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Home Buyer Seminar, January 20th, 2011 Comments Off

Chester County First Time Home Buyer Seminar

Learn how YOU can take advantage of this incredible Buyer’s Market!

FOR BOTH FIRST TIME & REPEAT BUYERS!

Next Date is Thursday, January 20th, 2010 at 6 pm at the Keller Williams office in Exton. (Map is below)

If this date does not work for you, we can set up a private seminar that fits your schedule.

You will learn the following:

  • What tax advantages there are to Ownership
  • Why now is the time to buy
  • Overcoming major obstacles like “no money” or “bad credit”
  • 10 deadly mistakes buyers make in this market and how to avoid them
  • Why “MOVE UP” seller/buyers have a HUGE advantage in this market.

Taught By:

  • Norm Miron, Wells Fargo Mortgage
  • Chris LaGarde, Buyer Specialist, The Chris & Caleb Team, Keller Williams Real Estate
  • John Benson, National Property Inspections

SEATING IS LIMITED!

To reserve your seat, please complete the registration below.


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Posted on: 12-22-2010
Posted in: Buyers, First Time Home Buyer

The $8000 First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit expires in 3 weeks!! Comments Off

“WHAT?!?” you say – “The tax credit is good until Midnight on November 30th”.

My reply – yes, that may be so, but you need to take into consideration the following, extremely important factors:

Last day to settle is realistically November 19th:

Because of Thanksgiving being holiday, and banks closing for the holiday, the last day of the month in their eyes will be Wednesday the 25th. That day is ensured to be SUPER CRAZY. So you won’t want to settle that day.
I recommend NO LATER than Thursday, November 19th.

Settlement time frames are now 45- 60 days.

It used to be 3 weeks. That is now an impossibility.The time frame referred to is from the day you get an agreement to buy a home from a seller to the day the deal settles. This time frame requires AT LEAST 45 days, most likely longer.
That means that September 17th is the deadline to find a house and get an agreement.

Don’t forget the time to actually FIND a home:

Add in the time to find a home of about 3 – 4 weeks, and you have to start seriously looking by mid august.
That is only 3 weeks away!

Now that you know, and knowing is half the battle. . . what you need to do is sit down with a great Buyer Specialist,

– hopefully me–
(Shameless plug),

and we can get your attack plan straightened out so that you don’t miss out on $8000!

To set an appointment, email me at chris@cindydickerman.com or call me at 484.995.9318

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Posted on: 07-24-2009
Posted in: Buyers, First Time Home Buyer, Tax Credit

Now is the time to be a “Move-up” home buyer. . . 1

“I really need more room, our house is bursting at the seams, but the market is so bad, we just can’t afford to sell right now”.

I hear this statement too often these days. So many people I talk to are scared to death of the current real estate market – like deer caught in the headlight – they just are frozen and can’t decide what to do. They figure since the market is down, now is definitely not the time to be selling their current home and trying to buy a bigger home, even though they may desperately need the room, either because of a growing family, or other reasons.

Let me give a simple example of why this fear is keeping you from the truth. Example Home Buyers – Steve & Kristin – bought their first home back in 2003 for the average price of a Chester County Home, which then was about $325,000. They put 5% down and took a loan of  about $308,000. Today their home would be worth about $360,000 to $370,000, which is still pretty good. Yea, it’s not $399,000 that it was a couple years ago, but that’s still pretty good appreciation. Plus they probably have been paying their balance down.

Let’s assume that they even took a home equity loan of $20,000 3 years ago to put in a new kitchen. So that makes a max of $320,000 that they may owe on the home. With the average cost of 7% to sell real estate in the area, they would still walk away from the sale with approximately $25,000. That’s a good chunk of change to put down on your next home.

Now, if the value of real estate in Chester County is down about 10% -15%, that same percentage is worth more money on a $500,000 home than a $300,000. So, while they may “lose” $10,000 by selling now, they save $20,000 on the purchase, for a net savings of $10,000. If you reverse the example, it doesn’t work in their favor. If home sales improve 10%, Steve and Kristin might sell for $400k, but now their dream home is worth $550,000, which would cost them an extra $20,000, instead of saving $10,000.

I believe the illustration below says it all.

