Tired of touring through homes that are only faux-historic? Not finding enough real marble flooring or Roman columns to suit your liking? The U.S. Postal Service has entered some unusual options onto the real estate market: Post offices. That’s right, they’re closing some of them down — around 200, at last count, in order to raise money and shift into lower-cost alternatives for office space.

Of course, an old post office doesn’t come with many home-like amenities. And their historic significance, in many instances, means that anyone who buys one should be prepared to comply with historic preservation rules — not to mention answer to a public that’s none too pleased about the way the Postal Service has been handling this process. (After one of the historic buildings it sold was torn down to make room for a Walgreens, it’s no wonder.)

But if you rent back some space to the Post Office itself — which it’s hoping to arrange, in some cases — you might never have to stand in long lines for stamps again!

For more information, see Save the Post Office, a website edited and administered by Steve Hutkins, a literature professor who teaches “place studies” at the Gallatin School of New York University.

I love to swim — but I would never, ever, buy a house with a pool, particularly an outdoor one. Oh sure, they’re convenient, they look pretty, and almost nothing gets people to your house faster than the word “pool party.” (Nothing legal, that is.) But let’s look at the down sides, most of which have big dollar signs attached to them:

• Injuries and lawsuits. Ask anyone who’s been to law school. (By now, almost everyone has.) An inordinate number of tort cases have to do with things like children drowning after sneaking into a pool, divers bashing their head, swimmers getting caught in the drain, and so on. (Have you noticed how hotel pools no longer have diving boards? There’s a one-word reason for that: “liability.”) Some lawyers even specialize in swimming-pool injury cases. Apart from the horror of someone injuring themselves or dying on your property, lawsuits are expensive . . . which brings us to the next topic.
• Paying more for homeowners’ insurance — if you can get pool coverage. As soon as your insurance company knows you have a pool, it will either raise your rates for liability coverage or exclude the pool from your policy altogether. No coverage means you’re on your own if someone sues you for injuries. Just how much your rates go up depends on where you live and other factors — some say around 10% per year — but it’s not the only cost you’re going to face. That brings us to the next topic.
• Adding safety features. If you’re going to avoid those injuries, or at least show that you weren’t at fault in causing them, you’re probably going to need to build a high fence with a lock on it, and otherwise secure the pool from unintended visitors — and make it as safe as possible for the intended ones.
• Increased energy use. According to a study by Opower, homes with pools tend to use 49% more electricity and 19% more natural gas per year than non-pool homes, owing in large part to the pumping, filtering, and heating requirements.
• Maintenance costs. There are the basic chemicals, plus cleaning and inevitable repairs — all of which can easily add up to $3,000 per year,  according to a Wall Street Journal report.

When you get tired of your pool-party house and want to sell, the presence of a pool may be attractive to some buyers — but turn off others. Especially, I’m guessing, the lawyers.

Let’s talk bathrooms.

When I bought my first little starter home many years ago – which, being in California, cost as much as a mansion in Buffalo would have – my in-laws, who happen to live in Buffalo, were shocked that it came with only one bathroom. Given how hot the market was at the time, I felt lucky that it had any bathroom at all.

Of course, when it came time to move, the 2^nd bathroom was one of the biggest things to look forward to. No more knocking on neighbors’ doors while the plumber was in doing repairs! No more standing in line when houseguests were staying!

The desire for more, bigger, and more luxurious bathrooms is a trend that seems destined to never end. As Lauren Beale reported on in the Los Angeles Times last year, the wealthy take it to extremes, demanding two bathrooms for every bedroom. (Gotta love the quote from homeowner Sandra Beltre, whose custom-built home has 16 bathrooms: “We use them all.”)

According to broker and appraiser Hank Miller, “Owners are looking for that special retreat . . .  making spa-like luxury a major push in today’s remodels. Heated towel racks , underfloor heating, over sized shower heads, wall jets, and open showers are popular now and will continue to be in 2013.”

There’s just one problem, for anyone buying a starter home, or in many cases, an older home: You can’t always get what you want. Remember the days when the bathroom was referred to as a “water closet?” Many homes’ bathrooms are small, insignificant, and in short supply.

Often, the best that you can do as a homebuyer is to look past the staging (as in the above photo, where the pretty accessories can almost make you forget that there’s hardly enough space on this sink for a toothbrush) and assess just how big (or small) the bathroom really is. Then examine the surrounding rooms to see whether they offer room for expansion, and possibly bring in a contractor for a reality and price check.

The good news is, if you do remodel or expand your home’s bathrooms, this is among the home improvements most likely to yield a higher sale price when you move. See “Do Home Improvements Add Value” for details.

No points for originality will be awarded to anyone currently thinking, “Gee, we can’t afford to move, so let’s remodel or add on to this place.” The amount of spending on such projects is set to double in 2013, according to a report from Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. Homeowners are doing everything from retrofitting with the idea of aging in place to improving their homes’ energy efficiency. And some recent homebuyers or investors are finding that the distressed properties they now own will require some improvements, like it or not.

So, apart from their lack of originality, might home renovations be a good idea for you? Here are some issues to consider:

• How will you pay for repairs? If you’ve got cash on hand, great. If you’ll be looking for a loan, and are underwater on your current mortgage, don’t bother. You will need equity to borrow against — 25-35% equity in your home, according to what Mark Yecies, an owner of SunQuest Funding in New Jersey, told The New York Times reporter Lisa Prevost.
• Will the changes increase your home’s  market value? In the abstract, any home improvement should make your house more saleable, unless it’s truly weird, wacky, or suited to unique tastes and interests. But even sensible repairs with broad appeal don’t always cover their own costs when the homeowner sells, as described in Nolo’s article, “Do Home Improvements Add Value?“
• Will the costs reduce your capital gains tax bill when you sell? If your profits on an eventual home sale will take you over the $250,000 ($500,000 per couple) capital gains tax exclusion, it’s worth figuring out which of your renovations costs are considered “improvements” rather than mere “repairs,” and therefore which ones will raise your cost basis in the property (in effect, raise your purchase price and thereby reduce your profit). For more information, see IRS Publication 551, Basis of Assets, and look for the section on real property.

If all looks good, it’s time to start looking for a contractor. But get ready for some competition and possibly long waits. See “Hiring a Contractor for Home Improvements” for additional tips.

Crime is up in my neighborhood, as it is in many locations across the United States, according to the FBI. If your home has ever been the site of a burglary, you know all too well the trauma and sense of violation such an event produces. But is this new part of your home’s “history” something that you need to share with prospective home buyers?

Most U.S. states require sellers of property to disclose a variety of information about the property to buyers. Exactly what is significant enough for sellers to disclose usually hinges on what is “material,” or will make a difference to the value of the property. This can go beyond the basic physical realities, like a cracked foundation or leaky roof. Sellers are also expected to disclose less tangible truths, like the house’s reputation as being haunted or location in a low-ranking school district. In fact, houses that were the site of violent or horrific crimes are widely considered to be “stigmatized,” which sellers are absolutely expected to disclose to buyers.

But your average burglary isn’t horrific. The neighbors won’t be pointing at the house years later and saying, “Ooh, it still creeps me out to think that that place got burgled.” By the time “years later” rolls around, many other houses in the neighborhood are also likely to have had their laptops, cash, and jewelry spirited away.

In most U.S. states, the standard disclosure forms that home sellers fill out do not, in fact, ask about past burglaries. As Michael Crowley, real estate broker with Spokane Home Buyers explains, “An ordinary burglary wouldn’t be considered a material defect to the property, so I wouldn’t expect a seller to disclose it. As I remind my buyers, there’s crime in every neighborhood. Still, I can think of possible exceptions, mostly in unusual circumstances; like perhaps if a neighbor had broken into the house repeatedly in the past and might do so again in the future.”

If you’re a prospective home buyer, your best bet for predicting what will happen in your home’s future is to check local crime statistics (which you can likely do online, through the police department). You can also check the house’s insurance “CLUE” report, which might show past burglaries. (That’s assuming the homeowners put in a claim; some don’t, worried that it will jack up their rates.) And there’s nothing to stop you from asking the seller and the neighbors about past burglaries at the house or in the area. Information from the seller could be particularly useful to help you figure out the house’s vulnerable points. There may be a good reason for those unsightly bars on the window . . . .

If you’re a seller filling out the disclosure form, however, consider what Stephen Bloom, Broker-Associate at Lawton Associates in Berkeley, has dubbed the “Safeway effect.” According to Bloom, “It’s worth asking yourself how the buyer would feel if he or she were chatting with a new neighbor in line at the Safeway and says, ‘I just moved in,’ only to have the other person say, ‘Isn’t that the house that got broken into last year?’ News like that might shock the buyer.” And unhappy buyers may eventually find something to sue the seller over, even if it’s not precisely the same issue.

The farther into the past the burglary is, however, the less relevant it will seem to all concerned. How long is long enough? Bloom suggests, “Where I work in California, if there was a death on the property within the last three years, the seller would have to disclose it. I’d use same rule of thumb for a burglary and similar crimes.”

The law doesn’t seem to have all the answers in this case (as in many cases). Sellers filling out the disclosure forms might be best off imagining the buyer’s point of view and remembering that it’s often psychologically better to over-disclose than to let home buyers encounter surprises later.

We’ve long known that a home’s walk score is a big factor in its value: A 2009 study found that homes with above-average levels of walkability (to amenities such as stores, parks, schools, and public transportation) sell for anywhere from $4,000 to $34,000 over homes whose walk scores are merely average.

Millennials in particular are taking an interest in walking or biking, whether for lifestyle or pocketbook reasons, thus sending the car industry into a state of worry about declining purchase rates.

Still, with one car out there for every two Americans, there’s a good chance that folks buying a house are going to want at least one spot for their vehicle, as well. The 2011-12 “Cost vs. Value” report from Remodeling Magazine found that a standard (not upscale) garage adds about $33,000 to the value of a U.S. single-family home — not enough to make it worth the $57,000 price tag in building a new one, but certainly enough to warrant calling attention to a garage that’s already there.

First-time homebuyers don’t always appreciate the benefits of a garage, but those who go without soon learn. Circling the block night after night in order to park at your own house is no fun. Neither is waking up to find that your car has been relieved of its catalytic converter.

With condos, or homes in jam-packed urban areas, buyers may have to pay separately for a parking spot. If you thought condo fees were high, get ready for some new sticker shock. As Bob Hunt reports in RealtyTimes, parking-spot prices in San Francisco have gone as high as $1 million, and in San Francisco, up to $90,000 back in 2011. Do we hear $100,000?

Whether you’re buying or selling, considering these proximity and transportation issues will help to both place a value on the property and  estimate the costs and ease of life for the owner.

The fiscal cliff deal (“H.R. 8″) reached on January 1, 2013 contains a couple of beneficial provisions for homeowners — tax-relief extensions that aren’t getting as much press as the rest of the bill. These include:

• Extension of mortgage debt relief. A piece of the tax code that was due to expire at the end of 2012 allows homeowners whose mortgage debt was canceled or forgiven to exclude that amount from their income (up to a limit of $2 million or $1 million if married filing separately). If that doesn’t sound very exciting, realize that before 2007, homeowners who restructured their mortgages, gave the lender a deed in lieu of foreclosure, sold via a short sale, or in some other way discharged their obligation to their lender without paying the full loan amount were required to pay taxes on the difference. In other words, the amount of their debt that the lender had forgiven was considered taxable income, as if they had been handed that amount by the lender. The extension of this provision goes through tax year 2013.

• Extension of PMI deduction. Homeowners paying less than 20% down are typically asked by their lender to pay “private mortgage insurance,” or PMI, which reimburses the lender if the homeowner can’t make the regular mortgage payments. PMI premiums were, from 2007 through 2011, deductible as “qualified residence interest” (like the rest of your mortgage interest). This deduction has been extended both retroactively (to cover 2012) and through 2013.  The deduction is phased out by 10% for each $1,000 by which the taxpayer’s adjusted gross income (AGI) is over $100,000. Thus, you can’t use the deduction if your AGI exceeds $110,000.

• Extension of credit for energy-efficient home improvements. This one’s not likely to save you huge bucks, but Congress reinstated and extended through 2013 a 10% tax credit (under Section 25C of the Tax Code) for the cost of energy-efficient improvements to existing homes. This applies to such home features as windows, doors, skylights, fans, insulation, furnaces, and hot water heaters. Additional limits apply per item, and there’s a $500 overall limit for use of this credit.

See Nolo’s articles on “Finances and Taxes for Homeowners” for more information.

As anyone thinking of buying a condo should know, the list price is not the only dollar figure to take into account: You’ll want to look at how much you’ll be paying in monthly homeowners’ association fees, which go toward upkeep and repairs to the commonly owned areas (such as landscaping, walkways, and roofs) and any amenities (such as a pool or community room).

In fact, it appears that buyers are well aware of this issue, as evidenced by a recent Orange County Register story about a condo in Laguna Woods, California that’s listed for $1 — but not selling, due in part to the monthly $1,718 maintenance fee. (And the fact that it’s tiny, and located in a retirement community.)

Lenders are similarly attuned to the burden that monthly fees add to a homebuyer’s debt, and reject many loan applications for reasons that have more to do with the condo association’s finances than the individual borrower, according to a report by Annamaria Andriotis of SmartMoney.

A common mistake among buyers, however, is to believe that the fee amount alone tells the story — as in, lower amount = good, higher amount = bad. It’s not that simple.

For instance, Jim Adair of RealtyTimes describes a situation where the board of a condo association in Toronto went to court to get new maintenance charges imposed on the residents, who’d been refusing to raise them for years, while ignoring needed maintenance and repairs in their aging building. With the court’s help,  fees were raised to a backbreaking $900 a month. Owners who then tried to sell discovered that unloading units that were saddled with both high fees and neglected physical conditions was nigh on impossible. Slightly higher fees for the years leading up to this would have been a much healthier approach.

Then there was a recent Washington Post report out of Virginia, where a condo complex called “Shadowood” so overused its power to tack on extra fees — for everything from calling the management office to having the wrong color blinds — that a Fairfax County judge permanently enjoined it from imposing fees not already listed in the development’s original master deed (which decision was upheld by the Virginia Supreme Court). The basic fees, however, were between $287 and $324 a month; which an unwitting buyer might have concluded were reasonable, without doing any deeper digging.

