If you’ve jumped on the Apple “i” bandwagon, you’re never far from iPhone, iPod, and iPad apps that help maintain and improve your home — values near and dear to our hearts.

Here are a few of our favorites:

ColorSnap Sherwin-Williams (free)

Snap a picture of anything and this app tells you which Sherwin-Williams color most closely matches your photo subject. The coral shade in my kitchen curtains, it turns out, is Redbud. I press another button and coordinating colors — Palm Leaf and Cargo Pants — pop up. Browse color families to find ones you love, and then adjust for lightness and saturation.

Home Improvement CALCS  ($2.99)

This handy app has more than 115 calculations for every home improvement project imaginable — from determining how much asphalt you’ll need to repave your 10-by-10-ft. driveway (3.75 tons) to how many bags of mulch will cover a 40-by-6-ft. yard, 3 inches deep (30 2-cubic-foot bags).

Ruler 2 (99 cents)

This app is for emergency measuring when no ruler or tape is handy. Ruler 2 includes a pointer you drag along the length of an object smaller (preferably) than your i-gizmo. A digital readout gives you the length. To measure longer objects, you have to swipe and move the iPhone/iPad/iPod, and things get a little complicated, so Ruler 2 works best measuring smaller things, such as screws.

iHandy Carpenter ($1.99)

iHandy is a digital toolkit that turns your Apple device into a plumb bob, surface level, bubble level bar, steel protractor, and ruler. All tools, except the ruler, have digital readouts.

Dream Home ($1.99)

Dream Home contains hundreds of design ideas for your remodeling project: It’s all the fun of shelter magazines for a fraction of the cost and weight. The app presents pages and pages — I mean screens and screens — of photos of high-design rooms in real houses. Photos are sorted by color, style, and popularity. For an extra $1.99, you can add photos of rooms decorated for the seasons. If you feel like sharing, upload pictures of your home improvement project and they’ll become part of the app in 48 hours.

I.D. Wood: Your Pocket Guide to Woods From Around the World ($4.99)

This pricey app provides everything you need to know — and a few things you don’t  — about 160 species of wood, from the common (white oak) to the exotic (Australian black bean). The pictures are beautiful and true-to-life, and the tips for working with each species are useful: Did you know beech wood has one of the highest shrinkage rates of all hardwoods? Now you do.

What home- and garden-related apps do you use? What have you used them for?

Published: August 26, 2011

“Visit HouseLogic.com for more articles like this. Reprinted from HouseLogic.com with permission of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®.”

LOS ANGELES (July 15) – The CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® (C.A.R.) applauds Gov. Jerry Brown on signing SB 458 (Corbett) into law. SB 458 extends the protections of SB 931 (2010), to ensure that any lender that agrees to a short sale must accept the agreed upon short sale payment as payment in full of the outstanding balance of all loans.

Under previous law (SB 931 of 2010), a first mortgage holder could accept an agreed-upon short sale payment as full payment for the outstanding balance of the loan, but unfortunately, the rule did not apply to junior lien holders. SB 458 extends the protections of SB 931 to junior liens.

“The signing of this bill is a victory for California homeowners who have been forced to short sell their home only to find that the lender will pursue them after the short sale closes, and demand an additional payment to subsidize the difference,” said C.A.R. President Beth L. Peerce. “SB 458 brings closure and certainty to the short sale process and ensures that once a lender has agreed to accept a short sale payment on a property, all lienholders – those in first position and in junior positions – will consider the outstanding balance as paid in full and the homeowner will not be held responsible for any additional payments on the property.”

SB 458 contains an urgency clause making it effective upon signing.

Call The Ozur Group with questions (760) 601-3070. We are here to assist you with your Short Sale.

If you’re trying to raise your credit score to get a good rate for a refinance or HELOC, you might be surprised by what affects—or doesn’t affect—your score.

1. More money improves your credit score:

False. Your level or sources of income don’t affect your credit score, although lenders may look at it when making loan decisions, according to the Fair Isaac Corp., the company that issues the commonly used FICO credit scores.

2. Ownership of several credit cards can hurt your credit score:

Mostly false. Having many credit lines isn’t necessarily a bad thing, says credit expert Liz Weston, author of Your Credit Score. Multiple lines give you a favorable debt-to-available-credit ratio. But use them correctly: It’s best to keep any balances below 10% or 20% of the total credit line, she says. Anything more will affect the ratio of debt-to-available-credit, which can decrease your credit score.

3. Opening and closing credit lines can hurt your credit score:

True. New credit applications can decrease your credit score, so be careful about applying for new credit cards or personal loans before applying for a HELOC, second mortgage, automobile loan, or other large line of credit. Surprise: Closing existing credit lines may also hurt your credit score, since it’ll damage your debt-to-available-credit ratio. A good rule is not to make any credit changes in the months leading up to a major credit request, such as for a HELOC.

4. Consolidating credit lines will help your credit score:

Mostly false. Although it may seem like a good idea to move all your balances to one card, that can actually hurt your credit score, since your debt-to-available-credit ratio will spike on that card, says Weston. However, credit expert Harrine Freeman says such a slight decline isn’t necessarily a deal-breaker for a loan, especially if the card has a lower interest rate and will allow you to pay off the balance sooner. Your score will increase as soon as that ratio goes down.

5. Changing jobs can hurt your credit score:

Partly true. Taking a new job or losing your job doesn’t affect your credit score. However, if you have a spotty employment history, lenders may hold that against you in making a loan. Dips in income may signal that it could be difficult to pay bills in a timely manner.

6. Co-signing for others can hurt your credit score:

Partly true. Simply co-signing on a loan for someone else may not affect your score, but if that person is late on paying the loan, it’s likely to show up on your report, says Freeman. And that’s a nasty surprise if you didn’t know the person was late.

7. Judgments and liens aren’t considered in your credit score:

False. If you’ve had a judgment or lien filed against you, it’s considered in your payment history, which represents 35% of your score.

Similarly, while most utility companies don’t report payment history to credit bureaus, your account will likely be reported if it is seriously delinquent and referred to a collection agency.

Additional details on how to manage your FICO score are available on the FICO site.

Gwen Moran is a freelance business and finance writer from the Jersey shore. She’s the co-author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Business Plans and writes frequently about real estate. Published: October 22, 2010

“Visit HouseLogic.com for more articles like this. Reprinted from HouseLogic.com with permission of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®.”

Big lenders in the reverse mortgage business — Wells Fargo this month and Bank of America earlier this year — have pulled out of the market and won’t issue any new reverse mortgages. But MetLife and several smaller companies plan to stay in the market, so you won’t have issues finding a reverse mortgage if you want one.

Big lenders in the reverse mortgage business — Wells Fargo this month and Bank of America earlier this year — have pulled out of the market and won’t issue any new reverse mortgages. But MetLife and several smaller companies plan to stay in the market, so you won’t have issues finding a reverse mortgage if you want one.

But should you take out a reverse mortgage? Only get one if you:

Have equity in your home and no way of paying the bills other than selling your home and living on the proceeds (because reverse mortgages have steep upfront fees).

Can pay the property taxes and home owners insurance bills from now until you die with or without the money you’re getting from the reverse mortgage. More on that later.

With a reverse mortgage, if you’re 62 or older, you get to cash out your equity (the bank keeps some as an insurance policy on the “loan”) and keep the house. The bank pays you the value of your house either in a lump sum, in fixed monthly payments, or gives you a line of equity, all of which are based on formulas taking into account your home’s appraised value, current interest rates, and the youngest applicant’s age.

Because you don’t pay back a reverse mortgage, you don’t have to prove you have a future income the way you do with a regular mortgage — the reverse mortgage is your future income.

If you opt for the lump sum and spend it all, the bank can’t force you to move out. You get to stay until you die, or until you’re out of the house for a year, presumably in a rest home.

The catch: If you don’t pay your property taxes, the bank would have to pay them for you or foreclose before the tax man can sell your home to cover the taxes you owe.

If you don’t pay your insurance premiums, the bank can put an insurance policy on your house and then ask you to pay for it. But if you can’t pay the bill, the bank has to get permission from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which backs reverse mortgages, to foreclose on you. And, so far, HUD hasn’t allowed any reverse mortgage foreclosures.

By the way, Wells Fargo has implied it’s leaving the market because HUD isn’t moving fast enough to come up with a financial assessment that would allow banks to turn down reverse mortgage borrowers who aren’t qualified and also solve the tax and insurance issues.

Are you a fit for a reverse mortgage?

Before you sign up for a reverse mortgage, do some budget projections to make sure you’ll be able to continue to pay your property taxes and insurance bills in the future.

If you know how much your home owners insurance and property taxes have risen in your town each year over the past 10 years, you can calculate how much they’ll be in 30 years. If, like me, you just know they always go up, but you’re not sure how much, you can use a general inflation calculator to estimate your costs out to 2070.

A reverse mortgage can be a blessing if your retirement income just isn’t going as far as your retirement costs. Getting to cash out your equity and not having to move truly is having your birthday cake and eating it, too, as long as you have enough cash to make sure you don’t outlive the party.

Would you take out a reverse mortgage to pay for home costs during your retirement?

By: Dona DeZube ~ Published: June 29, 2011

Visit HouseLogic.com for more articles like this. Reprinted from HouseLogic.com with permission of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®.