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Just Listed – 1490 Moon Valley Dr, Champions Gate 33896

Just Listed – 1490 Moon Valley Dr, Champions Gate 33896

1490 Moon Valley Dr, Champions Gate, FL

FOR SALE

$ Click for current price
8 BEDROOMS | 5 full baths BATHROOMS | 3909 SqFt

Looking for the ultimate vacation home or primary residence? Then, look no further! Priced to sell, this home will suit the needs of a growing family or make an awesome rental home in the most sought after community of Champions Gate. This professionally furnished home has everything you are looking for and more. This well designed home welcomes you into the beautiful tiled hallway which opens up into the spacious family and dining room areas which overlook the south facing pool and lanai area. Alongside the family room is a well proportionate kitchen featuring luxury appliances, granite counter tops and an abundance of cabinets for all your culinary needs. Two master suites are also accessible on the ground floor. Upstairs has two family suites as well as additional bedrooms for your guests. The media room has been converted into a games room fore everyone to enjoy. This home offers lots of entertainment space from the spacious living areas both upstairs and down as well as the well designed game room in the garage. Sun lovers will appreciate this home which features a wonderful SW pool with no rear neighbors, as well as a large covered lanai for outdoor shade and al fresco dining. Need additional entertainment? The Oasis Club is available for your entertainment. Impressive pool and lazy river are available for your enjoyment as well as fitness center, movies theatre and restaurant.

 

Just Listed – 4812 Cumbrian Lakes Dr, Kissimmee 34746

Just Listed – 4812 Cumbrian Lakes Dr, Kissimmee 34746

4812 Cumbrian Lakes Dr, Kissimmee, FL

$ Click for current price
5 BEDROOMS | 4 full baths BATHROOMS | 2505 SqFt

Wonderful, spacious family home in the well maintained, gated community of Cumbrian Lakes. This 2 story home offers 5 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms with the main master suite downstairs and a 2nd master bedroom upstairs. Fantastic open floorplan comprises of a formal living room and dining area as you first enter the home which then flows into the large kitchen with breakfast nook and family room at the rear of the home with views of the sparkling west facing pool. The master suite is off the family room with direct access and view of the pool. The spacious master bath boasts 2 walk-in closets, dual sinks and garden tub with separate shower. A half bath and indoor laundry room leading to the 2 car garage completes the picture downstairs. The stairs lead to a galleried landing looking down on the family room and kitchen. To the left are 2 bedrooms and guest bath, to your immediate right there is a loft area ideal as an office or gaming area and then 2 further bedrooms, one of which is the 2nd master. The pool area has a large covered lanai and enjoys a peaceful view of a small park area with no immediate rear neighbors. The property has been a 2nd home and vacation rental for the current owners and is being sold fully furnished and equipped. The home benefits from fresh exterior paint, new A/C, new pool heater and kitchen appliances. Don’t delay! Ask for a viewing today!


What’s affecting the value of my home?

What’s affecting the value of my home?

What’s affecting the value of my home?

If you’re hoping to sell your home, knowing your property’s value is essential for pricing it right to make buyers bite. Or, maybe you don’t want to sell your home right now, but are just curious what your house is worth—and whether your real estate investment has risen in value (which would merit some much-deserved back-patting).

In either case, having an accurate grasp of your home’s estimated market value can come in handy. And there are a variety of ways to do that, many of which are free and easily within reach online. Here’s how to find that magic number, and why having an accurate estimate matters whether you want to sell your home or own it for the long haul.

How to find home value estimates online

One easy starting point with a home valuation is to enter your address into an online home value estimator, which will, within seconds, present you with a free estimate of what your home is worth, based on data such as its square footage and recent home sales in the area. For example, realtor.com’s home value estimator provides valuations from three different independent providers to ensure you have as much information as possible from a variety of sources.

 

When it comes to real estate clichés, “Location, location, location” has all other contenders (including “Not a drive-by!”; “Cash is king!”; “Is that your checkbook or are you just glad to see me?”; and “Worst house, best street”) beat by a mile. Not only has it been in use since at least 1926 (according to the New York Times), but it’s utterly and inarguably true.

