The New FREE Keller Williams and Fissori Real Estate Team Mobile App

Are you on the search for your next home or investment property? Are you curious about what’s for sale in your neighborhood? Do you want to find open houses nearby? With the Keller Williams Realty Real Estate Search mobile app, finding the right home is as easy as drawing a circle on a map! Designed for today’s tech savvy homebuyers, this easy-to-use GPS-powered app puts you in control of your real estate search.

For more daily real estate advice, whether you are selling, buying, or just thinking about it, follow the Fissori Real Estate Team on Facebook and Twitter!

Key features of the KW mobile app include:

• Dynamic Map: Add a pinpoint or draw a perimeter to see nearby homes for sale, open houses, or rental properties
• Custom Searches: Add search filters like price, neighborhood, number of beds, open houses, and more
• Full-Screen Photo Gallery: Scroll through vivid, full-screen photos of homes
  Stay In The Know: Get notified of new real estate listings that meet your exact search criteria
• Get Local: See what schools and other points of interest nearby.
• Anytime Access: Save searches and listings, including notes or added property photos, across all your devices
• Share information: Easily share homes through text, email, Facebook or Twitter
• Be Calculated: Free mortgage calculator to estimate home loan and monthly payments

Optimized for your phone or tablet, the Keller Williams Realty Real Estate Search app brings you the best experience in the search for your next home. To connect with the KW Fissori Real Estate Team mobile app, The App is available at the App Store on your iPhone, the iTunes Store for your iPad, and available on Google Play for the Android. Once you download the App, enter our agent code at the startup of the app or via the "My Agent" button on the main menu. Just enter the code KW1P8TWRC when you install the free application. Happy Searching!

Home Flipping Makes Comeback

“Home flipping,” a term used to describe buying a home at a discount, refurbishing it and then selling it a profit, is making a comeback thanks to the recovery in the U.S. housing market. Experts say the time is ideal for flipping because properties are still available for a bargain in many areas, but are rising quickly in value. Reality TV made the practice look easy for a time, but many found out it was harder than it looked after the financial crisis led to a housing market tumble. Now, analysts say the best places to flip homes are those areas that suffered the most during the crash, like Arizona, Florida and Nevada. 

The rebounding U.S. real-estate market is leading to a renaissance in "home flipping" -- the investment strategy in which you buy distressed houses, make minor upgrades and resell the properties a few months later for quick gains.

"Right now is an ideal [time] for flipping, because we're seeing home prices bounce off of the bottom," says Daren Blomquist of RealtyTrac.com, which recently named the 25 Top U.S. Markets for Flipping Homes -- including some that offer more than 50% gross returns.

Made popular by reality-TV shows such as Flip This House>, home flipping looked easy during the housing boom when prices kept rising. The strategy became decidedly harder during the real estate bust that followed.

Now, flipping is enjoying a comeback because home prices have bottomed out in many U.S. locales and begun to rebound.

Blomquist says today's best markets for flippers soared during the boom and collapsed during the bust. Many are also in the so-called "Sand States" of Arizona, Florida and Nevada, which suffered through some of the nation's highest foreclosure rates in recent years.

"These markets all crashed pretty hard, so they've got lots of available distressed properties," Blomquist says. "But they're also perpetually popular with consumers because they're located in the warmer climates that many people want to move to."

Here's a look at the five metro areas RealtyTrac believes offer today's best opportunities for home flips (defined as buying and selling the same property within six months).

The site ranked each city based on how much gross profit local home flippers enjoyed in percentage terms on the average 2012 single-family sale, excluding renovations and other expenses beyond what investors initially paid for properties. All cities also had at least 500 home flips during 2012, as well as 9% or higher average annual home-price appreciation during 2013's first quarter. 

Fifth-best U.S. city for home flippers: Memphis, Tenn.
Average gross profit on 2012 deals: 42%

Memphis is unusual among the markets at the top of RealtyTrac's list that it's not in a Sand State, nor did it have the massive housing boom and bust other cities saw in recent years.

Still, Blomquist says the 1.3-million-person metro area is hot among flippers because it's got lots of older houses that cost little to buy and lend themselves to quick fix-ups and resales.

