Buying a house right now is not easy, there is no way to sugar coat that, but with a little bit of luck and a lot of math now is still a great time for many buyers to purchase. While many people will say sellers have the advantage in the market today, buyers today have a clear advantage over buyers who wait. 

First let’s talk about the math. I will use the interest rates from MSHDA (MI State Housing Development Authority) as their rates do not fluctuate daily for a conventional down payment assistance loan. As of March 24, 2022, the fixed rate for this loan was 4.625%. According to the Greater Regional Alliance of Realtors (GRAR), the average sale price of a home in the city of Grand Rapids was $245,188.00 in February 2022. For round numbers we’ll…

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Stop sending so much money to your utility company with these simple strategies.

Your Mexican beach vacation was great, but, man, those margaritas sure can put on the pounds. It’s been two months, and you’re still carrying around an extra tenner — despite a new running routine and a lot of #&*&@$ kale. So why isn’t your weight dropping?

It can be like that with energy bills, too. Almost half (47%) of the respondents surveyed by the Shelton Group, a marketing agency specializing in energy efficiency, claimed they made between one and three energy efficiency improvements to their home. But 89% of them said their energy bills didn’t go down.  

So, what's up? We're rationalizing, says Suzanne Shelton, CEO of the Shelton Group. “We think, 'I…

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Keep the vintage wallpaper, but upgrade that time- and money-draining retro thermostat to programmable. What may seem like a good idea, often isn't. Here are 17 common mistakes new homeowners often make.


#1 Get Rid of Your Only Tub

If resale value is important to you, don't get rid of your only bathtub no matter how dreamy that walk-in shower looks.

It will make it harder to sell when the time comes. You'll flat-out lose buyers who love a good soak or need a tub to bathe little ones (both human and four-legged).


#2 Leave Cabinet Doors on While Painting

Painting your kitchen cabinets pays off big at resale — it's a small investment for a big "wow." But the job's time-consuming, so it's tempting leave the doors on.

RESIST. At all…

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Hey, I'm Steve Volkers with Steve Volkers Group in Grand Rapids, Michigan. A small local brokerage. And we are going to start just talking monthly about market data. So I use a lot of market data when I'm talking at listing appointments, buyer appointments, and just within our brokerage with our agents.

Kevin, our marketing guru is starting to throw together this, uh, real estate market data package. You can get all the data online and Kevin will probably throw up a link. But what we're going to do is just drop this once. With the newest data. And then I'm just going to do my overview of what I think is happening within the market.

Right. So I want to, just to dive right in today on some of these graphs that I find interesting and give you…

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