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Have you just relocated to Austin or are you currently renting in the area? You should ask yourself “Is buying a residence the right thing for me to do?”. Is the buying process going to be too stressful for me to handle?
Home buying can be a very trying and emotional experience. There are pitfalls from the beginning of the process until the very end. The most important thing you can do to better handle the process is to hire a professional REALTOR®.
A professional REALTOR® can help you:
Find the right property. Because agents have access to their area multiple listing systems they take the burden away from you having to sort through magazines, newspapers and websites. Your agent can simply send you appropriate listings for you to review. Most will have detailed pictures and some even have virtual tours. A REALTOR’S® data is also in real-time, whereas most other sources are outdated.
Negotiate. Find an agent that has the ability to explain the proper offer and related forms to you and then attempt to negotiate favorable terms for you. Interview your agents before hiring one and ask them about their education, training and experience.
Guide you through each of the many steps. The home buying process has several steps and it may seem overwhelming. You have to find the home, have it inspected, appraised and surveyed. What about potential repairs and dealing with seller’s who have their own representation? An experienced professional will make you feel at ease at most every stage. Even I, with 20 years experience, have to tackle new situations on a regular basis.
To discuss any of the topics above, feel free to contact Jeff Plotkin, a Texas REALTOR, attorney and CPA. Jeff Plotkin, is VP of Habitat Hunters REALTORS of Austin. Jeff may be reached at plotkin@habitathunters.com or 512-517-4327. Please visit www.habitathunters.com to learn more.
April 5th, 2011
Whether you are relocating, purchasing a new property or simply needing to raise funds quick, it is sometime necessary to sell your home fast. Unfortunately, that goal may be easier said than done as we move into a slower seasonal winter period coupled with difficulties in the financing world. Don’t despair as there are several steps that may provide you with some speed that others in the market will not achieve.
PRICE YOUR HOME RIGHT. One of the most important steps you can take is to price your home at, or even a bit below market price. This will help insure that any buyers in your area will view your home. Hopefully, they will see that it is a great value and choose to purchase it over your neighbors.
TACKLE THOSE JOBS. Clear clutter and debris from inside your house, garage and yard. Take a thorough look at every aspect of your house with your agent and make a list of items that need attention before putting the house on the market. You will be surprised how much working light bulbs, no leaky faucets and a clean crisp appearance will do to help your house move quick.
Consider Investing in a Pre-Inspection. For approximately $400, a pre-inspection may be worth considering. It will help demonstrate the condition of the home in the eyes of an independent licensed inspector to prospective buyers and help ease their minds. Further, the report serves as a great punch list for you to make the home ready for market.
HIRE AN EXPERIENCED AGENT. Over the years and even today, people try to sell their homes on their own. After failing and waiting months, many then turn to an agent. However damage has already been done like losing buyers to homes that were properly marketed and paying several months in extra mortgage payments, interest and taxes. Consider going with a pro from the start.
Contact:
Jeffrey S. Plotkin, VP of Habitat Hunters, Inc.
Texas REALTOR, ATTORNEY & CPA
503 W 30th
Austin, TX 78705
Phone 512-517-4327
e-mail Plotkin@habitathunters.com www.habitathunters.com
March 31st, 2011
Have you just relocated to Austin or are you currently renting in the area? You should ask yourself “Is buying a residence the right thing for me to do?”. How do I avoid buying the “wrong” home?
Home buying can be a very trying and emotional experience. There are pitfalls from the beginning of the process until the very end. The most important thing you can do to better handle the process is to hire a professional REALTOR®.
Do not just hire any agent. Find a REALTOR® you feel comfortable with and who will not try
to push you into the wrong house. Patience and persistence must win out. Sometime it takes months to find the correct home.
Avoid settling! For example, if you really believe you need 2 bathrooms do not settle for 1. If you like to entertain, stay clear of houses with only one dining area and small kitchens. If you are thinking about adding a dog or a child to the family, be sure and look for spacious yards and quiet streets.
Remember, you are buying a home note only to live in but also to possibly resell some day. Therefore, carefully plan and think about your needs, now, and in five years. Also, think about trends that may help you easily resell in the future (i.e. three car garages, large open kitchens, lots of closets).
To discuss any of the topics above, feel free to contact Jeff Plotkin, a Texas REALTOR®, attorney and CPA. Jeff Plotkin, is VP of Habitat Hunters REALTORS of Austin. Jeff may be reached at plotkin@habitathunters.com or 512-517-4327. Please visit www.habitathunters.com to learn more.
March 31st, 2011
After more than two years of misery in the housing market, the worst may finally be over.
