How Owning a Home Benefits You

You probably know that owning your own home can benefit you financially, but home ownership comes with a surprising number of health, wealth and social perks too. Check out these five ways home ownership could be making your life even better:

1. Homeowners report better psychological and physical health than non-owners.

2. Homeowners are far less likely to become crime victims than non-owners.

3. Homeowners are more likely to live in neighborhoods with more opportunities for school involvement or participation in neighborhood activities.

4. The average homeowner’s net worth is 35 times that of the average renter.

5. Homeowners bring stability to neighborhoods. They move far less frequently than non-owners, and hence are embedded into the neighborhood and community for a longer period.

Source: National Association of REALTORS®

3 Improvements for the Best ROI

Before you tackle a home improvement project, be sure it’s adding value to your home. Here are three updates that may give your home value a measurable boost:

1. Insulate your attic. Energy efficiency remains a top draw for buyers, and blow-in fiberglass insulation is an inexpensive way to make your home warmer in the winters and cooler in the summers.

2. Replace your garage door. New garage doors come equipped with better insulation and higher-strength steel, making for fewer dings and dents.

3. Upgrade your front door. Steel entry doors offer enhanced security and eliminate the hassle of flaking paint jobs down the road.

Welcome To Palo Alto

Palo Alto is a charter city located in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area. Palo Alto means tall tree in Spanish; the city is named after a coastal redwood tree called El Palo Alto.

Palo Alto was established by Leland Stanford Sr. when he founded Stanford University, following the death of his son, Leland Stanford Jr. The city includes portions of Stanford University and is headquarters to a number of high-technology companies, including Hewlett-Packard (HP), Space Systems/Loral, VMware, Tesla, Ford Research and Innovation Center, PARC, IDEO, Skype, Palantir Technologies, Houzz, and Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center. Palo Alto has also served as an incubator and as headquarters to several other prominent high-technology companies such as Apple, Google, Facebook, Logitech, Intuit, Pinterest, and PayPal.

Palo Alto shares its borders with East Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Stanford, Portola Valley, and Menlo Park. As of the 2010 census, the city’s total resident population is 64,403. Palo Alto is one of the five most expensive cities in the United States to live in and its residents are among the highest educated in the country.