American Airlines Just Launched a New Dominican Republic Route

American Airlines has launched a new route to the Caribbean’s most popular tourism destination, the Dominican Republic. 

This weekend, the world’s largest airline kicked off its first-ever route from Miami and Samaná. 

Samaná, set on a peninsula in the northeast of the country, has been one of the fastest-growing tourism hotspots in the wider country in recent years. 

American had been previously serving Samana from its Charlotte hub. 

The Bannister Hotel in Samana.

Now, that route has been shifted to Miami, with service on Wednesdays and Saturdays. 

The flights are being operated seasonally by Envoy on Embraer E175 aircraft. 

“We are thrilled to continue growing Miami’s connectivity to the Caribbean with the launch of our fifth destination in the Dominican Republic,” said Juan Carlos Liscano, Vice President of MIA Hub Operations at American Airlines. “As we continue with our recovery, demand for travel to the Caribbean has remained strong, resulting in additional growth with new destinations like Anguilla, Dominica, and now Samaná, a hidden gem in the Caribbean.”

The flight takes just under 2.5 hours, according to the carrier. 

American currently operates 76 daily flights to 35 destinations in the Caribbean out of Miami. 

That includes 12 daily flights from Miami to the Dominican Republic. 

The post American Airlines Just Launched a New Dominican Republic Route appeared first on Caribbean Journal.

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How to Handle a Low Ball Offer on a House

With the demand for homes higher than ever, you may be contemplating selling your home. With a home that needs work, however, it can be challenging to get the price you’re hoping for. If you’re wondering how to handle a low ball offer on a house, you’ve come to the right place.

From selling to an all-cash buyer to weighing what you can afford, we’ve rounded up some of the best ways to combat a low offer. Just because your home needs work, doesn’t mean you have to settle for less. Let’s get you an offer you can afford.

What is a Low Ball Offer on House?

A low ball offer is an offer that comes in much lower than the price you listed it for. Let’s say you listed your home for sale for $300,000. A low ball offer on the home could be if someone offered you $200,000.

Typically, when you sell your home on the MLS, you and your realtor come up with a fair list price. Your realtor will look at homes that have recently sold in the area near your home. They will also compare the condition of your home compared to other homes for sale.

When a potential buyer is interested in your home, they come in to make an offer. If that offer is lower than you’d like, this is your chance to counter offer at a higher price. The idea is to get to a number both of you can agree is a fair price for the house.

A low ball offer is one that’s so low, it’s hard to even know how to counter offer. The price may also be well under the appraised value of what the home is worth. This can be a frustrating aspect of selling your home on the traditional real estate market.

Why is a Low Ball Offered Made?

To avoid low offers, it’s important to price your home well. While you don’t want to give your home away, if it’s priced too high, it may sit on the market for longer than you’d like. This will cost you each month in mortgage payments, fees, and more.

A low ball offer is often made for a number of reasons. To start, a buyer just simply may not be able to afford the home. Maybe their financing isn’t for enough money, or the home is out of their price range.

Another reason is that your home may need a lot of work. To account for the money, they will need to spend on repairs and renovations, they may offer less. Any money they can save on the purchase price is more money they can use for repairs.

Someone may also offer a low price if they feel it’s priced too high for the area. They may see other homes that need less work or are in better condition and feel that the home is priced too high.

Consider if You Can Afford to Accept a Low Ball Offer

Whether or not you take a low ball offer has a lot to do with what you can afford. Regardless of the market, it’s important to consider your finances before accepting an offer. Let’s say someone offered you $200,000 for your home. If you have a mortgage for $250,000, you’ll technically be underwater for your home.

When your home sells for less than you owe, this is known as a short sale. With a short sale, you’re forced to pay the difference at closing. This means you’ll actually have to pay to sell your home. Don’t forget realtor commission fees and closing costs as well.

If you aren’t underwater on your home, you’ll need to consider what you need to buy or rent your next home. After the sale of your home, will you be able to buy another one in this market?

Many sellers will take the profits from the sale of their home and put it toward a down payment on their next home. The lower the offer is you get, the less you’ll have to do this. The offer you get for your house often plays a big role in your finances moving forward.

