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Getting Your Home Real Estate Ready On A Budget

Getting Your Home Real Estate Ready On A Budget

Do you want to move out of your current home? If so, you might be shocked to learn just how much it costs to sell your home. Did you know it costs, on average, $15,200 to sell a home in the United States? Understandably, you probably don’t want to spend that much money on selling your home. If so, keep reading to learn how to get your home ready for sale on a budget.

Take Time to Deep Clean Your House

When entering into a prospective new home, buyers don’t want to walk into a dirty property. This means you’ll need to begin deep cleaning your home before listing it for sale. Fortunately, you don’t need to have thousands or even hundreds of dollars to start cleaning up your house.

For an inexpensive way to make the outside of your property look better, simply hose this area of your home down to remove cobwebs and dirt. While you’re outside, take time to wash any exterior windows within arm’s reach. For homes with more than one floor, it’s best to leave high-level windows to professional cleaners.

Another problem area for many homeowners is their carpets. Even carpets that appear clean can hold up to one pound of dirt per single square yard. Most people have some carpeting in their homes, which means there might be a lot of dirt hidden right under your nose. This kind of hidden dirt and grime can sometimes even cause an unpleasant odor. Considering the importance of first impressions, smelly homes aren’t likely to bring potential buyers back.

You might think the only solution to this problem is replacing your carpet. However, you could rent a carpet steamer or shampooer as an alternative.

After spending time cleaning your carpets, it’s time to move onto your home’s walls and ceilings. While inspecting these areas of your home, you’ll probably find more than a few scuffs and scratches. You don’t need to spend money hiring professional painters or waste time mulling over which paint colors to choose. Save yourself time and money by painting all the rooms in your home one color. It might take a bit of extra time, but it will save your sanity and your wallet. Experts recommend choosing lighter colors and sticking with this choice for each room in your home.

Clear Out the Clutter

If you’re getting ready to place your home on the market, it’s time to start removing clutter. People looking for homes want to imagine their lives in their dream property. With that in mind, it’s difficult for people to imagine living a home that’s filled with your personal belongings. Instead, make sure that your home is an open space.

Don’t let the thought of uncluttering your home get you down. Why not use this time as a way to make a little extra money? Use this time to look through your home for items you can sell. If you’re not in the mood to sell what you don’t want, think about giving these items away to a local charity. Even moving your extra things to a storage unit could be helpful.

After deciding which items you’re going to sell or donate, it’s time to start packing up a little early. Experts recommend packing away all non-essential items in your home. Not only will this make moving day easier, but it also gets rid of the clutter that potential buyers don’t want to see.

Rearrange Your Furniture

While preparing to sell your home, it’s a good idea to do a bit of rearranging. By rearranging your furniture, you can give each room in your home a completely new look

Most people find it understandably difficult to move furniture by themselves. Also, moving on a budget should never mean taking on the risk of injuring yourself. To avoid injuring yourself, think about contacting a few strong friends or family members for help. By doing this, you’ll avoid spending money on professional movers.

You can also use this as a time to remove pieces of furniture that have become eyesores. Removing furniture from rooms helps makes them appear larger. This technique works especially well for smaller rooms in your home.

With that said, you might encounter furniture that you don’t know what to do with. If you want certain furniture out of your home, but don’t want it gone forever, consider a short-term storage unit lease. If it makes your home look more open to buyers, again, it’s worth leasing a storage unit for a few months.

Have Your Septic Tank Cleaned

Research shows that 25% of homes in the United States depend on a septic system for waste disposal purposes. Before placing your property up for sale, it’s important to schedule a septic system inspection. Scheduling an inspection allows a professional to inspect and drain your home’s septic tank. Having your septic tank drained by a professional helps to ensure this item continues working properly. If not drained, septic tanks can begin overflowing with waste. After this happens, household waste has nowhere else to go but above the ground. Needless to say, this won’t make a good impression on anyone thinking about purchasing your home.

