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Archives for July 2019

8 New Tricks for Keeping Mosquitos Away

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There is something about mosquitoes. When you see just one, you feel that you just have to start scratching an imaginary itch. If a mosquito gets in your car, you spend more time trying to kill it than driving.

Jaymi Naciri has eight good summer tips to help keep the mosquitoes away.

Mosquitos. They’re universally despised, and there’s not much we wouldn’t do to keep them away, right? Personally, we’re always on the hunt for a new serum or device or prayer that will help keep them away of the yard so we can actually enjoy our time out there without coming back inside covered in itchy welts.

So, behold the latest list tricks and tools to keep them at bay.

Repel them

This Thermacell Patio Shield Mosquito Repeller is said to provide 12 Hours of DEET-free repellent and is also scent-free and cordless. Reviews are mixed on Amazon, but, at under $25, we’re willing to give it a shot!

Wipe them away

Actually, these Repel Insect Repellent Mosquito Wipes with 30% DEET keeps them away, and, they’re much easier to use (and less messy) than bug spray. If you’d prefer DEET-free wipes, you can find them, too.

Dab on the essential oils

This was the winning strategy during a recent trip to a very humid, very mosquito-prone land. Liberal amounts of peppermint and rosemary with reapplication about every 30 minutes did the trick.

Burn your coffee grounds

“Reusing coffee grounds offers benefits from fertilizing plants to repelling mosquitoes,” said Hunker. “Coffee grounds have a smoldering effect after you light them that keeps insects at bay. Mosquitoes, like other insects, are repelled by the odor created from the coffee grounds burning.”

Plant some lavender

It smells lovely to humans (and is beautiful to look at, too), but mosquitos hate it. Lemongrass, lemon balm, and marigolds are a few more plants you can add to your garden to keep the mosquitos out.

Grow some herbs

Add basil, garlic, and rosemary to your garden for another potent anti-mosquito punch. One of the best is something you might want to grow for other, tastier, reasons as well.

“Basil is so effective at repelling mosquitos (and adding a delicious flavor to Italian fare!) that you’ll want to grow it all around your house,” said POPSUGAR. “Windowsills, porches, the garden…the possibilities are endless!”

Plug in the fan

In a Consumer Reports test, a standing fan proved more successful at keeping away mosquitos than several other “tried-and-true” methods. “CR has tested three methods for controlling mosquito activity in a large area: citronella candles, an oscillati

ng pedestal fan, and a battery-powered area diffuser that emitted geraniol, a natural repellent derived from plants,” they said. “We found that the fan was far more effective than citronella candles or the geraniol diffuser. In fact, our tests showed that the fan reduced mosquito landings by 45 to 65 percent for folks sitting nearby.”

Grab a dryer sheet

These little wonders have more uses than eliminating static cling. “Turns out, there’s actually science behind this age-old myth,” said Buzzfeed. “Dryer sheets contain two chemicals that keep gnats and mosquitoes away: linalool, which is toxic to some types of insects, and beta-citronellol, which is found in citronella, the ultimate mosquito repellent. So, yeah, keep one in your pocket, or if you’re really committed, rub one on your arms and any other exposed skin.”

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How to Make your Home Smarter with these Smart Home Appliances

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In 2019, there are a lot of technology advances that make the home work just a little bit smarter. We have come along ways since the clapper came to turn our lights on and off.

James Stevenson gives us some highlights on making our home just a little bit smarter.

With technology developing, we now have so many gadgets and appliances which we can call ‘smart.’ The next step is to modernize our homes in the same style and make our lives that much easier.

A smart home is a place where appliances, lights, gadgets, security, – and pretty much whatever else you want – are all connected to one another.  You can also control them remotely using a simple app. This kind of home gives owners comfort, security, and convenience. It may sound confusing. That is why you should read on to get the image of your ideal Smart Home.

Getting a smart system for your home can save time, money, and energy. Most homes aren’t built with these appliances, though. The easiest thing to do is to introduce these appliances into an already made home. Let’s see which devices today have their ‘smart’ counterparts.

