Whose Schedule Are You Working On When Buying A Home?

Whose Schedule Are You Working On When Buying A Home?

Home buyers what is your schedule for buying a home?  Is it going to be as soon as you find the right home or is it going to be 6 months to a year from now.  Maybe you are just thinking about upgrading to a nicer, larger, newer home from the home you are presently in.  We are going to examine these situations to see what you should be preparing to do to be ready to make that big move. 

• Immediately

OK you have decided to buy a home.  You might have relocated to the Triad ofNorth Carolina by choice or by job relocation.  Maybe you are a first time home buyer and are tired of paying rent.  Lastly maybe you have been working to sell your present home and now have it under contract.

1. Make sure you are pre-approved for you mortgage.  This will give you the      parameters of what you can afford and what price range to look in.
2. Choose your buyer’s agent.  This agent will represent YOUR best interest.  Their job is to look after you.
3. Make sure you communicate all you likes and dislikes to your agent to help narrow the search.  In Greensboro alone there are over a thousand single family homes for sale.  The more we can narrow down the search the easier this will be on everyone.
4. As buyer’s agents we work for you.  So let us help you.  At Total Care Realty we pride ourselves on being yourPersonal Concierge Realtor®.  We will take care of everything that needs to be done if you like.
5. Be ready to move.  If you find a home that you love and it is the one you want don’t hesitate.  You are not the only home buyers out there.  I cannot even count the number of time home buyers have lost their first pick because they dragged their feet.  There are plenty of protective clauses in our contracts that if something comes up or you change your mind you can change you mind.

6 Months To A Year

1. Choose your buyer’s agent that you wish to work with.  This is one of the key first steps no matter what your timeframe to buy is.  Make sure your agent has patience you don’t need an agent trying to bully you into buying before you are ready.
2. Speak with several mortgage officers and decide on who you will work with.  Do not worry about a pre-approval since they are time sensitive and will expire usually after only a month or two.  However the loan officer you choose can let you know that at THAT POINT IN TIME what you qualify for.  This will help focus your home search.
3. Be patient, if you are looking farther out then in the beginning of your search use this time to decide on the neighborhoods you want to be in.  For example if you want to be in town and like older homes start looking at certain neighborhoods depending on your price range: $150,000 to $250,000 classic updated bungalows then Kirkwood, Lake Daniels, Lindley Park and Latham Park would be classic examples.  However, If you like newer homes out of the city limits say in the $400,000 to over $1,000,000 price range then you maybe such neighborhoods as Arbor Run, Henson Forest, Henson Farms, and there are many more.  Take the extra time to decide on what neighborhoods or areas you want to live in.  This will narrow down your search and that way you can start to keep an eye on those specific areas.
4. As time gets closer to you being ready to buy go back to your loan officer and get that pre-approval.  You will need that to make an offer on the home.  If you wait you may lose.  It pays to be prepared.

Just Shopping No Schedule

1. Choose a buyer’s agent to work with.  While you are “just shopping” and trying to decide on what to do you will need expert advice and a sounding board to ask questions of.  A buyer’s agent can furnish you market reports, let you know your present homes market value and give you insight into what is going on.
2. Please understand your buyer’s agent has to work with many clients.  If you start asking to view homes and have no expectation of buying you are just window shopping.  Understand that your agent only gets paid if someone buys.  I will be the first to admit I have worked with buyers for YEARS before they bought.  So I do not mind taking my clients out but if you just want to look inside someone’s home because you are curious that is actually not what a buyer’s agent is for.
3. As buyer’s agents we are sources of information.  We are here to provide any and all information you may need in order to help you make a decision.  Ask freely but, understand some questions we may be prohibited from answering.  We cannot tell you the ethnic make up of an area, and another example is we actually cannot tell you if an area has high crime.  We can however provide you with the information you need in order to make the right decision.  I can provide you with websites to get the information or any public reports with that information.

Home Buyer’s Are You Aware Of Upcoming FHA Lending Changes?

Home Buyer’s Are You Aware Of Upcoming FHA Lending Changes?

One of the biggest things a good Buyer’s agent and loan officer can do is to keep you aware of costly changes to the real estate market and home loan process.  So have you been notified of upcoming changes to FHA lending guidelines?  Well let’s take a look at what you are look at.

The Federal Housing Administration (or FHA) is increasing the cost of their up-front mortgage insurance premiums starting on April 1st.  Yes a cruel April Fool’s prank that has no one really laughing.  The increase will apply to new 30 year loans.  This is in addition to changes to the monthly PMI and the fact that the seller contributions are going to be lowered.