Beautify Your Lawn

Before anyone enters your home, they’re going to see the outside of your property. This is the perfect time to increase your home’s curb appeal. However, you might be unwilling to pay professional landscapers to solve this problem.

To begin beautifying your yard, give your lawn a fresh mow. This shows potential buyers you care about the appearance of your yard. Also, think about making your yard look even better by planting flowers. Even a few small window boxes can make a big difference.

You don’t have to be a professional gardener to have a great looking yard. If you don’t have a green thumb, there are plenty of plants that don’t require lots of maintenance. A few low-maintenance plants include forsythias, periwinkle, and gold thread cypress.

While making your lawn look beautiful, it’s also important to focus on your home’s front porch. Before selling your home, take care of small concerns in this area. This means purchasing new house address numbers, cleaning up your mailbox and replacing any burnt-out lightbulbs.

If all of these tips make you feel a little overwhelmed, don’t panic. About 50% of homes listed in the D.C. Metro market did not sell the first time they were listed. But at the end of the day, selling your home on a budget is achievable. The key to achieving this goal is making your budget work for you by using what you have!

Reclaiming Our State Budgets

Reclaiming Our State Budgets

I live in Chicago, a city of dramatic skylines and gleaming office towers for titans of business and finance. My state of Illinois is home to 17 billionaires, and our downstate farmers are the country’s second-largest corn and soybean producers.

And yet new Illinois governor Bruce Rauner says we’re so broke that we must slash $6 billion from our state budget this year — nearly all of it in programs for the poor and middle class. We’re so broke, he says, that there are no other options but to make deep cuts to basic services like mental health programs, drug treatment, and bus subsidies for the elderly.

He also wants to cut housing support programs for people who’ve experienced homelessness and eliminate dental and podiatry services for folks on Medicaid — all programs and services that have actually reduced the state’s overall costs.

Similar budget battles are happening in many states across the country.

Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, for example, aims to cut $300 million from public universities over the next two years. Kansas governor Sam Brownback wants to slash classroom funding by $127 million. And even in Maryland, the country’s third-richest state, Governor Larry Hogan has proposed cutting Medicaid and state employee salaries.

Despite the growing signs of a national economic recovery, these and many other state officials are whipping up budget hysteria and claiming that the only solution is to crack down on overspending.

I don’t see signs of overspending. When I look away from the skyline and the lakefront, I see young people with nothing to do after school. I see overfilled waiting lists for affordable housing. I see the rusty underbelly of our deteriorating elevated train tracks. I see social services agencies struggling to do more with less.

Draconian budget cuts on the backs of hardworking families and the most vulnerable aren’t the solution. We need more revenue from those most able to pay.

If you’ve ever walked along Chicago’s “Magnificent Mile” — an upscale stretch of skyscrapers and high-end shops along Michigan Avenue — you know we have no shortage of wealthy people.

What’s shocking is that the strip’s luxury store customers pay the same individual income tax rate as struggling working families. Illinois is one of eight states that apply such “flat taxes,” which favor the wealthy.

Many profitable corporations also get away without paying their fair share. In fact, two-thirds of corporations operating in Illinois pay no state corporate income taxes whatsoever.

A network of grassroots organizations called National People’s Action is connecting ordinary folks around the country who are fighting similarly senseless and painful budget cuts. In Illinois, I’ve joined up with ONE Northside and Fair Economy Illinois, two organizations that are bringing together social justice, labor, and faith-based groups to develop detailed proposals for an alternative approach to state budgeting.

The goal is to ensure that our thriving financial sector, our wealthiest residents, and our most profitable corporations pay their fair share of taxes so we can make the investments we need for a healthy economy — one that works for everyone.

Remember, we live in the richest country in the world. We’re not broke — we’re just keeping too much of our wealth in too few pockets.

Susan Gries is the Chief Financial Officer for a nonprofit provider of supportive housing and services in Chicago and co-chair of Fair Economy Illinois.

