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When Should Homebuyers Jump
In?
Investors
who time any market hope to buy
at the nadir and sell at the
zenith, but homebuyers have a
trickier time knowing when to
sit on the sidelines and when to
jump in. The reason? There are
several.
Buying a home is one of
the largest financial
investments a homebuyer will
make. Transaction costs are
expensive enough that homeowners
remain in their homes
approximately six years before
trading up or down. As the
recent buyer's market shows,
homes aren't liquid, and may not
find buyers at the price and in
the time frame that sellers
prefer.
On the other hand, homeownership provides
significant benefits including
property rights, tax benefits
and other government subsidies
including support for a mortgage
lending market, quality of
Our "PERFORMANCE"
Guarantee
Home
Buyers
Receive 1%
of the Sale
Price
Cash-Back at
Closing.
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Sales and
Closings Down, Expired and
Withdrawn Listings Up for 3rd
Consecutive Month
A lot of records were broken in
May. However, most were negative
and there is a good chance they
will be broken again and soon
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What Your Homeowners Insurance Does,
Doesn't Cover
A
standard homeowners insurance policy
doesn't cover what you think it does --
not flood or earthquake damage, not
stolen or damaged vehicles on your
property, not a break in the water
service or sewage line and not termites
moving in nor pets stolen away.
Many homeowners are under the
mistaken impression that a standard
homeowners policy provides more
insurance protection than it does and
that could mean large unexpected out of
pocket expenses -- when you can least
afford them.
The National Association of
Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), an
organization of state insurance
regulators, found that 33 percent of
U.S. heads of household still hold the
false belief that flood damage is
covered by a standard homeowners policy
-- despite extensive post-Hurricane
Katrina news coverage of scores of
homeowners with claims turned down
because they didn't have the required
flood insurance from the National Flood
Insurance Program.
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Avoiding 7 Costly Mistakes
of Selling Your Home
There
are inappropriate steps sellers can take
when it comes time to put their house on
the market.
For instance, the seller in
Virginia, who thought the half bath the
builder had located at the front of the
house would really be better situated
toward the back of the main level
(though all the other similar models had
the powder room in the same place for
the previous 20 years). He got hung up
on this detail so much, that he just had
to move it -- and did -- for thousands
of dollars, just so he could get it on
the market the "right way." His hang-up
may have settled some deep-seated
emotional need for him, but it didn't
draw any more buyers, and it drained his
bottom line. You might say, that was a
costly mistake.
Real estate broker and author Sid
Davis has identified in his book, "A
Survival Guide to Selling a Home," seven
costly mistakes that many sellers make
when it comes time to put their home on
the market. In my business, I've seen
each one of these mistakes played out
and it just makes me shake my head as to
why sellers forge ahead with unwise
strategies, instead of listening to the
voice of an experienced professional.
Mistake 1: Putting the home
on the market before it's ready. Most
times this happens because the seller
gets impatient or is a procrastinator
and has
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Our "PERFORMANCE"
Guarantee
Your Home "SOLD AND CLOSED"
in 120-Days or I Will Buy It.
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Feds
Say Current Disclosures Muddy Mortgage Morass
It's
not that too much or too little is disclosed
about home loans.
It's that the disclosures themselves need
a disclosure form alerting consumers to the fact
they are old, outdated and not very revealing.
That irony recently appeared on the front
lines of the war against predatory lending when
the Federal Trade Commission released a report,
"Improving Consumer Mortgage Disclosures -- An
Empirical Assessment of Current and Prototype
Disclosure Forms".
In plain language, the report says today's
outdated mortgage disclosure forms fail to
convey key mortgage costs and terms to most
consumers.
"Mortgage disclosures designed more than
30 years ago can be confusing even for simple
loans, and they do not address the variety and
complexity of today's mortgage products,"
according
Daily News and Advice
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