Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Top Tips for Home Buyers and Sellers During the Holidays in 2006 by Mark Nash
Searching for or selling a home in November or December can be stressful in addition to the built-in holiday frenzy. Simple tips for buyers and sellers can minimize stress and possibly facilitate a sale.
Sellers:
Consider potential buyers spiritual backgrounds in your market before decorating for a holiday.
Less is more when decorating a home for the holidays while you are trying to sell. Streamline the amount of holiday specific decorations you display.
Large over-size Christmas trees and other holiday decorations consume space that might make rooms or landscapes appear smaller.
Install and remove exterior holiday decorations 2 weeks before and after holiday.
Turn off lighted holiday decorations before showings, buyers should focus on your home and not your decorations.
If you are having out-of-town house guests, ask your real estate agent to postpone showings until after your guests depart.
Display summer photos of home and gardens to inform buyers of the features of the home in other seasons.
Before showings remove snow, ice and leaves from walkways and driveways. Don't overlook outside entrances to basements, garages, and porches. Pet droppings are a turn-off to buyers.
Buyers:
You can find motivated sellers at year-end, but don't think they'll give away their home. Do your homework before drafting a real estate contract. Look only at sold comparable's from the last six months.
Don't be afraid to ask for concessions from sellers. Popular give-backs from sellers to buyers are: property and transfer tax rebates, closing cost credits and paying mortgage points.
When performing a home inspection in wintry weather, it's easy to forgo adequate roof and air-conditioning condenser reviews. If you can't see or operate a structural or mechanical system, ask for an extension until the weather improves.
Patience rules at the holidays. Everyone is busy, and if it takes an extra day to view a property, it's not uncommon.
Both
If you plan to close the purchase or sale of a home near a holiday, check with your agent, title company and lender to verify two business days before closing that they have all the required documents and funds have been wired to complete the transaction.
If you are closing on your new home, select a mid-week day, early in the day, to schedule your closing time, to accommodate last minute delays by a mortgage loan processor, insurance or title company.
If you plan to move during the holidays, keep in mind that moving companies will require more notice and could charge additional fees for packing, moving and delivering household goods on week-ends and holidays.
Published: December 19, 2006
Monday, September 11, 2006
Tips For Buyers In Emerging Buyers' Markets by Broderick Perkins
Buyers don't quite yet hold all the cards, but they aren't smirking behind the hand they hold without reason.
Economic conditions are poised to give buyers more homes at lower prices this fall and winter, and as luck would have it, it's that time in the annual buying and selling cycle when more motivated sellers are more open to negotiations.
Housing's current plight and its role as an economic cornerstone was evident the week ending September 8, when stocks fell for at least two consecutive days after Beazer Homes USA, Hovnanian Enterprises and KB Home warned of growing cancellations and spikes in the supply.
That same week, a mortgage rate breather with six consecutive weeks of rate declines appeared over as Bankrate.Com first and then Fannie Mae reported rates were up albeit slightly.
But you really needn't look any further for what's ahead than the recent flurry of forecasts from the usually conservative National Association of Realtors.
NAR's latest existing home sales report on Aug. 23 said July home sales dropped 4.1 percent from a year ago, as the median price of single-family homes rose only 1.5 percent and the condo median fell 1 percent.
On Sept. 1, the trade group's Pending Home Sales Index, based on pending sales of existing homes was down even more, 16 percent lower than July 2005.
NAR dropped somewhat of a bombshell days later on Sept. 7 in a monthly forecast revising down earlier predictions on home sales, due to rising inventories and high home prices. Existing-home sales are now forecast to fall 7.6 percent by year's end, still the third best year after the last boom years 2004 and 2005. New-home sales should to drop further, 16.1 percent and make 2006 the fourth highest on record. NAR projected housing starts to fall 9.6 percent this year.
"A year ago we had record home sales and tight supply with buyers bidding over the asking price. This year sales are slowing, homes are plentiful and sellers are negotiating. Under these conditions, we'll probably see prices dip temporarily below year-ago levels as the market works through a build up in housing inventory," said David Lereah, NAR’s chief economist.
"This is a normal pattern during a market correction ...," he added.
For buyers "normal" means they don't hold all the cards, but the deck is stacked in their favor.
Here's how to get a winning hand without bluffing.
Learn the game. Obtaining general knowledge about the home-buying process and the real estate market is a relatively easy task, but buyers who feel a competitive edge tend to leap before they look. A glut of information available on the Internet, from free real estate industry-sponsored seminars and workshops and through a vast library of real estate guide books can give you an edge.
Check the table. Real estate markets are local, at that means so is a buyers' market. It can be designated by a small community, larger region or greater geographic area. A buyers' market is typically spotty occurring in some neighborhoods and not others or first in one area and then spreading to others. In any event, a buyers' market tends to include high inventories, slow appreciation, flat or falling prices and more sellers than buyers. The area might also suffer from general economic distress. Part of your homework should include learning the boundaries of your buyers' market. The larger the area, the greater your bargaining power.
Don't deal from the bottom of the deck. In a buyers' market, buyers who don't educate themselves about prices and markets tend to low-ball sellers and ask for too many concessions. Even in a buyers' market, that will only alienate the seller, especially those less motivated with top-value homes. The seller will simply look elsewhere for a more reasonable buyer.
