AW Realty Group

It's back-to-school season. School supplies are front and center in the stores, back-to-school sales are everywhere, and school buses are becoming part of the morning commute. Even if the public school district is not an important factor in your home search, the location of public schools can still have a significant impact on your home buying decision. If you are looking for a home near a school, you may want to take these factors into consideration. 1. School Speed Zones Pay attention to the speed limit around schools and times that the school zone speed is enforced. You may want to consider a home that has convenient alternate routes around the school zone. 2. School Bus Stops Whether there is a bus route through your neighborhood or on a major thoroughfare, it can affect traffic around your home. Call the school district and ask if there is a bus that stops near your home to pick up students. 3. Morning and Afternoon Traffic Traffic congestion near public schoo...

You’re smart. You’re doing your research about home buying and homeownership (like you are right now!), so you feel like you’re prepared to avoid common home buying pitfalls. But you’ll soon find that once you’ve moved in, there is a whole new list of common problems that plague unwary first-time homeowners. To help you make the best buying and ownership decisions possible, we’ve outlined some of the the biggest blunders that first-time buyers make after closing on their home. Investing in Too Many Upgrades Not every home improvement project is worth the money or effort. Many first-time homeowners make the mistake of not considering a project’s return on investment, at least until it’s time to  sell the house down the road . If you want to know which home improvements are worth the investment, talk with a real estate agent or  get a market report for your neighborhood . Contact us and we’ll send one to you. Ignoring “Minor” Maintenance Issues As your home ages, s...

From personalizing your living spaces to turning a profit when you sell, there are dozens of reasons why first-time home buyers can’t wait to find a home and make it their own. Though there are plenty of benefits of owning a home in the Triangle, here are the six benefits that stand out from the rest. 1. You Can Customize Your Space Whether you want to invest in the latest high-tech home features or paint your walls neon green, owning a home gives you the freedom to do just about anything you want. 2. You Make the Rules Unlike with a rental property, where a landlord can dictate what you can and can’t do while living there, living in your own home means you have the freedom to host parties, adopt a pet, plant a garden, you name it. As a homeowner, you are in total control! 3. You Can Take Advantage of Tax Breaks It’s true what they say: owning a home is an investment. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t ways that you can reap financial rewards up front. The IRS allows...

Many Triangle home sellers have considered skipping the real estate agent to save on closing costs, but very few have actually succeeded in seeing those savings. There’s a good reason: the average homeowner doesn’t have the rigorous training and real estate knowledge that a licensed agent does. But just what makes For Sale By Owner (aka FSBO) such a bad idea? From incessant inconveniences to costly paperwork mistakes, here are a few of the horror stories that FSBO sellers inevitably encounter. The Daunting Task of Marketing Your Home It takes more than a “For Sale” sign in your front yard to  make buyers notice your home . According to the National Association of Realtors, 95% of buyers use the Internet in their home search. This means that online marketing — starting with listing your home on the local listings database, sharing your listing to dozens of social media platforms, and advertising your listing on numerous websites with a global audience — is essential to sell...

Record-low inventory of homes for sale is forcing some homebuyers to build their own homes, but they still need think about where they will build. Buzzfeed recently tested ordinary people on their real estate knowledge with some surprising results. Do you know how to calculate how much land you will need for that dream house and how much a parcel of land will cost? How many square feet are in an acre? Does your real estate knowledge stack up to the Buzzfeed challenge? Here are some real estate tips to better your score on  BuzzFeed’s Regular People Take a Real Estate Exam . DO THE MATH The National Association of Home Builders reports an average cost of $85,139 for a buildable lot. Now’s the time to bust out that handy calculator. The percentage or ratio of the size of the building to the land on which it resides is called the “ land-to-building ratio .” To arrive at the land to building ratio, divide the square footage of the land parcel by the square footage of the buildin...

The month of March brings spring, and with spring comes bright budding flowers, longer days, warmer weather, and spring cleaning. There is no better way to shake off the dreariness of winter than a freshly cleaned home ready to welcome the season. Here are 10 easy ways you can clean your home for spring. 1. Open the Windows There's nothing like the sun shining through your windows to usher in the feeling of spring. Throw back the curtains, part the blinds, and open up the windows to let the fresh spring air waft through your home. 2. Organize Your Closets If you are running out of closet space, you can put away many of your bulky winter clothes to leave room for your spring wardrobe. You can even take a few extra minutes to sort out any clothes you no longer wear to donate, giving you even more room for the upcoming season. 3. Use Detergent as an All-Purpose Cleaner A little bit of laundry detergent can go a long way. Warm water, laundry detergent, and items that you...

Email scams are as old as, well, email, but as the years go by, these scams have become more and more sophisticated. Recently, several home buyers have fallen victim to specially targeted email scams that attempt to rob them of their closing costs — sometimes up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. These types of scams are devastating both financially and emotionally, especially when your home is involved. But to help protect you from email scams targeting the real estate industry, we have outlined a few tips about what these scams are and how to avoid them. What Email Scams Are Common? Though the method through which hackers collect personal or financial information is always changing, there are a few basic types of scams that buyers and sellers should be aware of. Phishing This type of scam attempts to “fish” for sensitive personal or financial information (such as passwords or credit card numbers). Many emails used in recent phishing schemes look legitimate; they may use ...