A handful of recent developments in the mortgage market all point to an easing of lending standards, which have been onerously high since 2008. Private lenders and the federal government have reinvigorated the jumbo mortgage market, making bigger loans more available to more borrowers. And in general, would-be homeowners can now qualify for a loan with a lower credit score and make a smaller down payment – in some cases, as low as 5%. Those moves, taken together, mean that more borrowers have access to mortgages, a necessary precondition for housing to rebound.
“When you see those moves on the upswing, it gives you a hint of what’s coming later on,” says Chip Cummings, president of Northwind Financial, a consulting company for mortgage and realtor firms.
Of course, these are only the first signs of what could be a very long recovery. So far, the changes in the private lending market are aimed strictly at the best loan applicants, those with credit scores of 700 or higher. Riskier borrowers are still undesirable in the eyes of the banks – even the Federal Housing Administration has raised the floor on credit scores for prospective applicants. And without a drop in unemployment and other economic improvements, demand for the new mortgages may not keep pace with supply. But the moves do suggest that lenders, at least, are more willing – and the easier it is to get a loan, the easier it is to get a house.
Here’s a closer look at the three changes.
More jumbo mortgages
Prior to 2007, jumbo mortgages – any loan over $417,000 in average markets – made up 22% of the mortgage market. Today, they’re about a 6% sliver. But private lenders are getting back into the jumbo market. These supersized loans are up 3% from January to May, according to the most recent data available from CoreLogic, a mortgage-data company. Wells Fargo (WFC: 25.77*, +1.22, +4.96%) almost doubled its jumbo lending to $3.7 billion in the second quarter (compared to a year ago), and Chase (JPM: 38.17*, +0.48, +1.27%) is up 16% for the same period, with plans to keep growing.
The sheer size of these loans suggests more risk for the lender. (If the borrower defaults, the lender could take a bigger hit.) But for the high-quality borrower, it’s risk the banks now seem willing to take, says Keith Gumbinger, a vice president at HSH Associates, a mortgage-data tracking firm. If foreclosures are low, private lenders are likely to extend jumbo mortgages to a broader group of borrowers in the next year or so. Meanwhile, smaller local lenders have also gotten into the market, Cummings says.
For better borrowers, this means more options. A Fannie- or Freddie-backed mortgage can go up to $729,750, but private lenders can go higher when they keep the loan on their books – an advantage for someone house-hunting in expensive cities like New York, Boston or Washington (and a potential boon for those housing markets overall). Interest rates on jumbo mortgages backed by private lenders are about 1% higher than those backed by the government.
Smaller down payments
As a consequence of the mortgage meltdown, even qualified borrowers found themselves scrambling to make hefty down payments – commonly 20% or more. But over the last year, that threshold has dropped, making mortgages more available to people with less available cash. For new mortgages, the average loan-to-value ratio – how much people borrow relative to the appraised value of their house – has been slowly increasing, a sign that buyers are financing a bigger proportion of the purchase price.
Of course, the no-money-down days are unlikely to return any time soon. As of May, borrowers were still putting down 28% of the purchase price on average – still substantial, but also significantly less than the 34% down payment they made the year before, according to CoreLogic. And that’s going to continue to drop, says Scott Stern, CEO of Lenders One, a mortgage banker cooperative, as more 10%-down loans become available. “They’ve been increasing in availability within the past six months and we expect continued loosening,” he says.
Lower credit scores
Similarly, a borrower’s credit no longer needs to be completely spotless in order to get a loan. The requirements are still high but seem to be creeping down: In May, the average borrower’s credit score stood at 757, eight points lower than it was a year prior. But even borrowers with scores in the mid to high 600s can qualify for a mortgage these days, says Stern. “As recently as a year ago, that credit was almost unavailable.”
All these changes, small as they may be, indicate that mortgage lenders are willing to take on more risk and test the boundaries of what makes a high-quality borrower. And as the appetite for lending increases, more applicants could qualify – a good sign the housing market is moving in the right direction.
Published October 8, 2010
October 20th, 2010
The Austin-Round Rock area tied for first on a list of large metros where the recession is easing.
Central Texas tied Washington D.C. in the Forbes.com ranking that compiles job growth and real estate industry improvement, among other indicators. Washington has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the nation, 6.2 percent, and the city produced more goods and services than another other in 2008.
Austin has also maintained relatively lower jobless rates, though the number increased to 7.6 percent last month from 7 percent, according to the Texas Workforce Commission. Statewide, the rate was unchanged at 8.2 percent from December to January, compared to 9.7 percent nationally.
Austin and Washington D.C. also benefit from their high government job generation, according to Forbes. The number of Central Texas jobs increased just shy of 1 percent between 2007 and 2009, more than any other city included in the research.
