More Signs that the market is finally starting to pick up!!

Vacation Home Sales on the Rise!

The American desire to own a second home as a vacation home is alive and well!

 *According to the National Association of Realtors analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data shows there are 7.9 million vacation homes in the U.S. NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said favorable conditions are driving second-home sales.

     

• Vacation-Home sales rose 10.1 percent to 553,000 from 502,000 in 2011
• Sales accounted for 11% of all transactions last year, unchanged from 2011
• The median price was $150,000, compared with $121,300 in 2011, reflecting a greater number of more expensive recreational property sales in 2012

Buyer Profile

• The typical vacation-home buyer was 47 years old
• The median household income was $92,100
• Buyers plan to own their recreational property for a median of 10 years

Lifestyle factors remain the primary motivation for vacation-home buyers

• 80% want to use the property for vacations or as a family retreat
• 27% plan to use it as a primary residence in the future
• 23% plan to rent to others
• 23% wanted to diversify their investments or saw a good investment opportunity

Investment Home Sales on the Rise!

The American desire to invest in real estate is alive and well!

*Investment purchases of residential real estate remained elevated for a second consecutive year, according to the National Association of Realtors.  “Investors have been very active in the market over the past two years, attracted mostly by discounted foreclosures that could be quickly turned into profitable rentals. With rising prices and limited inventory, notably in the low price ranges, investors are likely to step back in coming years.”

Investment Property Owner Stats

• Investment-home buyers in 2012 had a median age of 45
• Earned $85,700
• 35% of investment buyers purchased more than one property
• 47% of investment buyers said they were likely to purchase another investment property within two years
• 55% of investment buyers said they purchased for rental income
• 30% wanted to diversify their investments or saw a good investment opportunity
• 20% wanted to use the home for vacations or as a family retreat
• 16% purchased the property for a family member, friend or relative to use, often for a son or daughter to use while attending school
• The median investment-home price was $115,000 in 2012, up 15% from $100,000 in 2011
• The median down payment for investment home buyers was 27 percent, the same as in 2011
• All-cash purchases remain common in the investment-home market. Half of investment buyers paid cash in 2012

So if you are interested in purchasing your first Vacation Home, an Investment Property, or
Your First Home get in touch and let me find the right property for you!!!!

Wacky Houses!!

Wacky Houses!! 

What do you think?  Would you ever want to live in a house like this?

I think it would be fun to spend some time in some wacky homes!

CAPTAIN HOOK!!

I think they really liked Grant Wood's Painting!!

Hello Kitty!!

Harry Potter or Lord Of The Rings!

Can you hear the sound of the waves in there?

The Smurfs!!

Strawberry Shortcake!

Tea Anyone?

Not Sure How You Would Get in and out of this Home?  Any Ideas?

The Old Lady That Lived In the Shoe!

Real Estate Mistakes that Buyers and Sellers Make!

*Here is a list compiled by top real estate experts on the biggest mistakes we all make when buying and selling our homes.


 BUYERS

Buying a House for Its Decor
Remember that you are buying the house, not the things inside it, so make sure you see beyond the decorations and look at the bones of the home. Focus on the floor plan and the square footage. You also might want to measure the dimensions and graph out how that’s going to work with your belongings.

Treating Real Estate Like the Stock Market
When the real estate market is really hot and is appreciating really fast, people tend to look at it like it’s the stock market. But playing real estate is nothing like the stock market; when you invest in real estate, you really need to take a long-term approach.

Buying Without Actually Seeing the Property
It’s really easy to buy a house without seeing it because of the Internet and virtual tours, but virtual tours can be deceiving. Plus, it’s really hard to actually get a sense and feel of a home by only looking at it online. You need to actually walk through the place yourself. If that’s just not possible, hire an inspector to go look at the property and provide you with an assessment.

Trusting Everything a Real Estate Advertisement Says
Don’t assume every ad is fact. Learn to decipher real estate lingo. For example, “cozy” means small, and “as is” means it’s a fixer-upper. If there are a lot of exclamation points in an ad, it’s because there is so little to say about the place. Follow the old adage: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Skipping the Loan Pre-Approval Step
When you are pre-approved, the bank is saying, “we will give you a mortgage of up to this amount, so now all you have to do is find your home.” Some sellers only allow real estate agents to show their house if someone has a pre-approved letter. That indicates that the shopper really is serious about buying a home.

Falling in Love With the First Property You See
Many homebuyers, particularly first-time homebuyers, fall into the trap of falling in love with the very first house that they see. You need to at least look at three more houses in the area to get an idea of what the comparables are in that price range. You want your real estate agent to show you homes comparable to what you saw. At the end of the day, re-evaluate.

