Let’s assume you had a $100,000 mortgage at 5% interest rate required 30 years to repay. Your monthly mortgage payment alone should be $536.82. By simply saving 30% on that $158.33(national average) home utility bills, you could afford to pay additional $47.50 a month toward your mortgage. Therefore, it’s $584.32 monthly loan repayment, which also translated to $108,848 of mortgage with the same 30-year and 5% terms.

If you believe additional $8,848 doesn’t improve your purchasing power much, what if you could save 30% on your $300 utility bills? Well, I think $300 sounds more reasonable than $158.33. Really, how many people pay $158.33 a month on their utility bills these days! Maybe long ago when energy cost was much cheaper.

That’s really great, but how do you achieve it you ask. A home energy audit is often the first step in making your home more efficient and save money on utility bills. An audit can help you assess how much energy your home uses and evaluate what measures you can take to improve efficiency. Homeowners should have an audit done and implement some cost-effective energy saving practices into their home. When it’s time to sell, you’re already a step ahead of the other competing homes in the market. Home buyers are very much into the “green” nowadays. And if you’re a home buyer who didn’t consider this factor in the past, you should seriously consider it now. Buying an environmentally-sound home is a simple way to maximize your spending dollar.

A professional Home Energy Auditor is usually the best option when it comes to getting specific recommendations for improving the efficiency of your home. A professional auditor uses a variety of techniques and equipments to determine the energy efficiency of your home, and then he/she recommends comprehensive improvements that will yield the best results in combination of comfort, air quality, and energy efficiency.

The cost of a home energy audit is starting from $200 to $500 depending on the experience of the auditor, the size of a home, and the sophistication of techniques employed. Your may want to contact your utility companies first to see if they offer free or discounted energy audits to their customers. If not, you can hire a home energy expert to evaluate your home’s energy efficiency. It’s truly worth every penny!

Economy still seems gloomy, fear and doubt overcame many intelligent home buyers. So when is the best time to buy so many have asked. Here are a few tips that can help you to make a level-headed decision:

1. Your monthly rent is about the same as the mortgage payment of owning a similar property. It’s a solid indicator that other renters are also considering of buying their own home. Most people prefer to own over to rent, especially when renting becomes too expensive.
2. You find it harder to locate a place to rent in your desired area. This indicates availability of housing starts to fall behind the demand, therefore, higher rent and property values will soon follow.
3. The inventory of homes listed in the market for sale starts to drop from its peak. This means the real estate market is picking up again. You may even see an increase in interest rates because of a higher demand of mortgage funding.
4. Watch for falling Unemployment rate in your area. Demand for housing is highly energized by the availability of jobs. People spend on big-ticket items when they feel stability. A decrease in unemployment rate suggests both the growth of personal income and spending, therefore, the prosperity of real estate market follows.

It takes a wise person with courage to buy when the news headlines only talk about the negativity of the economy these days. The perfect timing is impossible, but these four signs should provide you with plenty of safety cushion to ensure your buying decision is a good one.

Source(s):

Two big U.S. apartment owners raise the rent – Reuters

Source(s):

Gwinnett couple conquers $83,000 of credit card debt – ajc

Source(s):

The 10 Most Stressful Jobs of 2011 – CareerCast

Inspiration: Backyard Escapes – apartment therapy

Source(s):

Ashford University Launches Online Bachelor’s Degree in Real Estate Studies – U.S. News

Interest = Interest rate of your loan

Term = Length of your loan (usually 30 years)

Down = Down payment of your loan in dollar amount

For example:
Purchase price =$100,000
Down payment = 20%
Down payment is $100,000 x 20% = $20,000
Therefore, you enter $20,000 here

Taxes = Yearly property tax (Automatically calculated at 1.5% of your purchase price. It could be more or less depended on the location of your home. You can change this number.)

Insurance = Yearly home insurance (Automatically calculated at 0.5% of the purchase price. It could be more or less depended on the location and the type of your home, your credit rating, and the insurance company you use.)

PMI = Private Mortgage Insurance (Your lender requires you to pay this if your down payment is less than 20% and you have no secondary finance arranged. Don’t enter an amount if PMI is waived.)

Extra = Any monthly expenses in addition to your monthly mortgage payment (It could be anything you like. Don’t enter an amount if you don’t want to.)

This website is designed to be viewed on many different screen resolutions from 1024×768 to however high your computer screen is capable of. If you set your screen resolution at 1920×1080 like mine, the texts of this website may appear too small for comfortable reading. You can make the texts bigger by adjusting the size of a webpage.

To make everything bigger, holding down the [Ctrl] key while pressing the [+] key.
To make everything smaller, holding down the [Ctrl] key while pressing the [-] key.
To turn everything back to original size, holding down the [Ctrl] key while pressing [0] key.

You can use the keyboard and mouse together to do the same.

To make everything bigger, holding down the [Ctrl] key while moving your mouse wheel forward.
To make everything smaller, holding down the [Ctrl] key while moving your mouse wheel backward.

Tired of computer mouse?

You can click the big photo to see its photo album on a property page. After an album screen popped up, you may use either the mouse or keyboard to navigate through photos. I personally prefer the keyboard.

To see the next photo, press the right arrow key.
To see the previous photo, press the left arrow key.
To close the photo album, press the [Esc] key.

Finding a perfect home is hard, browsing through this website should be easy!