May15
Posted by admingg in Buying a Home, Local Experts, Mortgage Info, Pre-Market Opportunities, Uncategorized
So, you’ve been searching for that perfect house to call ‘home,’ and you’ve finally found it! The price is right, and in such a competitive market, you want to make sure you make a good offer so that you can guarantee that your dream of making this house yours comes true!
Below are 4 steps provided by Freddie Mac to help buyers make offers, along with some additional information for your consideration:
1. Determine Your Price
“You’ve found the perfect home and you’re ready to buy. Now what? Your real estate agent will be by your side, helping you determine an offer price that is fair.”
Based on your agent’s experience and key considerations (like similar homes recently sold in the same neighborhood or the condition of the house and what you can afford), your agent will help you to determine the offer that you are going to present.
Getting pre-approved will not only show home-sellers that you are serious about buying, but it will also allow you to make your offer with confidence because you’ll know that you have already been approved for a mortgage in that amount.
2. Submit an Offer
“Once you’ve determined your price, your agent will draw up an offer, or purchase agreement, to submit to the seller’s real estate agent. This offer will include the purchase price and terms and conditions of the purchase.”
Talk with your agent to find out if there are any ways in which you can make your offer stand out in this competitive market! A licensed real estate agent who is active in the neighborhoods you are considering will be instrumental in helping you put in a solid offer.
3. Negotiate the Offer
“Oftentimes, the seller will counter the offer, typically asking for a higher purchase price or to adjust the closing date. In these cases, the seller’s agent will submit a counteroffer to your agent, detailing their desired changes, at this time, you can either accept the offer or decide if you want to counter.Each time changes are made through a counteroffer, you or the seller have the option to accept, reject or counter it again. The contract is considered final when both parties sign the written offer.”
If your offer is approved, Freddie Mac urges you to “always get an independent home inspection, so you know the true condition of the home.” If the inspector uncovers undisclosed problems or issues, you can discuss any repairs that may need to be made with the seller or even cancel the contract altogether.
4. Act Fast
The inventory of homes listed for sale has remained well below the 6-month supply that is needed for a ‘normal’ market. Buyer demand has continued to outpace the supply of homes for sale, causing buyers to compete with each other for their dream homes.
Make sure that as soon as you decide that you want to make an offer, you work with your agent to present it as quickly as possible.
Bottom Line
Whether you’re buying your first home or your fifth, having a local professional on your side who is an expert in his or her market is your best bet in making sure the process goes smoothly. Happy house hunting!
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Mar14
Posted by admingg in Buying a Home, Local Experts, Pre-Market Opportunities, Real Estate, Selling a Home, Uncategorized
8 Mistakes to Avoid When Buying and Selling at the Same Time
By Jamie Wiebe | Jan 24, 2019
Plenty of people find themselves buying and selling a home simultaneously, but knowing that others have gone through the same stress does not make it one bit easier. After all, the stakes are so high: If your buyer backs out, you don’t have any cash to land your next home! Or if your own purchase falls through but your current home sells, you’re homeless!
It’s all like walking across the Grand Canyon on a tightrope: The tiniest thing goes wrong, and you fall. It turns out that most buying-and-selling mistakes are easily avoidable—or at least predictable. Follow these eight tips to enter escrow with eyes wide open.
- Waiting too long to prep your home for selling
Every home needs a little work before selling. You might need to repaint some scratched walls, fix broken decking, or add grout in a rarely used bathroom. Don’t wait until the last minute to kick-start this process, otherwise you could wind up in a bind.
Take, for example, one of the clients of real estate associate Kenneth Er. He was trying to buy and sell simultaneously. Er advised him repeatedly to start prepping the home, “but he kept pushing it off and pushing it off, despite actively looking for a new home and submitting offers.”
Once the client went under contract to buy a home, suddenly he and Er found themselves rushing to list his existing home. When they finally finished prepping, it was already October—precisely when the market was slowing down and it became tougher to find a buyer.
“I advised him—and would advise anyone—to get the little projects out of the way,” Er says.
- Skipping the backup plan
When you’re buying and selling simultaneously, the number of moving parts doubles. And if any of those parts gets jammed, it can throw off both transactions.
For example, Miami Realtor® Juan P. Rojas was recently involved in a three-way transaction where the sellers of property A wanted to buy property B—and the sellers of property B wanted to buy property C.
“We had to coordinate two closes and three different families moving in and out of properties,” he recalls.
It worked out, but Rojas cautions: “Assume that you won’t be able to buy and sell at exactly the same time.”
And with that assumption, you better have a plan in place in case everything goes wrong. Keep your emergency fund well-stocked. In a best-case scenario, you may simply need a hotel for a week, but you may also find yourself looking into short-term rentals. Have cash on hand—in addition to your down payment funds—to survive the setback.