Hubs

If you want your doors to unlock, your lights to turn on, and your kettle to start working the moment you approach your house, this is the device for you.

A smart home hub is the first step towards a smart home and the heart of the network. It is a hardware or software that connects devices in a house and controls communication among them. Plus, it enables the user to control the entire place by a single app.

Another useful feature is that you can control your devices while you are away from home via this device so, you can go out anytime you want.

Speakers

Imagine the world where you don’t have to get up to play music, find the remote, and turn on the lights. Now you can say a command, and have it done in an instant.

Smart speakers are wireless speakers with voice-control. They tend to have artificial intelligence built into them. They are usually found in voice-controlled personal assistants.

This gadget has many applications, playing music being just the tip of the iceberg. You may set alarms, and have your questions answered, for example. It is able to interact with other devices in the house, making the possibilities truly endless. So amazing!

Lighting

Convenience, comfort, and looking cool are all connected by this device. Smart lighting consists of light bulbs, all connected to adjacent ones by a network, and controlled by a hub.

You manage smart lighting with a simple app. It allows you to change the brightness of the bulbs, and even the color if your light bulbs have LED lights. Now you can have the perfect lighting for every situation and switching between them is a tap of your finger away.

Some of these systems may also have useful features, such as dimming and motion detection.

Plugs

This is the perfect device to ‘smartify’ your non-smart appliances. It is an excellent investment, and a significant first step towards a smart home.

A smart plug’s function is to allow remote control over whichever appliance you have plugged into it. For instance, you may check on your oven from across town if you get anxious about leaving it on.

Besides letting you manage your devices, you get the option of creating a schedule. Wave the worrying away and get one today!

Doorbells

Now you don’t have to peer through the spy hole to see who is ringing your doorbell. This device’s first concern is safety, and convenience comes as a strong second.

You will get a notification to your smartphone when somebody is at your door. It has a camera and sends a live video recording of your visitor. Also, you can have a two-way conversation via a smart doorbell.

Sensors

Getting a smart sensor for your home means not getting up on every sound you hear at night. It also means not having to hire a house-sitter for your vacation.  Safety meets convenience with this handy new device.

Smart sensors have systems which perform specific actions as a response to environmental input.  They can notify you about an uninvited intruder, about a window or a door that is accidentally open, and to turn on the lights when you enter the room.

The main point of all these devices is to make your life easier. You can definitely live without them, but you don’t have to anymore. There are more and more affordable options. You don’t need to buy every single one, either – but it will be hard to choose with so many fantastic options!

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Mistakes Buyers Make When Searching for Their First Home, and How to Avoid Them

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Buying your first home can be a very exciting time. There is something about not having to pay rent anymore. Sometimes, with all of the different things going through a home buyers mind, we can make a mistake. Jaymi Naciri covers some of the mistakes that can be made and offers tips to avoid them.

Many starter-home purchases are driven primarily by price, which is understandable. But, there are so many other considerations involved in finding the right place, like square footage and location, to name just a few of the most consequential.

When looking for your first home, it’s critical to keep the most important considerations in mind so you don’t find yourself going down a real estate rabbit hole. Remember these common buyer mistakes to keep you on track.

Buyer mistake No. 1: Being seduced by the pretty stuff

Fresh paint, pretty throw pillows, nice bedding. They’re all decoration, and decoration can be dangerous for homebuyers. Don’t let it distract you from the house itself. How’s the floorplan? Does it work for your family? Is there enough square footage? Does the location make sense? These are among the factors that should be driving your purchase.

Buyer mistake No. 2: Searching for a home that fits your furniture

How many times have you heard a buyer on House Hunters say, “Our furniture won’t fit in here.” When you’re buying a property that costs a couple hundred thousand dollars, it’s silly to hold back over a five-year-old, $1,000 couch.

