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Simple Maine Real Estate
Posts by GlennARoberts:
- Know your local market.
- Learn from friends which agents and lenders have worked well for them.
- Go to open houses and meet the people who are working in your community.
Seattle Real Estate Trends: Early 2012
February 8th, 2012This is a Guest Blog by Emma Crawford
Emma Crawford is a creative writer from Murray State University. As an aspiring writer she specializes in writing about travel destinations and tourism.
Seattle Real Estate Trends: Early 2012
With the first month of 2012 in the books, the Seattle real estate market has been looking for a strong start to the year. Some of this hope has been confirmed by early statistics from the Northwest MLS, which showed an increase in pending sales this January by 13 percent over 2011’s numbers. This totaled about 740 home transactions in January, making for a great start to 2012.
Many of Seattle’s real estate representatives have been optimistic with the start of the year that the market can gain a bit of resurgence in 2012. This feeling has come at a time when inventory is down, there’s been job growth in the Seattle area, and interest rates have hit record lows. Despite some of these telling signs, there still remain some hurdles in the area, including a number of distressed properties that weigh on many different figures.
Another point of optimism for increased sales in 2012 is the fact that area apartment rental rates have increased heavily over the past year alone. Seattle apartments have gone up about $100 a month on average, which could have an effect on prospective buyers who are on the fence between renting and purchasing their first home. The thought is that with interest rates hitting record lows and rent going up, some could lean towards buying.
For the most part, area median prices were a mixed bag in the first month of 2012. Two counties had sharp decreases in median price, hitting up to a 40 percent drop in counties such as Grays Harbor and Clallam. According to the Northwest MLS report, five other counties in the area had positive price increases, including Ferry and Pacific among others. In total, the median prices for the entire Seattle area were down about 12 percent from early 2011.
The inventory in the area is a point of contention. While having less properties just sitting out there is good for real estate professionals, it can be a challenge for buyers. Many believe that there are a solid amount of prospective buyers ready to jump on properties in the Seattle area, however finding the right one has become an issue for many. For the most part the listings are a result of lower new developments combined with the increase in sales. A lack of new construction has made it difficult for the inventory to stay on track with the amount of sales in the area.
For the most part, it seems as if the Seattle real estate market is heavy with mixed results. There are certainly promising signs with an increase in sales over last year, as well as low interest rates. It will remain to be seen if the area can overcome the current lack of inventory to continue to improving sales numbers throughout the rest of 2012.
FHA 203K Loans Are Easy
June 9th, 2011An associate blogger from North Oaks, Minnesota posted the following on his blog today and I’d like to share it with you.
Paul Lesieur said
I am often asked by prospective homebuyers and Realtors what this loan is about.
In a nutshell
1st. Its a loan and yes you need to pay it back.
2nd. You need to qualify like any other loan. A 640 credit score gets you in the game.
3rd. You can use this loan to buy and remodel a home.
4th. The loan amount is determined by the purchase price and the cost of repairs as set by the minimum requirements of the FHA that is determined by the consultant or lender.
5th. You can get the 203k as a 30, 15 or 3/1 or 5/1 ARM.
6th. For rehab and remodel you need a licensed contractor, few lenders will allow homeowners to do the work.
The 203k loan is perfect for purchasing any home, it doesn’t have to need work, its just a loan. But, if you want to buy an REO or properties needing work it may be your only choice.
In a nutshell, the 203k is most widely used by first time homebuyers to purchase and update a property that needs some help. At its best you can purchase and remodel and have 10% or more equity the day you move in.
Is it a difficult loan to process?
Not if you work with experienced 203k people.
So, whats wrong with that?
If you would like more information on this type of loan in the Seattle area, just give me a call.
Kids Going to College? Get Them a Home
June 7th, 2011Just received this email from Karen Hlinka at Washington Federal Saving and Loan. They have a loan program for the parents of a student to buy a second home in the parent’s name for the student to live in. Rates are real reasonable. And given the high affordability of homes these days, this might just be away to beat the higher tuition and other education expenses for the coming years.
Here’s Karen’s email:
Do you know of someone who has tried to buy a home for one of their kids but couldn’t do it because the secondary market will only finance it as an investment?
Washington Federal has the solution:
Regardless of how close the home is located to the borrower or if they have a second home already, we can look at this transaction as a second home purchase providing the occupant does not own real-estate and is a family member. These loans are priced .375 over conforming pricing and are considered second homes.
Call me today to find out more information on this unique financing alternative.
Karen Hlinka
Branch Manager
Magnolia Office
3219 W. McGraw St.
Seattle, WA 98199
P (206) 284-5171 F (206) 284-5172
Or you can call me to find out what kind of housing near the University of Washington is available for your student.