More than any other single factor, when you buy a home in a good location, it’s usually a solid long-term investment. And being the unabashed optimists we are here at realtor.com®, we focus most on the factors that help maximize your home’s value. But hey, life—and real estate—isn’t always rainbows and unicorns. So this week we decided to take a look at the downers: those things that actually keep you from getting top dollar from your home.

The list itself probably won’t surprise you, but the numbers just might. Who would have thought that it’s a worse investment (by far!) to buy in a bad school district than near a strip club or a homeless shelter? Beyond strippers, that is.

So how’d we do it? We looked at home prices and appreciation rates in U.S. ZIP codes where a specific drag-me-down facility such as a power plant is present. For each facility, we calculated the drag, or a “location discount,” by comparing the median home price of the ZIP codes with that facility with the median price for all homes in the same county. We limited our scope to the 100 largest metropolitan areas, since rural communities have lower home prices and slower appreciation.

Keep in mind the difference between causation and correlation: Does having a cemetery or shooting range in the neighborhood cause home prices to drop? Or are those businesses drawn to the area because of cheap real estate? We don’t have a definite answer, but their presence is generally a sign that a neighborhood is the opposite of up-and-coming. Judge your investment accordingly.

Hospital

The drag: 3.2%

Hospitals are awesome, right? Having a great one within easy access is just about every homeowner’s goal. But easy access is one thing, and being woken up by ambulance sirens—or, god forbid, medical helicopters—at 3 a.m. is quite another. Among homeowners who sold in 2015, those near a hospital generally got 3% less than an average home in the same county would get, based on our sales deed records and hospital location data from data.medical.gov. In the world of real estate price demerits, 3% isn’t a lot, so clearly plenty of people are willing to overlook some noise and chaos in favor of nearby medical care.

Shooting range

The drag: 3.7%

According to most research, it’s not the guns or the people who shoot them that the neighbors of shooting ranges object to most; it’s more the idea of the places and, in some cases, the noise of gunfire, especially outdoor gun ranges. More perceived problems: environmental concerns, including the lead that leaches off spent shells, potentially poisoning soil and water. Last year, a closed gun club in San Francisco triggered $22 million in cleanup fees, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. We used gun range locations from wheretoshoot.org.

Power plant

The drag: 5.3%

There are more than 8,000 power plants across the U.S., according to the Environmental Information Agency. Much as we are grateful for the modern convenience of electricity (thanks, Ben Franklin!), the huge facilities spur more NIMBY (“not in my backyard”) movements than anything this side of waste treatment facilities. The most frequently cited reason: safety concerns. The perceived dangers of living near a power plant vary dramatically depending on type, from the seemingly harmless solar to the dreaded nuclear. In general, having a power plant in the neighborhood is associated with lower property prices.

Funeral home

The drag: 6.5%

Some people believe you get bad spiritual energy from living near a funeral home; some just dislike the traffic caused by service workers and funeral attendees; and others fear that the smoke from a crematorium is toxic. But plenty of folks just find them seriously creepy, an unpleasant constant reminder of our own mortality. Our analysis of property values near funeral homes listed on legacy.com seems to confirm the stigma. Properties near a funeral home see a 6.5% drop in price compared to all homes in the same county.

Cemetery

The drag: 12.3%

Call it superstition, call it irrational fear, but there’s an awful lot of people who find the prospect of living near lots of buried bodies unpleasant or downright terrifying (see: Funeral homes). To be fair, there are some people who seriously dig how quiet the neighbors are, but they’re outnumbered by the haters. To do the research, we used a list of federal and state cemeteries operated by the Department of Veterans Affairs and found that the median price of ZIP codes with a cemetery is about 12% lower than neighboring areas.

Homeless shelter

The drag: 12.7%

Homeless shelters can be unloved and unwanted misfits in residential areas. Even though there’s no rule that homeless shelters are usually accompanied by higher rates of crime, shelters do certainly attract motley groups of people, necessitate emergency calls, and require more police in otherwise quiet, safe neighborhoods. Shelter locations, listed on homelessshelterdirectory.org, are often limited to less prime areas in the city where home values are about 13% less.

