With mortgage rates at record lows, many are interested in refinancing. Indeed, refinancing can improve your monthly cash flow, providing you with extra income as your monthly payments are reduced. A lower interest rate can mean a lower monthly payment, as well as savings of thousands of dollars in interest charges.

However, there are many lenders who won’t refinance homes that are under water. In order to encourage lenders to refinance homes, the government unveiled the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) in 2009. However, some homeowners did not qualify under the program requirements. As a result, in an effort to make the program more accessible, changes were announced to the program.

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Do you know what your home is worth? It can be tough to figure out exactly what your home is worth since, in reality, “worth” is fairly subjective. Different people place value on different things. That means that something you find charming in your home might be repulsive to someone else. And, of course, you can’t forget your sentiment regarding the home means that you probably value it higher than a casual observer would.

Of course, even appraisers have different ideas of how to value a home, and valuation models based on computer algorithms can result in different estimates for the same home. If you are preparing to sell your home, or if you are looking to refinance, here are some things to consider about what affects the value an appraiser attaches to your home:
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My wife and I recently moved to Florida and because a new job required us to move rather rapidly, we didn’t have the luxury of waiting for our home to sell. Looking back on the experience and thousands of dollars I could have saved by not paying a real estate agent, my “hindsight is 20-20” question to myself is, did I waste a lot of money by using a realtor? We live in a world of social media and instant, widespread propagation of information so getting the word out to my hundreds of Facebook friends as well as Craigslist and other online resources wouldn’t have been too difficult.

After looking back, here’s what why I think a realtor was worth every penny.
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Politicians don’t agree on much but there is a part of the new Obama administration stimulus package that has both Republicans and Democrats excited. Every American homeowner may qualify for it and most economists as well as the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office agree that not only will it not cost taxpayers anything, it may even save government sponsored companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac up to $100 million.

Many homeowners know the problem first hand. The housing market is in a slump. Some areas of the country have seen declines in the value of residential homes of more than 50%. Although politicians and the eternal economic optimists have said that in some areas home prices are making a rebound, in most cases, those reports are short-lived, untrue, or exaggerated. This isn’t a problem for those families who purchased at a low interest rate and don’t plan to sell their home for years or even decades but for everybody else, this has caused widespread economic disaster.

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We bought our home nearly six years ago and it was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. While the sagging housing market has been in the news frequently in the last few years, I never bought into the idea that home ownership was a wealth building move. For decades, experts would say that home ownership is the path to wealth and they would illustrate that with facts and figures about home values. The net result of that was a better understanding of the financials of home ownership. The financial cost was more than the purchase price. You had to include property taxes, insurance, and a whole host of other costs that aren’t reflected in the listing.

There is, however, one hidden cost that most people overlook and one that one is very difficult to quantify – time.

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There are some expenses that are fun. We spend money and we get something in return that we can play with. Other expenses are boring and tedious. We spend thousands of dollars on insurance every year in the hopes that it will be money that we never again see. As we get older, an increasing amount of expenses feel that way and many of these expenditures will come from our home. When times are tough and money is tight we look for expenses to cut out and often, those expenses are those related to maintenance. If it isn’t broke, why spend money to fix it or at the very least, why spend money ever year?

Putting off yearly maintenance and cleaning will cost you more money later on, according to home repair experts. Which of the home maintenance items, if neglected, may put a real dent in your wallet later on?

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After walking our dog Tobey this morning, I walked by a home for sale that advertised a free one year home warranty. It turns out that a lot of homes are offering this as a way to differentiate themselves from other homes. It’s a way for a house to stand out on the street because you get to put a placard that screams “Free One Year Home Warranty.” Back when we bought our home, throwing in a home warranty was like a cherry on top. Buyers battled for homes but sellers probably thought that throwing in a home warranty could juice up demand even more. What’s not to like about avoiding appliance headaches for one year?

The question is – are they worth it?

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I needed furniture for the first time in a college apartment. Thanks to hand-me-downs and gifts, I didn’t have to hunt down much at all. Then I graduated, got married, and we moved into a house a couple of years later. We had to get our own furniture for the first time ever. We had to decide whether we wanted to buy or rent the pieces we needed and ultimately decided to buy. Here are a few things to keep in mind if you are stuck on the fence on whether to buy or rent furniture for your place.

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I have been a big fan of Craigslist since I found out about it after college.  I don’t usually buy much from it, but I have used it to sell a bunch of things including old electronics and furniture.  In the beginning, it took a few weeks to sell an item, but now I can easily have things sold in a single weekend.  The trick has been figuring out how to make posts that can catch and hold a buyer’s interest.  A great Craigslist listing needs a few things – a good price, a solid description, and a flattering picture.

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Buying a home can be a stressful and expensive experience.  Home hunting, closing a deal, and moving in can take a lot out of you.  When we were first thinking of buying a house, I started to make lists of things we would need to pay attention to.  I knew we were going to need a mortgage and that homes come with extra expenses as well.  Here are a few financial tips to keep in mind before you buy a house.

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