Buyers Mistakes In Making Low Ball Offers
Today is a buyer's market. Since home buyers knew that today is a buyers market, they expect to get the best deal on their purchase. This holds true whether you're hunting for Logan UT Homes, or Atlanta Real Estate.
A lot of buyers want to "low ball" their offer, and see just how low the seller is willing to come down in price.
While this strategy is sometimes effective, most times it is not. Most sellers get defensive and hostile when a very low offer is made on their home.
One best counter strategy for this market is to make an offer that is not too low and that will be readily accepted. This kind of offer could be not too low to make a good deal, and not high enough to lose the buyer.
In most cases, property sellers have been waiting for a qualified buyer for months. When they finally get a bite, they don't want to lose it.
If a home buyer has a good buyers agent, the agent is going to sell it it to the listing agent that the offer is good, and that the buyers are waiting for to be accepted. Agents, on the other hand will think that it is an all or nothing offer.
When the seller receives the offer, they will understand that even though the offer is probably slightly lower than what they would have accepted, they may take it, just to have it done with.
By taking the initial offer, they don't have to feel the pain of waiting for what's uncertain. They can get their home "under contract" by accepting the offer right away.
It's a great time to buy Cache Valley UT Real Estate. If you're starting your house hunt, check out Logan homes for Sale
Posted at 12:07AM May 06, 2011 by Cornerstone Real Estate in Real Estate |
Listing Sell-able Homes For Sale
Older real estate brokers taught agents to never turn down a potential listing. Even if the listing would never sell, having a listing would benefit the agent by offering exposure and presenting opportunities to acquire additional business. However, this philosophy has changed as the real estate business evolves to internet leads.[Read More]
Posted at 11:07PM Mar 23, 2011 by Cornerstone Real Estate in Real Estate |
Home Buying Basics
The first thing that you need to do when you are thinking of purchasing real estate is to examine your finances. Every home buyer is supposed to be reasonable enough with their expenses. When a lender says you can afford a certain amount, don't buy immediately. You have to look closely at your finances because more often than not you can't. Be realistic with your spending habits to ensure that your mortgage loan payment won’t be difficult to handle . Consult with a housing finance counselor so they can guide you in evaluating your finances.
Income is important in terms of loan qualification, and usually means having a job with some consistent income history. Some loans require two years worth of consistent work history. Buying a house requires a home buyer to pay at least 3.5% down payment, but the higher the better because monthly payments will be lowered in this case.
Hire a real estate agent. Local real estate agents have information about neighborhoods, schools, and local market conditions. It is necessary to interview real estate agents first before selecting one. Real estate agents have different specialties.
Listing agents are contracted to list and market a property and are paid by the seller when the Homes for Sale in Nevada closes . Buyers agents work directly with buyers; they are usually paid half of the listing agents contracted commission.
Writing up an offer in the Real Estate Purchase Contract is easy especially if you have a real estate agent by your side. What REPC does is review sales price, contingencies (reasons you can back out of the contract such as financing or inspections), and contracted closing and move in dates. It will also go over things like personal property that may be included in the sale, and any closing costs or concessions the seller may be contributing.
Have a professional do the home inspection after the offer has been accepted. Buyers typically pay for the home inspection, that way they know that the home inspector is working for them and not for the seller. Termite inspections, radon, and meth tests are necessary especially when inspecting Real Estate in Palatine Illinois . As long as your REPC was written up properly, you will have a contingency to back out of the contract if any of these inspections come back unacceptable.
Posted at 12:49AM Feb 04, 2011 by Cornerstone Real Estate in Real Estate |
Mortgage Interest Rates Will Increase This Year
If you've followed the real estate and mortgage market statistics over the past few months, you've noticed that mortgage interest rates have risen quite a bit lately. Due to the slow housing market and sluggish economy, mortgage interest rates were recently at their lowest than they ever have been. Chances are they will never be this low again.
The million dollar question is, "What will happen to mortgage interest rates in the future?"? Nobody knows for sure, but the leading "experts" from the Mortgage Bankers Association are predicting that mortgage rates for Katy Texas Real Estate, for instance, will rise each quarter throughout 2010. Now things could change, the economy could take another turn down, and it's possible that interest rates could go back down, but don't bet on it.
The average interest rate for conventional 30-Year fixed mortgages during Q1 of 2011 will be 5.2 percent as the MBA predicted. Moreover, this rate will increase 1/10th to 5.3 percent in Q2, another tenth in Q3, and Q4 will have an average mortgage interest rate at 5.5 percent.
From a historic standpoint, a 5.5 percent mortgage rate is still pretty phenomenal, but it isn't nearly as good as the current average rates of 4.97 percent. The MBA further predicts that by the end of 2012.
