Helping you rent, buy or sell a home in Lexington and the Bluegrass!
National |
Average Rate* |
| 30-Year FHA Rate | 6.79% |
| 30-Year Fixed Rate | 6.93% |
| 20-Year Fixed Rate | 6.82% |
| 15-Year Fixed Rate | 6.20% |
| * Conforming FNMA Loan Amount. Rates may include points. | |
Information updated: 11/06/2024
We love helping people rent, buy OR sell homes in Lexington, Kentucky, and in the surrounding areas!
Choosing the right Realtor is critical when you buy or sell your home. Tired of reaching voicemail? Or an office receptionist who knows nothing about you OR your home? WE answer OUR phones...24-7! Just ask our happy clients...WE are FULL-TIME Realtors & we take our jobs seriously when providing exceptional service to YOU!
Committed to helping you through each step - whether renting, buying or selling - we make the entire process as fun & stress-FREE as possible! With a combined nearly 40 years of experience as Realtors, we pride ourselves on offering the highest level of expertise, exemplary service, & undivided attention to YOUR needs. Our goal is to become your "Realtors For Life". This commitment level helps us continue to build our growing network of loyal clients, with 90% of our business coming from referrals.
We love the gratifying feeling we get when we help our clients achieve their real estate needs & goals. You can count on us to always do what's in YOUR best interest. We are honest, trustworthy, and knowledgeable in the Lexington Real Estate market, & surrounding areas. It's important for YOU to find, rent or buy your dream home (at a great price) or to get a great offer when selling your home. We make it our responsibility to help YOU obtain your goals!
Whether you are a renter, experienced investor or a first-time buyer, we will help find you the property of your dreams. Please feel free to browse our website, or just call or e-mail us to set up an appointment to meet with us today!
Why Flat Fee Doesn't Work
You get what you pay for....no service.
Buy or Selling a home deserves service from a Professional that can help step you through the most important purchase or sale of your life.
See below the typically statements how things are handled behind the scenes:
Send offers to suchandsuch.com in pdf. format. Fax only if you don't have email. Put 48 hours in reply response times. Office hours M-F 9-5 Send all correspondence during open hours. Do Not send any after hours. Send weekend offers the following Monday. Such and Such Realty will not be responsible for offers that do not comply with above. By showing property Buyer's agents agree to comply with offer submission protocol above.
NO SERVICE!
It is more difficult for a "true" hands on full service Realtor to handling a "flat fee" property for a potential Buyer! Basically handling both sides of the transactions...not very appealing.
Also look for convenient phrases like "Buyer to verify" and "not guaranteed" on a listing. Wow! That gives me a confident feeling about the most important purchase of my life.
Buying or Selling...How do you want your business handled?
De-clutter for Dollars: Home Staging
Admit it: You have too much stuff. "The most important thing people can do to improve their home is to clear out, clean up and get rid of clutter," says Lisa LaPorta, designer on HGTV's Designed to Sell and owner of Lisa LaPorta Design in L.A.
Be ruthless as you go about purging your belongings. If you haven't used it in three months, stagers say, box it up and store it away; if you haven't used it in a year, get rid of it. Make a house rule that for every new item that comes in, an old one has to leave. Any mixed feelings you have about tossing life's accumulated belongings will quickly be replaced with a sense of relief and appreciation of your uncluttered surroundings.
Sound daunting? Take it one room at a time. If your bookshelves are bursting at the seams, for instance, "clear them off and start over," suggests Michelle Yackel, owner of Divine Redesigns in Atlanta. "It's OK to have empty space around your books and knickknacks." Suggestions:
- Inexpensive baskets make great hiding places for unsightly paperbacks while adding texture and visual interest.
- Books stacked vertically serve as pedestals to show off prized pottery or other accessories.
- You can even remove the dust covers from hardbacks and group them by color, turning a busy jumble into a decorative addition to the room.
If you simply can't part with your collection of National Geographic or your kids won't let you anywhere near their carefully assembled Lego creations, it's time to get creative about storage and organization. Retailers like The Container Store and Target sell handy rolling bins designed to slip under a bed and house everything from household supplies to kids' toys.
If you can't get rid of it and can't hide it, flaunt it with style: "Places like Ikea sell colorful and inexpensive fabric, cardboard or melamine magazine holders," says Michael Friedes, owner of Nest Home Design in Oakland, Calif. "Lined up on a shelf, they look a lot cleaner than stacks of magazines everywhere and add a unified visual element to the room." Your home will be far more inviting if clutter is out of sight.