Buyer mistake No. 3: Getting too hung up on price

It’s easy to get a number stuck in your head and refuse to give up, but that figure might not be doable depending on your local real estate market. Raising your price range by $10,000 may vastly increase the available homes and may only mean another $50 per month. That’s one lunch out you can forgo to get what you really want.

Buyer mistake No. 4: Not trusting your gut

The price is right, the location is right, and the home has the right number of bedrooms and baths. But it just doesn’t feel right. You may not be able to put your finger on what it is that’s bothering you about a house, but if something’s nagging at you now, imagine what it will be like to live there. It could be your gut is trying to tell you something.

Buyer mistake No. 5: Ignoring the neighborhood

The hope is that any major problems with the home you’re looking at will show up on an inspection report, but other issues could pop up to derail your purchase or kill your enjoyment of the home once it belongs to you. A lot of the time, that has to do with the neighborhood.

That could mean a commercial area too close to home, a rundown house across the street, or some zoning changes that are bringing a ton of new multi-family units to the area and increasing traffic. Whatever it is that’s bothering you, think it through. You can always fix your home, but you can’t change the neighborhood.

Buyer mistake No. 6: Not thinking long term

Maybe you think you’ll only be in this “starter home” for two years, and, therefore, the neighborhood isn’t all that important. As long as the house meets your approval, you’re good, right? According to a study by ValuePenguin, “the median duration of homeownership in the U.S. is 13.3 years.” That varies depending on the location, however, of the 20 largest U.S. cities studied, the lowest median was 9.7 years in Denver.

Does that mean you’ll stay in this home for 10 years or more? Who knows. But if you’re a young couple planning to have kids in the next three-to-five years, let’s say, it wouldn’t hurt to make sure the home you buy now can accommodate that lifestyle change.

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Investors Are Buying More of the U.S. Housing Market Than Ever Before

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Laura Kusisto writing for the Wall Street Journal gives us a housing investor update. It seems that there is always a way to capitalize on real estate.

The share of investor purchases of U.S. homes have climbed to an all-time high, a sign that rising home prices have done little to dampen demand for flipping homes or turning them into single-family rentals.

Big private-equity firms, real-estate speculators and others that buy properties comprised more than 11% of U.S. home purchasers in 2018, according to data released on Thursday by CoreLogic Inc.

The investor purchases are the highest on record and nearly twice the levels before the 2008 housing crash. The investor interest poses a challenge for millennials and other first-time buyers who are increasingly looking to buy starter homes and are forced to compete with deep-pocketed cash buyers.

Big commercial property owners like Blackstone Group LP and Starwood Capital Group began buying thousands of homes out of foreclosure during the housing bust. Many economists credit investors with helping to stabilize the housing market in 2011 and 2012 by buying with cash when prices were low and mortgage credit froze.

But analysts expected those purchases to slow, as the market rebounded and properties could no longer be had for fire-sale prices.

Instead, demand for properties has intensified. While these purchases dipped slightly when the market started to recover in 2015 and 2016, they have rebounded to surpass the previous peak of six years ago.

Strong rental demand, technology that facilitates buying homes online and low interest rates that make other investments less appealing have fueled investor appetite.

Investors are an especially powerful force at the bottom of the market, where they often pay all cash. Investors purchased one in five homes in the bottom third price range in 2018, according to the CoreLogic analysis, up 5 percentage points from the 20-year average of less than 15%.

“These are the homes that first-time home buyers would logically be buying,” said Ralph McLaughlin, deputy chief economist at CoreLogic.

Shane Parker, a real-estate agent in metropolitan Detroit, said first-time buyers he works with are struggling to win bidding wars against out-of-state buyers. The locals he works with are becoming more aggressive, putting in escalation clauses and agreeing to pay the difference if properties don’t appraise.

One of his clients, Michael Burnett, a tech writer in Detroit, and his wife are looking for their first home so they can have a treehouse for their young girls. They have visited 25 properties and bid on half a dozen but keep losing out to cash buyers.

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Craig Diez

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