Home management is crucial to the value, safety, health of your home, and ultimately, your family. Your home is oftentimes your largest asset. Its components require care & attention. There are three key areas that help you to manage it properly.

Home Inventory

Tracking possessions you've purchased over the years helps you understand how much you've invested in decorating, improving & adding to your home. The benefits of a home inventory include:

• Proper Insurance: Your inventory ensures you are fully insured.
• Claims Reimbursement: When situations arise, it is faster, easier & more accurate when submitting your claim. Complete records can maximize reimbursement.
• Maintenance & Repairs: Knowing which equipment & appliances you own helps to properly perform necessary maintenance.
• Moving List: Using an inventory for a moving list helps ensure that possessions arrive at your new home.
• Estate Planning: Tracking possessions helps you to plan how they will be distributed.

Home Maintenance

Your home's parts require regular maintenance. Home maintenance is tracking & inspecting equipment, replacing consumables, fixing structural issues, and deep cleaning of specific areas. Proper maintenance can:

• Save Money On Replacement Costs: Proper maintenance can alleviate the need to replace equipment & appliances.
• Keep your home safe & healthy: Cleaning a dryer vent can prevent fires. Changing air filters maintains good air quality, reduces wear & tear on Heating & A/C units.
• Reduce Utility Costs: With efficient, well-maintained equipment, utility costs are kept to a minimum.
• Improve Home Value: Home Values may increase since the home is properly maintained & is documented.

Home Remodeling

Managing home remodeling has a direct impact on the look & feel of your home. Using the proper tools to manage your projects helps to:

• Manage budgets: Keeping project budgets can directly impact your overall financial portfolio.
• Manage remodels: Staying focused on the overall process helps you understand the details of your projects.

Knowing how to manage a large asset is crucial to maintaining its value. Managing your home, with its many parts, requires your attention to both maintain AND INCREASE value!

Elizabeth Dodson is co-founder of HomeZada, a cloud-based home improvement & organizational software. HomeZada strives to educate & provide resources for homeowners in all areas of home management: improvements, maintenance, inventory, property information, & property value. 

By Karen Simon, Island Organizers

     September is National Preparedness Month. The theme for 2014 is "Resolve To Be Ready." This year, President Obama has declared two days- April 30 & Sept 30- as part of America's Prepare-A-Thon to encourage everyone to take steps to prepare for any type of disaster.

What Is A Disaster?

     In recent months there have been a few devastating disasters: Malaysian Airlines' missing plane & plane crash in Europe, a 6.0 earthquake in California, 3 hurricanes in the Hawaii... the list goes on.  Consider what a disaster is to you. What if you, a family member or close friend were in a major accident? What if your home was ransacked & robbed? What if your neighbor's house caught fire and it spread to yours? Would you consider these events to be disasters?

Being Prepared For Anything

     Recently, a friend told me about his brother-in-law, Joe (name has been changed), who passed away due to a terminal illness. On the day that Joe had an appointment with his attorney to sign his will, he died before the appointment. He is survived by two sons, a grandson and a live-in girlfriend. His major assets are a home with a mortgage and a business with seven employees. Joe's estate is now in Probate.

     Since none of Joe's family was involved in his business, no one is left in charge to manage it during the Probate. What happens to the business in the meantime? About the house, who makes the mortgage payments? We hope that someone can find his life insurance policy. We hope that someone has access to Joe's financials and other funds he may have. We hope that...

Prepare Your Paperwork

     Gathering vital documents & paperwork is a necessary step to being prepared for anything. Leaving behind a legacy like Joe's is not what most want for their heirs. It's not what you want someone to leave to you. Trying to recover documents is not what you'll want to be doing after any type of disaster.

     This September, pledge to prepare your vital documents & information. Scanning and filing them electronically will keep them safest, make for easier access and allow you to share with the VIPs in your life. Do it for yourself and your loved ones - don't delay!

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REGISTER for our Vital Documents Webinar on Sept 30, 2015!

A Shortlist of Resources:

Replacing Your Important Papers at FEMA

Document Checklists at SafelyFiled

Organizing, Scanning & Digital Filing at IslandOrganizers

By Karen Simon, Island Organizers

Contact Us:  808-943-2053 & 310-391-7392