Listing with your home with Katherine Pettit-Hawkins includes her services as a Certified Property Stager FREE! In the end, this can mean more potential buyers and possibly a higher sale price on your home. Call Katherine and Darren today for your free listing consultation.
Home Organization
Are you overwhelmed thinking about how to get your entire house in order? First, put away the notion that it will happen overnight, or even in a week. And keep in mind the goal isn't to end up with a sparkling space where everything is always in its place. The key to a more organized home isn't just about tossing most of your stuff and stashing the rest in cute containers (although they do help when the time is right) – it's more about recognizing and replacing bad practices with better habits that'll help you dig out from the mess on a daily basis.
The best part about the organizing process is that no matter what room you're wanting to straighten up, the rules are essentially the same — here's a four-step guide to get started, which also includes 13 strategies to prevent you from procrastinating along the way.
1. Define Your Space
For each room you want to organize, organizing expert Charlotte Steill says to take a notebook and sit down in each space, making notes on the following questions:
- How will the room be used by your family? A shared family space for games, toys and movies? An office for one or all? Be sure to account for all of the various activities because it will dictate what stays and what will get the boot when it comes time to sort the room's contents.
- What storage is available in the room? Built-in shelves, drawers, cabinets, a closet, baskets and bins? An ottoman with storage? A coffee table with drawers?
- What needs to be stored in the room to support its use? Toys, video games? Books, magazines? Computer equipment?
- What is your goal for the room?
- Does the furniture suit the room, or should it be rearranged or cleared out?
2. Sort Your Stuff
Once you have a plan, tackle only one room at a time and if you're still overwhelmed, narrow it down to one corner at a time. Then, says organizing expert Liz Witts, begin the organizing process by sorting the items into the following categories:
Keep: Items used on a regular basis.
Donate/Sell: Items that are no longer used or are duplicates — things that you can do without and would rather give it to someone else for them to benefit from.
Store: These are sentimental things that you want to hold on to but don't need to have cluttering up your daily living space.
Trash/Recyle: Things that are no longer usable. Worried about how to decide what gets tossed? Follow Liz's suggestion, "If you need to spend more than 15 seconds thinking about what something is, or when you last used it, or why you even have it, then you probably don't need it."
One caveat before you rid yourself of excess: Consider a secondary use for things you're thinking of pitching. Plastic ware can be turned into storage in drawers and cabinets and even old towels can be used for cushioning in a dog bed.
3. Set Up Storage Systems
Now that you're left with only the items you intend to keep, it's essential to set up "homes" or "zones" to maintain organization. "If you are forever misplacing your car keys, create a home for them," says organizing expert Pam Socolow. "Hang hooks near the door, or put an attractive box in a convenient place — whatever works for you. Try to establish a routine of always placing the keys in the designated spot."
Use well-labeled containers to create a storage system, and let your family know where things are located. If space is at a premium, add shelves inside closets to make use of the vertical wall space, says Liz Witts. If you have small children, attach hooks at lower heights so they can hang up their jackets and bags. Adjustable shelving, such as a closet system, is ideal because it can be moved to accommodate various storage needs. Use plastic shoeboxes — or again, even extra plastic ware normally used for food storage — to create kits for things such as sewing items, shoe repair and extension cords.
4. Stay Focused
Procrastination can have a snowball effect — the little things you put off each day can pile up to the point where you're at a loss as to how you'll ever whittle down your perpetually growing to-do list. To help you avoid the inevitable moment when your organizing efforts begin to slide, take note of these 13 strategies from organizing expert Monica Ricci:
Mental Strategies
- Vividly imagine the way you'll feel inside after the task or project is complete.
- Focus on your desired result, not your fear or inaction.
- Imagine yourself completing the task or project easily, quickly and with no setbacks.
- Tune into your procrastination language in your head and derail it with positive thoughts of "I want to," "I can," and "I enjoy" instead.
- Let go of perfectionism. Many things aren't worth doing perfectly, so just start and do your best.
Physical Strategies
- Get an accountability buddy to keep you on task along the way.
- Work out the steps to the project on paper in advance to clarify your thoughts and eliminate all the emotional whirlwind around why you don't want to begin the task or project.
- Master the art of starting. Over and over again.
- Do the hard parts first. Or...
- Do the easy parts first. Whichever motivates you more is the one you should choose.
- Keep a progress log so you don't lose sight of how much you've accomplished.
- Break your project into small, manageable chunks and create interim deadlines for yourself along the way.
- Build in rewards for yourself as you finish each step or as you complete the project.