- Buying too big
“One of the biggest mistakes that we see that simultaneous buyers and sellers make is the same one that many first-time buyers make: They fail to get pre-approved on their new loan,” says Orange Country Realtor Jessica Althoff.
Pre-approval is essential, because it puts a stop to unrealistic dreaming by telling you exactly what size of house you can afford.
“Buyers assume that with a large down payment and increased income, they will automatically qualify for a larger home loan,” she says. “Many do, but not as large as they think or wish. They begin the search and are disappointed when they can’t upgrade as much as they thought they would be able to.”
- Working with too little cushion
You know what price your house should sell for. But what if the market softens? If you’re forced to take an offer that’s $20,000 less than expected, there goes the down payment on your new home.
“Give yourself a cushion on what you need to sell your existing home for,” Er says.
If you’re hoping to use the entire sale price as a down payment on another home, move forward with the assumption your home will sell for less than expected.
One of Er’s clients set a purchase budget of $2.2 million. In order to afford his new home, he needed to sell his home for about $1.3 million. Not only did he exceed his purchasing budget, Er says, “We’re unlikely to get $1.3 million for his current home, due to the softening market and the time of the year. He’s stressed out and scrambling.”
- Failing to compromise
Don’t forget you’re not the only human in a stressful situation. That person selling your dream home? And the buyers under contract for your current place? They’re all probably stressed, too.
So keep that in mind when issues come up—for example, if the buyers need an extra week of escrow because there was an issue selling their home, or the sellers don’t think they need to fix a leaky pipe for you.
“One mistake is expecting so much from the people selling the home, but not being willing to give anything to the buyers of their own home,” Althoff says. “A little compromise goes a long way, especially when there are two escrows (or more) on the line.”
- Using two different real estate agents
Expect this already messy process to get even messier if you’re juggling agents for your listing and for buying a new home. Simplify things by using the same agent for both transactions.
“I would always prefer to handle both sides of your sale and purchase,” says agent Michael Pacheco. “Having control and insight over both transactions allows me to make sure that we close both homes simultaneously.”
There are two instances when you should not use the same real estate agent. If you’re moving out of state, look for a reputable buyer’s agent in your new location. If you’re remaining in the same area, you may also meet and like an agent who works exclusively with buyers or sellers — not both. In that case, ask for a recommendation within your agent’s brokerage so you can, at a minimum, keep both transactions under the same roof.
- Closing on a Friday…
While you should work with your agent to determine the best timing, you’d ideally want to finalize the sale of your current home first, and then close on your new one. Try to aim for closings within two or three days of the other—”and never on a Friday,” says Realtor Karen Choate.
That’s because bank transfers can take a few days to go through. In order to ensure there’s money in your account when the time comes, buffer a few days to transfer funds.
- …or late in the afternoon
When you’re scheduling those closings, aim for the morning—especially on the sale of your current home.
“Banks usually stop wire transfers by 3 p.m. in the time zone where the property is located,” says Choate. Closing in the morning allows extra time for the money to hit your account.
Courtesy of Realtor.com https://www.realtor.com/advice/buy/buying-and-selling-a-home-simultaneously-8-mistakes/
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Jan25
Posted by admingg in Buying a Home, Local Experts, Mortgage Info, Pre-Market Opportunities, Real Estate, Retirement, Selling a Home, Uncategorized
Whatever You Call It, It’s Real and It’s Here
By Clare Trapasso | Realtor.com
Ever since the whiplash-inducing, bust-and-boom cycle of the U.S. housing market kicked into high gear with last decade’s devastating crash and this decade’s ever-escalating home prices, bidding wars, and inventory shortages, one question has been top of mind for buyers and sellers alike: Is this “party” ending anytime soon? Lately, those who read economic tea leaves have been hinting that we may be heading toward a significant correction in the go-go-go American housing market. Surely national home price increases have to slow down eventually, right?
It turns out they may be on to something.
“The signs are pointing to a market that’s shifting toward buyers,” says Danielle Hale, chief economist of realtor.com®. “But in most places, we’re still a long way from a full reversal.”
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ake no mistake: Prices are not exactly tumbling down—at least, not on the national level. And there’s no evidence on the horizon of a looming housing bubble about to pop and drag the world economy down with it. Median home list prices are still up 7% year over year this August, according to an analysis of realtor.com data.
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But hold on—those numbers are a drop-off from the past couple of years. In 2015 things were really rolling: Prices were soaring, multiple offers were the norm in many markets, and the number of homes available was falling fast. Last year, home list prices jumped 10% over the year before. The year before that, it was 9%. So while a 7% rise still sounds like a lot—especially compared with annual inflation of just 2.9%—it’s actually a very real sign that the market may finally be coming back down to earth.
