Real Estate Video Blog

Guard Your Castle

Jun 5, 2020

Here are my tips on how to safeguard your home’s equity.

In these uncertain times, the longer we go, the more uncertain it gets. We have got to be thinking about how we can be conservative and do well by our home and our family.

One of the biggest ways that I’ve found is to guard and increase the equity in your home. There are several ways you can do that.

So when you’re first purchasing, what can you do to get money into that home? Zero down loans are great; they help you get a foot into the door. The way that values are moving, that’s going to be important just to get in the game. Start working on your equity right away. Do everything you can to pay that loan down quickly—just because you got a 30-year loan doesn’t mean it has to take you 30 years to pay it off. Do everything you can to get more space in between what you owe and the value of your home.

Third, do everything you can to keep your home in great repair. There’s actually a chair right up on my deck up there. I sat in that thing and it just went. I know that’s very poetic, but it fell apart. And initially, I was thinking that we were going to have to go ahead and throw it away, but my husband, the handyman that he is, was able to show me how we can go ahead and glue it and screw on some braces and whatever it is that he’s going to do.

“Start working on your equity right away.”

We are doing everything we can to be the best stewards of what we have. It’s about using your resources the most wisely so they stretch as far as you can. Your home is important—it’s your home base, it’s your safety, it’s an investment.

If you have any questions about what you can do to make that better for you, then please give me a call. We are here for you whether you’re buying, selling, or staying put.

“She was very easy to work with, very professional and it ended in purchasing our home. She regularly went above and beyond, I just got a sense that she was very in tune with her job and she was always giving us helpful advice.”

“She was very easy to work with, very professional and it ended in purchasing our home. She regularly went above and beyond, I just got a sense that she was very in tune with her job and she was always giving us helpful advice.”

- Jasen S.

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“When I wanted to put my house up for sale, I knew that Sandy was familiar with the neighborhood. She listed it and within four days it was sold. I was very happy with the quick work that she did for me. It was good. She always works good, she always does above what she nee...

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“When I wanted to put my house up for sale, I knew that Sandy was familiar with the neighborhood. She listed it and within four days it was sold. I was very happy with the quick work that she did for me. It was good. She always works good, she always does above what she needs to do. Everything that Sandy does it just seems like it is top, top notch. I would recommend her to anybody.”

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- Jim T.

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“Well the results were fantastic. She guided me through the whole process, she was there when I got crazy and helped me. I can’t say enough about her. I’m very pleased with everything she did for me and she was right there all the time doing what had to be done and keeping ...

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“Well the results were fantastic. She guided me through the whole process, she was there when I got crazy and helped me. I can’t say enough about her. I’m very pleased with everything she did for me and she was right there all the time doing what had to be done and keeping me informed. I’m very satisfied with her. You know buying a house is so confusing, but she was right there with all the answers and guiding me through it, and just the whole thing. She’s always there. And that’s what I like about her, and she tells you up front what it is, what’s going on, how it’s going to happen. I’ve bought houses before and it’s never been this easy. I mean I’m not saying it was perfectly easy because there’s always things that the lenders do, but she was always right there for me.“

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- Charlene

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“I thought she went beyond my expectation as far as working on our behalf. I was very pleased with the way she was able to act as a go-between between ourselves and the builder. She was effective and she put forth more effort than most people would usually do, so I was very...

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“I thought she went beyond my expectation as far as working on our behalf. I was very pleased with the way she was able to act as a go-between between ourselves and the builder. She was effective and she put forth more effort than most people would usually do, so I was very pleased. And she was easy to work with, with us. I was really glad to have her as my Realtor. The builder made a commitment to us that he later reneged on and she took it upon herself to write a request explaining our particular difficult situation that he would reconsider. And they did try to reconsider and do what they could to help us out. I don’t think that would have happened if she hadn’t stuck her neck out for us.“

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- Merry

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I’ve worked with Sandy before so I had utter confidence in what she suggested as a listing price. When she listed it I signed the papers and two seconds later the sign went up and about an hour and a half later I can’t even begin to tell you how many agents walked in with t...

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I’ve worked with Sandy before so I had utter confidence in what she suggested as a listing price. When she listed it I signed the papers and two seconds later the sign went up and about an hour and a half later I can’t even begin to tell you how many agents walked in with their clients. That was on a Thursday and we had all the offers that we needed by Saturday. What more can I say. I was hysterical because I didn’t expect it to happen that fast. She was very calming to me because I really was [hysterical]. I thought I’d have a couple weeks or something, I didn’t expect to have an offer in two days. She not only calmed me, she had an open house. You know I was saying let’s forget the open house and she said no, this can make the difference between the listing price or less. So I said okay, fine. In order to prep the house she had equipment that I could borrow that was so very necessary such as a power washer, a rug cleaner. This woman is on the ball. I will tell you at the close of sale things went a little screwy and she knocked herself to make things right for me. I can’t praise her enough.

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- Mary

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She was very pleasant and she did a fantastic job for us, we were very, very pleased with her. I’ve lived in the same house for like 27 years so I haven’t dealt with very many Realtors, but I know quite a few and she was just very pleasant, we enjoyed working with her. She ...

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She was very pleasant and she did a fantastic job for us, we were very, very pleased with her. I’ve lived in the same house for like 27 years so I haven’t dealt with very many Realtors, but I know quite a few and she was just very pleasant, we enjoyed working with her. She did a good job for us.

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- Nancy

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“It was great, everybody in their office, and Sandy included, handled my stress. I was crying sometimes I had to pay a bill, there was a lien on my home that I knew nothing about and they were so genuinely nice. They didn’t judge, it was just, it was great. If I had to ever...

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“It was great, everybody in their office, and Sandy included, handled my stress. I was crying sometimes I had to pay a bill, there was a lien on my home that I knew nothing about and they were so genuinely nice. They didn’t judge, it was just, it was great. If I had to ever do anything again she’d be my lady I’d call. I did a lot of the selling of the home, the short sale, without my husband, I mean because he was so busy, but they handled my stress. Every question, she was right there. She was like, I’ll show it, get the house and get all the paperwork [ready] don’t worry. That was above and beyond. A lot of people think oh they’re doing a short sale, no big thing. Or you know, oh look at them, they didn’t criticize or judge or do any of that and I felt comfortable with that. It made me feel good.”

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- Jodi

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“We had been trying to sell our house with a different agent. [Then] we got Sandy. Very much of a go getter and which was appreciated because my husband and I didn’t have a whole lot of time to set up things like open houses and what not. I mean she did a lot of work settin...

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“We had been trying to sell our house with a different agent. [Then] we got Sandy. Very much of a go getter and which was appreciated because my husband and I didn’t have a whole lot of time to set up things like open houses and what not. I mean she did a lot of work setting up open houses and marketing it. [She] had a great photographer come in. If something needed to be checked at the house, my husband and I were both out of the house for a time, and sometimes we’d need a quick turnaround on looking at something and we wouldn’t be able to make it up and so she’d actually go over and handle it. Like I think there were a couple times she took the garbage can down from the road. Which I wasn’t even expecting her to do that. But that was fantastic. We had a question of the square footage and she actually went over and measured the whole house and you know did a quick estimate there just to do a quick sanity check. So that was really good.”

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- Genevieve

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“She was really responsive and prompt and pleasant and friendly and helpful. She totally helped my husband stage the house because I was out of town before the photographer came and I felt bad. It was definitely above and beyond because well, it should have been something t...

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“She was really responsive and prompt and pleasant and friendly and helpful. She totally helped my husband stage the house because I was out of town before the photographer came and I felt bad. It was definitely above and beyond because well, it should have been something that we would have done. I was happy about that because I couldn’t help.“

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- Cindy and Carl

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“Oh Sandy was great, we really appreciated her help, she was awesome. We were going to see some houses that she had listed that she found for us to look at and on the way my wife saw an open house. We stopped, we liked that place and it wasn’t listed with Sandy, we to...

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“Oh Sandy was great, we really appreciated her help, she was awesome. We were going to see some houses that she had listed that she found for us to look at and on the way my wife saw an open house. We stopped, we liked that place and it wasn’t listed with Sandy, we told her about it and she said would you like to make an offer, we made an offer and she coordinated the whole thing with the other realtor and we ended up getting the house and it was fantastic for us throughout the whole process. She was available night and day no matter what time or always willing to listen to our questions, was very responsive, text, email, or by phone [we] could always get ahold of her or she would be calling us back or contacting us right away whenever we had any type of questions, concerns, or misunderstandings. [She] was very patient but also really good at communicating and helping us through the whole process and teaching us how the whole thing worked and she was great.”

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- Adam

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“To me, she did exactly what I asked her to do and she paid for a photographer to take professional pictures and she was great, she was awesome!”

“To me, she did exactly what I asked her to do and she paid for a photographer to take professional pictures and she was great, she was awesome!”

- Barb

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“Well I had a very difficult and complex situation, they really helped explain to me all the process and understand everything and were just always there if I had any questions or they were always available to answer my questions if I started freaking out about something or...

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“Well I had a very difficult and complex situation, they really helped explain to me all the process and understand everything and were just always there if I had any questions or they were always available to answer my questions if I started freaking out about something or misunderstood something, they were always there to help calm me down and keep me focused.”

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- George-Marie

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“She is amazing, absolutely wonderful! We got our house within 30 days of closing, we told her we needed a certain date and she got it by the certain date. She’s absolutely wonderful and I’m going to tell all of my wonderful friends about her.”

“She is amazing, absolutely wonderful! We got our house within 30 days of closing, we told her we needed a certain date and she got it by the certain date. She’s absolutely wonderful and I’m going to tell all of my wonderful friends about her.”

- Paula Hendricks

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Our experience with her was fantastic! We had an unorthodox situation where the bank wanted us to keep the house, and we were just done working with them. We worked with Sandy for over a year. Her entire team is phenomenal. They persisted no matter what. Sandy is amazing. S...

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Our experience with her was fantastic! We had an unorthodox situation where the bank wanted us to keep the house, and we were just done working with them. We worked with Sandy for over a year. Her entire team is phenomenal. They persisted no matter what. Sandy is amazing. She was right there with us the entire time!

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- Casey

Oh the results were fantastic. We looked for a house for several years and Sandy was always there for us. She'd constantly send us updates on notes, she was right on top of everything as far as what we were looking for. We called on a Wednesday or a Thursday and said, "We'r...

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Oh the results were fantastic. We looked for a house for several years and Sandy was always there for us. She'd constantly send us updates on notes, she was right on top of everything as far as what we were looking for. We called on a Wednesday or a Thursday and said, "We're coming down for the weekend, can you meet us?" And she was there on Saturday and had houses lined up for us to look at and we bought one of those.

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- Marvin

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We got a house we wanted, we got rid of a house we didn’t want. In spite of all the little things that were caused by other things outside of her control it went really well. The buyers of our house that we were [selling] were making it difficult and she was going out of he...

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We got a house we wanted, we got rid of a house we didn’t want. In spite of all the little things that were caused by other things outside of her control it went really well. The buyers of our house that we were [selling] were making it difficult and she was going out of her way to help us get everything taken care of. Getting it repaired, she actually supplied us with a moving truck and couple of strong guys to help us move since we got behind the 8-ball between the buyers of our old house and getting into our new house. I mean considering all the stuff that happened it went really well. I mean there was a lot of things that got in the way, a lot of circumstantial stuff that doesn’t normally happen in the process of buying and selling homes and she was working for us on the selling and the buying aspect. Considering all the stuff that tried to sidetrack us it all went really well and she kept going above and beyond to get us where we needed to be and get into the new house.

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- Tony

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Well the best way to answer that question would be that this was actually the second offer we made on a house. And the first offer we made we didn't get any feedback and the offer was turned down. But then the second offer we got some feedback from Sandy and that feedback i...

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Well the best way to answer that question would be that this was actually the second offer we made on a house. And the first offer we made we didn't get any feedback and the offer was turned down. But then the second offer we got some feedback from Sandy and that feedback is what helped us get the offer. It wasn't like it was a lot of information, but it was exactly what we needed because we had no idea what we were doing. This was the first time we bought a house. The Realtor we were working with wasn't as helpful but Sandy was showing the house that we eventually bought and she gave us the right tools that we needed. Other than that she was very helpful about letting us know on a day-to-day basis, schedules and things of that nature. I almost wish she'd been our Realtor, would have been really nice.

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- Mark

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The house had four offers in four days and went for $40,000 above asking. We had looked for a property two years prior, she had helped us. We had looked at 10 different options and didn’t pull the trigger on any of them and she was fine with it. We apologized and she said t...

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The house had four offers in four days and went for $40,000 above asking. We had looked for a property two years prior, she had helped us. We had looked at 10 different options and didn’t pull the trigger on any of them and she was fine with it. We apologized and she said there’s no obligation there so we wanted to stick with her when two years later my parents were listing their house. She was really easy to work with, easy to get ahold of. Text, email, or phone. If she didn’t answer she would call back within an hour, so if you had questions it was really easy to get ahold of her.

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- Michelle

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Sandy helped walk us through the system, getting our house ready for sale, letting us know what was and was not worth fixing, and just completing the process satisfactorily. She was very responsive to our questions when those would arise, and we communicated quite frequentl...

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Sandy helped walk us through the system, getting our house ready for sale, letting us know what was and was not worth fixing, and just completing the process satisfactorily. She was very responsive to our questions when those would arise, and we communicated quite frequently by text. She probably made a couple of extra visits to our home just to help us address some situations. And I just felt very, very listened to and like our transaction was important to her. I would say that she is a very pleasant professional, that she will shoot straight with you, but that she will also listen to you and consider your input. I would unreservedly recommend her to help anybody for their buying or selling needs.

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