RealtyTrac found that the average Memphis home flipper paid just $68,318 per house last year (the lowest price among the top five cities in the rundown), but resold properties for $96,870. That's a 42% gross gain.

Another plus: The average Memphis home price rose at a 13% annual rate in 2013's first quarter. 

Fourth-best U.S. city for home flippers: Tampa, Fla.
Average gross profit on 2012 deals: 43%

The U.S. housing bust and foreclosure crisis slammed Tampa, but Blomquist says that means the 2.9-million metro area has lots of distressed properties for flippers to choose from.

The Cigar City also has an aging housing stock that's ripe for renovation, plus a warm climate that's popular with consumers -- all of which add up to great potential for home flips.

RealtyTrac found that the average Tampa property flipper enjoyed a 43% gross return in 2012, paying $79,538 for a house but selling for $113,676. Average Tampa home prices also rose at a 9% annual rate during the three months ended March 31. 

Third-best U.S. city for home flippers: Phoenix, Ariz.
Average gross profit on 2012 deals: 44%

Like the phoenix of Greek mythology, the Phoenix housing market is rising from its own ashes.

One of the U.S. cities hardest hit by the housing bust, Arizona's capital has recently seen real estate rebound sharply. Average Phoenix-area home prices soared 33% between 2012's first quarter and 2013's opening three months -- the strongest appreciation of any city atop RealtyTrac's rankings.

All told, the typical 2012 Phoenix home flip generated a 44% gross return, with investors paying $146,528 on average per property but selling for $210,290.

Still, Blomquist warns that Phoenix home values are rising so fast that he sees "the biggest red flags among any of the top five cities on our list. The market there might be overheating and a new bubble forming." 

Second-best U.S. city for home flippers: Las Vegas
Average gross profit on 2012 deals: 53%

Las Vegas had America's highest foreclosure rate for 60 straight months between mid-2007 and mid-2012, but Sin City's housing market is rebounding faster than you can say "hit me."

Average home prices in the 2 million-population metro area rose at a 24% annual clip during the first quarter, while the typical local flipper paid $133,198 per home in 2012 but sold for $203,945. That works out to a 53% gross return.

"Las Vegas had a very dramatic boom-and-bust cycle over the past seven years, but prices probably overcorrected," Blomquist says. "Investors finally realized that prices got too low, so it's made sense to them to jump back in." 

Best city for home flippers: Orlando, Fla.
Average gross profit on 2012 deals: 63%

Walt Disney World's (DIS) hometown has become a real Magic Kingdom for home flippers.

Blomquist says that while Orlando had one of America's worst foreclosure rates over the past five years, average local home prices rebounded at a 12% annual rate during 2013's first three months.

RealtyTrac also found that flippers paid a modest $103,701 on average per property in 2012 but sold for $168,677 -- a 63% gross return.

Blomquist says Orlando homes have historically enjoyed strong resale demand from retirees and warm-weather lovers. He adds that if you can't successfully flip a home, you can usually turn it into a vacation rental -- "a good, solid fallback plan."

This article was republished with permission from TheStreet.

Home Value Highest Since '07 as U.S. Houses Make Cash

More American homeowners will be able to use their properties as cash machines again after real estate equity jumped last year by the most in 65 years. Property owners recaptured $1.6 trillion as home values climbed to the highest levels since 2007. The amount by which the value of the houses exceeds their underlying mortgages rose to $8.2 trillion last year, a gain of 25 percent, according to Federal Reserve data.

An expanding group of homeowners is able to get cash from their properties as banks show more willingness to make home equity loans with the market’s recovery. Originations for the mortgages should rise 10 percent to almost $83 billion this year, from about $75 billion in 2012, said Shaun Richardson, a vice president at Icon Advisory Group, a mortgage analytics firm in Greensboro, North Carolina. About 6 percent of lenders eased equity-mortgage standards at the end of 2012, the most in 18 months, according to the Fed.

“Lenders are starting to come back into the marketplace,” saidGreg McBride, a senior financial analyst at Bankrate Inc. “We’re not going back to the wild, Wild West we saw during the real estate boom, but we are going to see more people spending their equity.”