Of course, high fees can spell trouble, too. As industry expert Paul Grucza noted in the recent new edition of Nolo’s Essential Guide to Buying Your First Home, “Shrinking hourly wages have seriously impacted people’s ability to pay their dues and assessments. A delinquency rate of between 5% and 7% is average and realistic, but I’ve heard of associations where up to 70% of the homeowners can’t pay what they owe. That puts a huge burden on the other homeowners — they’ll likely either have to pay more themselves or watch the property decline.”

The bottom line: You’ve got to dig. Find out not only what the monthly fees are in whatever condo unit you’re thinking of buying, but look into related issues like:

• how many owners are actually paying those fees (more than 15% in arrears is a serious problem)
• how much the association has in its reserve account (close to nothing is all too common, and means there’s nothing to rely on if a sudden repair or emergency need comes up)
• when the condo association can impose special assessments or other fees, and any recent history of its doing so, and
• whether any financial disputes or lawsuits are brewing.

Reviewing the master deed or “Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions” (CC&Rs) will be a good start, but you will also want to talk to other owners, review minutes from recent board meetings, and follow up on any disturbing information you uncover.

They’re being called “boomerang buyers” — those who only a few years ago lost their home to foreclosure or a short sale, but are now reentering the real estate market. No, it’s not necessarily easy, but it’s possible, and sooner than you might have thought. Phones are reportedly “ringing off the hook” at some loan offices.

This trend is a reminder that every tough situation creates some winners. Even as sellers wish their property values would rise faster, the once-big losers in the housing market crash have now had some time to rebuild their credit and stash away a down payment.

For a rundown on the qualification rules and required waiting period, Shashank Shekhar has provided a handy article called “Buying a Home After Short Sale, Foreclosure or Bankruptcy.” And for broader information on recovering from tough financial situations, see Nolo’s articles on “Improving Credit After Bankruptcy.”

The rules remain strict — you are likely to have to wait at least two years after the foreclosure, and to come up with a 20% down payment. But there’s a positive side to that, too. Lenders today are far less likely to allow buyers to sign up for high-risk loans that might ultimately lead to another foreclosure.

A friend of mine was complaining the other day that she lost out on a house that would have been perfect for her, because her agent hadn’t sent her word of its existence.

“How did you find this agent?” I asked.

“Oh, I met him at an open house, and he offered to send me listings that I might be interested in. I said okay, since I’m not sure I’m quite ready to buy yet anyway.”

Ack! Whoa! This is exactly the way that far too many homebuyers end up in contract to buy a house, with an agent at their side whom they never would have hired if they’d been making a conscious decision. Idly shopping for a house often results in FINDING the house of your dreams and deciding that your life will not be complete without it.

If you haven’t chosen the right agent, however, you could not only pay too much for that house, but end up losing it to another buyer. Why? Because:

• Your agent plays a key negotiating role in the home sale process, helping you evaluate the local market and not only offer a competitive (but not too high) price, but later bargain with the seller’s agent over things like who pays for repair needs that the home inspection turns up. An agent who is a savvy negotiator (tough, but not so obnoxious as to kill the deal) can save you literally tens of thousands of dollars.
• How well your agent is regarded in the real estate community can determine whether your offer is chosen over someone else’s. Ask any seller’s agent: Price is not the only concern. In a multiple-offer situation (which do happen, even today) sellers will reject, yes, reject an offer because they don’t want to deal with a difficult buyer’s agent who may end up preventing the sale from going through at the offer price (if at all).
• An experienced real estate agent does much more than find you the house to buy. He or she will need to shepherd the deal to a conclusion over the many weeks that this will take. That requires both knowledge and a sense of responsibility. How do you know that this agent isn’t a flake? Or won’t do something unethical, like recommend that you hire an inspector who (unbeknownst to you) has a reputation for overlooking problems, thus ensuring that the sale goes through without a hitch . . . .

When you hire a real estate agent, you enter into an agreement that only that person will represent you, and will be entitled to receive a commission (paid by the seller) on your sale. The agent is supposed to sign a written contract with you, but will expect to be involved in any transaction that he or she sent you the listing for, or at least be paid the commission from the seller’s agent, regardless. (The commission is seen, in part, as a “finder’s fee,” even though a good agent does much more than find you a house.)

You can fire your agent at any time, however, subject to what you agreed to in the initial contract. (You may, for example, still need to pay a commission if you fire the agent in mid-sale transaction.) Be sure to do the firing in writing — your agent should have a form for this.

Then do your homework before hiring an agent that you have carefully chosen (and checked the references of) — even if you aren’t sure whether you want to buy a house. For tips on this, see “Choosing Your Real Estate Agent.”