Now these rates are just projections. The predictions can be either right or completely inaccurate. One thing that is sure in the real estate market is that mortgage interest rates are staggering right now. If you are thinking about refinancing sometime in the near future, do it now, don't wait.
If you're planning on buying Denver Colorado Homes with mortgage financing, this might also be the most affordable time to buy.Presently, like 70 percent of the US metro areas, it is more inexpensive to buy than it is to rent. Home prices could still drop a bit depending on the area, but the union of low price and low payment may not ever get better than they are now.
Posted at 12:28AM Feb 01, 2011 by Cornerstone Real Estate in Real Estate |
Should you Sell, or Turn Your Home into a Rental Property?
With today's mortgage interest rates
as low as they are, rental rates generally exceed mortgage payments, especially
if you've owned your home for a little while and have some equity. By renting
out your hard to sell house, not only can you continue to build equity as your
house gets paid down, but you might also be able to generate extra cash flow
when rents exceed payments.
Plus, as the years pass by, your
property value, and your rental income will increase with inflation. Your
fixed mortgage will stay the same, and eventually, it will be paid off. By
owning rental real estate the renter pays the expenses for a long term asset.
Home loans for primary residences
are better than rates for properties purchased specifically for investment. By
living in a home, and then converting it into a rental property, mortgage terms
are more favorable.
One obstacle many potential
landlords face is that they can’t qualify for two mortgages. Even though the
rental revenue exceeds the mortgage payments, lenders require substantial
reserves (usually six months worth of payments) for rental property. They also
require that income falls within their Debt to Income guidelines.
Another roadblock many people have
with owning a rental property is that they just don’t want to be landlords.
They don’t want to get the phone calls in the middle of the night from
tenants who have leaky toilets.
This is easily overcome by hiring
a Logan UT property
management company. Hiring a property manager allows
real estate ownership without ever having to deal with tenants or home maintenance
issues.
It’s a tough time to sell Logan real estate right
now. If you can, you might be better off by finding a renter. Talk to a
mortgage lender or Logan real estate agent to see if renting your home is a realistic option for
your situation.
Posted at 10:36PM Dec 01, 2010 by Cornerstone Real Estate in Real Estate |
Sell Your Home Quickly with Prestige Home Tending Services
Homeowners are currently turning to home tending services in order to save
money on vacant home insurance. What home tending companies do is that
they install a resident to occupy the home and maintain it. With the
accountable resident, you are sure that your home is protected and
maintained. Since it is no longer vacant, homeowner’s insurance rates will
not increase. Not only that your home is kept up, the outside features
like the landscaping are also preserved. Home tending and home staging adhere to the philosophy that a furnished,
decorated, well-kept home sells faster and at a meaningful higher price than a
vacant/empty one. Though has a similar aim, there is big difference
between the two. Utah Home
Staging is preparing a home for the real estate market by emphasizing its
strong points. It is basically getting your home market ready. On the other hand, home tending is the art of providing a temporary
qualified occupant service for home owners with vacant homes to care for the
home while it is still on the market. While home staging charge for
designing the home in order to sell, home tending is usually charged for free
or at nominal cost to the homeowner. In addition to the mentioned services, Utah Home Tenders make sure that
your home will have an improved curb appeal with the pool, yard, and ground
well-maintained for free. Home owners shouldn’t worry about leaving their
home empty because the home tending company has quality, staged décor and
furniture at no cost. Housekeeping is amazingly included as frequently as
needed by the home or as called for by the home tender. All in all home tenders are contractually obliged to furnish an empty home,
maintain the inside and outside part of the home. Moreover, they are
required to cooperate with the homeowner’s real estate agent during showings
and open houses seven days a week. Before you hurriedly go to any home tending companies, make sure that the
occupant provided by the company will do their home tending duties. What a great way to save money in vacant house insurance. For more
information on Home Tending Cache Valley options, ask your real estate agent. Real estate
agents and Utah Home Tenders work closely together to make sure your home sells
quickly for the best price.
Posted at 12:12AM Nov 17, 2010 by Cornerstone Real Estate in Real Estate |
Home Buying Power Now And Before
When you take into account home buying power now compared with that in 2008, the differences are pretty astonishing. Not only have home prices come down considerably , but the record-low interest rates make buying real estate very affordable for those that can qualify for mortgage loans.
While the market really started slipping in the summer of 2007, home prices in Utah didn't really start declining until 2008.