High concentration of renters

The drag: 13.8%

Does a cluster of rental buildings—or lots of them—lower the property value in a neighborhood? Many homeowners have pondered this. While it’s hard to do an analysis down to every property, we found that ZIP codes with a higher-than-average concentration of renters have lower property values compared to the county they are located in—by 14%. The data are from the American Community Survey.

Strip club

The drag: 14.7%

Catering to adult vices—and often (rightly) associated with loud music and less-than-savory visitors—a “gentlemen’s club” is an unwelcome neighbor on the block. We tracked nearly 2,000 strip joints listed on stripclublist.com and ranked the category high on our “unwanted” list. In one extreme case, the crime-plagued neighborhood of Washington Park in East St. Louis, IL—the ZIP code 62204—has 10 strip clubs.10!How do they all compete? It saw only a handful of homes sold in the past three years, with a median price of $10,000.

Bad school

The drag: 22.2%

While a top-performing school is definitely a plus for your property value, a bad school is a complete, out-and-out disaster. A school where one teacher handles a class of 40 students with a slim graduation rate is usually an indicator of a deprived neighborhood. The median home price of ZIP codes with schools that receive a 1 to 3 rating (out of a possible 10) from GreatSchools.org is only $155,000.

Ready to make a Move?

Bardell Real Estate are the experts in helping you with your selling, buying or renting needs near Orlando, Florida. Make your Disney area experience a forever memorable one. Call us now to speak to a real estate agent.

Is buying a fixer upper a good idea?

Is buying a fixer upper a good idea?

Is buying a fixer upper a good idea?

Home prices continue to rise, which is keeping many a renter out of the market. But, fixer-uppers present a potential opportunity. For starters, the lower prices create the affordability that is lacking in other segments of the market. So should you be looking for one? We’re breaking down the pros and cons.

The ability to buy a house:

Median home prices are at a record high, while affordability is at one of its lowest points. The reality for many people is that there seems like there is no end in sight to renting. A fixer-upper may present an opportunity simply because of the lower price point that gets you in the door.

Pride of ownership:

Pride of ownership is a real thing for homebuyers. And that pride grows even stronger when you’ve had a hand in making improvements.

Expecting the unexpected:

You know how on every episode of every renovation show on HGTV there’s something in the wall or under the floor or in the attic that makes taking down a wall impossible, or at least price-prohibitive? Get ready for a whole lot of that. 

Saving money:

Certain renovations can seem expensive because the labor is factored in. If you’re doing the work yourself, you’ll be amazed how far your money can go.

Deciding what you can handle:

If you’re handy—or merely patient and a quick learner—there may be no limit to your ambition as it relates to buying and fixing up a home. But it behooves you to be realistic, and painfully honest with yourself. Do you have the patience for a massive project? Are you the type who always finishes what you start or is it more likely that you’ll end up in a half-done construction zone for months (or years!) on end? How strong is your marriage (because it WILL be tested)? These are just a few of the questions you’ll want to ask yourself before you take the fixer-upper leap. 

Growing your skills can be lucrative:

The more you learn, the more you can apply to your home. But have you thought about how those skills can translate outside of this one home? Maybe buying and fixing up homes sets you on a new career path. 

Paying the right price:

Figuring out what to pay for your fixer-upper might not be so easy because you can’t make an apples-to-apples comparison with a home in better condition based on the standard price-per-square-foot equation. 

“Unlike buying a house that’s move-in ready, figuring out the market value of a fixer-upper isn’t a simple matter of comparing it with nearby houses that have the same number of bedrooms and bathrooms and so forth,” said NOLO. This makes working with an experienced real estate agent even more important. Knowing how much a property is worth and where to start when it comes to negotiations is key to getting a good deal. 

Increasing your home’s value:

Greater affordability may be the immediate driver when it comes to buying a fixer-upper, but the potential for appreciation is just as important. 

rtant.

Ready to make a Move?

Bardell Real Estate are the experts in helping you with your selling, buying or renting needs near Orlando, Florida. Make your Disney area experience a forever memorable one. Call us now to speak to a real estate agent.