Dallas came in second on the ranking behind Austin. The number of jobs there are expected to increase more than 7 percent in the next three years. San Antonio and Houston also made the top 10 list.
Job growth projections were based on information from Moody’s. The listing also considered median home sale price changes and Metropolitan Gross Domestic Product.
March 19th, 2010
Real Estate Outlook: Positive Signs of Recovery
by Kenneth R. Harney
Positive signs on employment and national economic growth should start being felt in the housing market in the coming several months, say top economists.
The Labor Department reports that there were 2.7 million job openings last month — 200,000 more than in the same survey the month before.
Meanwhile, the consensus forecast among private and government economists for the main barometer of the U.S. economy’s health, gross domestic product or GDP, is for a very solid 3 percent during the first quarter.
Alan Levenson, chief economist for T.Rowe Price Associates, said the latest reports are “indicative of a labor market and economy that is in the midst of recovery.”
That’s hugely important for real estate because expanding employment created by a rowing national economy are the essential fuels to power housing demand and sales.
Even though harsh weather conditions knocked the wind out of pending home sales and real estate shopping in many areas during January and February, analysts say the spring and summer market should be strong.
Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, says the $8,000 and $6,500 federal home purchase tax credits that expire at the end of April for signed contracts — and the end of June for closed deals — should squeeze a lot of sales volume into the spring and early summer months.
Assuming slow but steady improvement in the jobs picture, Yun forecasts a solid second half of the year as well.
On the home pricing front, evidence continues to mount that in most parts of the country, home values have either bottomed out or have turned positive.
The most recent Case- Shiller index numbers on the top 20 metropolitan markets bear that out — and last week’s Zillow home value report found values essentially flat on a national average basis. They were down by just three tenths of a percent, but up in some major markets of note.
For example, Boston’s home values are up nearly two percent year-over-year, according to Zillow, and Los Angeles, San Diego, Denver and Philadelphia have registered gains after long periods of negative numbers.
Two other statistical hints that conditions are improving: The difference between listed prices and selling prices of home nationwide is now smaller than it’s been in a year, according to real estate research site Trulia.com.
And Realty Trac fond that foreclosures, which are clearly still a massive drag on the market — dropped by two percent last month — the second straight month of decline.
In a tough market, I guess we should appreciate even the smallest of improvements.
Published: March 15, 2010
March 19th, 2010
Cities Where the Recession Is Easing
by Francesca Levy
Friday, March 5, 2010
In these metro areas, jobs are projected to grow and the housing crisis is stabilizing.
In recent weeks business in Washington, D.C. ground to a halt as record snowfalls pummeled the area and a sparring match over national health care reform hijacked the political conversation. But the nation’s capital is getting something right: It is emerging from the recession better than any other major city in the country, according to research by Forbes.
Jobs in Washington are growing quickly, and in 2008 the city produced more in goods and services than almost anywhere in the country.
D.C. and nine other cities (among them: Boston, Los Angeles and a host of metros in Texas) are best surviving the downturn in part because they specialize in industries that are relatively insulated from economic volatility. Federal and state jobs all but guarantee the health of a local economy, and nowhere is there more government-related work than in Washington. The city has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country, at 6.2%, and its output amounts to $362.3 billion, more than three times the average for the country’s largest cities.
Click here to see the full list below
It also saw a more modest slide in home sale prices than many other metros in late 2009. Cities where the recession’s effects are lessening either never felt the full brunt of the housing crisis, or have proven resilient enough that demand is returning sooner than elsewhere in the country. These strong housing markets further enrich the local economy by feeding a host of secondary industries, like construction, lending and household services.
Uncle Sam as a Recession Shield
Government spending hasn’t hurt Austin, Texas, either. It’s the seat of state government and tied for No. 1 on our list of 10 cities best surviving the recession. Jobs have been lost nearly everywhere in the last three years, but between December 2007 and December 2009 the number of jobs in Austin rose by 0.98%; more than any of the other major cities we looked at. And by three years from now, jobs are expected to grow by 8.09%, the second-best job outlook on our list. Third on the list is Dallas, home to a thriving technology and energy sector, where jobs are projected to jump 7.19% in three years.
Behind the Numbers
To find the cities where the recession was easing, Forbes looked for a relatively low unemployment rate, using December 2009 figures, the most recent available, and the rate of job growth between December 2007 and December 2009, both from the Bureau of Labor statistics. We sought cities where economists expected that jobs would keep growing, based on the three-year job-growth forecast from Moody’s Economy.com; we also looked for metros with the highest positive change in median sale price for single-family homes between the third and fourth quarter of 2009, according to the National Association of Realtors. Finally, we factored in Metropolitan Gross Domestic Product–the dollar amount of goods and services produced within a metro area–provided for 2008, the most recent available, by Moody’s.