On another note for those elderly clients looking at possibly doing a Reverse Mortgage the Mortgage Insurance Premium is being raised from .5% to 1.25%, and lower principal  limits.

This does not give you much time to save but if you have been sitting on the fence trying to decide whether now is a time to buy this is just one more reason to ACT NOW!  However, if you are not ready don’t panic buy it is not a change that will break the bank.  It is going to impact you and if you can act now that will save you money.

So check with your Home Buyer’s Agent and your Loan Officer to see what the exact differences are going to mean to you at your loan limits.

Merry Christmas To All Home Buyers in The Triad of North Carolina

Merry Christmas To All Home Buyers in The Triad of North Carolina

Merry Christmas to all Home Buyers in The Triad of NC and to all a good night.  This is the line that pops in my mind as I think of the present buyers market and all the favorable situations that welcome home buyers at this moment.

For starters the interest rates are still historically low.  I personally had a buyer last week lock in a fixed rate of 3.75% on a 30 year mortgage.  This is their first home!  I was happy for the double digit percentage interest rate that I received decades ago when I bought my first home.

Unfortunately the next part of this blessed situation is that the inventory of homes is still high.  The inventory directly affects the price and strength or weakness of the housing market.  If the inventory (amount of homes that are for sale) is high then following traditional economic theory the demand is low since there is so much to chose from.  However,  The inventory level of homes for sale in the Triad of NC is dropping.  In the last year the inventory level has dropped by a third.  There are news stories of builders switching from building new homes to building apartment buildings.  So as the homes being sold are not replaced and there is not as much new construction coming onto the market the inventory will continue to fall.  When the inventory reaches a level of six months the housing market in the Triad will begin to turn to a seller’s market and prices will start to rise.  Now all indicators are leading towards this eventually coming to pass.  There are no guarantees and frankly I personally threw out my crystal ball years ago.  So while all we can see is the present and now is a very good time to buy a home.

Home Buyers Don’t Miss The BOAT!

Home Buyers Don’t Miss The Boat!

That is right yet another blog about why you should buy a home now if you are even considering it. You need to understand the actual facts that are creating a “perfect storm” situation for buying a home.

First of all interest rates are at a historically low level. Just for an actual example I had a buyer (a young woman, a nurse) qualify and lock in her interest rate to buy a home at the amazingly low interest rate of 3.75%! I am sorry but my jaw dropped when I saw that email that we got her locked in for her mortgage at 3.75% FIXED RATE. That is right this is not an adjustable rate (which they will give you a low teaser rate for the first few years). The interest rates have not been this low in well over a quarter of a century. So if you think you are going to ride this out and then buy later you will most likely be paying a much higher interest rate. As I was speaking with a Vice President at a local bank last week he told me that I should get rid of any variable rate debt. In other words any debt that the interest rate is not fixed. They are saying that by 2013 the interest rates will be in the double digits which is over 10%. That means even if the market stays depressed you will be paying much more for that home over the course of your time in that home.

Secondly as we have all seen the housing market is still slightly depressed in the pricing sector. HOWEVER, remember that real estate is an EXTREMELY regional business. For instance our market here in Greensboro, NC is much better then say the market in Las Vegas, NV. Here in North Carolina most of our markets did not take such a bad hit as many of the nationally reported markets that the national news media love to report on. In relation to the housing market there is one factor that is rapidly changing the landscape. The inventory of homes for sale is dropping. It is very surprising how many homebuyers are flooding the market. I have spoken with agents & brokers all over from in our own market here in the Triad of North Carolina (Greensboro, High Point, Winston-Salem) and we are all surprised at how busy we are with so many buyers emerging over a short period of time. I have even hired extra agents to handle the influx of buyers.
Well all of these buyers are buying up the existing inventory of homes available for sale. Well for those students of economics (Thank you Dr. Bebensee my Economics Professor) this is effecting the Supply and Demand Curve. To put it simply as the supply goes down the demand will go up! So as the demand rises so will the prices. s In real estate how we determine when our market starts to turn is when our inventory levels are at a 6 month supply. Over a year ago we had over 15 months of inventory on hand. How we arrive at this figures is simply taking the number of homes sold in a given thirty day period and divide it into the number of homes presently for sale. Just to satisfy your curiosity we have less then 9.8 months of inventory. So just remember as that number continues to decrease the demand/price of homes will be affected.

The moral is: This “Perfect Storm” for homebuyers is coming to an end so don’t the boat!