Americans went on a spending spree in the five years before the 2006 peak of the real estate market, tapping about $800 billion of their rising equity to spend on everything from cars and televisions to debt consolidation and college tuition.

Declared Worthless

At the beginning of the financial crisis in 2008, close to $1 trillion of the loans were outstanding at U.S. banks and credit unions, an all-time high, according to the Fed. In the housing crash that followed, banks wrote off, or declared worthless, about $251 billion of home equity loans, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

The year-old real estate recovery is helping to ease defaults. The volume of equity loans 90 days or more overdue dropped 25 percent in the fourth quarter to $3.2 billion from the prior period, according to the FDIC. As a result, banks are beginning to view equity lending as a potential source of income, rather than losses, said Stuart Feldstein, president of SMR Research Corp., a consumer-lending research firm in Hackettstown, New Jersey.

“This could be the year banks see the home-equity business return to black ink, as long as defaults continue to decline,” Feldstein said.

Credit Quality

Home-equity mortgages held by banks probably will yield a 0.2 percent return on assets this year, which is the after-tax income on outstanding loans, Feldstein said. Improvements in home prices and credit quality over the next two years should put profit back to the pre-bust level of 1 percent to 1.5 percent return on assets, he said.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), Bank of America Corp. (BAC), Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) andCitigroup Inc. (C), the top four U.S. banks by assets, hold $319.6 billion of the loans, about half of the outstanding balance of $652.6 billion, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Bank of America has the most home-equity loans, at $102.6 billion.

Unlike first-lien mortgages, banks retain most of their equity originations on their books. Only about 2 percent are securitized on the secondary market, said Feldstein. There are two kinds of home-equity mortgages: lines of credit, known as Helocs, and closed-end loans borrowed in lump sums.

Helocs are adjustable loans tied to the prime rate, the interest charged by banks to their most creditworthy customers, with the addition of a margin pre-determined by the lender. The national average prime rate has been 3.25 percent since the end of 2008, as measured by Bloomberg.

Average Rates

The average rate for a Heloc last week was 5.11 percent, down from 5.22 percent a year ago, according to Bankrate.com, an interest-rate aggregator in North Palm Beach, Florida. That puts the average margin at close to 2 percent.

Closed-end loans, sometimes called He-loans, are usually fixed-rate junior mortgages or first liens used to refinances. The average U.S. rate for a closed-end loan was 6.13 percent last week, according to Bankrate. A year ago, the rate was 6.39 percent.

Lenders usually require borrowers to retain at least 20 percent equity, meaning the junior mortgages added to the primary loan can’t exceed 80 percent of a home’s value, Bankrate’s McBride said.

“You won’t be able to borrow on every last nickel of your equity,” McBride said. “After watching what happened to home prices during the housing downturn, lenders want a sufficient margin to protect them.”

Value Evaporated

About $6.5 trillion of residential real estate value evaporated after a wave of mortgage defaultssparked the 2008 financial crisis. The median U.S. home price hit bottom in 2012 after a 33 percent drop, as measured by the National Association of Realtors. In February, the median price was up 12 percent from a year earlier, the trade group said last week.

The S&P/Case-Shiller index of property values in 20 cities increased 8.1 percent in January from the same month in 2012 after rising 6.8 percent in the year ended in December, the group said today in New York. January’s gain was the most since June 2006, and exceeded the 7.9 percent median forecast by economists in a Bloomberg survey.

“Owners who have been sitting in their homes and watching their equity go up will be more likely to borrow and to spend, and more likely to take risks like looking for another house,” said Craig Focardi, senior research director at CEB TowerGroup. “Having home equity is a financial cushion to the average consumer’s personal balance sheet.”

Reviving Market

A reviving real estate market added to gross domestic product last year for the first time since 2005, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis in Washington. The economy probably will grow at a 1.9 percent pace in 2013, the fourth year after the end of the recession, according to the median forecast of 83 economists surveyed by Bloomberg.

Still, not everyone is spending. The amount households have in bank deposits, savings bonds, fixed-income mutual-funds and municipal securities increased $500 billion last year, equaling the most since 2007, according to FTN Financial, based on Fed data, while net household debtincreased $10 billion, the least since 2005.