Cross-posted fromOther Words

Photo of Governor Bruce Rauner: Metropolitan Planning Council via Flickr

Some States Retreat On Mental Health Funding

Some States Retreat On Mental Health Funding

By Michael Ollove, Stateline.org (TNS)

WASHINGTON — Fewer states increased their spending on mental health programs this year compared with last year, when a spate of horrific shootings by assailants with histories of mental illness prompted a greater focus on the shortcomings of the country’s mental health system.

Some states slashed their mental health budgets significantly this year. At the same time, however, a number of states adopted mental health measures in 2014 that won plaudits from behavioral health advocates.

A survey of state spending published last week by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) found that 29 states plus the District of Columbia increased their spending on mental health in fiscal year 2015. A year earlier, 37 states plus D.C. increased their mental health budgets.

NAMI warned that the momentum to improve state mental health services, which was especially powerful after the December 2012 Sandy Hook massacre in Connecticut, has slowed.

The group is concerned that last year’s increases were just a blip, and that states are returning to the pattern of the period between 2009 and 2012, when total state spending on mental health fell by $4.35 billion. In fiscal year 2009, total mental health spending by all states was $1.55 trillion.

In many states, spending on mental health still hasn’t returned to prerecession levels.

But state budgets don’t paint a complete picture of mental health spending. In January, 27 states plus D.C. expanded Medicaid eligibility under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to include single people without children who earn 138 percent or less than the federal poverty level, which for an individual is $11,670. That change ushered 7.5 million new enrollees into Medicaid, which provides access to a wide range of mental health services. The federal government is paying 100 percent of the costs associated with those expansion enrollees.

“That is the single most important thing that has happened in mental health this past year,” said Debbie Plotnick, senior director of state policy of Mental Health America (MHA), formerly the National Mental Health Association.

But the expansion may also have persuaded some states to pull back funding for community mental health centers and other mental health initiatives, including school and substance abuse programs.

Rhode Island, for example, citing “a continuingly constrained budgetary environment,” cut its mental health funding by $33.6 million this year, according to NAMI, a 20 percent reduction. Michigan, Arkansas, Hawaii, Kentucky and Massachusetts also expanded Medicaid but reduced mental health funding this year.

A number of states that declined to expand Medicaid also reduced mental health spending, according to NAMI. Alaska, which cut mental health spending by 37 percent between 2009 and 2012, made further cuts in the last two years as it weathered falling revenue from declining oil prices. Nebraska, Louisiana and North Carolina, also followed mental health cuts made during the recession with additional reductions in fiscal years 2014 and 2015.

Still, 29 states plus D.C. did increase mental health spending. Virginia spent an additional $54.9 million to increase the number of psychiatric beds and strengthen community mental health programs and telepsychiatry. Missouri approved an initial $14 million for the construction of a new maximum security psychiatric hospital projected to cost a total of $211 million. New Hampshire and New Jersey put more money into community mental health. Florida increased community mental health spending as well, restoring $15.2 million in cuts it had made since 2012.

Coincident with the NAMI survey, MHA released its rankings on the mental health status of all 50 states and the District of Columbia based on the prevalence of mental illness and access to mental health services in each state. Access is measured by such indicators as the presence of barriers to treatment, such as lack of insurance, copays, coinsurance, denials of coverage and insufficient numbers of mental health providers. The survey was conducted before the full effects of health insurance expansion under Obamacare had taken effect.

Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine, North Dakota and Delaware topped the list while the bottom five were Arizona, Mississippi, Nevada, Washington and Louisiana.

There is a high, but not perfect, correlation between states’ rankings and whether they are Medicaid expansion states. Maine, third on the list, is not an expansion state. Conversely, Washington (48th), Nevada (49th) and Arizona (51st), all expanded Medicaid under ACA.

Overall, the report says that 42.5 million Americans suffer from some sort of mental illness, 19.7 million have a substance abuse problem and 8.8 million report that they have seriously considered suicide.

The MHA report also ranks the mental health of young people across the states. Vermont, North Dakota and Wisconsin top the list. Nevada, New Mexico and Montana rank last.

Although NAMI pointed to the retreat from state mental health spending this year, its report did note a number of new laws that it hailed as possible models for other states. Among them:

Virginia established a registry of available beds in public and private psychiatric facilities to help place individuals who meet the criteria for temporary detention as a result of mental illness. The bill arose after the mentally ill son of Virginia state Sen. Creigh Deeds stabbed his father and then killed himself with a rifle a year ago. Only hours before the incident, the young man had been released from emergency detention when officials were unable to find a hospital with an available bed where he could receive a psychiatric evaluation before being released, as required under law.

Minnesota passed a measure that would base community mental health workers in schools to handle acute mental health cases. Sita Diehl, NAMI’s director of state policy and advocacy, said, “School counselors are focused on general mental health issues. They may not be equipped to handle serious mental health in children.”

Massachusetts enacted a comprehensive “safe and supportive school” measure, which, among other provisions, encourages schools to explore mental health issues when they assess the poor performance or poor behavior of students. “Schools think in terms of academics,” said state Rep. Ruth Balser, a Democrat, who sponsored the bill. “It’s a matter of us educating the educators to think of the whole child.”

For people in the throes of psychosis or another mental illness crisis, Minnesota now provides transportation to a hospital in unmarked cars driven by mental health professionals rather than in police cars with flashing lights and sirens. “When law enforcement is called for medical situations it’s really embarrassing and humiliating for people who didn’t break any law,” said NAMI’s Diehl.

Illinois passed a law aimed at preventing parents with limited or no health insurance from having to relinquish custody of their severely mentally ill children to foster care to get those children intensive mental health treatment. The law requires the state to identify children at risk of state custody and work with their families to get the needed services. In the past, children were taken away from parents to get them treatment. “It was a dirty, dirty secret,” said Sara Feigenholtz, the Democratic state representative from Chicago who sponsored the legislation.

Kentucky allows trained nurse practitioners to prescribe psychiatric medications, a measure intended to help patients without easy access to psychiatrists. Illinois passed a similar measure pertaining to psychologists.

At the other end of the spectrum, North Carolina approved a law requiring Medicaid patients to get authorization from Medicaid before obtaining psychiatric drugs. While supporters cited cost-savings as a rationale for the measure, NAMI’s Diehl predicted it will lead to otherwise avoidable hospitalizations or arrests that will cost the state far more than the medications.

Idaho’s legislature voted to allow the use of restraints with mentally ill patients without a physician’s permission. Georgia terminated the University of Georgia’s “navigator” program, which provided trained helpers to assist people trying to obtain insurance on the federal health exchange.

And Georgia, Arkansas and Tennessee all enacted measures barring promotion of ACA’s provisions or preventing those states from expanding Medicaid eligibility and improving access to mental health care.

Photo: Taber Andrew Bain via Flickr

Eyeing Revenue, States Try To Predict Billionaires’ Moves

Eyeing Revenue, States Try To Predict Billionaires’ Moves

By Elaine S. Povich, Stateline.org

WASHINGTON — The wealthiest Americans can move markets at home and abroad with their business decisions. When they sell massive quantities of stock, receive huge bonuses, or suffer crushing
losses, those events also can have a significant impact on state finances, especially in small states that collect taxes on income or capital gains.

The problem is that billionaires don’t typically telegraph their financial moves, let alone to state officials. That leaves revenue estimators guessing whether they can count on a windfall in the upcoming fiscal year, or whether they have to figure out how to plug a gaping hole.

To eliminate some of the uncertainty, revenue estimators in many states interview financial planners and economists to help them predict what billionaires might do, and what the tax consequences of those moves might be for their states. Financial planners can’t divulge what they will advise individual clients to do, but they can give state revenue forecasters some idea about the type of general advice they will be providing.

Lyman Stone, economist at the tax policy research organization Tax Foundation, said it’s prudent for states to take into account all aspects of anticipated revenue, even if the income taxes of high earners, especially capital gains taxes, are hard to predict. “Smaller or mid-sized states with one or two billionaires — that’s not something you can ignore. States with income taxes would have an interest in tracking that,” he said.

Take Arkansas, where a handful of wealthy taxpayers “can make a huge difference” in state revenues, said Richard Weiss, director of the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration.

Arkansas is home to Jim Walton, an heir to the Wal-Mart company fortune. While Weiss said his department can’t “go to the extent of getting specific information” from individual taxpayers or their financial advisers on what they plan to do in a given year, the agency does make it a priority to cultivate warm relationships with the state’s heaviest hitters.

“We don’t do anything that is proprietary, I don’t think we try to meddle in their business either,” he said. “There’s a fine line there. All the folks we have in the revenue department and our economic analysts are very cautious of that. We look at lots of trends to get some idea of what’s going on.”

Revenue estimators employ a similar technique in Oregon, where the biggest billionaire is Phil Knight, founder of Nike, who is worth an estimated $18.4 billion. “Our economic advisers maintain good relationships with the big accounting and law firms, and while they can’t talk about individual taxpayers, they get an idea how those tax advisers will generally advise their clients,” said Oregon Budget Director George Naughton.

“With personal income taxes, the decisions that certain individuals make could certainly have an impact on your revenue forecast. It depends on how big the move is. If they are selling a billion dollars worth of stock, that can be significant enough to notice in the revenue,” Naughton said.

Ken Heaghney, state fiscal economist for Georgia, said his state convenes a panel of advisers, including a bank economist and the head of a local wealth management group, to get a sense of what the state’s wealthiest residents are likely to do.

Heaghney said the impact of wealthy taxpayers in Georgia is blunted by the fact that the state has a relatively low tax on capital gains and a flatter income tax structure than most other states. However, he said one person could make a difference in state revenues if the decision involves enough money and is Georgia-based. “We don’t generally have that kind of taxpayer here, unfortunately,” he said. “As for the Chambers family (Anne Cox Chambers is the richest resident in the state) most of their wealth is in trust funds and sheltered in various ways,” he said.

Nebraska, home to Warren Buffett, who is worth about $40 billion, also scans the financial landscape with economists and financial advisers before doing its revenue forecasts, according to Gerry Oligmueller, state budget administrator. But state officials don’t ask about any one individual, even the so-called “Oracle of Omaha.”

Oligmueller noted that states with capital gains taxes were affected by the decision by many high-income taxpayers to take their capital gains in 2013 to avoid increased federal capital gains taxes in 2014. Those moves provided a boost to state revenue for 2014, and a subsequent dip this year.

“The implications of what any single corporation will do, what’s going on with federal tax policy, all have to be rolled together to be considered in determining what’s the best forecast for tax receipts for the next fiscal year,” Oligmueller said.

In California, which has 111 billionaires, more than any other state, revenue estimators were keenly interested in Facebook’s initial public offering of stock in 2012. With thousands of Facebook employees in the state in line to receive valuable stock options, it was a safe assumption that the IPO would have a revenue effect.

“We generally do not base our forecasting on individual wealthy individuals,” said California Budget Director Michael Cohen. “California’s economy and taxpayers are too diverse. One exception is with the Facebook IPO — there was enough public information and the one-time event was large enough for us to try to capture the IPO’s effect on revenues separately.”

A state study of the anticipated effect of the IPO estimated that nearly 1 percent of all personal income in the state in 2012 would be related to Facebook. While original estimates of revenue to the state were in the $1.6 billion range, Cohen said that was later revised over the following six months to $1.25 billion.

Cohen said the extra revenue anticipated from Facebook IPO was designated as a one-time event and placed into the overall revenue estimate rather than, for example, a rainy day fund.

Matthew Gardner, executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, said windfalls such as the Facebook IPO are a challenge for estimators. “For California policymakers, it was like walking down the street and finding a $20 bill,” Gardner said. “For every good year you have, there’s going to be a less good year down the road.”

AFP Photo/Joe Raedle

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