And the national figures tell only part of the story. A deep dive into regional housing metrics by the realtor.com data team indicates that some of the nation’s highest-profile, bellwether housing markets are starting to slow.
Housing slowdown? | Tony Frenzel
So what does it all mean? Sellers shooting for the stars may not be able to get quite as much as they’d like. And, in a boon to buyers, the number of homes on the market is finally starting to rise. In August, 18 of the 45 largest housing markets, including such heavyweights as San Francisco, New York City, Los Angeles, Boston, and Dallas, saw more properties go up for sale than the previous year. That means folks not only have a better shot at closing on the home of their dreams, but they’ll also face less competition. And that controls runaway price inflation.
“We’ve hit that tipping point in a lot of these cities where what sellers think they can get is just not possible for many buyers,” says Daren Blomquist, senior vice president at real estate information provider ATTOM Data Solutions. “Now the pendulum is swinging away from sellers and back toward buyers.”
Now housing experts are divided on how much prices will keep going up or whether they’ll even—gasp—go flat. So what does the future hold?
Why is the real estate market beginning to slow?
One of the main reasons the housing market is beginning to turn is rising mortgage interest rates.
Do the math: The more expensive it becomes to secure a loan, the less money buyers have left to spend on a property. Rates were up 0.82% year over year to reach 4.65% on 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages as of Sept. 20, according to Freddie Mac. And each percentage point uptick adds about $143 to the monthly payments—and nearly $51,500 over the life of a loan—on a median-priced home of $300,000. (That’s assuming a 20% down payment.)
That’s no small chunk of change—and, as Blomquist points out, even a small increase can be enough to push enough buyers out of the game.
President Donald Trump‘s tax plan could also be limiting just how high prices can go, particularly in the priciest parts of the country. That’s because buyers can now deduct the mortgage interest they pay on loans up to only $750,000. Previously, they could deduct it for loans up to $1 million.
And while this sounds like a problem reserved for the 1-percenters, in some expensive markets, even starter homes go for around $1 million. Combine that with a $10,000 cap on a combination of property and either sales or income taxes, and it spells trouble for homeowners and buyers in California, New York, and New Jersey. Those states tend to have high property taxes that folks can no longer get a federal break on.
Homeowners certainly aren’t oblivious to these factors—many of them are rushing to put their homes on the market to get as much as they can before prices begin to come down, say housing experts and real estate agents. The resulting higher inventory gives buyers a bit more power.
Could California be slowing its roll?
California price reductions | Tony Frenzel
The one state in the country where the cost of housing is hurtling ever more out of reach for the 99-percenters has been California, particularly its coastal cities. The Golden State’s median home price is $542,500—well above the national median of nearly $295,000.
But now, after years as one of America’s hottest housing markets, California is showing some chinks in its armor. Many overzealous sellers who listed their homes at unrealistically high prices are now being forced to reduce them. The state experienced the nation’s biggest increase in the number of homes seeing list price reductions. But just because some sellers overshot doesn’t mean that the state’s housing is suddenly going through a clearance sale. Overall, median home prices were up 5%, and inventory increased 14% year over year.
“We are bumping up against peak prices,” says Patrick Carlisle, chief market analyst for the San Francisco Bay Area at the real estate company Compass. “Whether it will just be a slowdown or a plateau or a small adjustment in home values, and how big that adjustment is, that I don’t know.”
Santa Clara County, the heart of Silicon Valley, saw the biggest jump in the number of homes on realtor.com seeing price reductions. There, the number of homes where prices were lowered zoomed up 171% in August, even as the number of listings surged 77%. The likely culprit: rampant overpricing. It turns out home costs can’t go up forever, even in the shadow of Google and Apple headquarters.
Santa Clara–based real estate broker Rick Smith is seeing the most price reductions for higher-end properties in the $3 million-and-up range. But prices on homes located farther away from the bigger companies are also falling as folks are looking for shorter commutes to work. And buyers are more hesitant to take the plunge.
“People are concerned if we hit peak and I buy now, what happens?” says Smith, of Windermere Real Estate. So they’re waiting to see what happens.
Can Seattle’s double-digit price growth go on forever?
Now don’t get too excited: Median prices in Seattle, the birthplace of tech behemoth Amazon, aren’t coming down. (They’re about $552,600 for the metro area and $692,875 within the city limits.)
Prices are still sky high in Seattle | Mike Kane
But that doesn’t mean sellers these days can slap whatever price tag they want on their residences—and add some extra zeros. Many may have gotten overzealous in what they wanted to fetch—the number of listings on realtor.com with price reductions was up a whopping 76% in August year over year. That’s the second-biggest jump among the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the country. And it may be a blinking red light signaling that the market may be about to cool.
“A lot of people think that the market is peaking and are looking to potentially cash out” while they can still fetch the most money, says Windermere Real Estate’s chief economist, Matthew Gardner. “We’ve been on double-digit price growth for years, and that is clearly unsustainable.”
