Home Solutions San Diego Blog

Expecting a treasured arrival to join your family? Planning to makeover a room to greet this newcomer? Read this article to make sure your nursery will be safe for the precious little one who will be living there.

If the home was built before 1978, the walls are likely to contain lead paint. To keep baby safe, this paint must be completely removed and the walls sanded. Expectant mothers, however, should not be doing this work. Anything that is accidentally inhaled by a pregnant woman affects the unborn child as well. In fact, if you are expecting, you should not even be in the home while the paint removal is occurring.

Likewise, the mother-to-be should avoid painting the new room and allow family or friends to complete this task instead. If the mother is exposed to the paint fumes, the baby will be as well. Timing is also very important; ensure this work is finished at least a month or two before baby’s arrival. This allows the paint to dry completely, which helps eliminate the toxins from the fumes.

Another consideration in redecorating is flooring. Newly purchased carpet, especially those that have been treated with stain-resistant materials, should never be added to the nursery. The chemicals with which the carpets are treated are toxic; they can cause breathing difficulties and other health problems to the newborn. It is much safer to keep older carpet in the nursery for a time; the fumes from these carpets have had time to disperse.

If the carpet is a disaster, and you must change the flooring, consider using materials such as natural linoleum, or pre-treated hardwood flooring. One consideration when using hardwood flooring is that water-based stains and finishes are much safer than those that are oil-based. This is because those that are designed with oil bases are more toxic. Ask the supplier; use only the safest materials in this precious child’s room!

If there are windows in the nursery, beware of curtains that are made of flame-retardant materials. Most of these materials contain a chemical called PBDE, which has unfortunately been associated with thyroid disorders as well as developmental delays in laboratory animals. Protect your baby by avoiding any fabrics or clothing containing these harmful chemicals!

Nursery furnishings can also be dangerous to the baby unless the expectant parents take care to avoid this hazard. First, older cribs are not safe. Many cribs have been recalled in recent years, and knowing which ones are considered harmful can sometimes be tough even for experts. Purchase your crib new, or look for a relatively new used crib that conforms to safety standards.

Furthermore, use mattresses, blankets, and other linens made of natural rather than synthetic fabrics. Synthetic materials may contain PBDE. Alternatively, they may have been designed to contain phthalates or formaldehyde, which can damage various body systems, including the liver, the brain, the respiratory system, or the kidneys. Start caring for baby now, even before he or she arrives!

This article provided courtesy of the artists and designers at PebbleArt Coasters.

Browse Baby Furniture at SHOP.COM

When you’re getting ready to sell your home, if you want a quick and easy transaction you have to decide on the right price. With a price that is unrealistically high, a house can stay on the market for a lengthy period and that is deadly. Unless you have the rare luxury of being able to wait a long time to sell after you decide you want to, it makes more sense to drop down a little in order to get a buyer quickly. This is especially true, of course, if you are committed to buying another place.

Get a Reliable Analysis to Start the Process

If you want to have a successful sale the thing to keep in mind is to be the very best deal around. If you are working with a Realtor, he or she will be able to provide a market analysis so you will know what prices other homes like yours have brought. Setting a realistic price is definitely an asset a Realtor can contribute to get the process started in the right direction.

Sell It or Hang on to It?

Consider the process of buying an item for your home. You would probably not spend too much time in deciding between an item you could buy in your neighborhood and one that costs less but had to be brought in from far away. Your time has a value as does the money you have to spend on your house while it is being sold. Taking these factors into account puts the subject into a different light. If you are selling when there is a down market, you may end up having to not only drop your asking price after it goes up for sale, but also offer other concessions such as unwanted schedule extensions in order to obtain a quick sale.

The Market Really Decides Your Timing — Use It

If it happens that after seriously looking at the case for not going for the maximum possible price you are still stuck on getting the highest possible amount, you have to wait until you can get that best possible price; in other words, you have to give appropriate credence to market conditions. Now might not be the best time to be selling, so you may have to give some on the “Sell it quickly” theme — but even so, when the market moves, you might have to go with little notice. This could mean selling your home before you have another, and unless you have relatives or friends with whom you can stay afterwards, you will be defeating your purpose in gaining extra money on the sale by having to move into temporary housing until you find another place. In some cases, the buyer might wait to take possession, especially if they want to stay where they are a little longer. But in most cases, once the buyers know the new loan has been approved they will want to close within a week or two.

About Those Repairs…

Another thing some sellers fail to take into consideration when pricing their home is whether their home is in the same condition as others that sold for a good price. If you have not maintained your home in top condition, you are not going to be able to sell it at the same favorable price as the other homes even if they are very similar. You can, however, price it to move even in a less than optimum condition by lowering your price to offset any work the buyer will have to do. Serious work such as a crack in the foundation, a roof that leaks, and heating and cooling systems may not be handled like this, although you can get away with it for problems that only affect the appearance of the home. Jobs such as renewing the landscaping, tidying up old gutters, and new paint can sometimes be overlooked in exchange for a price reduction as long as it is clear to the buyers they will be taking on some work in exchange for that great competitive price break you’re giving them. The main point is that if you consider both your valuable time and having the house sit losing luster too long with the “For Sale” sign up, the smartest thing to do is to do the smart thing by pricing right from day one. Price it right if you want to sell it.

There are buyers out there who go out of their way to look for such an opportunity, and if your home fits in this category you must be especially open-minded in your price setting to make it work out the way you want. In any case, though, the way to come out ahead in selling your home is by pricing it right from the very start.

This article was made available by Automated Homefinder, your Longmont real estate experts in Colorado.

Real estate photo credit: Allan Ferguson

So, the first quarter of 2008 is over and things are still relatively slow in the San Diego real estate market. I came across the San Diego Market Monitor where some 2008 predictions have been posted. Here are more predictions from a San Diego real estate broker.

My gut feeling is that interest rates are going to decrease as we head into the middle part of 2008. I don’t have any scientific analysis or data to support this hypothesis - again, it’s just a gut feeling. Perhaps all this talk about a recession will spur some rate cuts.

Here is a video of Robert T. Boyer of San Diego’s Finest Real Estate talking about the housing market, loan rates, and his own predictions for this year. Dr. Boyer says that the 5 things to look out for are: