Latest Articles by burgeltz http://www.articletrader.com/ Articles at ArticleTrader en-us Does Home Improvement Make Sense in a Housing Slump? http://www.articletrader.com/home-and-family/home-improvement/does-home-improvement-make-sense-in-a-housing-slump.html http://www.articletrader.com/home-and-family/home-improvement/does-home-improvement-make-sense-in-a-housing-slump.html Fri, 18 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0600 Last night I watched a home improvement show in which a Florida couple had spent $50,000 updating their home. Now they were asking their realtor for a home appraisal. Amazingly, the realtor told them their renovation had increased the value of their home by $120,000 - more than a two-to-one return on their investment!

Cable TV is filled with shows like this that inspire homeowners to take on kitchen remodeling, bedroom makeovers or similar projects.

But many of these shows were filmed two or three years ago during the height of the housing boom.

As we enter 2008 we face a very different housing market in which nationwide home prices are stagnant and even declining in some markets.

In this sort of environment, does home improvement still make sense? The answer depends on what sort of home improvement you want to tackle.

Avoid Style Makeovers

First, it’s time for a reality check. Even during the peak of the housing boom, the idea that remodeling your home produced a high return on investment was simply a myth.

According to 2004 survey by Remodeling Magazine, the average home renovation returned only 80% of its value at the time of resale.

So for every dollar you invested in a major renovation, you could expect $0.80 back in your pocket. And that was in 2004, when home values across the country were climbing at an unprecedented rate.

If you want a style makeover to make yourself happy, by all means you should do it. But you shouldn’t expect it to dramatically increase the resale value of your home.

In fact, your taste could well end up driving away potential buyers. Personal tastes can be tricky. You may love red and gold walls in your living room, but some buyers will see this as a liability that needs to be fixed.

Even if your tastes are in step with current tastes, styles will change over time. Your choice of kitchen tile and countertops may be in line with current fashion, but if you don’t plan to sell your home for another ten years, the style may well be dated when you sell.

Keep in Step with Your Neighborhood

Your home’s location is still the biggest factor determining its value. With that in mind, renovations make the most sense if they bring your house up to the norm for the neighborhood.

If your 3,000 square foot home has only two bathrooms, adding a third bathroom makes sense. If all other homes in your neighborhood have a deck, then adding one to your home makes sense as well.

But this rule only applies to major items. Just because your neighbor added solid gold faucets and a sunken marble bathtub doesn’t mean you should remodel your master bath to keep pace.

And if you are already the biggest house on the block, further home upgrades will do little to increase the value of your home.

Invest in Home Maintenance

Home repairs and preventative maintenance are the best investment you can make in your house, and they make sense regardless of whether the housing market is in a boom or a bust. They won’t necessarily raise the value of your home, but they can prevent your home from loosing far more value due to damage and wear.

Putting off repairs simply means they will cost more when you do get around to fixing them. A crack from a settling foundation will expand over time. Water damage from a leaky gutter will only cause further wear to your exterior walls.

When you sell your house these issues will almost certainly come up in the home inspection, and you may need to discount your home’s price to allow the buyer to make repairs. Worse, too large a repair bill may simply scare a buyer away.

The Bottom Line

Overall, the best advice is to invest in sound home improvements that keep your house in good shape and up to the standard of your neighborhood.

If you still want to make a style upgrade, that’s fine. But do it for aesthetic reasons, not financial ones.



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Mike Milliman is a managing partner of GutterSupply.com, the leading online seller of rain gutters.

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> Give a Speech? I’d Rather Die! http://www.articletrader.com/writing/public-speaking/give-a-speech-id-rather-die.html http://www.articletrader.com/writing/public-speaking/give-a-speech-id-rather-die.html Tue, 15 May 2007 00:00:00 -0500
Nearly everyone suffers some level of nerves when speaking in front of a group. But for some people the anxiety can be overwhelming. These people fear public speaking so much, they experience nausea, cold sweats and sheer panic. In these cases the regular advice – exhortations like ‘be prepared’ or ‘imagine your audience naked’– simply does no good.

Having spent years coaching people with intense phobias like the fear of public speaking, I’ve learned techniques that can help you overcome these debilitating fears. One of the most effective is a technique called Anchoring.

How You Create Fear

To beat your fear of speaking in public, you first need to understand how you create fear in your mind and in your body. The way you feel at any moment in time is a direct result of two things: your Focus and your Physiology. Focus is the way you are using your mind: what you are thinking, and the language you use inside your head. Physiology is the way you are using your body: your posture, your breathing, and even things like how tired you are.

Every feeling you have is a result of a recipe composed of the Focus & Physiology you are using at that moment. Change Physiology and Focus and immediately your feelings change.

It is physiologically impossible to feel afraid while moving around with your head up, breathing full healthful breaths and thinking and talking about things you are happy and excited about. Try it and see.

Anchoring Yourself

Jumping around like an acrobat and singing your favorite song will definitely shift you into a much more positive state, but you’ll need a more discrete strategy for use before an audience!

The answer is Anchoring, a simple technique that taps into your neurology’s system for linking feelings to experience. You have already experienced anchoring thousands of times. It works like this: whenever something unique happens and you are in an intense emotional state your nervous system creates a link between the two.

Perhaps the first time you fell in love, there was a song that you heard on the radio. At the time that song played over and over again, and you were in the intense emotional state. Maybe it even became “your song.” Now whenever you hear that song that feeling of falling in love comes back.

In this case your mind created a link – an anchor - between a powerful feeling and a stimulus.

We can use this same sort of anchoring to transform how you feel about public speaking. You deliberately create a link between some kind of unique stimulus - one you control and can use whenever you want - and the kind of calm, confident emotions you want to experience when speaking in public.

So, begin by choosing a stimulus. I find that a simple, discrete action such as squeezing your fist works best. Next, practice tying that stimulus to positive emotions. Think of a fond memory, spend time with a loved one, or perhaps imagine yourself at your favorite vacation spot. Practice your stimulus during these times. Repeat this until you find you can recall the desired feeling anytime you want by using your stimulus.

This technique works like a savings account. The more you put into it, the more useful it becomes.

And, like a savings account, the reward can be huge: a vast reservoir of calmness and confidence you can draw on whenever you chose.

Why not give it a try?


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Seymour Segnit is the President of Change That’s Right Now, a New York based company that has helped hundreds of people overcome chronic phobias. Visit him at ChangeThatsRightNow.com.

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]>