The DIY Guy: 10 Home-Selling Strategies

You're anxious, worried and feeling as if you've lost all control. Your stomach is in knots and you have no appetite. You sit by the phone nervously, waiting for it to ring. These are the unmistakable symptoms of someone who has either: 1) fallen in love for the first time, or 2) put a house up for sale. If you happen to be lovesick, you're on your own. But, if you're selling your house, there are steps you can take to ready the property--and yourself--for the sale.

Thought of as an island paradise Barbados has long been a luxury holiday destination and a playground for the rich and famous. Sunshine throughout the year, crystal clear waters, white sandy beaches and some of the most lavish hotels in the world attract over 1 million visitors to the island every year.

A 2 bedroom apartment on the West Coasts classic beaches costs on average 880,000 according to Estate Agents Knight Frank. But on the beautiful east coast which is wild and undeveloped investors can own their own slice of 5-Star Barbados for a quarter of the price.

Construction will soon commence on the Merricks Residence development located in St Philip on the south east coast of Barbados close to the famous Sam Lords Castle, a beautiful Georgian mansion built in 1820. The development will cover some 70 acres and will include leisure areas, entertainment facilities and restaurants together with the focal point 5 star Hotel Resort & Spa, from which property owners will have full use of the facilities.

The British developer of the project has brought in non other than the construction company behind the Royal West Moreland Golf and Country Club on the West Coast as well as Richard Williams, the former Managing Director of Sandy Lane Hotel Group to oversee the management of the resort. There are 700 units planned for the development comprising of luxury apartments, cabanas and villas with a clip top setting and its own private beach.

Greg Walters from overseas investment property specialists offplanpropertyabroad.com says:-

The Merricks Residence development gives investors the chance to purchase property in Barbados at least 40% below market value

His statement is evident, just a few minutes down the coast at the neighboring Crane Resort a 1200 square foot apartment has a starting price of 400,000 with the same size property at Merricks Residence at 225,000.

We expect values at Merricks to be comparable to that of the nearby Crane once it is complete and with the onsite management through the 5 star Hotel, investors can be sure that their properties are rented out on day one

In 2004 property purchase in Barbados became more attractive with the removal of the 10% purchase tax applied meaning there are now no purchase taxes payable, although investors need to budget for around a 1.5% for legal and notary costs.

Studio apartments at Merricks Residence start from 150,000 and buyers will enjoy an 8% Guaranteed Rental Income for the first two years from completion. Only 30% of the purchase price is required at outset with nothing else to pay until you receive the keys to your property, with completion due late 2008. A major Caribbean Bank is providing bank guarantees for the remaining 70% which gives investors added security.

The bank guarantee gives investors peace of mind and underpins the financial stability of the project as a whole, something that too many people take for granted

Barbados will be the focal point of the world of cricket in 2007 when it plays host to the Cricket World Cup which is expected to attract more visitors than ever and send the already prohibitive property prices in Barbados up by a further 10% next year.

For more information on Merricks Residence contact Greg Walters at offplanpropertyabroad.com on 0121 314 8110 or visit www.merricksresidence.co.uk

Improve Your Drinking Water With Under Sink Water Filtration Systems

Purified water is in higher demand than ever before, and under sink water filtration systems are a way to ensure that the water your family drinks is as pure and healthy as it can possibly be. Similar to countertop and faucet filters, systems located under the sink tie into your plumbing system and clean your water before it enters your drinking glass. There are many different options on the market. Doing some research on the various products available will help you choose a system that works best for you.

Under sink water filtration systems installed throughout your home are the most efficient and effective way to filter the water you and your family consumes. Remember that the kitchen is not the only place with a sink; you also ingest water when brushing your teeth. As such, bathroom water should be filtered as well. For the most comprehensive protection in your home, water filtration systems sink based are ideal.

Some people consider installing a system that will filter all water at the point that it enters the home, rather than installing individual systems for each faucet. This whole house filtration option is not the best choice if you are very concerned about the safety of the water you drink. This is because some contaminants in home drinking water, specifically lead and vinyl chloride, can come directly from the pipes in your home. Water filtration systems sink based will be able to filter even these local contaminants from your water.

One of the benefits of using under sink water filtration systems is that they do not take up counter space like their faucet based counterparts. Hidden behind cabinet doors under the kitchen sink, for example, this type of system doesnt crowd the often limited space around the sink and it wont need to be wiped off as stray splashes and food particles escape. And since under sink water filtration systems are installed in cabinets, they can be larger and contain more filtering processors than smaller countertop models.

Effectiveness, availability, and prices vary for water filtration systems. Sink systems can be compared by using data that should be provided within, on the packaging, or on the manufacturers website about the proven effectiveness of the filter to remove specific toxins from your water. If you can find nothing with the products that certifies the effectiveness of the under sink water filtration systems, consider another manufacturer. Companies that have designed a quality product should be proud to share with potential customers the evidence of the effectiveness of the systems they sell.

Beware, though, of water filtration systems sink based that claim to remove all biological contaminants, chemicals and minerals from your water. This may not be what you want. Trace minerals, naturally present in all water, are essential to human health. Studies have shown, for example, that people have developed mineral deficiencies and related other health problems from drinking only distilled water, which is water that has no mineral content at all.

Under sink water filtration systems are a smart choice when it comes to ensuring that your family's drinking water is clean and safe.

Martin Spencer is a health researcher who has been studying water filtration for over 25 years. He is a regular contributor to Water Filtration Guide, a site dedicated to various methods of treating and purifying water. Learn about water filtration systems sink based and whole-house on our site.

Home Mold Test Kits

Water, Water Everywhere on the Waterfront

Waterfront living is among the most desirable of locations in our area (Florida). The views and vistas are fantastic, not to mention the ability to walk out one's door to drop a line to fish or untie a line to enjoy boating. However, all this joy is not without some special concerns.

The most common fear heard from waterfront homebuyers is their concern that the river may rise and roll into their home. While it is not an impossible scenario, it is truly rare. More often than not, the water that posses the greatest risk to the waterfront home is not from the river, but rather from the water flowing overland toward the river.

Always remember that the river is the place that all water flows to. How a particular home is oriented to or obstructs the flow of water moving toward the river determines how dry the house remains. And for many homes in is not just how dry it is in the home, but also under the home.

The majority of water that affects the home is the surface water flowing toward the river. The volume of water can be in the thousands of gallons per hour during a heavy shower. If the grade of the lot is not proper, this can mean thousands of gallons of water in or under the home.

So, when looking at waterfront property, enjoy the view over the water, but be sure to look inland to be sure that your experience with water front living won't be with water in the living room!

But what should you do after you've experienced a flooded home? There is hope! Your home and its contents may look damaged beyond repair, but many items can be restored. There is a high probability that by acting quickly, your flooded home can be cleaned up, dried out, rebuilt, and reoccupied sooner than you think.

After your home has been flooded, play it safe. Always seek professional help. And while in the midst of cleaning and repairing, consider your preparation for the future. The American Red Cross and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) suggests the following steps if your home has been flooded:

• Take Care of Yourself First - Protect yourself and your family from stress, fatigue, and health hazards that follow a flood.
• Give Your Home First Aid - Once it is safe to go back in, protect your home and contents from further damage.
• Get Organized - Some things are not worth repairing and some things may be too complicated or expensive for you to do by yourself. A recovery plan can take these things into account and help you make the most of your time and money.
• Dry Out Your Home - Floodwaters damage materials, leave mud, silt and unknown contaminants, and promote the growth of mildew. You need to dry your home to reduce these hazards and the damage they cause.
• Restore the Utilities - The rest of your work will be much easier if you have heat, electricity, clean water, and sewage disposal.
• Clean Up - The walls, floors, closets, shelves, contents and any other flooded parts of your home should be thoroughly washed and disinfected.
• Check on Financial Assistance - Voluntary agencies, businesses, insurance, and government disaster programs can help you through recovery.
• Rebuild and Flood-proof - Take your time to rebuild correctly and make improvements that will protect your building from damage by the next flood.
• Prepare for the Next Flood - Protect yourself from the next flood with flood insurance, a flood response plan, and community flood protection programs. This step also includes sources to go to for additional assistance.

For more information on repairing your home after a flood, please visit www.redcross.org.

Many people highly prize waterfront living, and find it a deeply fulfilling experience. Knowing what to look for when choosing waterfront property will make your life on the water easier and more rewarding. Choose and plan wisely - it's about knowing!

Wally Conway is President of Florida HomePro Inspections, and has been featured regularly on HGTV's "House Detective". Wally has recently written a book entitled "Secrets of the Happy Home Inspector", available at GoHomePro.com or Amazon.com. As a speaker, writer, instructor, and host of The Happy Home Inspector radio show every Saturday at 3 PM on WOKV 690, Wally blends the right amount of up-to-date information with just the right amount of humor, insight, motivation, and real-world application. Visit WallyConway.com for more information!

Stucco Roof Fascia

Goldman Sachs Hedge Fund

Like many large banks on wall street Goldman Sachs offers several hedge funds. A few of these took big losses this summer and in one case with the Goldman Global Opportunities Fund the firm had to inject $3B into the fund to keep it running ($2B of their own money). "Given the market dislocation, the performance of GEO has suffered significantly," Goldman said. "Our response has been to reduce risk and leverage." In other words their losses mostly came from using too much leverage in the first place.

