A Few Tips for Preparing Your Home for Winter

Winter is here, so it’s time to go outside and make sure that the exterior of your home is ready for the cold weather. Today, we’ll go over our top winterizing tips for you.

Today, we’ll go over a few things you should take care of on the exterior of your home before winter weather hits. For example, as temperatures get cooler, you need to drain your sprinklers. You can do that yourself, but we recommend having someone professionally winterize them. They will come out with a compressor and blow out all of the water in the pipes so that none of it freezes. When water freezes in pipes, the pipes expand and burst, which can cause major water damage. You should also make sure to disconnect your hoses. Failing to do so could lead to water damage. While you’re outside taking care of that, you can even put down some winter fertilizer. Most people aerate and fertilize their lawns during the fall, but putting down a winter fertilizer will get your lawn totally ready for spring. Check your caulking and the condition of your concrete. Caulking prevents excess water from going beneath the concrete slabs in your walkways or driveway. In the winter, that water can freeze and lift up the concrete slabs. Fresh caulking will help you prevent that problem.

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Use sand or pea gravel instead

of de-icing agents on your walkways.

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You should also seal your driveway to protect it from the de-icing agents applied by the city road crews. Your car’s tires will collect road salt and deposit it in the driveway, which can create pitting in your driveway. Sealant will also protect your driveway from oil spills and extra moisture from winter snows and spring rains.

When it does snow, it is incredibly important that you remove snow from your driveway quickly, or you will risk damaging the concrete. Don’t use salt or de-icing agents on your walkways. Instead, use some sand, pea gravel, or kitty litter to prevent people from slipping on your sidewalk.

As you tour the exterior of your home, check your exhaust and fresh air intakes to make sure they are free and clear of any obstructions, like bird nests. If you have a fireplace, make sure that the fireplace vent is clean as well.

Finally, pay attention to the exterior caulking on your home. Caulking can shrink and separate over the years. Seal them up to keep your home warm and lower your energy bills during the winter months.

If you have any other questions about preparing your home for winter, just give us a call or send us an email. We would be happy to help you!

Know anyone who's interested in building a home? 

If you have any friends, family, or co-workers who are looking to own their first or second home - would you forward this message to them? We'll be happy to show them our eleven new construction home plans along with the benefits of owning a Charleston Home so they can make a decision that's right for them.

Benchmark Mortgage Is Helping to Educate Veterans About The Benefits Available to Them

Many veterans and active-duty service members are unaware of the benefits available to them through VA financing, and Benchmark Mortgage is setting out to change that.

Eric Almquist of Benchmark Mortgage recently joined us for another great discussion about the lending side of real estate. This time, we discussed a topic that Benchmark Mortgage happens to specialize in: VA financing.

According to Eric, many veterans and active-duty service members are, unfortunately, unaware of the extent of their benefits through VA financing. The VA does a great job in providing benefits, but could use some assistance in educating people on what those benefits actually entail. This is where Eric and his fellow lending professionals at Benchmark Mortgage come in.

Benchmark Mortgage is actually on a mission right now to become the No. 1 VA lending company in the country. As part of this goal, the lending professionals at Benchmark Mortgage have realized that they should be asking every veteran and active duty service member they work with about how well they understand their benefits. “You can’t assume that they know what their benefits are,” says Eric.

You can reach Eric for more information by phone at (402) 933-1141 or by emailing him at eric.almquist@benchmark.us.

Also, if you’re interested in doing your own research on VA financing before speaking with Eric, check out this great resource:

Link: https://ericalmquist.benchmark.us/the-veterans-home-front/


And, as always, if you have any other questions or would like to speak about 
your real estate goals, feel free to give us a call or send us an email. We look
forward to hearing from you soon.

Know anyone who's interested in building a home? 

If you have any friends, family, or co-workers who are looking to own their first or second home - would you forward this message to them? We'll be happy to show them our eight new construction home plans along with the benefits of owning a Charleston Home so they can make a decision that's right for them.

Do Short-Term Rates Influence Mortgage Rates?

Interest rates are on the rise, and today we’ll be getting to the bottom of why this is taking place and why it matters to you.

Many people are wondering what’s going on with interest rates today. To help answer this, I recently sat down with Eric Almquist of Benchmark Mortgage to discuss this critical subject.

According to Eric, it’s been some time since we’ve seen conditions like those we’re seeing now. The Federal Reserve, which meets once every six weeks, is currently in a tightening cycle. Recently, they’ve been making adjustments to short-term rates with the intention of suppressing potential future inflation.

However, while it is true that short-term rates are set to rise once more before the end of 2018, this does not mean that mortgage rates will be directly impacted.

So though increases in short-term rates may ultimately lead to a slow increase of long-term rates, this is more of a correlative happening than a causal one. All it truly indicates is that our market is beginning to balance out. In fact, an increase of mortgage rates is generally the result of another positive shift—like the drop in unemployment.

In short, everything in our market is connected. Also, rates today are still historically low. This means it’s still a great time to buy. All of these conditions are both relative and cyclical.

If you have any other questions or would like more information from Eric, feel free to reach out to him at (402) 933-1141 or send him an email at eric.almquist@benchmark.us.

And, as always, if you have anything you’d like to ask me or my team about, please give us a call or send us an email. We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Know anyone who's interested in building a home? 

If you have any friends, family, or co-workers who are looking to own their first or second home - would you forward this message to them? We'll be happy to show them our eight new construction home plans along with the benefits of owning a Charleston Home so they can make a decision that's right for them.