Knowledge

REALTOR® Belinda Franco was selected as a Good Neighbor recipient because of her contributions to Luggage for Kids, a non-profit administered by Red Mountain Family Services.

 
Red Mountain Family Services provides Treatment Foster Care and Home Placement for emotionally and behaviorally disturbed children. Luggage for Kids provides new luggage to foster children with the hope that this small kind act will provide a sense of being cared for and respected. 

Belinda was an older foster child and understands the indignity a child feels when provided a trash bag for their belongings. Her determination to bring awareness to this issue by holding suitcase drives has inspired other brokers to pitch in. This effort has resulted in

There are no dumb questions to ask a real estate agent.

Home buying seems simple enough: Find a house you like that’s close to work or school, tell someone you want to buy it, and move in.

But there's more to it than that. You’ll have to find and get approved by a lender who will let you borrow a few hundred thousand dollars, lock in a mortgage rate, figure out how much house you can afford, put in an offer that will entice the seller, get an inspection and an appraisal, pay closing costs and sign a whole bunch of paperwork.

Phew! We need a break just thinking about all the questions to ask when buying a house.

Your real estate agent can help you understand the process. But if you don’t ask questions or get your agent to clarify something you

Sometimes trying to save will actually cost you more. Here’s when that happens.

You've got all the loyalty apps (free burrito after you buy 10!), you shopped around for the lowest rate on your mortgage, and you never go to the grocery store when you're hungry. You're frugal, and the rising amount in your savings account is a testament to that.

Since saving cash is never a bad thing, you've got nothing to worry about, right?

Unless, of course, you venture so far past frugality you enter the world of cheap. And cheap homeowners always end up paying more in the end when quick fixes and half-solved issues become big, pricey problems. 

Here are six things homeowners do when they're trying to be frugal, but instead they're really being cheap

To manage your biggest asset, create a financial plan that covers repairs, upgrades, mortgages, insurance, and taxes.

Do you pay each home-related expense as it comes? If so, you’re missing opportunities for upgrades, or much worse, heading into a financial crisis when a slew of surprise maintenance items hit. So take a holistic look at what it costs to operate your house and set up a home financial plan.

Use our home financial plan budget worksheet, and start by writing a list of expenses, such as:

• Mortgage
• Taxes
• Home insurance, including liability
• Repairs and maintenance, such as new furnace, roof, painting
• Voluntary upgrades, such as a swimming pool, a premium range, a new powder room.

What Will You Learn From This Home

Ugh. Mold. It’s ugly. It’s tenacious. It’s the uninvited guest that keeps visiting — no matter how rude you are to it. But, unwittingly, you may be setting up the perfect conditions for mold’s return: a food source, lots of moisture, and a pleasant temperature.

“You’ve got to eliminate one of those three legs of the stool so mold won’t grow,” says Pete Duncanson, director of system development for ServiceMaster Restore. “And it’s always easier to prevent than to remediate.”

Assuming you like warm showers and a comfy thermostat setting, there’s not much you can do about the temperature mold loves. But you can get rid of mold — and permanently prevent it — by controlling the other two factors: food and moisture. Here’s how.

Starve It Out

Mold is

The Grande Open House Weekend is now a statewide event where members can showcase their best properties. Access the New Mexico Home Search Toolkit to promote your real estate business and your listings during the largest open house event in the state.

How to Participate

Participating in the Grande Open House Event is FREE for NM REALTORS®! Enter your open house in Flexmls by Friday, April 8th  so it will populate on New Mexico Home Search website.   Download this PDF for more information.

Download Video

Grande Open House Weekend
Saturday, April 9th - Sunday, April 10th

How to participate in the Grande Open House Weekend:

Step 1:  Enter your open house details into Flexmls by Friday, April 8th

Step 2:  Claim your profile

Three young entrepreneurs give tips on staying organized and calm while living hectic lives.

Life is crazy. Cah-ray-zee. And while you wouldn't have it any other way from 9 to 5 (OK, more like 8 to 7), the insanity should stop at your front door.

That's why you bought your home, right? To have a place to rest, recharge, and come up with your next trailblazing idea. A few inspirational ideas for your home may be all you need to put it on the path to tranquility.

Three super-busy entrepreneurs — a brewery owner, website founder, and organic farmer — know exactly how important a tranquil home is to achieving personal success. Here, they share how they created Zen-like havens in their homes to foster stress-relieving routines.

A Nook to Bliss Out

A couple are super fun to use and may even enhance your home’s value.

Home trends come and go. But it's functionality that wins in the end. Because smart functionality almost always adds some intrinsic value to your home.

That's why these smart home products, especially the ones that make you safer, are some of our favorite home upgrades.

#1 Video Doorbell

WiFi-enabled video doorbells will let you see, hear, and speak to whoever is at your door via a smartphone, even when you're not home.

It's like Facetime but for your house. It alerts your phone and turns on the camera when someone rings the bell or comes near. You can tell the UPS guy to leave the package at the door or say, "Be there in a minute!" — whether you're in the bathroom or

From finding an inspector to dealing with surprises — this is your guide to getting a house checked out.

The first thing you need to know about home inspection: You’ll feel all the feels.

There’s the excitement — the inspection could be the longest time you’re in the house, after the showing.

Right behind that comes … anxiety. What if the inspector finds something wrong? So wrong you can’t buy the house?

Then there’s impatience. Seriously, is this whole home-buying process over yet?

Not yet. But you’re close. So take a deep breath. Because the most important thing to know about home inspection: It’s just too good for you, as a buyer, to skip. Here’s why.

A Home Inspector Is Your Protector

An inspector helps you make sure a house isn’t

A messy environment is actually good for your psyche.

Breaking news: Humans like stuff. Stuff they have. Stuff they like. Stuff they need.

But stuff just gets everywhere. Hence the trendiness of uber-organized spaces, hyper-cleanliness, and Marie Kondo-like thank-your-stuff-for-its-service-then-toss-it attitudes. But living in that state of constant tidying is exhausting.

Enough.

It is not a moral failing to have a slightly cluttered home.

And you know what? Life can be better with slightly more stuff. Here are seven reasons why:

#1 A Messy Environment Is a More Creative One

Being too tidy will stifle your imagination. Science says so.

There’s a lot of research showing messy surroundings encourage you to break the rules of