Posts in category 'Homeownership'

If you're ready to give your home a thorough cleaning, our REALTORS® suggest you start with a bottle of distilled white vinegar. It's an affordable, natural cleaner that easily cuts through grime, bacteria, and mildew, and it's perfectly safe to use on a variety of household surfaces throughout your home.

• Make Your Kitchen Sparkle
  Your kitchen is a busy place. In addition to a buildup of grease, grime, and bacteria on appliances and surfaces, your kitchen may have lingering odors from your stove, refrigerator, dishwasher, disposal, and trash cans. Cleaning your dirty kitchen with white vinegar is easy and fast with these cleaning tips.

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Owning a home means taking care of minor problems before they become major difficulties. When you buy a new home, however, getting to know everything about it can lead to a few surprises. Our REALTORS® offer the following tips to help you handle some of the more common emergencies you may find yourself dealing with.

• Know Where Your Shut-off Valves
  When you find a home you like out of the many Nassau County homes for sale, one of the first things you will want to do is find shut-off valves. These will include the main shut-off valve for water, as well as the gas line if your home has one. If the home is all-electric, know where the fuse box is located. In many situations, especially with broken pipes, knowing where the main shut-off valve is the best way to stop the water so damage will be kept to a minimum.

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Who doesn't love gadgets? From the electric can opener to the microwave oven, we've been obsessed with small appliances for decades. With so many options to choose from, we can easily overwhelm the storage space in our kitchens. To maximize the space in cabinets and on counters, our REALTORS® suggest selecting appliances that do double duty. Here are their top picks:

• Multicooker
  Hands down, this gem beats all the competition for versatility. Far from that sickly avocado-green crockpot that used to reside in the little cabinet above grandma's refrigerator, this appliance allows you to brown meat, cook quickly with pressure, slow-cook while you're at work, cook perfect rice, ferment cheeses and yogurt, and even hard-boil eggs. If the most sophisticated model is a little more expensive than a less adaptable version, consider the number of appliances it will replace. Be sure to retain the recipe book that will likely come in the package for ideas you may not even have considered.

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Putting up your Christmas tree and lights was fun, but the fun stops, and stress kicks in when it's time to take them down. Storing holiday decorations can easily go from full-blown fun to frustrating. However, Our REALTORS® have compiled five simple and practical tips to help you correctly store your holiday decorations.

• Buy an Ornament Chest for Your Christmas Ornaments
  An ornament chest is the best way to store your Christmas tree decorations and ornaments since it contains several layers that allow you to categorize each item. These layers offer easy access to the ornaments when needed.

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You may think that once the snow begins to fall, it's too late to start on home improvements, but our REALTORS® would advise you otherwise. You may not be able to do much outdoors, but inside is another story. In fact, if the work you need requires a contractor, you may be able to find one offering lower rates as available jobs dwindle. Whether you have just purchased your home or are getting the house ready for sale in the spring, several projects will make you more comfortable now and increase your profits later. 

• Insulating the Attic
  You may not even need to hire a contractor to make your home more comfortable, decrease energy costs and get a great return on your investment. The ROI comes in at a whopping 116.9 percent. Add to that a tax credit of up to $500. If you thought this project was too pricy, you might be surprised that it could cost under $400 to purchase and install. With numbers like that, you are looking at a project that literally pays for itself.

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