“You might qualify for a home equity loan, but still have concerns about the economy or job security,” said Icon Advisory’s Richardson. “Or, you might be in that large group of people who need prices to come back a lot more before they qualify.”

Fed Buying

Fed policy makers for four years have driven down fixed home-loan rates by purchasing mortgage-backed bonds to stimulate demand. Last week, the central bank said it would continue to buy securities at a pace of $85 billion a month in their third round of so-called quantitative easing.

At the end of 2012, the average rate for a 30-year fixed primary mortgage fell to an all-time low of 3.3 percent, according to home-loan financier Freddie Mac in McLean, Virginia. Falling rates helped to boost home sales to 4.7 million last year, a gain of 8.4 percent from 2011.

“When we see some more history of home-price stability and improving employment data, there will be more people thinking about using their equity,” said Focardi, of CEB TowerGroup. “Having equity gives a boost to confidence.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Kathleen M. Howley in Boston atkmhowley@bloomberg.net.

Do You Need A Home Warranty?

When you purchase a home, even a home that isn't new, there is a very good chance that you will be offered a home warranty. The seller may offer to purchase one on your behalf to provide peace of mind that any component of the home that fails can be fixed affordably. If not, you will likely receive numerous mail solicitations to purchase a home warranty once the sale closes.

A home warranty may sound like a great form of financial protection against expensive, unforeseen home repairs. But is it really the safety net homeowners expect?

What Is a Home Warranty?A home warranty is not the same thing as homeowners insurance, nor is it a replacement for homeowners insurance. Homeowners insurance covers major perils such as fires, hail, property crimes and certain types of water damage that could affect the entire structure and/or the homeowner's personal possessions. A home warranty does not cover these perils. Rather, it covers specific components of the home.

A home warranty is a contract between a homeowner and a home warranty company that provides for discounted repair and replacement service on a home's major components, such as the furnace, air conditioning, plumbing and electrical system. A home warranty may also cover major appliances such as washers and dryers, refrigerators and swimming pools. Most plans have a basic component that provides all homeowners who purchase a policy with certain coverages. Homeowners can also purchase one or more optional components that provide additional coverage at additional cost.

Home warranty companies have agreements with approved service providers. When something that is covered by a home warranty breaks down, the homeowner calls the home warranty company, and the home warranty company sends one of its service providers to examine the problem. If the provider determines that the needed repair or replacement is covered by the warranty, he completes the work. The homeowner only pays a small service fee, plus the money she has already spent to purchase the warranty. (For for information, check 6 Tips To Sell Your Home Faster.)

What Does It Cost?A home warranty costs a few hundred dollars a year, paid up front (or in installments, if the warranty company offers a payment plan). The plan's cost varies depending on the property type e.g., single-family detached, condo, townhome, duplex, and whether the homeowner purchases a basic or extended plan. The cost usually does not vary with the property's age, unless the home is brand new, which increases the cost of coverage. The home's square footage also does not affect the price in most cases, unless the property is more than 5,000 square feet. Separate structures, such as guest houses, usually are not covered by the basic policy, but can be covered for an additional fee. However, garages should be covered by the basic policy.

In addition to an annual premium, home warranties charge a service call fee (also called a trade call fee) of around $60 every time the warranty holder requests that a service provider come out to the house to examine a problem. If the problem requires more than one type of contractor to visit (e.g., a plumber and an electrician), the homeowner may have to pay the service fee for each contractor.

Having a home warranty doesn't mean the homeowner will never have to spend a penny on home repairs. Some problems won't be covered by the warranty, whether because the homeowner didn't purchase coverage for that item or because the warranty company doesn't offer coverage for that item. Also, home warranties usually don't cover components that haven't been properly maintained. Furthermore, if the warranty company denies a claim, the homeowner will still have to pay the service fee and will also be responsible for repair costs. (For more on home ownership cost, see The Hidden Costs Of Home Ownership.)

The Benefits of a Home Warranty: Like all warranties, a home warranty is supposed to protect against expensive, unforeseen repair bills and provide peace of mind. For a homeowner who doesn't have an emergency fund or who wants to protect their emergency fund, a home warranty can act as a buffer. Home warranties also make sense for people who aren't handy or who don't want to worry about tracking down a contractor when they have a problem. Warranties can also make sense for people with expensive taste in appliances.