Move Up Buyer Image

If you are considering selling your current home and/or buying, feel free to contact me, Chris LaGarde, for a pressure free consultation. I would love to help bring clarity to your real estate decisions.

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Posted on: 06-27-2009
Posted in: Chester County, Useful stuff

Tracking Home Mortgage rates Comments Off

How many of you know exactly what Home Mortgage rates are doing right now and where the experts think they are heading? If you are planning on refinancing, selling a  home or buying a home, this is one VERY important piece of information that you should get daily updates on.

Who has time for that you may ask? Norm Miron, with our local Wells Fargo office makes it VERY easy! Simply go to his website, click on the “Interest Rate Alerts” and sign up. It’s free & simple and every day about 1pm you will get an email with what the rates are for that day.

For me, as a real estate professional in the Chester County/Downingtown Area, I find it extremely helpful and interesting. I can tell you that rates have been pretty volatile as of late. In fact a few weeks ago we saw the 30 yr conventional rate go from 4.875% to almost 6% in one day. Now that has come back down and as of late they are at about 5.5%. But, I never know what my daily alert email will bring.

When rates jumped for a week or two, I heard a lot of fear from buyers I was currently working with. I shared with them a little perspective that even 6.5% is historically low. Take a look at the graph below.  Over the last 17 years, mortgage rates have averaged more around the 7% – 7.5% mark, so even 6.5% is still a point below the average. And when you look at the rates from a longer perspective, the lowest they have been in the last 50 years is about 4.85%. So if rates are historically low, where are they most likely to go in the future? That’s right UP. Take advantage while the getting is good.

I have also included a table that shows what the experts think the rates will do in the next 30 and 90 days. Most thing in the short term they will drop again, slightly. But then over 90 days, it’s a tie between drop or rise slightly. I always tell home buyer clients – when you try to “time” the market, you almost always loose.

If you are considering selling your current home and/or buying, feel free to contact me, Chris LaGarde, for a pressure free consultation. I would love to help bring clarity to your real estate decisions.

Mortgage rates over the last 17 years

Reproduced with the permission of Mortgage-X.com

Over the next 30 days: Over the next 90 days:
rates will rise significantly: 0.0% rates will rise significantly: 0.0%
rates will rise slightly: 30.4% rates will rise slightly: 34.8%
rates will remain unchanged: 17.4% rates will remain unchanged: 21.7%
rates will decline slightly: 47.8% rates will decline slightly: 34.8%
rates will decline significantly: 4.3% rates will decline significantly: 8.7%

See entire article from Mortgage-x.com

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Posted on: 06-26-2009
Posted in: General real estate statistics

What is a “Short Sale” & should I purchase one? Comments Off

The following was taken from an article written by Sanford Nax of the Fresno Bee in California. It gives some great information about short sales and want to share it with you. I have a few comments following the article.

“The number of troubled homeowners able to sell their houses for less than their debt on the property is increasing. It’s called short selling and comes as lenders, overwhelmed with foreclosures, are more willing to make deals, and as real estate agents become more skilled in navigating the complicated transactions.

A short sale is often treated as an option to avoid foreclosure. A homeowner can no longer afford the mortgage for whatever reason-perhaps the interest reset because it was one of many variable-interest mortgages approved by lenders-so he or she decides to negotiate with the bank to sell the property before foreclosure occurs.

The seller accepts an offer subject to bank approval and requests a short-sale package from the lender. That package consists of paperwork required from the seller that points to financial hardship. If accepted, the bank writes off the loss-assuming the homeowner owes more than what the house sells for-at the close of escrow as a cost of doing business. This process can be difficult, time-consuming and frustrating. By some estimates, fewer than 10% of all short-sale attempts succeed, although Realtors expect that percentage to increase.

A typical short sale often includes real estate agents representing buyer and seller, a negotiator who decides the price and a third agent who presents an independent value.

And because banks are often under-staffed and overworked, paperwork is sometimes lost or directed to the wrong person. “In the two I’m working, the bank lost the offers twice,” Neufeld said. “Then they have to input it into the system and that can take three to four weeks. Then they have to appoint a negotiator,” which may not happen for a month into the process.