Look at Comparable Homes in the Market

If you receive a low ball offer, it’s important to look around your neighborhood. If the homes around you are selling for much lower, you may have priced your home too high. If your neighbor’s house is listed for much less than you’re asking, you’ll want to take a look at the condition of their home.

When looking at the market, you’ll also want to look at how your home compares to other ones. If you’re surrounded by a lot of new construction or newly renovated homes, it’s difficult to sell yours for a similar price.

Before you list your home, take a look at what is currently for sale and what has recently sold. Do you have more bedrooms, a bigger lot, and more updates? If the answer is yes, you may be able to price your home for more. If the answer is no, you’ll need to price yours well to sell.

Your home will only sell for what people are willing to pay. It also has to appraise for a certain value. This means your home will likely be inspected and looked at to make sure it’s worth what people are paying. With an as-is cash offer, you can skip this process entirely.

Consider Alternative Options

Selling your home with a low ball offer isn’t the only way to sell your home. Thankfully, there are other methods that are easier and more affordable. We can make an offer on your home without even needing to list it with a realtor or put it on the MLS. An as-is cash offer means no appraisals, no open houses, no showings, and no listings.

There are no people coming into your home every day making low, insulting offers. You don’t have to worry about getting your home ready to sell or updating it. When you sell your home the traditional way, you can make repairs and updates to try and avoid low ball offers. Each of these methods will cost you some money and time, however.

It’s important to ask yourself whether or not you have the time and money to invest in your home to get top dollar. If your home needs work, buyers will likely try to get a deal. More work means more money they need to spend to update the house. This is where low ball offers often stem from. While it can be frustrating, these types of offers can be avoided.

Consider working with us before listing your home with a traditional realtor. We’ll give you an easy estimate of what we think your home is valued at. There’s no need to make repairs, deal with the offer process, and go back and forth with negotiations. We’ll evaluate your home and take it from there.

Should You Make a Counter Offer?

When you receive a low ball offer for your home, it’s hard to know if you should counter. After you’ve evaluated what the home is worth, you should have a better idea of how you priced the home.

Look at the surrounding area, the condition of your home, and what has recently sold. If you feel your number is correct, stay firm, and make a counter offer. If you feel you priced your home too high, counter back with a lower number that’s more comfortable for you.

Regardless of how far apart your numbers are, it’s always good to try and counter to make sure you get as close to your asking price as possible. If you’re too far apart or you’re uncomfortable, consider selling your home a different way or removing it from the market.

How to Handle a Low Ball Offer on a House

It can be difficult to know how to handle a low ball offer on a house. Your home is important to you. It can be especially worrisome selling a home that needs work. While you want to get top dollar, you also want to get your home sold quickly so that you can move on with your life.

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    This is where a cash buyer may be a great alternative option. If you’re ready to see how much your home is worth, fill out the contact form here. A real estate professional will evaluate your home and work with you to get it sold without all the hassle of selling traditionally.

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    Trying to keep PGA Tour status, Brehm leads Puerto Rico Open

    RIO GRANDE, Puerto Rico (AP) — Fighting to keep PGA … three-stroke lead in the Puerto Rico Open.
    Brehm, with wife Chelsey … Tour debut, he won the Puerto Rico Classic collegiate event two weeks … ago at Grand Reserve.
    Puerto Rico native Rafa Campos shot a …

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    Rum Journal: Martinique’s Rhum Clement Is At It Again 

    Rhum Agricole is different. 

    But it’s not just the complexity, the artistry, the overwhelming quality. 

    It’s that every year, the sugarcane harvest is different; and when you’re dealing with a pure agricultural product, with pure sugarcane juice, that means every year the rum is different. (That’s without mentioning the incredible diversity of terroir one finds in Martinique and Guadeloupe). 

    For some years now, the legendary Rhum Clement has been putting out a special bottling of its Blue Cane rhum blanc, a vintage made exclusively with the company’s blue sugarcane. 

    And its release is one of the biggest moments in the rhum agricole calendar, including an exclusive, high-design bottle design. 

    It’s the essence of what makes rhum agricole and the producers in Martinique and Guadeloupe so unique: the bottle is itself a work of art; the rhum is made exclusively from a single sugarcane varietal; and every year, with the harvest, it’s unique. 