The subject of home warranties often comes up during the sale and purchase of a home. A home warranty can provide reassurance to a homebuyer who has limited information about how well the home's components have been maintained (or how well the home has been built, in the case of new construction). A warranty can also be helpful for someone who has just depleted their savings to buy a home and wants to avoid any additional major expenses. For home sellers, offering the buyer a paid-up, one-year home warranty with the home purchase may provide a measure of protection against buyer complaints about any home defects that arise after the sale closes. However, providing a home warranty does not exempt the seller from her legal requirement to disclose any known problems with the home. (To learn more about protecting yourself, read Consumer Protection Laws You Need To Know.)

Home Warranties Have DrawbacksIf home warranties were perfect, everyone would have one. But they don't. Why is that?

One major problem with a home warranty is that it will not cover items that have not been properly maintained. What is considered proper maintenance can be a significant gray area and is the source of many disagreements between home warranty companies and warranty holders. In a worst-case scenario, unscrupulous warranty companies may use the improper maintenance clause as an excuse to deny valid claims. In another scenario, the homeowner and the contractor who makes the house call may simply disagree over what constitutes proper maintenance.

Another common problem is that when a homeowner purchases a used home, it might come with a 10-year-old furnace that the previous owner did not maintain. At that point, no matter how well the new homeowner tries to care for the furnace going forward, he can't correct the previous lack of maintenance. In addition, warranties have numerous exclusions, as well as dollar limits per repair and per year.

Home warranties aren't expensive compared to the cost of repairing or replacing most of a home's important components, and this fact is one of a warranty's major selling points. However, there may be many years when nothing at all breaks down or wears out in the home. In these years, the homeowner gets nothing (except, perhaps, peace of mind) in exchange for his $350 premium. That money could be put into an emergency fund for making the same repairs and replacements that the home warranty would cover. Also, if the homeowner tries to use the warranty and the claim is denied, he will probably feel like the money spent on the premium and the service call fee was wasted.

Home warranties do eliminate the need to find a contractor when something breaks. However, they also eliminate the freedom to choose your own independent contractor if you want the warranty to pay for the repair or replacement. If you don't like the contractor or the work they do, you may be stuck with them. Furthermore, repairs may be more complicated with a third party (the home warranty company) involved in the process than a direct negotiation between a homeowner and a contractor would be. Also, the homeowner may have little or no say in the model or brand of a replacement component - though the warranty contract should provide for a similar- or equivalent-quality replacement. (For more on the drawback of owning a home, see When Owning Your Home Doesn't Pay.)

The Bottom Line: A home warranty is not a perfect solution to the risks homeowners face. Before purchasing one, homeowners should read the fine print in the home warranty contract and carefully consider whether the warranty is likely to pay off. Home sellers who want to offer a warranty to buyers and homeowners/buyers who would feel more comfortable having a home warranty should also do careful research to find a reputable home warranty company that will actually pay for legitimate repairs when they are needed. (To help you with your home purchase, check out Top Tips For First-Time Home Buyers.)

Prepare For A Slowdown In Housing Prices

FORTUNE – For many months now, U.S. home prices have risen to new highs as the housing market recovers from one of the worst crashes in recent history. The rebound comes as more Americans find jobs and as homebuyers work their way through the remaining housing inventory following years of lackluster construction.

Just before mortgage rates began their swift march upward, prices in 20 U.S. cities climbed 12% in April from a year earlier -- the biggest gain since early 2006 when home values began to level off before the market collapsed, according to Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller home price index released Tuesday. Some of the hardest-hit markets during the recession saw the biggest one-year jump, with prices in Atlanta, Detroit, and Las Vegas each rising about 20%. In Los Angeles, prices rose 19%, while prices in Boston, Chicago, and Denver increased almost 10%.

While we can breathe a sigh of relief at the double-digit increases, it likely won't last. The rise in home prices is expected to slow later this year or next.

Don't fret, though! This doesn't signal the recovery has stalled; it's actually a positive sign that the market is returning to normal.

