hesitate to repair the noise—vibrations can follow the noise and lead to leaks.

Gutters and Downspouts

• Clear away leaves, tree limbs and other debris from gutters and downspouts.
• Turn the downspouts away from your home’s foundation.
• Every four to six years, paint gutters that are not made of aluminum or vinyl to help prevent rust.

Remember to read the instruction manual for every appliance in your new home.  The manuals provide recommended cleaning and maintenance schedules.  Also familiarize yourself with any warranties you have on both the house and its systems.  Some warranties may be voided if problems arise because of failure to perform routine maintenance.

Have you heard about Energy InSight SM that is being offered by CenterPoint Energy?  There was a flier hanging on my door last week that explained it.  Basically, they came out and installed a new smart meter on my home and the flier included the details below.  I did not know they were planning to upgrade my meter, but it sounds like it will be beneficial to them and to me!

Smart meters make a new energy future possible.

• Remote meter reading – CenterPoint Energy will be able to read your smart meter remotely, virtually eliminating the need to come to your house to read the meter, which means fewer trucks on the road.
• Smoother transactions – Remote connection and disconnection of electric service should reduce the time it takes to process service orders for most home and some businesses.
• Automatic outage notification – Smart meters will automatically notify CenterPoint Energy about power outages, helping us restore power more quickly.
• Energy efficiency and savings – See your electric usage history to better manage your energy costs by making small changes such as adjusting your thermostat.
• Environmental benefits – If consumers conserve energy, less power may have to be produced, which is good for the environment.
• New products and services – Retail Electric Providers (REPs), who sell you
  electricity, can now offer new, innovative products and services.
• Home Area Networks (HAN) – Smart meters can interact with ZigBee-compatible HAN devices such as thermostats or other electric appliances so you can better manage your electricity use.

Would you like to have your meter upgraded?  You can call your Retail Electric Provider using the number on your electric bill.  Watch for additional features and benefits as these meters are deployed.

By using this new meter, you accept the terms after two weeks and can log onto www.SmartMeterTexas.com to check your usage.

What’s the catch??  It costs you money!

Texas law allows utilities to assess REPs a surcharge to recover the cost of smart meters.  The surcharge for each residential consumer, from February 2009 to February 2011, was $3.24 per month.  The surcharge has been reduced to $3.05 per month.  To learn more about these charges, visit CenterPointEnergy.com/EnergyInSight and click on Frequently Asked Questions or call 713-207-2222 or 1-800-332-7143 or visit CenterPointEnergy.com/EnergyInSight.

You may come home to a new meter and a flier on your door very soon!

COLLEGE STATION (The Battalion) – Architecture students at Texas A&M University have created a prototype of a “house of the future.”
The project involved looking at new ways to use existing technology and new architecture practices to construct new buildings.
“[The house] is not really using materials you would traditionally see in a suburban house. The house is actually constructed out of a carbon fiber layup process, so it’s basically layers of resin and carbon fiber, similar to what you would see in sailboat construction, cars and that type of thing,” said Mitchell Rocheleau, who worked on the project.
Students completed this project during the inaugural Mitchell Lab Visiting Designer Program. They partnered with California-based architectural research organization Emergent.

You know I graduated from The University of Georgia, but I have learned to appreciate those Aggies in College Station! It’s a fun town to pass through, too!

DALLAS (Dallas Morning News)
– Dallas added more construction jobs than any other city in the country from
May 2010 to May 2011 according to Contractors of America.

Construction jobs increased by 5,600 during that period — about a 5
percent increase.

Apartments and large public sector projects provided a large portion of the
gains, with single-family housing remaining low in job creation.

Eighteen other Texas metro areas had construction job increases as
well, including Houston, which had the fourth largest increase.

A $200,000 home costs more than a $185,000 home, right? Well, yes and no. Assuming the same type of financing for both homes, the $200,000 home does cost more initially. But many factors contribute to the overall long-term cost of a house. Here are some things to keep in mind when trying to determine the true cost of purchasing a particular home:

• Does it have a pool or hot tub that requires maintenance?
• How much yard maintenance is required and who will perform it?
• Are there trees that should be removed?
• What are the utility costs? Although your usage won’t be exactly the same as the current owners, you may be able to get their utility bills for the past year from them or directly from the utility company.
• How soon will the roof need to be replaced?
• Does the house need repainting?
• Does the electrical system need upgrading to handle the load for your appliances and electronics?
• Does the home have aluminum wiring, lead-based paint, or other safety or health hazards you will want to address?
• Does the house need new carpeting or flooring?
• What remodeling projects do you see as a must?
• Will appliances need replacing?
• What are the estimated property taxes for the property?

Also, be sure to get a professional inspection to identify other potentially costly problem areas.

2004 by the Texas Association of Realtors, All rights reserved.

Here are seven ways to cut the cost of your home insurance from http://helpinsure.com , a Texas customer-friendly Internet site. These are tips to help you save on your homeowners insurance.
1. Shop around – and do it early! Check with several different home insurance companies to get rate quotes. (An independent insurance agent can provide rate quotes from a variety of companies.) And definitely do it well before your policy expires, just in case you run into any snags along the way.
2. Raise your deductible. The deductible is the amount of money you have to pay toward a loss before your insurance kicks in. Home insurance deductibles usually start around $250. However, if you increase your deductible to:
$500, you’ll save up to 12% on your premiums
$1,000 ? Save up to 24%
$2,500 ? Save up to 30%
$5,000 ? Save up to 37%
3. Buy your home and auto policies from the same company. Many companies will give what’s called a “multi-line” discount if you buy both home insurance and auto coverage from them.
4. Don’t skimp when buying a home. If you’re looking at buying a home, think about the cost of insuring the home. A newer home’s electrical, heating, and plumbing systems and overall structure are likely to be in better condition than those of an older home – and can lead to a discount on your premiums.
5. Insure your home, not the land. While your home and its contents are at risk from fire, theft, windstorms, and other perils, the land your home sits on is not. Don’t include the value of the land in deciding how much home insurance you need to buy.
6. Improve security and safety. Items such as dead-bolt locks, burglar alarms, and smoke detectors can usually bring discounts of 5% each. Your insurance company may also offer a significant discount of 15% or sometimes even 20% if you install a sophisticated home-security system.
7. Check your policy annually. Your policy should reflect the value of your home and belongings. If you review your policy every year, you can easily make the necessary adjustments. If, for example, you just sold a valuable painting, you won’t need the same amount of personal property coverage. But if you’ve added a garage or other addition, you’ll need to increase your dwelling coverage.

2004 Copyright Texas Association of Realtors. All rights reserved.

TEXAS (Real Estate Center) – A total of 19,330 existing single-family homes were sold in Texas last month, up 16 percent from March 2009, according to MLS data compiled by the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University.

The median price was up 4 percent to $144,600 during the same period, and the state finished the month with a 7.1-month inventory of existing homes.

Here is how select Texas cities fared in March (data current as of April 27, 2010):

Additional home sales data for these and other major Texas cities are available on the Center’s website.