Buying the Most Expensive Home on the Block
The most expensive house will only depreciate in value over time, rather than appreciate, which is what you want. Also, those houses are often not the first house to sell because they are usually overbuilt to the neighborhood. It’s absolutely critical that you research the neighborhood before you buy to find out what the price point should be.

Not Setting a Realistic Budget
Just because the bank prequalifies you for a loan amount of $400,000 doesn’t mean you can afford to make that payment every month. Before hitting the streets for a house hunt, you should sit down and make a monthly budget of what you spend every month. Come up with a number that you are comfortable spending on your mortgage payment, aside from those other expenditures. An easy way to do this is to take a third of your gross income and have that figure be the number you spend on the house. It is also a good idea to have six to nine months of mortgage payments in the bank, plus a little extra if you have any repairs that you might need to do.

Visiting the House Only Once
It’s important to visit a house more than once because the neighborhood itself may be very different, depending on the day of the week and the time of day. It’s also a good idea to go home and think about it, even sleep on it, before you go back again. 

Buying a Home Without a Professional Inspection
There are a lot of things a home inspection can reveal about a property that are not visible to the naked eye. Be sure to hire someone who comes with a good referral basis, who’s been in the business a while and knows what to look for. Look up the American Society of Home Inspectors and get a list of qualified home inspectors in your area. Once you find an inspector, insist that they compile a written report, complete with photos. Photographs are important because there are areas a home inspector will go that you might not look at. 


Overlooking the Extra and Hidden Costs
Buying a home is not just about the money that you spend upfront; it’s about all the rest of the money you have to spend beyond that. Find out what the property taxes are, what your water bill might be and what a standard electric bill is in that home, especially if you have electric heat instead of gas heat. You also need to factor in furnishings you may need to purchase before you can move in.


Buying What You Want, Not What You Need
Look at the space that you are already living in. It will help you to realize what you have been missing and what you need in your next home. Make a list of those needs and then ask your agent to start shopping based on those needs. On average, Americans live in a house for about nine years. Remember, you can always trade up a few times before you find the ultimate home.

Not Being Pro-Active at Closing
The best thing to do when going into a closing is to get all the paperwork ahead of time. All that information should come from a mortgage broker or banker. They have what they call a HUD (Housing and Urban Development) One form that lists all the charges, and you can legally get it in your hands 24 hours before closing. Schedule the closing for in the morning, so you have a fresh mind and plenty of time to go over everything and to ask questions. The final walk-through is another imperative part of the process. You may want to have a home inspector accompany you.


SELLERS

Not Providing Easy Access for Showings
Make your house easily accessible to potential buyers. If there’s nowhere to park or it’s difficult to get into, buyers may just skip it and look at someone else’s property.

Trying to Make the “Hard Sell” While Showing
If you are selling your house, you really shouldn’t be around at the open house. You might want to try to sell the place on all the reasons you think the house is great, but that might not translate to the buyer. If you leave, you allow the buyers to give unbiased objective feedback to the agent, which is only going to help you in the end.

Waiting Until Spring to Sell Your House
Spring is the busiest real estate activity period, but that does not mean that people don’t buy houses 365 days of the year. That doesn’t mean you can’t emphasize your home’s seasonal amenities.

Failing to Market Your Home in Different Ways
Don’t market your home with just a “for sale” sign. Explore other marketing tools as well. Talk to your real estate agent about the marketing that he or she will do. It’s something that should be set up from the initial signing of a contract with an agent. Some homes have virtual tours and photographs online. If you choose to go that route, don’t forget to include the floor plans. That way, people can see the layout of your home and know if it’s right for them.

Setting Too High of a Sale Price
As a seller, it’s really important to do your research. To come up with your sale price, look up what comparable homes in your neighborhood have sold for. Figure out what the going price is and try to put yours right in the middle of that, unless you have something extra-special to offer. It’s always better to price a home that way than to start too high and have to reduce. Once you reduce, it always looks like something is wrong with the home.

Failing to Showcase Your Home and Making Small Cosmetic Changes
When you are selling your house, you have to really look at it objectively and think about it from the viewpoint of the house hunter. Make minor enhancements to the house and maybe hire a professional stager to come and arrange your furniture. Staging is about decorating your house for the buyers’ taste, not yours. A great place to start is with the front of the home and the main entryway. Home staging is designed to increase the potential selling price and reduce the amount of time the house stays on the market.

