Although preparing your house for a real estate showing can be hectic, there are ways to make it easier and less stressful. One source of stress for many people is that nagging feeling that they're forgetting to do something important.

Admittedly, overlooking some things could result in lost sales or even lost valuables, but a little advance planning and organization can help prevent those problems from happening.

The solution is to create a checklist of important reminders and tasks you have to complete before leaving the house. Your real estate agent will provide helpful guidance and tips on effectively preparing your house for showings.

Putting Your Best Foot Forward

When your house is up for sale and it's being actively marketed, appointments with prospective buyers are sometimes made on the spur of the moment. While real estate agents will be scheduling the appointments and conducting the tours, it's up to you to ensure that your home is always in tip-top condition. Hopefully, you'll be able to enlist your family's help in picking up clothes, putting dirty dishes in the dishwasher, and cleaning up after themselves. If you have small children, they will undoubtedly need assistance in putting away their toys and making their bedrooms look civilized! Here are a few guidelines to keep in mind when getting ready for house showings:

• Cleanliness (or a lack thereof) will be one of the many things that house hunters notice. While your house may meet their requirements for number of bedrooms, bathrooms, and overall layout, they could quickly lose interest if your floors, countertops, and sinks are visibly dirty.
• Pets can be a potential issue if your home is scheduled for a showing. Not only can dogs be a distraction if they bark a lot or have other undesirable behaviors, but some people are allergic to dogs and cats. The ideal solution is for a friend, family member, or neighbor to take care of your dog while the house is being shown. Unfortunately that's not always possible. Sometimes confining your dog to a fenced-in back yard (briefly) or a comfortable crate that they're accustomed to may be a viable, short-term solution. Several factors would come into play, including the weather, the temperament of your dog, and whether it's going to bother the neighbors by being outside.
• Doing your best to eliminate clutter throughout the house is another strategy for making the best possible impression on potential buyers.

Protecting Your Valuables and Privacy

Another priority that some homeowners forget is to hide valuables, such as jewelry, mobile devices, checkbooks, and cash. It's also a good idea to make sure your computers are password-protected, and that you turn them off before leaving the house. If you have any concerns about security during home showings, you might want to hide computers, personal items, and yesterday's mail in a secure place. Although most people touring your house will only be interested in its features, décor, and condition, it's always good to exercise a little caution when opening your house up to the public.

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Learning the nuances of buying a home does not take a college degree in mathematics. You do not even need to know calculus or trigonometry. The numbers all come from multiplication, division, and percentages. However, understanding the numbers is not all there is to know about mortgages. Debt finance has a language of its own, so here are some terms you may run across, what they mean, and how to use them.

What the terms mean

• Mortgage: A mortgage is a legal agreement between a lender (a bank or other creditor) and the mortgagee (the person receiving the funds from the loan) at a specific interest agreement for a specified length of time in exchange for taking the title or deed of the debtor’s property. Until the debt is paid in full, the condition of a mortgage typically is that the full ownership of the property remains with the mortgage lender. In simpler terms, this means that the bank or lender owns the home (or a percentage of it) until the debt is paid. The homeowners have use of the house for as long as they fulfill the terms of the mortgage agreement.
• Interest. The fee charged for the use of the money in the mortgage based on a percentage of the total amount. Interest percentages can be fixed (they do not change for the life of the loan) or variable—also call adjustable because they can vary based on outside, pre-determined circumstances.
• PITI. This acronym stands for principle, interest, taxes, and insurance. Together, these four items denote the amount of a mortgage payment when taxes and insurance are held in escrow.
• Escrow. When monies for taxes or insurance are collected monthly but not paid until they are due—usually quarterly for insurance and annually for taxes—they are held by a third party and protected until paid out.
• Amortization. The amount of interest you pay monthly on a mortgage is more significant at the beginning because it is based on the amount of principal owed. As the principal reduces, the amount of the payment that is interesting also reduces so more of the fee goes toward the principal. At the beginning of a loan with a fixed interest and fixed length, all the costs, and the principal-to-interest breakdown are available on an amortization chart.

When you buy a home with a mortgage, typically after paying a down payment (a portion you pay outside the mortgage) the rest is amortized using a standard calculation for every payment for the length of the loan. You do not need to learn the formula, though, because several mortgage calculators exist online to do it for you. Try this one with the amounts of your potential purchase, down payment, interest rate, and term (in years).

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