Showing posts with label Todays. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Todays. Show all posts

Thursday, November 24, 2011

5 Tips for Buying a Home in Today's Market

Denver Estate Real

Whether it is your first home or you consider yourself an old pro at home buying the recent economic downturn caused the guidelines for obtaining a home mortgage much more stringent than before. So if you are thinking about buying a home, you will save yourself a lot of headache and heartache if you follow these 5 steps.

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Establish Credit

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If you are a prospective first time homebuyer your first job may be to establish credit. No lender is going to finance your home purchase until you can prove or show a history of borrowing and paying back on time. A good way to get started is with a credit card. It is possible to pay many of your monthly expenses with a credit card with no fees involved if you pay the entire balance off at the end of the month. If you have had credit cards make sure that your payments are made on time.

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Face The Past

Now is the time to clean up any past credit problems. Find out if there are any unpaid bills that need to be paid. Lenders evaluate your credit history so if you spend too much on a regular basis and have been slow to pay, the odds of getting a mortgage these days are mighty slim.

How To Clear Up Credit Problems

You can improve your credit score by first getting a copy of your credit report. If your score is not in the high 700s or higher, then rethink your budget, lower your expenses, possibly consolidate your bills and make sure that you start immediately to make your payments on time. In fact, pay more than the minimum amount on your credit card so that credit companies do not see you as Just Hanging On

Evaluate What You Can Afford

In the long run, what with tax breaks and appreciation, buying a home can be less expensive than renting but that does not mean that it is less expensive in the short run. When it is your home, a problem with a leaky roof is your problem, not the responsibility of the landlord. In addition to paying the principle and interest, you must also budget for taxes and in many areas for homeowner association dues as well. Also, if you have been living in a condo or an apartment and plan to move to a home with a yard, you will have to figure in the cost of landscape management.

Evaluate The Market

When you have a general idea of what you are looking for, it is easy to hop online to find out the projected cost for buying it. Sometimes you may have to settle for less than you originally planned but you can get a real good idea of the market before you actually go out to see any properties in person. For example, a search for Evergreen CO Real estate shows over 300 3 bedroom, 2 bath homes currently on the market. Prices range from a high of million to a low of 9,000. Find the price range you are looking for an study the homes online.

Get The Right Mortgage

Talk with reputable lenders and get yourself pre-qualified and pre-approved for a loan amount. This gives you and the seller the confidence that when you put in an offer on a home you can afford that the lender will approve the loan assuming that the property also qualified or appraises for the selling price.

Happy Hunting

Armed with pre-approval from you lender, you can shop for homes in your price range with every confidence of success.

5 Tips for Buying a Home in Today's Market

Denver Estate Real

Monday, November 14, 2011

How to Sell Your Home Even In Today's Market

Denver Estate Real

It is possible to sell your home even in today's market. The big question you must first ask though is whether you want to be "on" the market or "in" the market.

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Lets take a look...

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There are a lot of factors that contribute to the value of a home. Even so, the reality is the seller only has control over two of those factors... Price and Condition. A seller can't control the taxes, the seller can't control the rating of the local school, the seller can't control the lot size etc. On the other hand, the seller does have control over the price of the home as well as the condition of the home.

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As I heard it spelled out one time during a real estate webinar, there are essentially three places you can be when selling your home...

1. On the market
2. No Man's Land
3. In the market

If you are "on the market" you are listed, but not getting any showings or offers. Therefore, you will need to adjust either your price or the condition of the home...or both.

If you are getting showings, but still are not getting any offers then you have entered what is called No Man's Land. To get out of No Man's Land and actually start to get offers you will have to once again adjust either the price of your home or the condition of your home...or both.

Where you really want to be is IN the market. You know you are IN the market when you are getting both showings and offers.

So, the trick is to adjust your Price and Condition to position yourself IN the market. However, for most people, the reality is it is much easier to adjust the price of the home than it is to adjust the condition of the home.

Now if you really want to sell your home fast, the best approach is to under-price it 10% below comparative market value.

This approach often times leads to multiple offers and therefore bidding wars which actually drive the price of your home back up. You see once someone has mentally committed to buying a home and has already pictured himself living there, he is much more likely to come up in price when he finds out someone else wants to buy his dream home.

Again, if you want to sell your home you must be IN the market. The price of the home and the condition of the home are the only two factors a seller has control over to position the house IN the market. To sell your home fast we suggest doing only minor upgrades while focusing more on under-pricing your home to generate more showings and more offers and quite possibly a bidding war.

How to Sell Your Home Even In Today's Market

Denver Estate Real