Doing Major Renovations/Remodeling Before Selling
Minor upgrades usually have a higher return on your money than tackling major renovations before placing a home on the market. The main reason? Huge construction projects always cost more than you think they will, and they also take longer than you expect. The best place to spend money is outside. Research shows that increasing the curb appeal often returns the most value on your money. It’s what gets buyers inside the house.

Not Thinking About Resale
When you are decorating and renovating your home, you need to think about what is going to appeal to a broad section of buyers when it comes time to sell it. Buying houses and being in the real estate market is like chess: You always want to look two or three steps ahead in the game.

Not Hiring an Agent
There’s a lot more to selling a house than just putting a sign on the front lawn. An agent is an expert in his/her field and knows how to market your home properly.  Another thing to consider is if you are willing to show the house each time someone wants to come by and look at it. If you do plan to sell your house on your own, be sure to have a lawyer present at the closing. It’s really important to have someone on your side who understands all the complexities.

Scarcity of homes for sale around Boston sparks bidding wars!

A common pattern this spring in the housing market: There are too many potential buyers and too few sellers, resulting in bidding battles in many Boston-area neighborhoods. And that, in turn, is starting to drive up prices overall.

Real estate specialists attribute the surge in would-be buyers to historically low mortgage rates and rising consumer confidence as the Massachusetts economy slowly blossoms. The house-hunting frenzy is a good sign, they said, but until more people decide it’s finally time to sell, no one expects the market to really take off.

In the meantime, would-be buyers in Boston Suburbs are padding their offers by tens of thousands of dollars and making concessions — such as waiving their right to a home inspection — to better their chances of getting to sign on the dotted line.

Other buyers are agreeing to flexible closing dates, or allowing homeowners to rent back properties while they look for new places to live. Some are even resorting to sentimentality — sending family photos and personal letters to sellers to explain why a particular home would be perfect for them. Houses that not long ago would have remained on the market for many months are now moving in days.

What you are seeing is the first action of a good strong market,’’ said Karl E. Case, a retired Wellesley College economics professor and cofounder the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, a widely respected measure of US home sales. “When demand starts to come back, it comes back in the quality areas where there are amenities, good schools — and then, as those prices get pushed up, people get pushed out.”

Redfin market manager Alex Coon said many sellers are accepting offers only from people who can pay at least 20 percent upfront, and some prefer cash-only transactions. He said one of his agents recently helped a buyer place a winning bid on a Cambridge home that was $80,000 over the $550,000 listing price.
“We have plenty of stories of people going absurd amounts” over the asking price and still not getting the home, he said.

The reason for this recent blog post is to encourage all my perspective home sellers to list your home as soon as you can.  Why not take advantage of the current “sellers market” and quite possibly make some extra money off the sale of your house??
 
Give me a call so we can get started!!

How Home Buyers Are Using Technology!

When searching for a real estate agent, make sure he or she is tech savvy.
You are, so the point person in your quest for your dream home should be packing the latest technology too.   Check the stats compiled by MountainSeed Appraisal Management in Atlanta, GA.

• A vast majority, 90 percent of home buyers use the internet to kick off their search for housing.
• Home Buyers today are mobile. They aren’t just sitting at a desk, online looking for a home. Mobile applications are also a weapon of choice.
• Nearly 30 percent are smart phone home shopping while waiting in line; 27 percent are searching over dinner and 26 percent are guests at someone’s home and likely just bored stiff.
• On average a person conducts 11 digital searches before making another move, like calling in an agent, attending an open house or otherwise 3-Ding their search.

“It is important to note that not only are home buyers using technology more than ever, but also home owners. When possible, many are looking at refi rates, paying their mortgage payment by smart phone, or simply perusing their mortgage statement,” said David Craig, vice president of sales at CEDAR Document Technologies an Atlanta, GA-based communications technology company.
it is also important to note that ‘mobile’ doesn’t necessarily mean a borrower is on the move. Many people today opt for their (smart) phone while sitting at home before ever opening a laptop or using a desktop computer.
How the internet has changed the way people search for homes

• 90% of people use the internet to begin their home search
• 253% growth in real estate searches in the past 4 years
• 11 searches is an average, a person performs prior to taking action
• On average 40% of people wait 120 days before contacting an agent after they start their online search ONLY 24% of people contact an agent the very same day!
• 20% of real estate searches are done from mobile devices
• 48% of people get directions to homes for sale
• 45% request more information
• 16% watch a video about the home
• 36% search while watching TV

Locations where New Home shoppers use their mobile devices to search for homes

• 77% are at Home
• 31% while at Work
• 28% waiting in line
• 27% at a restaurant
• 26% at other people homes Realtor.com – an average of more than 20 million unique visitors per month
  Homes.com – an average of more than 11 million visitors per month
  

Today’s Buyer search most frequently based on:

• Number of bedrooms and bathrooms
• Square footage
• Garages
• Heating
• Swimming Pool
• Ventilation and air conditioning systems

YouTube Searches in one fiscal Quarter for:

• Buying a home – 118,000

• Real Estate Agent – 88,400

So based on these current consumer statistics, the internet is the place to be, whether you are advertising your home, or looking for a new home!  A consumer should always question a prospective realtor as to which internet sites they use to market their current listings?
As previously stated make sure your real estate agent IS tech savvy and is able to give you their detailed marketing plan!

