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by on October 3, 2018 Leave a Comment

3 Tips When Hunting for a Property Online

Scouting for a property online can be an easy yet overwhelming task. The key? Keep these 3 non-negotiables in mind to pin down that specific space you’re looking for.

property onlinePhoto by rawpixel on Unsplash

The internet serves as the definite go-to if you want to learn more about a space. Open up a browser, type some keywords in mind, and you’ve got instant search results to read about. Researching is easy, to say the least. But it’s when you have to choose and narrow down your options that things get a lot tricky. Numerous deals, promotions, and a wide array of choices laid out can be quite confusing.

It’s important to know what you want and stay on track with that goal. Keep in mind these 3 tips and make sure you have a concrete answer for each item before proceeding with the other to-dos on your checklist. Know your priorities and don’t deal with other factors yet if you haven’t settled these non-negotiables.

1. Know what you want and be firm with it

A space is like having a kid; it’s a life-long investment. The process doesn’t just stop at the point of purchase. You have to take care of it, maintain it, and make sure that it’s in prime condition as the years pass. Establish your purpose for buying the space. Property size and number of residents are important factors to consider. Do you need a condominium unit to cater to a fast-paced lifestyle of a young professional? A townhouse for a married couple planning to have a family? A house for a big family with weekly visits from relatives? Or an apartment that will just be used every now and then? Analyze your current living condition and envision yourself five, even ten years from now. Discern if your lifestyle will still be the same – will you be leading a simple or extravagant life? Note that as your needs change, your house will most likely have to heed to those needs. Will the people around you still be present in the future or will there be a decrease in number? Think of the number of rooms and if your space is guest-friendly, or not. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how aesthetically appealing a space is as long as it heeds to its purpose.

2. Be realistic with your budget

You can’t buy a house you can’t afford so decide if it’s the right time to purchase one or if you’ll wait it out for a few more years. Money and timing come hand-in-hand so make sure that the property you’re buying is within the scope of your financial capability. It’s good to have a dream house or finally have that business space but come into terms with your current status and discern if you’re being wise. Consider the duration of your stay – is it a permanent space or a temporary rent? Is it a one-time payment or coursed via installment? Can you afford a loan? Don’t assume ownership of money that you don’t have in your bank account because that would mean assuming something you don’t have. Instead, look at how much you have now and come into terms with what’s within your scope.

3. Decide on a location

Location is a crucial factor – a make it or break it for some. The area and vicinity of your space should be able to cater to your lifestyle and your daily necessities. Convenience and accessibility are important factors that should be within your reach. Is your space near your office? Is it family-friendly? Is there a school or church nearby? Are there malls and businesses around the space? Consider traffic. How long is the travel time to and fro places and how much gas would you be spending on a weekly basis? Moreover, is your space nestled in an area you can proudly call a community that is safe and secure? Though a house is indeed a physical space, it’s important that it is also able to create a sense of identity for you and your family.

Now pondering on these 3 things can sure take a lot of time and consideration. Decision-making can be made easier if you take into account the input of important people. With these set in stone, scouting for your next property online can be much easier.

Filed Under: real estate Tagged With: , ,
by on September 25, 2018 Leave a Comment

How to Create Team Spirit and Cohesion

team spiritPhoto by Quino Al on Unsplash

Being part of a sports team is about more than just winning games. It is also about building a sense of comradery and spirit among all the members in order to create a group that works well and plays well together. While team spirit can seem like something that is hard to generate, there are actually lots of ways you can build cohesion to improve the overall attitude of your team. You should find that having more team spirit leads to better playing and more winning.

Promote Positivity

While winning is an important goal to have, it shouldn’t be your only focus or even your first focus. As cheesy as it sounds, your foremost focus should always be having fun and promoting positivity among the team. This can be especially important for school teams, but it is a good thing to keep in mind for others as well. If the players are not friendly towards one another and there is a lot of constant teasing and rudeness, there won’t be a good sense of trust.

In order to win games, all the members of your team need to be able to rely on one another. You can help encourage positivity by discouraging negative remarks. While constructive criticism is good, taking out losses by getting angry or blaming each other is never a good strategy.

Create Trust

Trust and friendship can be very interconnected. If the members of your team are friends, it is much more likely that they will trust one another. While friendship is something that can’t be forced, doing group activities outside of games and practice can be a great way to perpetuate comradery. Discussing the importance of teamwork can also be important. Just the simple act of passing on the knowledge that trust is important to your players can be a huge step forward.

If you’re a school team, then there is a risk of team members falling into the common situation of hazing or bullying other team members. You should do everything you can to prevent this. No matter what game you’re playing, good-sportsmanship and an environment of trust is a very beneficial and respectable thing to have and can be worth a little extra work and discipline.

Design a Team Image

While it may seem like a built-in part of sports, a good team image is not something you should overlook. Your team image can include team colors, a mascot, and a logo. One of the ways you can spread your team image is by selling branded products that feature your logo. You can find these available from companies such as End Zone Athletics.