"Many funds employing quantitative strategies are currently under pressure as recent conditions have resulted in significant market dislocation," Goldman said. "Across most sectors, there has been an increase in overlapping trades, a surge in volatility and an increase in correlations. These factors have combined to challenge many of the trading algorithms used in quantitative strategies. We believe the current values that the market is assigning to the assets underlying various funds represent a discount that is not supported by the fundamentals."

Other Goldman Sachs Hedge Funds

The two other funds that have recently come under fire include the multi-strategy fund Global Alpha and the North American Equity Opportunities Fund (NAEO). Goldman has said "The market dislocation impacting equity quantitative strategies has adversely affected NAEO's performance and has been a key contributor to Global Alpha's disappointing performance. We have reduced risk and leverage in these funds as well. At their current levels of equity capital, we believe the funds are positioned to actively pursue market opportunities."

Will Goldman Sachs Leave the Hedge Fund Business?

Never. Doesn't listen to journalists who predict Goldman's flagship fund going down in flames as an end to their play in this industry. The most recent trend with Goldman Sach's strategy towards hedge funds has been to invest and take partial ownership in dozens of medium to large sized hedge funds. This allows them to help grow these hedge funds while also participating in the upside of a diverse ray of hedge fund managers and strategies.

The Richard Wilson Hedge fund Blog (http://richard-wilson.blogspot.com) is a content rich source for hedge fund industry white papers, trends, articles and professional interviews. I also share lessons I learn in my investment marketing and sales (third party marketing) career and earning a graduate degree at Harvard. I live in Cambridge, MA and can be reached at 503.789.7901 or Richard@RichardCWilson.com. This post came from the Richard Wilson Hedge Fund Blog online at: http://richard-wilson.blogspot.com/2007/10/goldman-sachs-hedge-fund.html

Home Mold Test Kits

Building With ICF's - The New Concrete House

Insulated concrete forms (ICF's) are changing the face of home building and construction. It used to be that you had limited options if you were building a new house. Conventional wood frame wall construction dominated the home building market. All of the building trades almost reached a point where they didn't know how to do anything but wood frame walls when it came to building a new house.

You could get a house with all brick walls if you wanted one but even that became little more than a masonry facade over a wood frame construction core. The need for high wall insulation for heating and cooling made it impractical to have an all brick house without insulation so the all brick house ended up evolving into a wood frame building with a brick veneer or facade.

All concrete houses were simply ugly 40 years ago. The building trades didn't really have many cost effective options for finishing off the outside of a concrete wall so it ended up bare or painted. The look became popular with office and government buildings but it was terrible for homes. And of course the problem with insulation was just as bad with concrete walls as it was with brick walls.

All of that has now changed with the invention of ICF's. The concept is really very simple. An ICF combines a conventional reinforced concrete wall with modern rigid foam insulation and does so in a way that is labor and material efficient and cost effective. Most ICF's today are made up of 3 basic parts. The first part is the inner layer of rigid foam insulation. Each piece is usually 2 to 3 inches thick, 30 to 40 inches long and 12 to 16 inches high. You cut and interlock as many pieces as you need to form the inside of the wall. The second part is the outer layer of foam. Usually it is identical to the inner layer of foam but many companies now have provision on the outside for attaching vinyl or wood siding or some other outside house finish. The third part to the system are wire or plastic connectors that connect the outer foam to the inner foam with a 4 to 12 inch gap in between for pouring the reinforced concrete wall. So when the wall is done you end up with a sandwich of 3 layers. Rigid foam insulation, then reinforced concrete wall and then another layer of rigid foam insulation. Because of the connectors the foam becomes a permanent part of the wall and building.

With old-fashioned concrete walls you had to construct a form to hold the concrete in place while it cured and then remove the form after the concrete was hard. A lot of work was involved and you ended up with a wall that was strong but had almost no insulation value. But with ICF's the foam does four things all at once. It acts as the form for the concrete, insulates the wall, forms a vapor barrier for the wall and also acts as an excellent surface for attaching inside and outside final finishes. It goes in easy and you don't remove it when the concrete is cured. You can use ICF's from the footings of a building all the way up to the roof. You end up with a building wall that is superior in almost every way. Much stronger walls, magnificent sound barrier and thermal mass advantages, easier to heat and cool and no wood to rot and grow mold are all powerful advantages of ICF construction. Because the outside siding options are the same with either ICF's or conventional wood frame construction your home will fit into the neighborhood perfectly. From the outside the only thing that would look different is the walls are thicker compared to a wood frame building.

Michael Russell Your Independent Building guide.

Inspectorschecklist

Wood And Bamboo Gazebos

A gazebo is a wonderful solution for your garden and backyard hosting options, gazebos are used for a verity of different tasks today, but first and foremost a gazebo is a great place to have family and friends enjoy your garden or your backyard.