Flaws That Can Be a Big Deal for Buyers

Flaws That Can Be a Big Deal for Buyers

Flaws That Can Be a Big Deal for Buyers

After living in the same home for a while, it’s amazing what you can get used to. A creaky floorboard, for instance. A chipped tile that you’ve been meaning to replace but haven’t gotten around to. A doorknob that needs a little coaxing to turn. No big deal, right?

Well, these small flaws can be huge deal breakers when you decide to sell your home.

“Prospective buyers are going to add all the ‘flaws’ they find to the price of the property, and that’s when they start trying to discount the price,” cautions Jane Peters, a real estate broker and owner of Home Jane Realty in Los Angeles.

Curious what some of these seemingly small problems are? Check out this list of minuscule (to you) things that buyers see as big hurdles to closing a sale.

1. An old electrical panel

Recently, home buyer made a controversial request for a repair at a property listed by Cedric Stewart, a real estate consultant at Keller Williams in the Washington, DC, area.

Apparently their home inspector claimed that $2,000 worth of repairs were needed on an electrical panel to get it “up to code.” The sellers insisted the current panel worked just fine.

“To the sellers, it was a small issue,” says Stewart, “but to the buyers, it was an electrical panel that could fail them at any time.”

To end this particular dispute, Stewart received bids from four electricians and got the repair quote knocked down to $1,200. The sellers offered that amount as a credit in lieu of repair at closing.

“The buyers grumbled,” Stewart recalls, “but they took it.”

2. Ripped window screens

Window screens will wear out over time, but if yours are torn, take it seriously.

“They’re a pain for anyone to replace,” says Stewart. “Therefore, sellers don’t want to do it and buyers will insist that they do. If the sellers refuse to fix it, the buyers will demand a credit. This can be a major point of contention, and we’ve seen it delay progress before.”

Stewart recalls one seller who agreed to replace a damaged window screen. But on the final walk-through, it still hadn’t been done—and the buyer threatened to walk away from the deal.

“It worked out,” says Stewart, “but it wasn’t pretty.”

3. The location of your laundry room

Even if you own a state-of-the-art washer and dryer—and plan to bestow both on your lucky buyers—they may not be so thrilled with these nice appliances if they aren’t situated in what they think is the “right” place.

“Some buyers have a problem with the laundry being on the ‘wrong’ level, especially in a three-level house or townhouse-style condo,” Peters explains.

In other words, you might be fine lugging your laundry to the basement, but don’t expect all buyers to feel the same way. Offer to move these items to a new locale to warm buyers up.

4. Sticky door locks

Live in a house long enough, and you’ll encounter a malfunctioning door latch or lock. That may be no big deal to you, but it may alarm buyers big-time.

If it’s an exterior door, they will likely view this as a major safety issue, explains Stewart. And although it may seem like a simple fix, it’s often a complex one, he says.

Think about it: The company that installed the doors may no longer be around, the model may not be in production anymore, and/or it could be tough to get someone to replace the exact hardware. Consider fixing this problem before a buyer notices it.

5. Your bathtub or shower

Some people prefer showers, others want baths (particularly parents who must clean up small kids). So if you’re missing one or the other, watch out.

In an ideal world, you’ll have both: a bath with a showerhead above. But even if your bathtub works just fine, make sure the style isn’t too off. 

6. Small closets

“Many buyers focus on closets,” says Peters. “Are there enough? Are they large enough? Walk-in closets are also preferred.”

There are a few things you can do to ease these concerns. For one, try to make your closets look roomier by decluttering them as much as possible. Put excess items elsewhere (like a rented storage unit). You might also consider hiring a contractor to build or extend closets where needed—or at least point out to buyers that they can do this themselves.

7. The walls of your kitchen

Some people like—no, make that love— open kitchens. So if your kitchen currently has four walls, you could be in trouble.

“Buyers may look at the possibility of breaking down a wall,” Peters says. But be warned, many might not want to do the work, or just get such a bad first impression of your kitchen that they move on. 

Ready to make a Move?

Bardell Real Estate are the experts in helping you with your selling, buying or renting needs near Orlando, Florida. Make your Disney area experience a forever memorable one. Call us now to speak to a real estate agent.