    Indeed, rhum blanc, or white rhum agricole, has become an ultra-competitive sector within the world of rhum agricole; increasingly, more and more distilleries are producing unique expressions; red cane, black cane, blue cane; even higher-proof bottlings; and, most recently, parcellaires, or white rums made exclusively from the cane of a single corner of the sugarcane plantation. 

    Because in the world of rhum agricole, creativity is the driving force; smaller sizes and real terroir mean the chance for endless experimentation, for sugarcane journeys with no preordained destination. 

    Rhum Clement helped set many of those trends with its early focus on the annual blue cane bottling, and now it’s done it again. 

    It’s called Rhum Clement Single Cask, and it’s a 100 percent blue cane aged rum, meaning Clement has taken one of its rhum blanc vintages and aged it, in this case for four years and five months in oak barrels. 

    It’s bottled at 41.3 degrees and, crucially, the one we tasted is one of just 611 bottles.

    In other words, it’s unique, and it’s unique. 

    So what’s it like? 

    The aroma has notes of pepper, fennel, cane stalk, confectioner’s sugar and a tiny hint of green banana. 

    The flavor profile is marked by white pepper, a hint of pineapple, a bit of roasted kiwi; a whisper of cucumber. 

    The finish is rounded by licorice and a glow of vanilla. 

    It’s clean and endlessly fresh, the classic Clement Cane Bleue with the elegance and refinement of nearly five years in oak barrels. 

    More importantly, though, it’s just cool, a refreshingly creative rum experiment, of the kind that these artisanal rhum agricole producers in the French Caribbean can attempt — and do so with regularity. 

    Because rhum agricole is just different.

    And that’s why there’s nothing else in the world like it. 

    Rhum Clement Single Cask 100 Percent Canne Bleue

    Rum Journal Rating: 93 Points 

    The post Rum Journal: Martinique’s Rhum Clement Is At It Again  appeared first on Caribbean Journal.

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    How Much Does It Cost to Replumb a House?

    You want to sell your home but you’re worried the plumbing issues will make it impossible. 

    Maybe you’ve had multiple pipe leaks, discolored water, and drainage problems and just never got around to fixing them. Now you want to sell your house but you’re thinking — “who would buy a house with plumbing issues?!”. 

    Faulty plumbing can decrease the overall value of your house. So your only option is to replace the plumbing. But how much does it cost to replumb a house? Well, you might be surprised. 

    Read on to find out everything you need to know about the cost of replumbing your home.

    Why Bother Replumbing Your Home?

    Pass Buyer’s Inspection

    If you’re thinking of selling your house, the buyer will more than likely arrange a property inspection. Many buyers won’t buy a home without an inspection. Most lenders won’t offer financing to the buyer without an inspection and the buyer wants peace of mind.

    Buyers will be put off if the inspection finds outdated or rusty plumbing, leaks, water damage, and other challenging problems. If it’s superficial problems like broken faucets or a faulty water heater, they are usually accepted and the buyer will fix them.

    Reduce Water Damage

    Water leaks, whether small continuous ones or one-off disastrous ones cause water damage in some form for another. 

    Types of water damage includes physical damage to drywall, insulation, and other materials in the inner workings of your home. Water can also cause wooden floors, doors, and window frames to swell and warp.

    Another big issue is mold, which is a homeowner’s worst nightmare. Mold can form and spread within 24hrs after a leak. The spore can spread and penetrate wood and drywall in a matter of days cause discoloration and health risks. 

    Avoid Contaminated Water

    The Environmental Defense Fund has recommended that homeowners replace their lead pipes. Lead pipes have been scientifically proven to contaminate drinking water.

    With over 9 million homes still getting their drinking water from the tap, that is a lot of children and adults at risk of contamination. 

    How Much Does It Cost To Replumb A House?

    According to HomeAdvisor, the cost to replumb a house can be anywhere between $1,500 to $15,000 on average. 

    You need to find out exactly what the plumbing issues are. Do you need to completely replumb your home in the first place? Or just make repairs in some parts of the house? 

    It’s not always simple. You can hire a local trusted plumber with great reviews to help you figure it out or use this cost estimator to get an idea.

    What Affects The Cost Of Replumbing?

    The actual cost depends on many factors which we will highlight here for you.

    Type Of Existing Plumbing 

    Do you know the type of plumbing you already have in your home? As we already mentioned, lead pipes should be replaced as soon as possible to avoid water contamination. The types of pipes you have will depend on how long they last.