In the recent years more and more people are discovering the gazebo, it is a structure that is placed in the garden or backyard and that is perfect for holding gardening tools and for spending nice afternoons at. The gazebo market has grown considerably over the last few years, offering an abundance of gazebos made of different materials.

Two very unique gazebo materials are wood and bamboo gazebos, wood is considered to be the classic material for a gazebo, it blends in wonderfully with a garden, providing an all natural feeling and a nice flow, wood is the basic material used to construct the first gazebos years ago.

A bamboo gazebo would add an Asian quality to your backyard, some even make it themselves, it is no simple task but it is definitely possible for a person to build his own bamboo gazebo in a few weekends. You will need to find the type and kind of bamboo you want and then you will need to make a plan for the gazebo.

When thinking of a bamboo gazebo you probably think of an elevated structure that has a bamboo flooring a few inches above the ground, open from all sides and with a nice bamboo roof over it, some even add shades so they can close any off the four sides or even all if they wish.

A wood gazebo is much more complicated, it will need serious construction and planning and an individual may not have enough knowledge and tools to build one of those, if you are in the market for a wood gazebo you should try and research as much as you can and have a clear idea of how you want the gazebo to look. The next thing would be to find gazebo plans or even gazebo pictures you can show an expert so that the end result will be as close as possible to what you had in mind.

Wood gazebo price is something that can not be estimated, you need to decide on what kind of gazebo you want, and what wood you want to use, once you got that out of the way you will need to think about how much will you be willing to pay a professional to build this for you, and deliver it to your garden.

A bamboo gazebo may be easier to get, but you should bare in mind that building one should be made by someone who understands the basics of bamboo building and that the place you are placing the gazebo will be suitable for this kind of gazebo, a bamboo gazebo placed on a beach is a great idea, but one placed on a mountain top may prove to be usable only a few days a year.

Gazebos are a wonderful extra feature to your garden, they will also probably add some value to your property, so it is a wise investment, no matter what kind of gazebo you are looking for, I highly recommend researching the market on the internet before making any decisions.

Daniel Roshard is a interior designer fascinated by gazebos and garden architecture, he is currently studying garden design and integration of gazebos to public parks and gardens. Daniel is writing reviews and tips about Wood Gazebo for http://zupatips.com

Remodeling Tips and Advice

Remodeling Porches

Fixing up a porch is a great idea that will extend the use of your home considerably. Using just some paint, stain and basic carpentry skills, you can make your porch a pleasure to spend time on.

An example shown on DoItYourself.com shows a couple from Georgia who wanted enjoy their extended warm seasons of spring, summer and fall, but avoid the problems of mosquitoes and decided to take their slab concrete patio and make it into a screened in area they could enjoy almost all year long.

The patio was just concrete square under a roof overhang. They wanted the porch to blend in with the home, as well as protect the family from the heat, humidity and insects of the Georgia summers. The concrete slab declined slightly to allow for runoff, so there had to be some adjustments made to accommodate this feature.

Here is their step by step solution:

Step One. Cut pre-primed 4X8 sheets of beadboard ceiling paneling.

Step Two. Install the celing paneling and the ceiling fan. They used a nail gun to make the installation of the ceiling panels faster and easier than trying to swing a hammer upward. Before all of the panelling was installed, the ceiling was wired for the fan and light. This will allow the porch to remain cool and the light will allow the room to be used at night. This was a two person job, with one person holding the fan and the other connecting the wires and screwing the fan in place. The finish trim hid the seams in the paneling.

Step Three. Frame out the porch. Using 2X4 boards, they spaced them to allow for standard width screen to be installed. The crosspieces were nailed directly through the vertical braces.

Step Four. Install the interior panelling. Pine and plywood bead board paneling was secured by staple gun. These had to be trimmed along the bottom to accommodate the uneven floor.

Step Five. Install and level the exterior paneling. The harbor ad exterior panels wear put into place, from the bottom up. The first one had to be custom cut to allow for the uneven ground line and then the rest followed. These panels were painted to match the existing exterior of the house, so there was a lot of trial and error to match the aged yellow paint exactly. But weather resistant exterior paint was used so that it can be easily kept clean by rinsing Wit soap and water.

Step Six. Do the screening. Vinyl grids had to be screwed directly into the wooden frames. Then the screens were attached to the channels in the grids, so the fiberglass or aluminum screens could be slid in without using staples. When the screens were rolled into the grids with a spline, the extra screening material was cut off. With a mallet, the caps over the vinyl channels were banged into place.

Being really passionate about tree trimming and saw sharpening, Ray Walberg wrote plenty of detailed articles in this specific field. Sharing his passion in detailed publications, the author improved his experience on topics like chain saws and saw sharpening.