MORE: Why I'm betting on a return to normal markets

In the recovery's next phase, home prices nationwide will rise slower by 8% in 2013 and even slower by 4% in 2014, according to Paul Diggle, property economist at Capital Economics. The firm's outlook for next year is lower than the consensus of 5.5%.

The slowdown is a positive sign because if prices were to continue rising the way they have at 12% annually, homes would be overvalued relative to rents within the next few months and relative to incomes by early 2015, Diggle writes to clients.

Part of what was driving prices higher was demand from large investors, who bought foreclosed properties in bulk at deep discounts. Those properties have dwindled, however. And as prices continue to go up, investors aren't seeing as many bargains as before.

As investors fade from the recovery, sellers are making a comeback.

It's an important development, as many homeowners with mortgages worth more than the value of their homes resisted selling at a loss during the downturn. That has been changing, however. During the first three months this year, 850,000 homes returned to positive equity, according to CoreLogic. That means 19.7%, or 9.7 million, of all residential properties with mortgages were still underwater, down from 21.7%, or 10.5 million, the previous quarter.

MORE: Fed's Bernanke talk tab: $151 billion and counting

With home prices rising and fewer borrowers underwater, many more homeowners think it's a good time to finally put up that "For Sale" sign, according to a May survey by mortgage finance company Fannie Mae. The share of respondents who say now is a good time to sell a home reached a record high of 40%, compared with 30% in April and 16% a year earlier.

The inventory of homes for sale bottomed in January and rose by 128,0000 homes, or 6.1%, since then, Diggle notes.

So if over the next several months prices aren't rising as rapidly, know that the recovery is still strong; it has just entered another chapter.

CNN Money

10 Most Popular Home Improvements That Buyers Will Pay More For

If you've tried to sell a home in the last few years, you know how hard it can be to get the price you are asking for.Even now as the housing market heats up and bidding wars are breaking out in parts of the country, it's still an uphill battle selling for the right price. But if your home has the right features, that can help score a higher bid from buyers -- maybe even more than you were asking for.
According to a recent National Association of Realtors survey looking at which home features are most desirable to buyers, 24/7 Wall St. analyzed the top 10 home improvements that homebuyers are willing to pay more for. Many of these features center around the kitchen, and some of these improvements could snag a seller thousands more from an interested buyer. Of course, these features aren't necessarily the most important deciding factor for homebuyers, Brendon DeSimone, a Zillow real estate expert, told 24/7 Wall St. The location -- proximity to good schools, neighborhood safety and commute -- will be the biggest factors weighing on buyers' minds, he said. But having some of these features inside the home can only help:

10. One or More Fireplaces

Pct. of home buyers willing to pay more: 40%
Amount willing to pay extra: $1,400

Some 40% of homebuyers without a fireplace said they would spend additional money for at least one and cough up an extra $1,400. The fireplace, while always popular, was less necessary when several TVs were going in the house all at once, Samuelson said. But he speculated that having a home with fireplaces may become more popular in the future as people spend less time watching TV and more time on tablets and e-readers. These people may find the fireplace a good place to cozy up and use their devices, he said.

9. Eat-In Kitchen

Pct. of home buyers willing to pay more: 40%
Amount willing to pay extra: $1,770

The people who are most interested in an eat-in kitchen tend to be in the 35 to 54 age range, with 30% of those prospective home buyers indicating this is “very important” in a house. Meanwhile, just 21% of those under 35 years of age and 20% over 55 feel the same way. More people, especially those who are raising families, want kitchens that look into family entertainment rooms. Some have even made it a family hangout by placing big-screen TVs and other electronics in the kitchen. “Buyers who are in families want to be in one space and do it all,” DeSimone said.

8. Stainless Steel Appliances

Pct. of home buyers willing to pay more: 41%
Amount willing to pay extra: $1,850

Like most features, stainless steel appliances are most important to people between the ages of 35 to 54, with 23% considering them to be a “very important” investment, compared with just 16% of those under the age of 35 and a mere 11% of those over the age of 55. From a cost perspective, stainless steel appliances are not necessarily the best investment. Samuelson noted that stainless steel wears out far easier than most other common materials. Also, the children in the house can also get their fingerprints on the appliances, requiring more cleaning. However, Samuelson said people are primarily driven to buy stainless steel appliances because they look more attractive.

