Things to Think about when Buying Residential Real Estate

Buying Naples, Florida real estate is not as difficult as you may think. With the help of an experienced Realtor, anyone can easily find their dream home. The following tips are designed to help you determine which homes currently for sale are perfect for you and your family.

Do It Now

Why are people taking the plunge and buying a house now? The mortgage rates are still extremely affordable. Depending on the house you want to buy, paying for a mortgage may even be cheaper than rent. Home prices are still reasonably low, although they are rising as the real estate market is starting to recover. Look upon the purchase as an investment. If you ever decide to sell, you will probably get a better return than keeping your money in a savings account.

Hire an Agent

Nobody knows this industry better than a trained and licensed Realtor. How can you compete with that? Agents make it their business to know everything that goes on in their territories. Quite often, they know about a home coming on the market before the property actually hits the MLS listings. You may be in luck if that is a house that has everything you are looking for.

Set a Budget Limit

Realtors show clients a wide range of homes. Some of them are below the budget limit, while others are slightly above. It all depends on the amount of suitable homes currently available. Some of these properties may be ideal, but think about what you are doing to yourself and your family. Mortgages often span up to 30 years. That is a long time to tighten the belt just to make ends meet. Why not wait until another great home is released. You will feel better about your decision, and you can continue to save. Do not forget that you need money for a down payment, closing costs, home insurance, reconnection of utilities, moving, and a few other things.

Location Matters

Whether you are still employed or retired does not matter. Think long and hard about location when looking at Naples, Florida real estate. Make sure that your new home is close to work, schools, shopping centers, restaurants, hospitals, emergency services, and all other conveniences you are accustomed to. With today’s rising gas prices, try to keep your transportation costs down. It is money you can later spend on home improvements.

Cozy Backyard

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This cozy backyard garden proves that small spaces cannot be underrated.  In this design where curved garden elements were installed, the designer was able to transform a small space into a paradise!  The presence of curved designs made the garden appeared to be endless.  From most of my readings about garden tips, it is always emphasized that every small corner of the garden shall be utilized to the fullest. Usually, container and vertical gardening is used to maximize the space and have an abundant number of greens and flowering plants.  

What's your idea of a cozy garden?

Mardi Gras Celebration

After more than 6 years, I finally had the chance to witness the Olongapo City Mardi Gras which is traditionally celebrated October of each year.  My daughter asked for a permission to join the Mardi Gras celebration with her school friends and as a doting Mom, I would not allow her to come home very late alone.  Even our city doesn't have a high incident of crime rate, I still would like to ensure the safety of my daughter.  So, to enable her to attend the Mardi Gras and at the same time ensure that she will be safe going back home, my son and I had decided to follow her and wait for the time that she and her friends would finally call it a night.  

The celebration hasn't changed through the years.  It is a party on the streets, thus you would expect to see several stages showcasing some live bands. Some were invited from Manila while others are just the local bands in the city.  I was amazed that the traditional Mardi Gras had an overwhelming response from the Olongapenians, as the whole street was really crowded and you could hardly talk to each other due to the blasting sounds of the large speakers on stage.  There were rock bands who entertained the crowd with their music using  their schecter omen bass.  Sad to say, I'd never been a fan of rock music even during my younger years.  

At any rate, all the Olongapenians especially the students had a blast during the night and I am happy that I had the privilege to witness such a celebration once again.

Custom Made Furniture For My Home

I am now in the process of doing a little make over for our bedroom.  As we were included in thousands of homes affected by a great flood last September, there's no doubt that some of our home furniture had deteriorated in shape if not totally wrecked.   But I am still thankful that the effect of the flood in our home sweet home is not as worse as what the others had experienced.  In fact, we were never affected by any flooding ever since our house was built, thus, it must really be a worse flood that happened in the city.  This is in fact our first time to be affected by the flood.

A number of our furniture, most of which were bought ready made from the furniture shop were deformed and wood finishing were chipped off.  They do not appear as pretty as before.  One lesson learned about furniture is that, I must go for custom made furniture.  I've noticed that the built in furniture which I asked a wood carpenter to make for me for the bedrooms are the ones that are durable.  They remained to be in perfect shape even after the flood.  I'm glad I did not bought all the furniture from the store.

Now, because of this experience, I am now replacing all the worn out store bought furniture with custom made.  For this, I need to seek the help of our reliable wood carpenter who had been making furniture for us for few years now.

   

He's almost done with the custom made cabinet for our bedroom, just need to work on the doors.  I'm happy that it was huge and can accommodate my growing number of personal stuff.

Here is the initial stage.  I will be posting the final outcome once it gets completed.

  

Arts and Crafts Project

If you're thinking of creating your own craft projects for the holiday season, you may want to try using ready made cut out woods.  This could be ideal for Christmas home decors or for that Nativity project.  Choosing quality materials for your home or school projects is not very easy, that's why you should be eyeing for a supplier who could deliver quality materials at an affordable price and can ensure you a fast delivery.  I remember my old days in school when we were all busy decorating our classrooms in time for the Christmas celebration.  The school would normally organize a contest where each class will be competing with each other for "the most beautiful room" award.  Prizes are not really that big but the joys of having experienced the excitement and team work during the competition is enough reason for every class to participate.  Now that I already have my own family, I'm still very much fascinated in creating Christmas home decors.  I may not be using custom wood cutouts for my home projects but I make sure that mine is budget friendly and unique.  I also love the idea that every member of the family is participating and that we had been doing this as part of our family tradition.     

We don't have definite plans yet as to how are we going to decorate our home this coming Christmas season but I'm looking forward that I can do it once again with my family.

Ceiling Design

Anywhere I go,  the first thing that I would see is the house and interior design of the place that I'm going to visit, thus during my visit to Battambang City in Cambodia two months ago,  I happened to see this ceiling design from the hotel which I've stayed.  I love the idea that this is a ready to install design.  No need to paint and all, what you have to do is just to install it right away.  I love that it's so simple and elegant.  I wonder if we could get similar ready made design in the country, as well.  It's a textured wood and I think the paint can easily be retouched in case it's already worn out.

What do you think?

Home Made Gifts

Since we are into cup cake business, I am thinking of just baking sweet cup cakes as Christmas present to friends and relatives.  My son Edmar was the one who started with the business actually.  I encouraged him to study baking during his free time last April  which he willingly obliged.  I remember that since he was a toddler, he really loved sweet foods particularly chocolates.  One time, we were in a duty free shop for some grocery shopping and I was busy looking at some food items on the shelves and I suddenly forgot about my son.  He just keeps on following me wherever I go around the supermarket when suddenly, a security personnel called my attention.  He requested me to pay for a box of chocolates at the cashier's counter while pointing to my son.  Only then I realized that he took a box of chocolate from the display shelves and started eating it while I'm busy getting some pantry items.  He really loves chocolates.  Now that he's a already a grown up, he still crave for some premium chocolate brands but his preference for gifts had already changed from plain chocolates to jewelries.  He would love to have one from Le Vian chocolate diamond selection. 

Boys will always be boys but I'm convinced that their wants and needs changes to cope up with the time. No matter what, he would still and will always be my loving son who has remained cute, sweet and dependable.    

Love This For My Kitchen

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I've found this bracket for tablets and I think this is a cool way to get connected while you're busy working in the kitchen.  You can browse on some recipes online and have a quick guide when you're preparing your meals for the whole family.  Not only that, it would be a lot easier to follow some video tutorials too.  This way, you can be assured that your tablets would be free from any dirt even your kitchen counter top is messy with all those ingredients lined up. :)

But if you're unable to find one on your local shops or online stores, I think we can also make an improvised one.

I really love to have this in my kitchen. :)

Hunting for Antiques Can Be an Adventure

You have just bought a vintage home that was built in the early 1900s. It has been restored beautifully and now you need to furnish it. The items you want to put in the house need to be from that era as well, or as close as possible to that era as you can find. There are many places to look for antiques in Los Angeles and you are going to start with the one closest to the location of your new house.

The First Store

When you walk into the first antique store, you are overwhelmed by the smell and the sheer amount of the items they had crammed into the space of their store. The smell wasn’t a particularly bad smell, it was just thick as you entered the store. As you wander through the small and cramped aisles, you can’t see the larger things because of all of the smaller things crowded around them. The owners of the store were very friendly and willing to help, but you couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

The Next Store

The next store you went into was much more spread out and each type of antique piece was in its own section. The first item on your list is a bed with four posts. You want a massive headboard, and this second store has the perfect match to what you had in mind. They also had an armoire that would go perfectly in the bedroom and would hold the television and all of the stereo equipment you plan to put in there. The other item you just had to have was a dining room table that was standing all alone in one corner of the store. It didn’t have any chairs with it, but it was perfect for the formal dining room that you needed to furnish now. You found some mismatched dining room chairs that would go great with the room and the table. There will be other chairs at other antique stores for you to find. Your list was far from all checked off, and you were looking forward to hunting for the other pieces among all the other stores that sold antiques in Los Angeles.