If you werebuying for Real Estate in Salt Lake City Utah in July of 2008, the median list price of those homes was $309,000. A common rate for 30 year fixed mortgages of primary residences during that time was around 6.65%. {For a buyer purchasing the median home with a $44,000 {down payment}, this would leave them with a principal and interest payment of $1,701~For a home buyer buying the median home with a $44,000 down payment, this would leave them with a principal and interest payment of $1,701}. That time was definitely a good time to buy
Examine that with market conditions now:
The existing median list price of Homes for Sale in Salt Lake City is $214,000. And, mortgage interest rates can be obtained at 4. If a buyer placed the same $44,000 down payment on the median house, at the going interest rate under these conditions, their payment would be just $836 a month.
That's less than half as much as the monthly payment under the 2008 scenario.
If a home buyer pay his mortgage off at terms over 30 years, then he would paid a total of $347,434.49 in interest. They would have paid just $131,067.21 in the second scenario. That's savings of more than $216,000 in interest over the life of the loan.
A 15 year fixed mortgage would be more attractive to a home buyer in today's market condition because of the lower home prices and interest rates. The home buyer would have a monthly payment of $1,215.30 with a 15 year fixed mortgage at the current median price, and the same $44,000 down payment. Yet more low priced compared to the 30 year fixed payment of 2008, but paid off twice as fast. With a 15 year fixed mortgage today, the buyer would save nearly $300,000 in interest compared with if they would have bought in 2008.
Now this scenario has flaws, and people rarely actually bought homes priced at the median price, but {compared with |in contrast} two years ago, Homes for Sale in Salt Lake are very reasonably priced.
Posted at 12:15PM Nov 04, 2010 by Cornerstone Real Estate in Real Estate |
How Foreclosure Works
We are all aware of the foreclosure problems US is facing and quiet serious right now. Hundreds of thousands of "home owners" are underwater, and owe far more on their homes than they could ever sell them for.
Many of these homeowners have come to the conclusion that giving up their home is a better financial decision than making payments until real estate values recover. Lots of these "strategic defaulters" can afford their mortgage payments.
Just as how the foreclosure process works, it normally takes at-least 8 months of missed payments before the bank will actually finalize the foreclosure and repossess a house. With the huge number of foreclosures, some banks are literally taking years to initiate foreclosure auctions. They don't want to add the losses to the books and so are postponing foreclosures as long as possible.
Foreclosures has added benefits to it. Not only that it can completely erase all your debt from the foreclosures, but also allows underwater homeowners to save money by not making any home payments for many months.
Providing what is known as "stealth stimulus is the flaw in the foreclosure process.The people who are living rent free homes while the foreclosure process is undergoing are actually helping the economy with the huge amount of they have.
To be specific, some owners of underwater homes listed in the Boston Massachusetts MLS are actually making money off of the foreclosure process by renting out their homes that they aren't making payments on.
Foreclosure was meant as a way to protect banks from negligent borrowers by using the real estate as collateral. With the current real estate market, and crooked lending practices that occurred during the housing boom, foreclosures are providing the opposite effect. Undergoing through a foreclosure process can literally provide financial benefits to the borrower while transferring to the bank.
Strategic defaulting provides huge financial relief to insolvent borrowers but somehow might be unethical in other ways. Because of the slow foreclosure process that stimulates buyers in today's slow economy to give out extra cash to people who need money for housing repayments.
Posted at 07:05AM Nov 04, 2010 by Cornerstone Real Estate in Real Estate |
Effects Of The Housing Boom To Salt Lake Real Estate
For real estate agents, and some home owners, the housing boom was great. What happened was home values escalated and the people who sold at the right time made money effortlessly. But, those boom days are long gone, and the reality of the Salt Lake Real Estate market is one of decline. Nearly everyone now might have wished that the housing boom never happened.
If market conditions remained steady and constant, where would home sales and prices be? The red line shows an imaginary figure of where annual home sales in Salt Lake City would be if they increased by exactly 2% each year. There would have had about 4,750 single family home sales this year if this were the case. This is two times the original home sales we'll see that are probably around 2,400.
The real estate market in Salt Lake has been going up and down. Because of economic recovery and home buyer's tax credit, it is still considered feeble than the average rates. For buyers, this is a an opportunity to take advantage of the low prices. For investors, this is the perfect time to deal with properties but be careful for competition is increasing. For sellers, it is best to be patient because this is still the buyer’s market.
They would still be too high compared with home price averages from 1998-2001 if Salt Lake home prices increased by exactly 3% every year. The yellow and red lines show what “average” home values would be, while the blue and green lines represent the median values. Under this model, average home prices in 2007 were about 28% too high. They are still nearly 12% above the turn of the century adjusted for inflation levels this year.
The Salt Lake Real estate market has come down a long ways over the past three years, but with the way things are looking, it looks like SLC Homes will see further price declines over the next year.
Posted at 03:03PM Oct 26, 2010 by Cornerstone Real Estate in Real Estate |
Is Now the Right Time to Sell My Home?
At this point, Logan Real Estate is worth
less than it has been at any other time in the last 4 years because there are fewer buyers and
more Logan
homes for sale.
If there are too many homes for sale, the rate of selling is relatively slower
than expected, and homes might not sell at all.
This trend results to home prices going down because there is more real estate inventory than potential buyers, which
makes this period not a good time to market your home.
Hence, this is not a good time to try to sell your home because the market conditions are not in its competent state.
However, the real estate inventory might be
at all time high, but lowering of home prices ensue delay of home sales. These market conditions might get worse next year
and right now Northern Utah is experiencing this upshot. They observed a big decline in home sales. Compared with 2009, last quarter home sales in
Cache County were down by 38%. So, the price you can get for your home now
will be more than what you will be able to get next year with the current real
estate trend.
But sooner or later, the prices will start
rising again and the levels of inventory will level out when real estate
inventory goes down. Hopefully, this
will happen after 10 months if and only if something drastic sways the real
estate market.
You’re probably better off selling now than
you will be next year. But if you really
need to sell, now is not a good time to sell if you want to get as much money
as possible out of your home.
Posted at 07:55AM Oct 20, 2010 by Cornerstone Real Estate in Real Estate |
Mortgage Insurance Changes Lowers Qualified Home Buyers
With all the foreclosure activity we have seen since the housing market started slipping, mortgage insurance companies have really suffered. Mortgage insurance really meant 'foreclosure insurance' for banks.
A home buyer is normally required to pay for a policy of mortgage insurance to cover the lender in the event of a default when they purchase a house with less than 20% down payment. with most FHA and conventional loans over the past three years, Mortgage Insurance premiums have been used.
First time buyers who cannot afford to pay large down payment choose FHA. Since last year, here have been several changes to how mortgage insurance payments have been made. Because there have been so many foreclosures, FHA needs to collect more funds to cover their mortgage insurance pool.
The recent FHA change raise the up front mortgage insurance cost to 2.25%. In effect, up front closing costs became more expensive for borrowers. Because this makes it more difficult for people to buy homes in a time while the economy is struggling, FHA wants this amount lowered.
Starting October 4th, the up front mortgage will go down, but the Annual Mortgage Insurance premium is increasing from .55% to .9%. Also FHA has Congress approval to raise this annual fee to .55% without calling for an additional vote.
A lot of Logan Utah Real Estate mortgage lenders are concerned about how the new FHA changes will affect people's abilities to afford homes, even though interest rates are at historic lows. Higher monthly mortgage insurance payments lower the debt to income ratio.
Recently, people can't have a total debt of more than 41% of their income, and the actual mortgage debt can’t be more than 29% of their total income. The 29% includes Principal, Interest, Taxes, Insurance, and Mortgage Insurance.
The increase in annual Mortgage Insurance which increases with a multiplier effect really makes a differences in the amount of loan borrowers will be able to qualify for. It greatly affects the debt to income ratios, meaning buyers will be less likely to buy more expensive homes for sale in Utah.
Purchasing Logan Utah homes can be a very complicated experience given the rising mortgage insurance that reduces qualified home buyers. However, make sure that you choose consult real estate experts who knew the ups and down, recent trends and changes in Utah homes.
Posted at 11:31PM Sep 30, 2010 by Cornerstone Real Estate in Real Estate |
If the number of Listings Doubled, would real estate agents stop taking listings?
I just read an article that brought up an interesting thought. According to a recent study done by CoreLogic, foreclosure homes should start flooding the market during the last quarter of the year. They say that this could DOUBLE the average time it takes for homes to sell. Right now the average time residential homes are on the market is 11 months. Can you imagine nearly 2 years before selling the AVERAGE home?
If the market really got this bad, I wonder if real estate agents would start declining listings. With the way the real estate industry works, real estate agents don't make money unless the home actually sells. Having an overpriced, unsellable listing is only a cost. They still have to pay for advertising, filling flyer boxes, etc.
Most listing agreements are for six month terms. If only a select few houses actually sell within the first six months of listing, then real estate agents will be wasting their time with most listings.
While there will always be the desperate and new agents willing to do anything to get their name out there, I think we will begin to see the top agents decline listing homes unless the seller is reasonable and will price thier home at a sellable point. It will be interesting to see what happens for the future real estate market.
Because foreclosures in Logan Utah have been low, we hopefully won't see double the time homes are on the market. Hopefully the Logan Utah Real Estate market can avoid this possible catastrophe.
The future for areas like Arizona, Nevada, California and Florida Real Estate could be substantially bleaker if the number of foreclosure homes really floods the market.
Posted at 01:59PM Sep 20, 2010 by Cornerstone Real Estate in Real Estate | Comments[1]