Overall prices are still soaring—at least for now. They rose 14% year over year, to reach $552,550 in August. They were up 13% the year before that and 7% in the one prior.
But prices are expected to increase more slowly in the near future, as there are more homes going up for sale, giving buyers a bit more choice—and negotiating power. Andres Carbacho-Burgos, a senior economist focused on housing at Moody’s Analytics, predicts that home price growth will slow to just 2% to 3% annually over the next few years.
The boomtowns: Austin, TX, and Nashville, TN
Austin boom | Tony Frenzel
Then there are the smaller cities, like Austin, TX, and Nashville, TN, that burst onto the national scene just a few years ago—poster children for the supercharged housing recovery. Home prices rose to meteoric heights as builders raced to put up new abodes and transplants from even higher-priced metros flooded the cities. At the same time, their populations shot up 18.5% and 10.6% respectively from April 1, 2010, to July 1, 2017, according to U.S. Census data.
And then, despite all the hype, list prices did the unthinkable—they began to fall. Austin is a particular eye-opener: List prices dipped about 3%, to a median of $362,000 in August compared with the previous year, according to our realtor.com analysis. The year before that they dipped 2%. And while median sales prices (what these abodes actually fetched) actually rose 4.2% for the year, according to CoreLogic, it’s the slowest rate of growth since 2010.
“Home prices have just gone up too fast,” ATTOM’s Blomquist says of Austin. “It doesn’t mean that all of a sudden it’s a market that’s going to crash. But it does mean there are limits to what people can afford.”
Luxury homes in Austin | realtor.com
Four years ago, real estate agent Jason Bernknopf was seeing move-in ready homes in desirable central Austin fetch six to 10 offers. Two years ago, similar homes were getting two to six offers. Lately, multiple offers are more rare.
“Now things don’t go in the first day necessarily. You have to wait three to four days,” says Bernknopf, of AustinRealEstate.com. “Sellers are having to reduce some of their prices.”
Carbacho-Burgos, of Moody’s Analytics, expects prices to fall about 3% in Austin over the next few years, and level off in Nashville in the coming year or two.
A similar pattern is emerging in Nashville: The median list price on realtor.com in the country music hot spot was about $356,000 in August, representing a 1% dip from the previous year. But the median sale price climbed 7.9% year over year, to $286,000 in June, according to the latest CoreLogic data—a slower price increase than the 11.3% rise of the previous year.
Nashville real estate broker Brian Copeland, of Doorbell Real Estate, attributes the change to the finite number of buyers.
“There was a blitz of buyers in the marketplace, and now they’ve found their homes,” he says.
But he balks at labeling the city a seller’s or a buyer’s market. Instead, it’s moving toward “an equilibrium market,” where buyers aren’t whipped into a frenzy bidding on homes that went on the market hours ago and sellers can still get nearly all of their asking prices.
Nashville affiliate broker Lisa Peebles-Chagnon, of Nashville Luxury Estates, is beginning to see some pushback from buyers. Sellers, particularly those in the $500,000-and-up range, are waking up to the fact that, if they want to fetch top dollar, they need to clean and stage their abodes. In addition, they’ll need to have it pre-inspected, with any maintenance problems corrected.
A three-bedroom home in Nashville listed at $775K. | realtor.com
Freakout alert: Is another housing bubble about to pop?
It’s time to address the T. rex in the room: Could lower price appreciation, an increase in inventory, and more price cuts on individual homes spell imminent disaster for the U.S. real estate market? Could we actually be primed for another housing bubble?
Most housing experts aren’t worried. That’s because the reasons behind the crazy-high home prices are different now than they were when the market crashed in 2008. And there are more checks in place to make sure history doesn’t repeat itself.
For starters, it’s become much harder to get a mortgage since the housing bust a decade ago. Ask anyone who’s experienced it. Folks can’t come in off the street claiming they’re making big bucks and score a lucrative mortgage anymore—without documentation or good credit scores. Those who do get a mortgage are often more thoroughly vetted and are therefore less likely to default and go into foreclosure.
And despite more “For Sale” signs going up, there is still a very real housing shortage at a time when there is strong demand for homes. So it’s not as if a ton of folks are purchasing scores of homes that they can’t afford, as there simply aren’t a ton of available properties on the market. And builders aren’t putting up enough abodes to alleviate that problem due to a variety of reasons, including a lack of available land, construction labor, and regulatory burdens.
“It’s hard to see this as the bubble popping in any way close to what we saw 10 years ago,” says ATTOM’s Blomquist. “I see it more as a deflating, letting some air out of the balloon … [so there isn’t] a bigger pop down the road.”
Data Analysis by Lance Lambert.
Courtesy of NAR: https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/housing-market-finally-becoming-buyers-market/
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