There are lots of ways you can use your image to increase team spirit both among your players and among fans. Selling items featuring your team name and colors can be a great way to fundraise for your team, but perhaps the best part about selling branded merchandise is that it will help your team gain publicity and increase your overall fan base. When the players see a large crowd of excited fans wearing their merchandise, it can make them feel like a better team and increase positivity. You can easily take a look at websites such as End Zone Athletic Company to browse some of the many options for buying items featuring your team image.

Conclusion

While teamwork can sometimes seem hard to come by, there are many ways you can perpetuate it. Some of the most important things you can do to improve the way your team works together are being positive and promoting trust. While it can be easy to get caught up focusing only on winning, it is more than worth your time to put additional effort into becoming better as a group. You should find that by doing this your performance improves substantially.

Filed Under: self improvement Tagged With: , ,
by on August 28, 2018 Leave a Comment

Perth is Paving the Way to Sustainable Infrastructure in Australia

PerthPhoto from perthtouristcenter.com.au

With the ongoing discussion of improving our ecological footstep, “going green” is being applied to as much as possible. In fact, did you know that buildings can also “go green”? Take Western Australia’s for example. Their dedication to building green has shown off greatly thanks to the many new additions to their cities. So much so that there is a Sustainable Perth Walking Tour that takes visitors for a two-kilomtre walk through the city centre where the green buildings can be admired and hopefully imitated. Sustainable construction in Australia has become quite the mission and thanks to the importance given to the cause, fantastic results have already been reached.

So in case you’re in Perth and are curious about the aforementioned tour, the first stop the glass office tower at 235 George’s Terrace, designed by architects fitzpatrick+partners. Another exciting stop on the tour is the “greenest” public building in Western Australia, the Green Skills Training Centre. All of the building’s energy needs (including heating and air conditioning) are 100% powered by a super modern solar plant in the building. Impressive, right?

In fact, buildings constructed as far back as 2003 can be considered green as well, and are given a “Green Start” rating between 1 and 6 based on how green they are. In Perth specifically, buildings are envisioned as having to be green from the beginning. As a result, these buildings will most likely be then celebrated on “Green Building Day”; the most recent held this past June 1st. The day that Perth has set aside for its green constructions is dedicated to the sustainable buildings and welcomes technicians, architects, construction firms, and city government representatives.

The plan of having a city that is sustainable to the max and also user-friendly has been of great importance to city officials. In fact for landlords and business owners that commit to respecting the “green” criteria, a two-year economic plan was presented to support the costs of doing so. Furthermore, last year the “Strategic Community Plan” was also introduced in order to have Perth commit to water conservation, focus on climate change, and improve energy usage.

All this talk about Perth going green all the way is also backed up by the economic endorsements directed towards specific buildings. For example, the $2.6 billion going towards the Elizabeth Quay waterfront development, or the $1 billion for the international airport. Another $428 million will be spent on constructing the “New Museum for Western Australia (WA)” along with another $1.2 billion on the Forrestfield-Airport Link which will connect the airport to different city areas.

Thanks to the modernization, and the subsequent green factor that will be part of the new constructions, Perth is looking at a great, positive future.

Filed Under: construction industry, eco-living Tagged With: , , ,
by on August 28, 2018 Leave a Comment

3 Best Ways to Get Research Proposal Writing Help

research proposal writingPhoto by Startupstockphotos at Pexels

Are you looking for help writing a research proposal? It can be a challenge to develop an effective research proposal, particularly if your topic isn’t as familiar to you as you’d like, or if you are new to writing research proposals. But the good news is that there are a number of resources that can help you to develop strong research proposals that will clearly and effectively communicate to your readers what you propose to research, how you propose to research it, and the results you expect to obtain. Our three suggestions are sure to get you where you need to be when you need a research proposal.

1. Consult a step-by-step guide.

Many colleges and universities provide step by step guidelines to help students to write and develop their research proposals. These guidelines take you through the process from start to finish and explain how to apply general proposal writing principles in order to develop a polished research proposal. At some schools, there are even academic courses in proposal writing to teach the art of writing them. Guides like this one from USC provide an outline of the research proposal writing process and some prompts to help you to develop each section of the proposal. However, while this can be an effective resource, it has a bit of a do-it-yourself quality to it and can be challenging for students who have never seen a research proposal before. It can be difficult to understand how to apply the outline to a finished product and turn the prompts into polished proposal prose.

2. Read sample proposals.

Our second recommendation helps to address the challenges posed by the first. A number of websites like Useful Research Papers offer free sample research proposals that you can read in order to understand the best way to put together a research proposal and develop your own. Seeing a proposal in the flesh, so to speak, can show you how one is assembled and how one should read better than an outline ever could. When you read a sample proposal, you see how the parts fit together and how a researcher actually talks about the topic. While this can be a huge help in understanding how a proposal is put together, there are two major drawbacks. First, the proposals that you find on free websites are not always quality controlled, and there is no way to guarantee that the sample research proposal you’ve read is accurate, correct, or formatted according to academic standards. Similarly, it is not always easy to determine whether these samples are up to date and make use of high-quality current sources. Second, sample proposals are unlikely to be on your exact topic, which means that they may be of limited use in understanding how to put together your own work.