Buyers often get frustrated and buy another property simply because of the time it takes just to get approval for the sale form a bank.

That said, more lenders are willing to consider short sales to avoid any more losses. “Banks are finally getting religion and maybe catching onto the program,” Neufeld said.

In many cases a short sale may be the best solution. The seller lessens the damage to his or her credit and banks don’t have to carry an asset that is continuing to lose value.”Short sales present some really fantastic opportunities for home buyers. The banks don’t want to have another foreclosure on their hands, and the sellers aren’t going to make money in selling, so they don’t usually care what they sell it for. But, the buyers need to be fully aware what they are getting themselves into and what could potentially happen.They also need to make sure they have a Real Estate Agent that is experienced and skilled in short sales. If they are not, it could prove very bad for the buyers and the agent. If you are considering buying a short sale, make sure you are aware of the costs involved and the time frames that need to be set. It is not a quick process, usually.

As for short sales in the Chester County, Downingtown, Exton, West Chester area – there are opportunities out there. Contact me to get my “Top 10 steals in Chester County” list or to set up a custom search for you.

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Posted on: 06-21-2009
Posted in: Buyers, General real estate statistics

Would you like $8000 back on your taxes this year? Comments Off

We’ve been hearing a lot of questions about the new tax credit. Who qualifies? How does it work? How long will it last? In this special edition video, we’re taking an in-depth look at the $8,000 tax credit for first time home buyers.

According to the new legislation, a first time home buyer is defined as someone who has not owned a principle residence in the past three years. Those three years are counted up to the date you take possession of the house you buy in 2009. This means that even if you’ve owned a home in the past, you can still take advantage of the tax credit as long as you haven’t purchased a primary residence since 2006.The same goes for married tax payers – they must both be first time home buyers. For non-married joint buyers, only one of them needs to be a first time home buyer, or someone who hasn’t owned a primary residence in the past three years.Qualifying homes include:

  • New homes
  • Homes that are being re-sold
  • Condos
  • Townhomes

The main restriction is that the credit is only for those who buy a home as their primary residence. So investors looking to buy a rental property would not qualify for the credit. However owning a vacation home or a rental property already does not neccessarily disqualify you from taking advantage of the credit (as long as you haven’t owned a primary residence in the past three years).A Look at the NumbersThe tax credit is equal to 10% of the purchase price of the home, up to $8,000. The amount of the credit you can qualify for is related to how much money you earn. Here’s how the credit is scaled:

  • Single home buyers earning 95K or less qualify. If you make 75K or less, you qualify for 100% of the $8000. If you make halfway, 85K, you qualify for 50% or $4000. The credit phases out gradually between 75K and 95K of income. For example, if you make halfway between the income limits, 85K, you qualify for up to half of the credit.
  • The same rate applies for married couples and joint buyers whose incomes limits are doubled to $150,000 to $170,000. Married couples or joint buyers whose incomes are less would receive the full $8000 credit. At an income level of $160,000, halfway between 150 and 170, the buyers would receive half the credit – or $4,000. And the credit phases out altogether at $170,000.

This credit represent a significant amount of money. One of the biggest points of difference for the new credit from the one congress passed in July of 2008, is that the new credit does not have to be paid back.it’s refundable, which means that if you’ve paid all your taxes as you go with an automatic payroll deduction, you would receive an $8,000 check from the IRS.If you’re committed to buying a house in 2009 and want to use the $8000 tax credit for a downpayment, consult with your certified public accountant.In SummaryQualifying home buyers will need to make their home purchase between January 1, 2009 and December 1, 2009. And the home has to remain their principal residence for the following three years. The new tax credit coupled with historically low mortgage rates and rising affordability, offers buyers a great opportunity if they act fast.If you’re interested in learning more about the new tax credit or about homes in your area, speak with a local real estate agent soon.

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Posted on: 06-1-2009
Posted in: Buyers

Smart Home Owners Team up with the Best Comments Off

From David Bach – “Here’s the truth, homebuyers. The housing market has so much inventory right now and there are so many variables that you need a real estate professional now more than ever. Finding the very best home and negotiating the very best deal is like finding a needle in a haystack. “



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Posted on: 05-25-2009
Posted in: Buyers, Videos