Chapel Hill Durham Real Estate

Whether you’re sprucing up your appliances because you’re selling your home, or just finished buying a home and shining up your new place, it pays to keep your appliances clean.  Some routine cleaning also extends the life of your refrigerator.  Handy tips include:

1) Monthly:  Clean the inside with a solution of 1 to 2 Tablespoons baking soda mixed in a quart of warm water, rinse and dry; use a non-abrasive cloth or sponge

2) Quarterly:  Clean interior door gaskets with the baking soda solution

3) Twice a Year:  Unplug the refrigerator and clean the coils with a special coil brush, or a vacuum attachment; most grills pull off and easily snap back on; If you have ice and water dispensers, replace the filters

4) Anually:  Slide the refrigerator out of its space and vacuum the floor area to remove dirt and hair (which will clog the coils); often little dust webs cling to the walls behind the refrigerator

For refrigerator health, the ideal temperature is about 37 degrees and 0 degrees for the freezer.  Also, be sure to also keep the refrigerator pulled out a few inches from the wall and that nothing on top blocks the air flow from behind, so that heat coming off the condenser coils can escape.

Don’t have a home yet?   You can view all Durham, Chapel Hill, Hillsborough and Pittsboro area Multiple Listed homes at www.GreatTriangleHomes.com

Whether you want to sell your home fast, just enjoy the one you have, or are comtemplating buying a home in Chapel Hill, Durham or surrounding areas, flooring stains can be annoying.  Knowing how to remove them, and which ones cannot be removed, is helpful.

North Carolina “red clay” is unsightly but can removed from carpet.  Commercial “spray and wipe” carpet cleaners work with the addition of elbow grease; sooner than later after the stain has occurred is always helpful.  Disturbed soil around new homes, prior to the landscaping becoming mature, poses the most challenge with red clay.

The faint blue-ish stains on vinyl floors beneath bath mats comes from the chemical reaction of the flooring itself with anti-oxidants in the rubber backing as the rug dries out.  Unfortunately, there is no way to remove these stains.  There are, however, many quality thick mats which can be used in place of rubber mats to prevent the stains from occuring in the first place.

People will often notice pale colored areas of a hardwood floor when a rug or object is moved.  The lighter color you see is actually the original color of the floor.  Everything else around it has darked over time.  Although it can take months or even years, the floor color will even out once previously unexposed parts are exposed.

After your real estate purchase provides you with your new home, handy buyers will no doubt want to make it their own.  Setting up the home workshop is an essential first step to beginning any revisions to suit your personal requirements.  Home workshop safety one of two essential steps to keep your home buying experience and its aftermath a pleasant one!

“SawStop” has come up with a safer table saw to prevent the all-too-frequent injuries or removal of finger from the spinning blade.  The new table saw has technology that knows immediately when the blade comes into contact with the soft flesh of the operator’s figers.  Within just a couple of milliseconds the blade stops, drops below the table surface, and stops.  Amazing!

The price of $2,799 isn’t really so bad– afterall, how much is a finger worth?  You can get more information at www.sawstop.com.

Oh, and the other essential step to having a pleasant home buying experience?  Start off with a great buyer’s agent of course!  An experienced buyer’s agent will save you money and do what it takes to keep your transaction smooth.  Just beginning to think about buying a home in Chapel Hill, Hillsborough, Durham or Pittsboro?  A great resource for area homes, with a link to the area’s multiple list search, is Great Triangle Homes - the Shuping Advantage Team.  Connie Shuping and Wilma Gunnesch offer the kind of knowlegable, experienced guidance home buyers and sellers need in today’s market.

Seller’s Property Disclosure, Pre-Paids, Title Insurance, Agency– what does it all mean??? If you’re planning to buy a home anytime soon, you need to know.  Here are some tips all Buyers should know before buying a home in Chapel Hill or Carrboro, Hillsborough, Durham, Pittsboro or surrounding areas.

While a good Buyers Agent will help you structure an offer that obtains the property at the lowest price, there still is not usually a lot of negotiation in our market when a property is properly priced, nor is there typically much if any negotiation with new construction unless the neighborood is overbuilt.  For those who have come from areas where Sellers may come off a price 10% or 20%, the dynamics here are much more rigid.  You should be prepared to negotiate terms and conditions that are mutually favorable to you and the Seller if you want to concentrate on getting the lowest price possilble.  Find out the Sellers’ time frame for moving, then devise dates that work for everyone.  Also, don’t “muddy” the contract with unneccesary conditions; include only the conditions that are requirements for purchasing the property.  Sellers like a “clean” contract, and the more they like about yours, the more you can push them on price.

If all this sounds confusing, let me offer one last piece of advice: Investigate and choose the best Buyers Agent you can find.  You need someone you can trust to represent you in your home purchase.  A good Buyer’s Agent:

• works full-time
• is aware of your needs and concerns
• searches your area’s Multiple List daily for new listings that match your needs (ever wonder why those new listings you call about are already under contract?  Agents see new listings in the MLS before you can see them on realtor.com)
• knows the best lenders with the latest financing options and rates
• explains all aspects of the real estate transaction in plain terms so there are no surprises
• makes sure you offer only what the house is worth, with terms that are favorable to you first and the seller second OR
• informs you if the house is priced right so it doesn’t go to the next buyer because you expected unreasonable negotiation

To learn more about Buying a Home in the Triangle area, go to http://www.greattrianglehomes.com/buy_agency.html

Even if you aren’t contemplating selling your Triangle area home, closet clutter can drive you crazy.  Take these simple steps to organize your closet, you’ll save time in the long run.  If you are selling a home, then it’s an essential task!