If You Waited To Sell, You May Be Brilliant!!

Many homeowners look back on 2006 house values and wonder why they didn’t sell at the height of the market. They lament the money they may have lost by not selling. However, there is another side to that story. If they did sell back in 2006, they would have still needed to live somewhere.

Looking back at the euphoria that permeated the real estate market at the time, many may have sold and moved into an even nicer, more expensive home. With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, we can now calculate the financial consequences of such a move.

Let’s look at a house that would have cost $400,000 in 2006. For the sake of this example, we are going to assume that values in this region dropped 25% since. 

Year	Price	Mortgage Rate	Principle & Interest
2006	$400,000	6.5%	$2,528.27
Today	$300,000	3.5%	$1347.13

With interest rates low as they are now and the demand for more homes on the market, it is a great time to sell.  There are bidding wars happening right now!  Why not take advantage of the current market conditions and  possibly sell your home for over the asking price!  Want more information, Wondering what your home is worth?  Contact Me!

Ten Weird Real Estate Facts You Probably Never Knew!

1. A man started with one red paper clip and traded his way to a home.
Kyle MacDonald made his first trade — one red paperclip for a fish-shaped pen — in July of 2005. Less than a year and several trades later, he finally traded a film role for a two-story farmhouse in Saskatchewan. Who knew that bartering could be so lucrative?

2. Swedes and Danes use dead bodies to heat their homes.
It’s an idea that makes a lot of sense when you think it through. Crematoriums heat up to 2,000 degrees, which can be a lot of energy going to waste — until someone got the bright idea to pump that heat into local energy companies, where it’s used to warm homes.
 
3. In parts of Germany and Poland, when a couple marries, guests break a whole lot of porcelain.
And leave it to the couple to clean up. They do this right in front of the bride’s home, usually the night before the wedding. It’s called “Polterabend” and it’s meant to symbolize the struggles the new couple will face as they build a home together, with an emphasis on working together through those struggles.
If you’re invited to participate, make sure you break only porcelain (old toilets welcome) and not glass, which stands for happiness, and therefore should never be broken.
 
4. Brass doorknobs disinfect themselves.
It’s called the oligodynamic effect: The ions in the metal have a toxic effect on spores, fungi, viruses, and other germs — eliminating the nasties within eight hours.
 
5. The original housewarming party was — literally — a housewarming.
Guests brought firewood as gifts and lit fires in all the fireplaces in the home. Obviously this warmed up the place for the family, but it was also believed to ward off evil spirits. Uninhabited homes were thought to attract roaming ghosts, so a new home would have to be rid of that bad energy before it could become a happy abode.

6. In Scotland, homeowners paint their front door red when they pay off their mortgage.
Throughout history, a red front door has symbolized many things – the ancient Hebrews believed it would protect firstborn children from the angel of death; in the early days of America, it meant the home was a safe place for travelers to stop for the night. And according to feng shui, a red front door invites positive energy into a home.

7. According to an old superstition, if a bird flies into a home, death is soon to follow.
Long before “put a bird on it” became hipster decor, birds were thought to symbolize imminent death for the home’s occupants. People have long connected birds to the spirit world, and it’s evident in our culture — just think of Edgar Allen Poe’s poem “The Raven” and Alfred Hitchcock’s movie “The Birds.”
 
8. There’s a house that levitates.
A Japanese company has developed a residential earthquake-proofing system that raises a house off of its foundation as far as 3 centimeters using just air pressure.
When an earthquake hits, compressors activate, forcing an immense amount of air under the home. The house will levitate there until the earthquake ends, then be placed gently back on the foundation.
 
9. The people of Easter Island have a word, “tingo,” which literally means “to take objects one desires from the house of a friend by gradually borrowing all of them until there’s nothing left.”
  I suspect they may not stay friends for long!

10. You can buy a missile silo.
The most popular use is to turn the old silo into a home. It might be an ugly home, but a little nonconformity never hurt anyone.