    Galvanized steel, brass, and copper pipes last 70-100 years. Drain line pipework made of cast iron lasts 80-100 years whereas PVC pipes only last 25-40 years.

    Different pipe materials deteriorate at different rates depending on the surrounding environment and the ‘hardenss’ of your local water. Checking the integrity of the plumbing is a key aspect of home maintenance that shouldn’t be skipped.

    The Age of Your House

    What year was your home built? If it was built in the 1950s or 60s and still had the original pipework, it’s likely it needs replacing due to wear and tear. If your home was built before the 1986 Safe Drinking Water Act, the plumbing may have lead pipes or lead solder in the system. 

    Perhaps your house was built between 1978 and the mid-1990s. If so, it’s highly likely you have polybutylene pipes in your plumbing system. These were used as a cheaper option and are now known to be prone to cracking and leaking.

    It has been suggested by the International Association of Certified Home Inspectors that you should replace any polybutylene pipework you have in your home before a problem occurs. 

    Homes built in the 50s and 60s may also have galvanized steel pipes that are prone to corrosion, or cast iron pipes which become brittle over time. So it’s a good idea to find out when your house was built and it may give you an idea of what kind of pipes you have. 

    The Size Of Your Home

    House size can certainly play a part in the cost to redo plumbing in a house. You have probably already guessed that replumbing a big house will be more expensive than a smaller house. Replumbing projects are usually calculated by the square footage of your home. However, if you’re just replumbing a portion of your home, this will alter the cost. 

    Pipe Material

    The types of replacement pipework you choose will affect the price. The two most common pipes to use are copper or PEX. 

    Copper is the most expensive option at $2-$5 per foot. It’s estimated it would cost between $5,000 and $20,000 to repipe a house with copper. It also takes a lot longer to install so the labor costs would also be higher. However, copper is the best quality plumbing option. 

    PEX is the budget option. It is a flexible plastic tubing that can be fed under the floor and behind walls making it very easy to install.

    PEX has no risk of it leaking or bursting from water freezing inside and it is corrosion-resistant. It retains the heat well for use of hot water which will conserve energy in the long run. The only downside is that it is fairly new on the market so it hasn’t had the test of longevity yet. 

    Labor Costs

    Local plumbing companies generally offer competitive pricing. It’s always a good idea to get two or three quotes from different companies and compare.

    It probably goes without saying but always try and use the most experienced and trusted local plumbing company to carry out your work. If you’re going to the effort and expense of replacing the plumbing in your home, you want someone who will do the best job!

    They may offer a quote for completing the job with copper or PEX piping. Copper will take longer to install so of course, the labor will be more expensive. 

    Where The Pipes Are Located

    If your home has the majority of its pipework is hidden deep in the walls or in the floor, the amount of time and damage it will take to get to them with increase the overall cost of the project. 

    If the majority of the main plumbing works are in the basement, attic space or cupboards, they are easier to access. The plumber will be able to work on the pipes without causing as much surrounding damage that will need to be fixed after. 

    Signs That Your House Needs Replumbing

    Some obvious signs that you seriously need to consider replacing the plumbing in your home as part of responsible home care are:

    • Rusty colored water caused by corrosion or rust in the pipes 
    • Consistent or reoccurring leaks from the pipes or fixtures
    • Slow water pressure could be caused by blockages or mineral build-up
    • Visible corrosion on galvanized pipes or rust on cast iron pipes
    • Brittle or flaking on cast iron pipes
    • Calcium build-up around faucets and drains
    • Lead pipes 

    These are some examples of basic warning signs you can look out for in your home. But if you have one or more of these signs, you should contact a trusted local plumber to offer you some professional advice. 

    Solving your plumbing problems in your home will not only give you peace of mind that no further damage will be caused, but also that you can put your house up for sale without having to worry about the inspection. 

    Get An Instant Offer On Your House

    So now that we’ve answered your question “How much does it cost to replumb a house?”, you can start thinking about how you’re going to sell your home.

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    Get My Cash Offers

    Working with a realtor can be a very costly and time-consuming process and takes days or weeks for an offer on your home.

    You can sell your home faster and easier with iBuyer. Find out the value of your home, post it on our website and get an instant cash offer.

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