7. Kitchen Island

Pct. of home buyers willing to pay more: 48%
Amount willing to pay extra: $1,370

Kitchen islands are most important to people ages 35 to 54, with 24% of them indicating that it is a “very important” characteristic. Just 19% of people under 35 and 13% over 55 considered this feature important. DeSimone noted that kitchen islands often come in handy for those who are raising a family. It provides additional room to put out food for the family and allows the kitchen to become more organized. Although the desire for a kitchen island is high, those who do not have one but want one are only willing to shell out $1,370, less than most other features.

6. Ensuite Master Bath

Pct. of home buyers willing to pay more: 49%
Amount willing to pay extra: $2,030

Once again, the ensuite master bathroom tends to be more important to people ages 35 and older. “It kind of goes to the ‘home is my sanctuary’ mentality,” Samuelson said. This, along with a walk-in closet in the master bedroom, has become more important in the past 10 years or so. Many people are eager to make their bathroom more “homey” by doing things such as installing televisions on the wall. The fact that many master bathrooms have two sinks is also an appealing option for married couples, Samuelson added.

5. Hardwood floors

Pct. of home buyers willing to pay more: 54%
Amount willing to pay extra: $2,080

Some 25% of buyers under the age of 35, and 28% of those between 35 and 54, considered hardwood floors “very important” when looking for a home. Only 17% of people ages 55 and up felt the same way. In previous generations, homes with carpets were considered better in order to conserve energy, DeSimone said. Even today, older people are more likely to feel more comfortable with carpeting because the insulation makes the home a little bit warmer. But for younger people looking to have many guests at the house and for people with children, hardwood floors are desirable because they are easier to clean than carpets.

4. Granite Countertops

Pct. of home buyers willing to pay more: 55%
Amount willing to pay extra: $1,620

Among homeowners between the ages of 35 and 54, 24% viewed granite countertops as “very important,” compared to 18% of people under 35 and 18% of people over 55. Although just one in every five prospective home buyers said granite countertops were very important, 55% of those who bought a home without such a countertop said they would pay extra for it. Both DeSimone and Samuelson agreed that the granite countertop is more of a style issue than anything else. “There has been more emphasis on the beautiful kitchen these days, and granite countertops are a part of that,” Samuelson said.

3. Walk-In Closet in Master Bedroom

Pct. of home buyers willing to pay more: 60%
Amount willing to pay extra: $1,350

A whopping 60% of homeowners were willing to pay extra for a walk-in closet in the master bedroom, with 44% of people between the ages of 35-54 viewing this feature as “very important,” compared to just 35% under the age of 35 and 36% of people 55 and older. DeSimone said the walk-in closet is desired for two main reasons: space and status. The space is very desirable for people as they get older and acquire more clothes, allowing people to be more organized. Having a walk-in closet in the master bedroom is also a status symbol. When giving a house tour, DeSimone said, people want to say, “hey, check out my closet,” in the same way they say, “hey, have you seen my new kitchen?”

2. New Kitchen Appliances

Pct. of home buyers willing to pay more: 69%
Amount willing to pay extra: $1,840

About 69% of homeowners said they were willing to spend more money for new kitchen appliances. Unsurprisingly, people who are looking to buy a new home find this far more important than people who are eyeing previously owned homes. People who are the first to live in a specific house tend to want everything to be new in the house because they consider the house truly “their own,” DeSimone said. People also do not want to have to deal with the stress of broken appliances. “They don’t want to come home after a horrible stressful day at work and find the dishwasher isn’t working or the fridge is making noises.”

1. Central Air Conditioning

Pct. of home buyers willing to pay more: 69%
Amount willing to pay extra: $2,520

Nearly seven in 10 homeowners said they would be willing to pay more on central air conditioning — the same as new kitchen appliances and more than any other feature. Central air conditioning was considered “very important” by more than 60% of people in all age groups. Samuelson noted that although people were willing to shell out approximately $2,500 for the feature, that is far less than what it would actually cost to install central air conditioning. “There is a difference in people’s preference and what they are willing to pay for,” Samuelson said. “They may want the steak but are on a macaroni budget."