Forbes ranked the 40 largest Metropolitan Statistical Areas for which it had comprehensive data (that excludes Nashville, Tennn. and Detroit, Mich.) on all these measures, then averaged the rankings for a final score.
Good Fortune in the Lone Star State
If one state is a poster child for economic recovery, it’s Texas, home to four of the 10 cities on our list. There’s more to why Austin, Dallas, San Antonio and Houston are faring well than just the state’s energy industry. The tech, government and education industries supplement the oil state’s riches. As for housing, cities in Texas didn’t see the same run-up in home prices and rampant speculation that led to the spectacular bubble burst elsewhere in the country.
“The housing market got lucky, if you want to look at it that way,” says James P. Gaines, research economist at the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University. “We didn’t have excessive overbuilding, so we don’t have a big overhang of unsold new homes, and because Texas has among most affordable housing in the country, the demand sustained.”
Like Austin and Dallas, Houston, tied for No. 4 on the list, is expected to experience a three-year 7.03% rise in jobs. But nowhere are jobs projected to grow more than in San Antonio, where four military bases should help drive its expected 8.32% increase.
Hope Where Housing Markets Stay Afloat
California was perhaps hit hardest by the housing crisis. In spite of that, Los Angeles rises above the rest of the state, and other big cities in the country, to No. 9 on our list. Although the Golden State’s real estate woes began earlier and were more pronounced than in large parts of the country, they began easing sooner.
Los Angeles has strong banking and finance industries and a housing market that, while it suffered from a major pricing bubble and bust, has seen a resurgence of demand. After falling to a median $311,100 in the second quarter of 2009, home sale prices there jumped 11% in the third quarter and another 2% between the third and fourth quarter of 2009 to a median $342,700, according to the National Association of Realtors, making number four in sales price improvement out of our 40 cities.
Although it’s across the country, Boston, No. 8 on the list, has some of the same characteristics that make Los Angeles recession-resistant. Like the City of Angels, it is a cosmopolitan city and an educational center, chock full of amenities and jobs. Unemployment is below the 9.7% national average, at 8.2%, and the city pumped out a healthy $284.3 billion GDP in 2008.
Bright Lights in the Midwest
Many former manufacturing centers in the Midwest suffer from pronounced economic troubles that began before–and will likely extend beyond–the country’s recession. But that’s not the case in two Midwest cities, Minneapolis and Kansas City, Nos. 4 and 10 on our list, respectively. Incidentally, Kansas City has extra cause to celebrate its appearance on this list: it’s also No. 13 on Forbes’ list of the 20 most miserable cities. High taxes, crime rates and poorly performing sports teams landed it on that list, which ranked cities on nine metrics, most of them non-economic (for example, pollution, government corruption and commute times). A promising economic outlook should give Kansas City residents reason to feel less miserable.
In Minneapolis unemployment is a relatively low 7.2%. The Twin Cities have moved away from their manufacturing roots and are headquarters to major companies including Cargill and General Mills. Although Kansas City, Missouri’s largest city, has lost jobs in the last three years, it has done so at a slower rate than most other cities, only dropping 2.7%, thanks in part to a strong education sector and a diversity of industry.
The cities quickest to emerge from the recession benefit from evergreen industries like government, defense, education and technology–sectors that will always provide work, even in a national slump. In addition, these 10 cities are diverse; their fortunes aren’t invested solely in one industry, giving them good prospects for the future.
1. (Tie) Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, D.C.-Va.-Md.-W.Va.
IStock
Unemployment Rank: 1
Home Price Rank: 26
Metropolitan Gross Domestic Product Rank: 3
Three-Year Job Growth Forecast Rank: 17
Job Growth, 2007-2009 Rank: 3
1. (Tie) Austin-Round Rock, Texas
IStock
Unemployment Rank: 3
Home Price Rank: 13
Metropolitan Gross Domestic Product Rank: 31
Three-Year Job Growth Forecast Rank: 2
Job Growth, 2007-2009 Rank: 1
3. Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, Texas
IStock
Unemployment Rank: 9
Home Price Rank: 25
Metropolitan Gross Domestic Product Rank: 11
Three-Year Job Growth Forecast Rank: 3
Job Growth, 2007-2009 Rank: 5
4. (Tie) Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, Minn.-Wis.
IStock
Unemployment Rank: 5
Home Price Rank: 12
Metropolitan Gross Domestic Product Rank: 14
Three-Year Job Growth Forecast Rank: 13
Job Growth, 2007-2009 Rank: 18
4. (Tie) Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, Texas
March 9th, 2010
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