Selling a home right now is an adventure in itself. There aren’t a lot of  properties moving in some areas, and in others…they are. There are still ways to get the most for your house even now though…and many of these tips are tried and true ways to get a good price for your home.

First of all, make sure your house is clean. Some buyers like to see a fully furnished house; some prefer to see a house that is bare. No matter how they feel about it, they will always agree that a clean house is what they REALLY want to see. It is extremely difficult to overlook stinky garbage and dirty floors. From experience, when I was looking at homes to purchase, there was a neighborhood right next to the college I was attending and the houses were definitely in our price range. However, most of the homes we walked into looked like they hosted an entire fraternity or some kind of natural disaster had struck them.  This image never left my mind as we looked through the neighborhood; we actually ended up moving to a much quieter neighborhood 8 miles from campus.

Keeping your house clean isn’t limited to the inside. Curb appeal is very important and making sure that your lawn is groomed properly will not only attract more buyers, but will add a bit of value to your home. If buyers consider your lawn a bit more low maintenance (and less of a headache) than a weed-ridden lawn then you may be able to get a bit more money for your house.

It wouldn’t hurt to have someone inspect your home before you put it on the market. If you do this, then the inspector will find all the little things (and big things) that may be wrong with your house and you can fix them before any potential buyers’ inspectors come along and find them. A buyer will ask for whatever the cost of repair is off the price of the house (and usually a lot more) so it is just cheaper in the long run to fix the issues.

Make sure that you stay in line with other homes in your neighborhood. If your house is priced $20,000 more than all the other houses in your neighborhood because you feel like you should be getting some return on those granite countertops and stainless steel appliances you put in your house, then you likely won’t sell your house. The buyers that will be canvasing your neighborhood will look in what they consider their price range and $20,000 on a $130,000 home is a lot of money. You really want to stay in line with what is standard in your neighborhood if you were planning on upgrading anything in your home.

Finally, one of the newer ways to increase the value of your home is to make some “green” improvements. Everyone is looking for greener ways to live these days and typically when something is already put in place that is environmentally friendly, then it will save the buyers money in the future. So, you’ll also be seeing “green”  when they do.

Recently I have noticed that more and more people are coming onto hard times and dropping more of their four legged family members off at local shelters or simply dropping them off in the middle of nowhere to let fate have its hand at their friend.

Owning a pet is much more of a responsibility than that. When you buy or adopt a pet, you have to remember that the pet needs you. It needs you to feed it and take care of it.

I understand when someone has to take their animal to the shelter due to financial hardships; at least they are giving the pet a fighting chance at finding another home. However, when someone leaves their animal out to fend for itself it just makes me sick.

I’m not going to sit here and preach that dogs are people too, because they’re not; they are dogs. However, dogs have feelings and when they live with people long enough they come to expect certain things. Then again, perhaps I am just extremely attached to my own dogs.

I say this because over the past few weeks there has been a dog that has just been allowed to roam my neighborhood. He is a huge chocolate lab and he will sit at my door and whine to be let in. We learned last night that he lives about 3 houses down from our own and the owner is never home and his neighbor is just as irritated with the situation as we are. People who just let their dogs roam the neighborhood freely shouldn’t be allowed to have dogs. This is why most places have ordinances to keep dogs on a leash or in a fence.

Throughout my time in college, there has been a battle between my school’s online program and the program that professors use to publish grades and assignments for their regular lecture classes.

Well, it seems like perhaps that “battle” may be over, and Blackboard came out on top.

In my opinion, Angel Learning and Blackboard perform the same function. You can submit assignments, communicate with classmates, and get your grades on both. Now, since Blackboard has bought Angel Learning for $95 million in cash and stock, it can become a single entity that performs the tasks well.

Somewhere in the neighborhood of 5,800 schools use one of these programs.

This is just for a little fun with the topic at hand and as a dedication to my very own finals week: