Guest Blog by - Rianne Hunter:

Pros and Cons of Moving Your Own Stuff: Should You Hire Help or Not?

Moving day is a day that not many people look forward to. It is a day where you try to move as many things from one place to another as fast as you can without breaking or damaging anything. That is one of the reasons why UtahDave.com offers a Free Moving Truck to clients after they buys or sell a home through a Neighborhood Expert.

Should you hire professional movers to help you with your move?

When Should You Hire Movers?

There are times when hiring a mover makes more sense than trying to move on your own. Consider hiring a mover if:

• You Have a Long Way to Go

If you have a long move ahead of you, you may not want to drive a car

Deck the Homes! is UtahDave.com's 2013 Christmas light contest.

UtahDave.com is giving away over $1500 in cash and prizes this Christmas season! We're looking for the best Christmas lights and decorations in the area. Photos of the homes are posted on Facebook for you to vote for your favorite. The home with the most likes will win a cash prize!

That's not the only way to win however. You can be entered into a drawing for additional prizes for sending a photo of a home and sharing the contest on Facebook. If you want to drive around and enjoy the lights in person we have a map of the best Christmas lights.

[caption id="attachment_3972" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Click for map of Christmas Lights"][/caption]

3 Ways to Win!

(You

When you buy a home you want to make sure that you are moving to an economically stable or thriving. Our neighborhood experts live in the communities where they sell homes; this way they can provide a good understanding of the local economic stability. As a whole Utah's economy is thriving! Especially when it comes to job growth.

In Utah, we have had more than 33,000 new jobs created over the past year. That's almost 3,000 new jobs every month! This astonishing job creation has placed Utah as the No. 2 state in the nation for job growth. There are approximately 1.3 million people employed and the unemployment rate is at 4.7% (5th lowest in the nation).

Where are all of these jobs being created? The largest increases are in the following

I'm sure you have noticed the dropping temperatures. Protecting your home against cold weather can prevent costly damage, reduce your monthly heating costs, and increase the value of your home. There are many things you should do before the big freeze hits. Here are some valuable tips you can use this Fall to prepare for winter temperatures. For the Yard:

• Clear debris from exterior walkways, decks, and steps. When winter hits you don't want to be shoveling up leaves and debris with the snow.

• Use fall leaves as mulch for your lawn. As the leaves start to fall consider mowing them into mulch instead of raking them into bags. These mulched leaves can provide nutrients for the soil during the winter to help your lawn next spring.

• Trim

Myan Burton, our Neighborhood Expert for Midvale/Murray, shows what being a Neighborhood Expert is all about.

Myan recently had 2 home owners in his area who wanted to sell their home. Myan told them how to clean and stage their home and make it ready to sell. How would you like to list your home for sale, clean and show it once, and then have your home sold? That is what Myan did for his sellers. Before it was even listed online, he had the buyers for their home. Neighborhood Experts are able to help sellers sell fast and ease the stress of selling.

Neighborhood Experts also know what homes are coming on the market and can get great deals for their buyers before anyone else.  Because he is the Neighborhood Expert, buyers know to come to him for

Recently one of our sellers had a buyer whose lender ordered an appraisal on the home.  It came back $80,000 LOW!  Can you imagine all the sudden feeling like you just lost $80,000?  We have heard about this happening to sellers all year long.

What is an appraisal?  Its an opinion of value. There is not an absolute formula for an appraiser to use when coming up with a value. That means the value will not always be the exact same value no matter who does the appraisal. But when you get a bad one what do you do?

Let me show you what we did:

This is the scenario we found ourselves in, the odds were stacked against us:  The agent representing the buyer was an appraiser for 30 years.  He felt like the appraisal was good.  The appraiser thought the

This month's news may sound familiar, but there are some significant changes to the housing market that may affect your real estate decisions. The big news from last month's NAR statistics is that Inventory is low. If this sounds familiar it's because inventory has been steadily declining for the past two years. From February 2011 - Feb. 2012 the number of homes on the market in Salt Lake County has been more than 10% LOWER than the number of homes on the market the year before. Starting in March 2012 that number dipped to 30% lower and stayed there for a year! In the past few months things have started to change.

  [caption id="attachment_3038" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="See Utah's Current Housing Statistics Here"][/caption]

Since

You may recall the recent changes to FHA financing that require you to pay your Mortgage Insurance for the duration of the loan. FHA financing is still appealing because of the low down payment requirements to get the house. However, if you don't like the idea of paying around $50K in Mortgage Insurance you are still in luck.

Utah Housing has announced a new loan program called the "No MI Risk Share Loan." This is a conventional loan that only requires a 3% down payment. Check out their current rates HERE. If you are interested in the program contact a qualifying lender to lock in your rate. A lender is the best source for relevant and reliable information about this loan product.

For those of you who need to research things on your own here are

There is only 1 week left of the Salt Lake Parade of homes. If you haven't been out to see the homes, time is running out. You can like my Facebook page for opportunities to win free tickets. Or you can save $3 by purchasing your tickets at SaltLakeParade.com!

Watch a preview of some of the homes here:

The parade started August 2nd and continues until August 17th. The homes are open daily from 12:00 pm - 9:00 pm.

Click here to see a map of the parade.

Check out our guest blogger's review of the Rochelle in Sandy (#7)

My name is Lindsey, and I had the opportunity of attending the Salt Lake Parade of Homes, thanks to UtahDave.com!  I wanted to share with you some of my favorite features that builders and designers are incorporating into new home construction and design.  It's always fun to see all of the creativity and variety to get your own wheels turning about what you can do in your current home or how to plan for the next!  These ideas are fantastic ways to open up a space, enhance efficiency and create a more cohesive home taken from this year's Parade Entry #7 by Hard Rock Homes.  If you have a chance to attend the Parade, I personally encourage you to do so.  For discount tickets, go to http://www.saltlakeparade.com/) or you can follow UtahDave.com on Facebook