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Short Sale Fraud
June 5th, 2011Ken Harney writes and interesting post re Short Sale Fraud, but I didn’t like the particular way it uses common terms. When he says
A comprehensive new study estimates they will lose more than $375 million this year alone when they sell undervalued houses to tag teams consisting of real-estate agents and investors
he seems to be targeting any and all real estate agents and investors. The article starts with “Are banks and distressed home sellers getting rooked” and they answer is, that they certainly are by a few unscrupulous agents and investors , but for the most part banks have screwed themselves by completely complicating the homes sale process with legal entanglements and ineptitude.
For two hundred years the real estate industry has been developing in this country and the industry has done all right, thanks. For years the banks have wanted to play a bigger role. Most of the industry has seen that having the loan originator, the title processor, the escrow closer, the realtor, the appraiser, and the inspector as separate unconnected businesses is a good thing and provides many levels of cross checking to keep fraud at bay.
There are big real estate companies which own title companies or have lending wings. Some companies even call themselves home and loan establishments in hope of convincing the consumer that one stop shopping is convenient and therefore better for the consumer.
So what is going on with the banks and short sales. The bank gets to control the seller like a puppet on strings. A short seller’s home can be put at a reasonable price and the minute the realtor discloses that it is a short sale, no savvy buyer that is buying a home to live in will touch it. Why? Because it will take 9 months or longer to close and these buyers are buying a home to live in now.
Besides taking nine months to close, the sale might not ever close. Why? Because the banks lose money on a short sale but if they foreclose, there is the insurance that will pay them for their loss. All of that time is wasted and the home goes into foreclosure.
So, about the fraud? The banks are totally inept at handling real estate transactions. Multiple listing Associations across the country have developed forms over the years that work regionally and within state and federal laws favoring neither the seller, nor the buyer, but anticipate bringing a mutually acceptable contract on real estate to closing. Banks on the other hand have taken the position that their obligation is to their stockholders, and the bank’s attorneys have left no avenue unexplored on how to extract every dime from every real estate deal that they can get their hands on.
Banks feel they are above the MLS rules and regulations, so each bank has it’s own rules to be followed.
Banks have no respect for anyone one so they pay everyone involved fees they would pay their entry level tellers.
Banks have to have control, and they get it when the have the right to approve a short sale.
Banks take forever to complete any task.
With all of these control issues the banks have created a system ripe for fraud and there are people who saw that and they became real estate agents and investors and are now all over the banks with their game. If any of these bounders is ever brought to trial and found guilty I am almost positive that you will find that as a whole these people got into the real estate industry after 2007, and that none of these people ever acted like a true real estate agent whose job is to help a seller market their home and to help a buyer find and buy a home.
Most agents have the best interests of their clients at heart. We’ve always had a few bad apples, like every profession. You know who the bank caters to by virtue of having investors. And that includes every big bank. Feel sorry for them if you must. I surely don’t.
Housing Market Bad, Rental Market Good
May 31st, 2011Think about it. Look around at your city or town and see who is building. It’s the apartment companies. They are as foolish as those who thought the housing market would never crash. Every builder/developer/commercial lender on the planet is vying for land to build apartments.
What will happen next? Whoa! Too many apartments. Too many people paying rent. People getting married, having children, wanting pets moving out of apartments and buying homes. Homes get more expensive. Entry level folks can’t by in, but wait. Apartments are being converted to condos. I can own at last. Forget the great depression of 2008. It’s 2015. Life is good. 100% loans are everywhere. It will never end.
The End.
Amazon.com Expands in Area
May 4th, 2011Amazon.com announced that a distribution center will be built in Sumner, an eastern Pierce county Washington town. The new facility will provide for hundreds of jobs to the area paying $12-13 dollars per hour and with health benefits. Good news for that area as other jobs are scarce.
We’ve seen that Boeing’s headquarters left the northwest for offices in Chicago. I’m guessing that their world-wide diversification plan to build the 787 all over the world was a part of that decision. They’ve learned that keeping your assembly parts as close together as possible may be a better idea. Maybe some day they will wake up and bring the headquarters crew back here where it makes sense.
So Amazon is now firmly entrenched in new facilities in South Lake Union and growing stronger every day. I’m glad to see that. Jobs are what keep an area’s economy strong.
Modular Building…Again
May 2nd, 2011The Seattle Times had an article today on modular-building by Eric Pryne. I don’t know what it is about this type of housing that seems so attractive to some but seems to have no staying power.