Don't give away your hand. Paying sellers' market prices in a buyers' market is a common mistake buyers make, especially at the onset of a buyers' market. The mistake could leave you with a home that immediately loses value. Home buyers should make the same price checks a seller makes to price it right -- get comparables, track sale prices in your shopping area, use the local newspaper, online listing and for sale sites and other sources, to keep tabs on asking prices. Also visit open houses. Use a real estate agent schooled in the history of market trends and statistics.
Play smart. Buy the least expensive house on the best block. Buy into the least expensive neighborhood in the best community. Buy into the least expensive city in the best region. The cheapest home in a neighborhood, community or region in transition will give you the greatest return on your investment, especially when the market rebounds.
Play with a full deck. Don't let a false sense of power overcome you. Even motivated sellers aren't going to wait around for your money to show up. Get your credit report checked an in order. Get your loan preapproved. Lock in your mortgage rate. Don't shop for a home without them.
Play for keeps. Buy because you need a home, not because it's a buyers' market. Speculators and short-term investors are bailing out for good reason. It's also a keepers' market.
Play another game. Renting now and waiting out the market is a gambit, but so is buying a home right now if you don't think you can stay put long enough to weather the change. Renting could pay off, over time, in a buyers' market that hasn't bottomed.
Published: September 11, 2006 Courtesy of: Realty Times Headlines
Buyers don't quite yet hold all the cards, but they aren't smirking behind the hand they hold without reason.
Economic conditions are poised to give buyers more homes at lower prices this fall and winter, and as luck would have it, it's that time in the annual buying and selling cycle when more motivated sellers are more open to negotiations.
Housing's current plight and its role as an economic cornerstone was evident the week ending September 8, when stocks fell for at least two consecutive days after Beazer Homes USA, Hovnanian Enterprises and KB Home warned of growing cancellations and spikes in the supply.
That same week, a mortgage rate breather with six consecutive weeks of rate declines appeared over as Bankrate.Com first and then Fannie Mae reported rates were up albeit slightly.
But you really needn't look any further for what's ahead than the recent flurry of forecasts from the usually conservative National Association of Realtors.
NAR's latest existing home sales report on Aug. 23 said July home sales dropped 4.1 percent from a year ago, as the median price of single-family homes rose only 1.5 percent and the condo median fell 1 percent.
On Sept. 1, the trade group's Pending Home Sales Index, based on pending sales of existing homes was down even more, 16 percent lower than July 2005.
NAR dropped somewhat of a bombshell days later on Sept. 7 in a monthly forecast revising down earlier predictions on home sales, due to rising inventories and high home prices. Existing-home sales are now forecast to fall 7.6 percent by year's end, still the third best year after the last boom years 2004 and 2005. New-home sales should to drop further, 16.1 percent and make 2006 the fourth highest on record. NAR projected housing starts to fall 9.6 percent this year.
"A year ago we had record home sales and tight supply with buyers bidding over the asking price. This year sales are slowing, homes are plentiful and sellers are negotiating. Under these conditions, we'll probably see prices dip temporarily below year-ago levels as the market works through a build up in housing inventory," said David Lereah, NAR’s chief economist.
"This is a normal pattern during a market correction ...," he added.
For buyers "normal" means they don't hold all the cards, but the deck is stacked in their favor.
Here's how to get a winning hand without bluffing.
Learn the game. Obtaining general knowledge about the home-buying process and the real estate market is a relatively easy task, but buyers who feel a competitive edge tend to leap before they look. A glut of information available on the Internet, from free real estate industry-sponsored seminars and workshops and through a vast library of real estate guide books can give you an edge.
Check the table. Real estate markets are local, at that means so is a buyers' market. It can be designated by a small community, larger region or greater geographic area. A buyers' market is typically spotty occurring in some neighborhoods and not others or first in one area and then spreading to others. In any event, a buyers' market tends to include high inventories, slow appreciation, flat or falling prices and more sellers than buyers. The area might also suffer from general economic distress. Part of your homework should include learning the boundaries of your buyers' market. The larger the area, the greater your bargaining power.
Don't deal from the bottom of the deck. In a buyers' market, buyers who don't educate themselves about prices and markets tend to low-ball sellers and ask for too many concessions. Even in a buyers' market, that will only alienate the seller, especially those less motivated with top-value homes. The seller will simply look elsewhere for a more reasonable buyer.
Don't give away your hand. Paying sellers' market prices in a buyers' market is a common mistake buyers make, especially at the onset of a buyers' market. The mistake could leave you with a home that immediately loses value. Home buyers should make the same price checks a seller makes to price it right -- get comparables, track sale prices in your shopping area, use the local newspaper, online listing and for sale sites and other sources, to keep tabs on asking prices. Also visit open houses. Use a real estate agent schooled in the history of market trends and statistics.
Play smart. Buy the least expensive house on the best block. Buy into the least expensive neighborhood in the best community. Buy into the least expensive city in the best region. The cheapest home in a neighborhood, community or region in transition will give you the greatest return on your investment, especially when the market rebounds.
Play with a full deck. Don't let a false sense of power overcome you. Even motivated sellers aren't going to wait around for your money to show up. Get your credit report checked an in order. Get your loan preapproved. Lock in your mortgage rate. Don't shop for a home without them.
Play for keeps. Buy because you need a home, not because it's a buyers' market. Speculators and short-term investors are bailing out for good reason. It's also a keepers' market.
Play another game. Renting now and waiting out the market is a gambit, but so is buying a home right now if you don't think you can stay put long enough to weather the change. Renting could pay off, over time, in a buyers' market that hasn't bottomed.
Published: September 11, 2006 Courtesy of: Realty Times Headlines
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