How Landscaping Affects Your Home’s Value

By focusing on your landscape’s design, varying the plants and shrub sizes and colors, and diversifying the plant life itself, you can increase your home’s overall value.

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If you’re a homeowner, you’ve probably wondered if the money you put into your landscaping is worth it. The answer to that question might surprise you.

Sometimes homeowners assume that an interior project is going to provide much more bang for their buck, but a recent study from Virginia Tech found that your landscaping is worth as much as 15% of your home’s value. For your landscaping to be worth that much, though, there are a few key elements you have to focus on:

1. The landscape’s design. 
2. Varying the plant and shrub sizes and colors.
3. Diversifying the plant life itself. 

In the aforementioned study, they found that if you key in on those three things on a $50,000 house and do them well, that home’s value could increase from between $8,500 to as much as $19,000. 

What do I mean by landscape design? I mean that you don’t want to plant a bunch of trees, bushes, and shrubs together without any kind of layout in mind. What you want to do is minimize the long-term maintenance and avoid that cluttered, overgrown look that often happens without any design plan.

Landscaping the right way can increase your home’s value by as much as 15%.

If you want your house to feature accentuated curb appeal, think about the space between your plants. Vary that space with both smaller and larger plants, shrubs, and trees. Vary the color of them as well. Not only will this accomplish an uncluttered look, but it will also give these plants room to grow. Additionally, mixing in some wildflowers here and there is always a great idea. Wildflower variety packs will give you a burst of color at different times throughout the spring and summer.

You can diversify your plants by making sure they’re not all the same style. For example, mix and match shrubs based on the kinds of leaves it has. Here in Tucson, you can’t go wrong with adding a cactus or some other kind of desert flora. 

The point of these strategies is to match the landscaping to your home size and your yard size. If you do this, you will get the most bang for your buck and never have to wonder again if you’ll be getting your investment back.  

For more tips on how to get the best bang for your buck on home improvements and other major household costs, follow us on Facebook or visit our website. If you have any other questions, please feel free to email me or give me a call. I look forward to hearing from you!

Are You Up to Date on Health Insurance?

I’m joined by Anna Monterosso of Halsi Insurance Group today to talk about health insurance and the upcoming open enrollment periods.

Today I'm happy to be joined by Anna Monterosso of Halsi Insurance Group who is going to tell us a little bit about open enrollment, Medicare, and some other healthcare information.

Fall is definitely health insurance season, Anna says, with three open enrollment periods coming up. The first is Medicare, which runs October 15th through December 7th, then, the open enrollment period for individuals under 65 runs November 1st through January 31st. Lastly, there's a special open enrollment exclusively for small businesses that runs from November 15th through December 15th.

This open enrollment for small businesses isn't really advertised much, but it's really valuable for them. If small businesses haven't offered coverage in the past due to cost, this open enrollment period allows them to offer benefits to employees without paying a minimum amount toward the premium or having to meet participation requirements.

Even with these dates approaching, rates always change, which Anna says is just the nature of the business. Changes really depend on the type of product, so what Anna likes to do with her clients is to go over them annually to look at increases or decreases in price, as well as changes in benefits. They want their clients to know what to expect.

Rates always change, so stay up to date.

So what does Anna recommend for people who are 65? Anna says it depends. If they are 65 and already on a Medicare product, they're going to want to wait until open enrollment to make any changes. Anna and Halsi would be a good group to call to schedule an appointment to review their current coverage.

If they're going to be 65 within the next few months, Anna recommends giving her a call three months before their birthday so she can sit down and walk them through the process from beginning to end; enrolling in Medicare for the first time does take time. They want to ensure they have the correct coverage in place in time for their 65th birthday.

Thanks to Anna for joining us today, and a big thanks to Halsi for all they've done. They've been in business in Tucson for more than 20 years and they have a real hands-on relationship approach to serving people. I think that's really what separates them from a lot of the other health insurance companies out there.

Health insurance is accessible to anyone, so if you're considering making a change in your policy or you want to get health insurance for the first time, give Anna a call at (520) 296-7881 to help you with any insurance information. You can also visit Halsi's website for more information.

Introducing Our New Pathway to Purchase Program

Have you heard of the new Pathway to Purchase Program? Today I’m joined by Derrick Polder from Summit Funding to inform you about this new down payment assistance program and why it’s one of the best we’ve ever seen. 

The Pathway to Purchase Program was released just last month. There is $48 million available in it, and you aren’t required to be a first-time home buyer to apply for it. That being said, you do have to occupy the property as your own residence. If you own a home currently and are planning on selling it before buying a new one, that’s ok. You cannot, however, turn your home into a rental property while looking to buy another home.

Not only do you not have to be a first-time home buyer, but you also don’t have the same restrictive income guidelines of previous programs. Past programs, for example, would stipulate that you could only make 80% of the median income. If you made upwards of $50,000, then, you couldn’t even consider those programs. The cap for the Pathway to Purchase Program, however, is just under $93,000, and that’s based on qualified income.

The program is also for purchase only, meaning you can’t use it on a refinance. Your property is eligible as long as it falls under the jurisdiction of the city of Tucson or the city of South Tucson. The program features a conventional loan, meaning that out of that $48 million, they’re going to apportion 10% toward your down payment up to a cap of $20,000.

It’s one of the best programs we’ve ever seen.

How long this opportunity will last depends on a number of factors, such as how many people will qualify and how long it will extend for. To the best of Eric’s knowledge, though, it will be available for the next two years, give or take a month or two.

If you’re a home buyer and want to learn more about the financing aspect, you can apply online at www.thepoldergroup.com. For another website that features some quick bullet points for this program, you can explore www.p2paz.com.

While this program is quite advantageous, it’s not for everyone. If you have any other financing needs or questions regarding it, don’t hesitate to reach out to Derrick’s team.

As for me, if you have any other real estate questions, please feel free to give me a call or send me an email. I’d be happy to help.