First, get rid of everything you don’t need on a daily or routine basis.  If like me, you have trouble throwing out good stuff, donate the items to any number of local thrift stores, Good Will, etc, and don’t forget to ask for a tax receipt.  You’ll need to itemize a list of what you donated and each item’s value used to arrive at the “estimate value” of your donation for tax purposes.  I staple my list or transfer it to the back of the donation receipt.

Next, if the problem is from lack of organizing methods, purchase a closet organization system.  There are plenty of inexpensive solutions available from any major home store.  When buying a system with drawers, look for those that extend out fully so you can see what’s in them. 

Finally, if you don’t have good lighting in your closet, install it.  These same home stores have inexpensive battery operated “stick on” lights you can place overhead in your closet.

Once cleaned out and organized, your closets wil look much bigger and be more appealing to buyers.  For other useful tips on preparing your Hillsborough, Carrboro or Chapel Hill home for sale, contact an experienced agent to assist you in all aspects of preparing your home for sale.  Connie Shuping with Great Triangle Homes-The Shuping Advantage Team will do that and more, using proven marketing strategies that work to get your home sold! 

Even if an umbrella keeps you dry in a downpour, the wet umbrella drips water all in your car or house when you enter, usually in a hurry to get out of the rain!

Now there’s an umbrella that dries in an istant with just a quick shake.  Called the “NanoNuno” umbrella, it’s canopy is made of nanotech polyester which is designed so that water just rolls right off.  They’re pricy at about $95 but some people may consider it worth the cost. 

Another way to stay dry when entering your house when it’s raining outside is to buy a house with a porch or a garage!  The lovely 4 Bedroom + Bonus, 3-and-a-half bath home at 612 Orchard Place has both a front porch and an attached garage, along with many other nice features.  Convenienty located on the edge of Hillsborough, this home is available for $299,900 and ready to move in.  Great Triangle Homes - The Shuping Advantage Team also has lots of other homes available in the Triangle area with a porch or a garage - check them out!

That’s right!  If you are one of those cat lovers who’s allergic reaction requires you to forego having a feline yourself, you could be in luck.  A company called “Allerca” has been breeding cats which produce less of the protien found in a cat’s saliva responsible for allergic reactions in humans, so much less in fact that the protein is undetectable in the cats tested.  The cats are not geneticaly engineered; they are the result of selective breeding which of course results in a mixed breed cat.  Each cat is tested for the allergy producing protein, then comes to you with a one year money-back guarantee.  But before rushing out to obtain one, they are very exopensive - $3,950- and there is a waiting list of a little over a year. 

Whether you’ll be waiting for a hypoallergenic cat or already have typical cats, at Great Triangle Homes we have the perfect house for you and your feline family members.  We a one-level condo, a large executive home, and everything in-between.  You can even search the entire Triangle MLS from your own home while on our website!

Have you ever turned on the water and heard a knocking or other sound in the pipes behind the wall?  Such noises are commonplace and typically pose no hazzard.  The noise usually is one of two types. 

The first is known as “water hammer” and happens when the water is turned off.  Because water is heavy, it picks up speed that vibrates and creates a moving force through the pipe, so the pipe rattles when the movement stops as the water is turned off.  When the pipe is better secured to the framing, or a “water hammer arrestor” is installed to serve as a type of “shock absorber”, the sound should stop.

The second sound, which can be a bumping, bang or drip-like sound, occurs only when using hot water.  It usually is due to expansion of the pipes.  If the pipe is not snugly attached to the wood studs in the wall, the expansion causes rubbing, hence the noise.  Again, more secure attachment can help alleviate that sound.  Fortunately, neither of these are likely to cause any plumbing damage and most people just accept it as mildly annoying. 

When purchasing a new house, your home inspector will check the water flow and make suggestions if anything abnormal is occuring.  To protect yourself when buying a home, choose an experienced agent to assist you.  Contact Great Triangle Homes - The Shuping Advantage Team to learn more about buying a home or to view homes in the Durham, Pittsboro or Durham areas.  Wilma Gunnesch is the team agent who works with Buyers to help locate your home and then guide and assist you through the process of negotiations, inspections and closing.  Connie Shuping is the team member who works with Sellers to actively market and sell a home to a Seller’s best advantage.

One of the Chapel Hill and Hillsborough area’s best kept secrets is Spence’s Farm for children.  The farm is a 200 year-old homestead, now tranformed into a teaching environment centered around mentoring and life on a living farm.  On the farm, children enjoy horseback riding, a woodshop, vegetable gardens, lots of farm animals, playing fields, acres of forest and summertime swimming in a natural pond.  Instead of sitting around inside, they’re outside playing and having a ball. 

Nearly 7 years later, my son Evan, now a junior in high school, will still recall something he learned at the farm or something Spence said, usually about nature, native Americans traditions, wild or farm animals, or the environment.  He still mentions field trips he remembers to places such as Occoneechee Mountain State Recreation Area outside Hillsborough, from which he came home proudly telling us about how he had climbed the mountain.

Programs include daily After School at Spence’s Farm (with transportation from most schools), Enrichment Classes and Activities each school day, and fun Field Trips.  The teacher workday program coinciding with the days Chapel Hill/Carrrboro city schools are closed is a great way for parents to sign up their chidren kids on a daily basis to see if the farm’s atmosphere is right for them.  Spence’s Farm also hosts birthday parties– what fun!