Real Estate, Updates, News & Tips - iPro Real Estate

5 Smart Reminders for Home Sellers

Besides staging, sellers also should take a few more steps to ease the stress of their sale. Realtor.com® offers up some of the following often-overlooked tips:1. Highlight improvements and any issues.“If you’ve owned your home for a while, make a list of all the problems you’ve solved for a while, make a list of all the problems you’ve solved while you’ve lived there,” suggests Avery Boyce, a real estate pro with Compass Real Estate

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Which Is the Best Home Security System?

Reviews.com has compiled a thorough list of the best home security systems, based on studies and surveys entailing installation, customer reviews, costs, and reliability.Review.com’s analysis recognized the following brands in the following categories: Best for recognizability and professional installation: ADT Best technology and mobile app: Vivint Best for low upfront cost and initial phone call: Protect America Best for customer service and

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7 Downtowns to Watch

The downtown resurgence is reaching across the country. In the post-World War II era, Americans fled urban areas in favor of the suburbs. That left many downtowns to face some neglect, rising crime, and industrial decay, realtor.com® notes in a recent article. But it’s a new day for the American downtown.Redevelopment since the mid-1990s are putting more downtowns back on the map. Vacant office buildings are being transformed into loft apartme

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Closing Times Are Speeding Up

Closing times were way down in February, falling from 51 days in January to 46 days for all loans last month, according to the latest Ellie Mae Origination Insight Report.Broken out, home purchase loans took an average of 45 days to close in February, down from 48 days in January. Refinanced loans took an average of 47 days to close in February, down from 53 days.Conventional loans commanded 63 percent of the market share, compared to 66 percent

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Taking a Vow for a Wedding or a New Home?

Getting married and buying a home are two milestones that couples often try to achieve at the same time. But the finances involved in both of those feats can be daunting. The average wedding costs reached a record high in 2016: $35,329. That is about the equivalent of a 20 percent down payment on a $175,000 home."There are some people that can do both at the same time, but for most, you have to choose one [goal] and delay the other by a year or t

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Warning About Utility Bill Fraud

Scammers are now using utility bills to try to dupe customers.Scammers reportedly are making calls to customers posing as representatives from companies like ConEd, Duke Energy, Georgia Power, Consumers Energy, or a bogus utility company called General Electric, among others. They’ll threaten to shut off power or service if customers don’t pay immediately. They’ll offer an “energy assistance” or payment plan and ask for the customer’s

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Bidding Wars to Heat Up This Spring

Likely to be a hallmark of this year’s spring homeselling season: Bidding wars. As home listings are scarcer and buyer demand remains high, home shoppers are finding a lot more competition this spring, particularly in hot markets like the San Francisco Bay area, Denver, and Boston.“Home buyers are going to find this spring that, in a lot of markets, the inventory of homes priced and sized at price levels they were hoping for will be very limi

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REALTORS: 6 Savvy Ways to Save your Clients Money

Whether your clients are first-time buyers or homeowners listing their property in a red-hot market, are you able to articulate how you can help them save money on their real estate transaction?When you ask agents how they keep more money in their clients’ pocketbooks, some say they’re good negotiators. Others provide coupons to save money on moving, home improvement or perhaps a list of where to get rebates on energy-saving appliances.What e

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HUD Programs Trump's Budget Would Cut

The Department of Housing and Urban Development would see its funding drop by 13 percent under President Donald Trump's fiscal 2018 budget proposal. The cuts, combined with others elsewhere in the federal government's discretionary budget, would offset proposed increases in defense and homeland security funding, including an increase of $54 billion for Department of Defense programs. The proposal, Trump said, "follows through on my promise to foc

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The Most Irish City in America

About 32.7 million Americans—or 10.2 percent of the U.S. population—claimed Irish ancestry in 2015, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In honor of St. Patrick's Day, do you know which U.S. city is the most Irish of all? Realtor.com® researchers scoured the data in the 300 largest U.S. cities to find the percentage of Irish-Americans living there.New England boasts the most Irish descendants in the nation, with Manchester, N.H., leading the

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