Modular building has been around for a long time now. There are some very old homes-on-wheels of record and some of them eventually became fixed residences. My first awareness of the modular concept came in the mid 1970′s when I was thinking of building a home for my young family. I owned 4 acres of land overlooking a small stream between two lakes. My plan was to build on the edge of the woods on the high ground. The modular homes available at the time consisted mostly of pastel colored trailer homes with the wheels pulled and then dropped on your foundation. I opted for a kit-home instead. A truck load of framing lumber, with windows, siding, and roofing arrived first and then the truck with the finish materials including sheet rock, carpet, interior doors, kitchen cabinets and trim showed up about 6 weeks later. I and a carpenter friend did an admirable job and from then on I was hooked on building.
As a builder and then as a Realtor® I’ve seen many styles of modular construction come and go. Some last as a concept, but fail when it comes to longevity. Why is it that a 100 year old home built on a property can get a loan from almost any bank when a 10 year old modular is unlikely to get funding from anyone, anywhere?
The arguments for most modular builders is that quality materials are used and they never sit out in the rain and that the components are built on precise jigs in the factory for perfect fit; yet, sometimes things don’t fit, the materials are of high quality for the type chosen, and most times things don’t last. Modular construction saves costs, but at what cost? You answer that one.
The article says that they are building these modular apartments for the echo boomers. The echo boomers are the demographic that took the biggest hit in the recent recession. They bought, the properties lost value and they sold or lost, not only their homes, but their good credit, too. So they must rent for now. Maybe modulars are the best choice for them. They can be bull-dozed down in ten years and people can get back to real homes.
Not all stick-built homes are perfect, by the way. There are lots of lousy materials out there that have a short life-span. But if your are buying an existing house, or planning to build one, put your energy and money to good use and shoot for something that might last a hundred years and more. You won’t be unhappy with your investment then.
Private Transfer Fees Now Against the Law in Washington and 20 other states
April 29th, 2011Private Transfer Fees are now against the law in Washington. Governor Chris Gregoire recently signed SB 5115: One of Washington REALTORS®’ top priorities, it eliminates fees imposed by developers to generate a future income stream whenever the property is bought and sold. Washington now joins more than 20 other states that have passed similar legislation. The bill has an emergency clause and thus, goes into effect the day the Governor signed the bill.
It seems, for the past ten years or so, developers would attach a rider to a title for a property. When the original buyer sold that property a fee was assessed and the developer received that. I think the fee in most cases was 1%. On the average house in some developments that would be about $5,000. Hundreds of homes were affected and subsequently hundreds of thousands of dollars had to be paid to developers, long since out of the project. Yet people buying their first home will go to a construction site and buy a property from the site agent, the agent paid by the seller to get a really good deal for the seller.
People, it’s time to wake up. If you are a buyer, get a buyer’s agent. That step will save you money.
How Much Will Zillow Cost You?
April 26th, 2011How much will Zillow add to the cost of a home. You may wonder why I ask that. Doesn’t seem to make sense. Well, here’s the scoop from my point of view.
It costs so much to run a real estate business. That fluctuates slightly and has trended down over the last few years. You may argue that particular instances cost less but discount companies have come and for the most part gone or revised their business model to look a lot like other, stable companies. It’s called the cost of doing business.
So what is Zillow doing that will raise the cost to you, the consumer? Two things for starters. First: They are in the news making an effort to raise $52,000,000 in an IPO. And Second: They have a new landing page.
It looks very much like Zillow wants to be the place where you go to look for a house AND it looks like Zillow wants to be the place you go to get a home loan. And, because of their funky Zestimates and Zest-a-rents they have captured a large share of the viewing public. They don’t claim that they are very accurate. They just found a way to give the public something for nothing, and the public bought in.
But why do I keep saying it will cost home buyers and sellers more now? Isn’t Zillow free? Yes, my friends Zillow is free for you. But Zillow will be directing you with advertising to agents and lenders who pay Zillow to feature those agents and lenders on the site. And how do agents and lenders stay in business? They pass the cost of doing business on the their customers.
What can you do?
You can use the Zillow model if you want and you can think you are getting a discount, because it may say you are getting a discount, but someone has to pay for the advertising, and we know who that will be.
How’s That Again? The Appraisal Fee is What?
April 17th, 2011Over the past few years, the housing market has been pretty well shaken up. Blame was assigned here and there and there were many advocates stomping around trying to help the consumer. One such effort was designed to find a way to keep banks and appraisers from coming up with bogus appraisals.
So I recommend reading Kenneth Harney’s article Housing: Appraisal Fees Fatten Lenders; why it matters. IT seems to me that the banks threatened the appraisers with no work if they didn’t come in with the right values back in 2004-2007, and then when the crush came blamed the appraisers for what they forced them to do. Now the “clearing house” filter to keep banks and appraisers at arms length is working against the appraiser (they make less on each appraisal) and in favor of the banks (they charge what they want because so few people question the charges).
Read the article. Be proactive and question all of the fees on the settlement station. You deserve to know where you money is going and why.
