You don’t always have to make massive, huge changes to your home to make an environmental difference. Often it’s the little things that add up fast to make a big difference. Having an eco-friendly home doesn’t mean you have to install solar panels: there are plenty of quick changes you can make that are both cost-effective and green. Many environmentally-friendly, energy-efficient home strategies will also save you money in the long run. Here are just a few suggestions to get you started.

Add Insulation

Making sure your home and attic are property insulated helps keep the heat in and the cold out, especially in the middle of winter. If you live in a cold winter climate like Edmonton, adding extra insulation can save you a ton of money on your natural gas bill.

Block Off the Fireplace Flue

If you have a real fireplace and chimney in your home — especially one that you don’t ever use — consider blocking off your flue and fireplace opening. Better yet, improve the value of your home by adding a natural gas or electric fireplace and kill two birds with one stone! Properly inserted gas fireplace inserts are designed to send warmth into your home rather than up the chimney.

Check Your Seals

Inspect the calking and weather stripping on all your doors and windows. If they’re in need of repair, adding calking and weather stripping is a simple and low-cost eco-improvement anyone can do themselves.

Low-Flow Faucets and Fixtures

Replace your sink and shower fixtures with low-flow equivalents designed to limit the amount of water you use. Many of these work without reducing your water pressure, and they’re easy to install.

Put Your Thermostat on Auto Pilot

Buying a programmable thermostat can save you money and make your home more eco-friendly. The best part? Once you set it, you can forget it! Programmable thermostats allow you to customize your furnace’s heating activity to be warmer when you’re home and cooler when you’re away or sleeping.

Energy Star Appliances

If it’s time to buy new kitchen appliances make sure you purchase ones with high Energy Star ratings. Appliances marked with the Energy Star label use up to 40% less energy than their unmarked counterparts, and often use significantly less water. Also keep an eye out for the Energy Star label when you’re buying a new TV or computer.

Replace Your Furnace

If you have an old furnace it may be time to look seriously into a new one. Modern furnaces that score a high Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency (AFUE) percentage can save you piles of money in the long term on your heating bill, and are significantly better for the environment. Older furnaces usually have an AFUE rating of 60% while newer, high-efficiency models have a rating of 90% or higher.

Going Green isn’t just a feel-good exercise: it’s well known that investing in eco-friendly changes to your home will save you money in the long run. And in an Edmonton Real Estate market where being green is seen as a real advantage by prospective buyers, making your home energy efficient will protect your investment for years to come.

When you’re selling your home you want to put your best foot forward so you sell for top dollar: this means making your home look its very best inside and out. To give your home that extra edge, think about bringing in a Professional Edmonton Home Staging Company. Home stagers know what furniture  will bring out the best features of your space and still allow potential buyers to easily envision what your home might look like with their own furniture.

How much is my home worth?

That’s the first question sellers ask, and one of the most important questions a professional real estate agent can answer. The price you set for your home has a huge impact on the sales process, and if the number is wrong — either too high or too low — the selling process won’t be a pleasant one. Too high a price and no one will make an offer, but set too low a price and you may end up losing out.

Setting the price is an extremely difficult thing for homeowners to do on their own. Not only do you have to include physical changes to your home in the equation — things like renovations, improvements, and wear and tear — but you also have to consider market factors such as where your home is located and inflation. Often your home will be worth more, maybe much more, than you paid for it, but sometimes the real estate market shifts and economy factors mean your home might be worth less.

A Comparative Market Analysis is Critical

To find the optimal price for your home, we need a benchmark. Something relevant to compare your home against. The best way is to perform a Comparative Market Analysis or CMA, where we find four or five homes in your area that are similar to yours and are on the market or have recently been sold. By looking at the actual money paid in real estate sales with similarities to your house we can zero in on a general value, often called the “appraised value”. The appraised value isn’t necessarily the exact price you’ll sell your home for, but when combined with market trends and the particular details of your property, we can create an excellent benchmark.

When you hire  a real estate professional to appraise and help sell your home, you are guaranteed to set the best price that optimizes both the likelihood of drawing lots of interest to sell quickly and maximizing your investment. With the right investment property in the right market, a strategy for selling success may actually be to price your home slightly lower to maximize buyer attraction and offers. Our team understand the nuances of the Edmonton real estate market better than anyone, and because our agents sell and see so many homes we can pinpoint the perfect selling price.

The Terry Paranych team knows setting the right price will give you maximum exposure and get you top dollar for your home. We are so confident in our expertise and market research that we guarantee the sale of your home in 90 days or we’ll buy it from you.

According to The Edmonton Journal, February 9, 2010:

“Canadian real estate sales and prices are poised to set records this year, according to a new forecast that’s bound to reignite calls in some quarters for tighter lending rules.
The Canadian Real Estate Association, which represents 100 boards across the country, said Monday it expects existing home sales to reach 527,300, a 13.3 per-cent increase from a year ago and 1.2 per-cent increase from the record set in 2007.
Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney has warned about rising household debt, which is reaching record levels. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has suggested he’s prepared to tighten mortgage requirements and continues to monitor the market.
“One of the legitimate concerns of the finance minister might be if you make qualifying for mortgage default insurance prematurely restrictive that it will quell housing activity even as erosion in affordability continues,” said Gregory Klump, chief economist with CREA.
There have been rumblings that the government is considering rules that would require buyers who need mortgage insurance to have at least 10 per cent down over 25 years instead of the current 35 years. Buyer’s with less than 20-per-cent downpayment must get mortgage insurance, if they’re borrowing from a financial institution governed by the Bank Act.
Klump’s group believes the market is going to correct on its own in the second half of 2010. CREA has called for sales to drop by 7.1 per cent in 2011. The group says that while prices will rise by 5.4 per cent in 2010, to an all time high of $337,500, they will drop by 1.5 per-cent in 2011.
Some economists agree price increases will shrink once interest rates rise and inventory levels increase.”

In my opinion, this is a very exciting time again for the Edmonton real estate market. I am seeing multiple offers due to the edmonton’s home inventory being so low. I personally was not expecting to see these market trends until very early or late spring.

One comment I typically hear from potential clients is “Should I wait until the Spring to put my house on the market?”. In most cases the spring market is considered the ideal time to list your house, but not now. If your planning on selling, do not wait! Putting your house on the market sooner rather than later is the best decision that you can make. To find out what your home is worth, give me a call today at 780-457-4777 or fill out our online form at: www.paranych.com

XCUZ8TYCXTM5