3. Purchase a customized research proposal.

To make sure that a customized proposal is effective for your particular research assignment, you should consider our third recommendation, purchasing a customized research proposal from a writing services such as Smart Writing Service, which will write a research proposal that will show you exactly how to address your specific topic. When you purchase a proposal from the qualified experts at Smart Writing Service, you will receive a completely original custom proposal that will give you the information you need to guide you through to the best possible research with a guarantee that the writing lives up to the highest academic standards. Smart Writing Service, for example, employs writers who hold advanced degrees such as PhDs and Master’s degrees to ensure that every research proposal aligns with current academic practice and is written to the standards expected at the undergraduate, graduate, or postgraduate levels. They also guarantee that every research proposal will meet your exact requirements for your topic and that it will be completely free from plagiarism. As a result, you can be sure that the research proposal you order will be targeted to your needs and can serve both as a guide and a template for you as you work on your specific research topic.

Overall, the research proposal writing process can be a challenge, but there are a number of ways to make it easier. Depending on your comfort level and the amount of help you need, there are resources that can show you exactly how to approach your topic and develop a powerful research proposal that will effectively communicate to your instructor what you hope to research and how you will go about doing it.

Filed Under: business, education Tagged With: , ,
by on August 6, 2018 Leave a Comment

Are You Financially Prepared to Own a Home?

So you think you’re ready to purchase your first home? Lots of people reach a point where they want to be homeowners, but many end up failing at it because they simply weren’t prepared. You see, there’s a lot that goes into owning a house that you may not have been aware of. Beyond making payments to the mortgage company, you’ll also be responsible for a lot of other expenses. If you haven’t effectively planned for those expenses, your dream home can quickly become the start of your financial demise.

own a homeImage source: Pixabay

How does one know when they’re financially prepared to purchase a property? Start by learning what it costs to own a home (beyond the basics) and compare it to your budget. If the costs are greater than your income, you’re better off waiting. If, however, your income exceeds your household expenses, then you’re ready to embark on the process of buying your new house.

Below is a look at some of the common expenses you’ll need to determine the true cost of homeownership:

Insurance

When you make a purchase as large as a house you have to protect it at all costs. Part of doing this means securing a property insurance policy. Depending on where you live, the company you choose, and how much insurance you’d like, it could add up to several thousand dollars a year. Fortunately, most homeowners insurance companies offer the option to pay the insurance in monthly installments for easier budgeting.

Taxes

Property taxes are mandated by most states. If you own a real estate property, you’ll be required to pay several thousand dollars per year in taxes. This bill is generally required on a bi-annual or annual basis.

Emergencies

You can talk to any homeowner and they’ll tell you that household emergencies always tend to pop up. If it’s not one thing that needs to be fixed, it’s another. Plumbing leaks, electrical problems, HVAC malfunctions, and more could set you back several hundred dollars if not more. It is best to create emergency savings to cover these costs, but if you’re really in a bind there are also opportunities like Maxlend fast cash personal loans to tide you over. You can apply online and receive as much as $1250 to handle your emergency and then repay the loan within the required time frame.

Maintenance and Repairs

Not every household problem will be an emergency, but if you want your house to remain intact, safe, and comfortable, you’ll need to budget for routine maintenance and periodic repairs. Some service providers you may need to call on include the plumber, electrician, HVAC technician, home appliance repairman, landscaper, pest control, and more. Many contractors offer annual service contracts to help you save a bit of money.

Utilities

You can’t very well live safely in a home without clean water, gas, and electricity so don’t forget to factor these into your household costs.

Solutions to Help Cover the Cost of Homeownership

Quite a bit of things you’ll need to afford huh? Fortunately, there are solutions to make owning a home a lot more affordable:

Buy within your means – You should never spend more on a home than you have. In fact, experts say that housing should only account for approximately 30% of your income. Anything beyond that is beyond your means.

Create a budget – Budgeting can help you get a real understanding as to what’s going on with your finances. It can help you to reduce spending, cut down on debt, increase your savings, and more importantly, stretch your income further so you have the money you need to afford the above-mentioned expenses.

Build emergency savings – Whether you can afford to buy a home right now or not, you need a nest egg to fall back on. A rainy day account or emergency savings provide you with the cushion you need. How much you save is up to you, but having at least 3 to 6 months worth of monthly expenses in an account can really come in handy.

Borrow as needed – Sometimes, there are things going on in your house that you simply can’t afford to deal with on your own. In those instances, borrowing from a trusted lender is your best bet.

A lot of money goes into owning a home. Likely more than you imagined. Before you decide to buy your first home, be sure that you’re financially prepared. If it turns out you have to wait, it’s a lot better than investing in something you can’t afford and ruining your finances in the process. Start working to boost your savings, build your credit, and increasing your income so that in a few years you’ll be ready to buy the home you want.

Filed Under: finance, real estate Tagged With: , ,
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