How Do I Get My Down Payment To Buy A Home?

Hello Everyone,
          Sorry for the long break.  Many of my clients have been having concerns about coming up with their down payment to buy their new home.  I came across a list of tips I would like to share with you from Trulia, one of the web's top home listing websites, to help with just this...

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Southshore Home Sale Statistics & Homeowner Advantages

How are Home Sales on the Southshore this year compared to last year?  Let's go over some facts before finding out.  Everyone is worried about the economy now days.  So much so that some very qualified Buyers are afraid to take advantage of the lowest interest rates in years and some very low home prices.  The fact remains that this will not last forever and if you are one of the people with a steady job, good credit, with the need or desire for a new home, it is time to seize the market!  Don't believe you can afford a home?  Don't know if your credit is good enough?  Well, what will it hurt to find out!  Here is a link to my list of preferred lenders - you can call one of them to find out if you are ready now, or if not, how far are you from getting there and what to do: CLICK Here for MORTGAGE LIST. 

First, let's look at the statistics.  Most of the statistics I've been posting are for the Westbank, but this time I will give you the Home Sale numbers for the whole Southshore (Click on Chart below to enlarge for Detail):

It appears that as the tax credit incentive disappeared, so did buyers.  Soon after we started out the year, we were above last year's numbers, but we have been going more down hill ever since July.

There are still plenty reasons to buy a home now.  With interest rates being at an all time low, buying now will put more money in your pocket than if you wait to buy later when rates shoot up.  Click Here to find out Why this is a Great Time to Buy a Home. 

Read this article below to find out about Homeowner tax advantages:

                                                                                                                                                                      



7 Homeowner Tax Advantages

When you’re evaluating how much home you can afford, make sure you factor in the tax advantages of homeownership. Read

Below are more articles for your information on tips to improve your credit and determining how much home you can afford:

• 

  4 Tips to Determine How Much Mortgage You Can Afford

  By knowing how much mortgage you can handle, you can ensure that home ownership will fit in your budget. Read
• 

  7 Tips for Improving Your Credit

  Here’s how to clean up your credit so you get the least-expensive home loan possible. Read

Remember, If you have any questions about any information provided here or if you need to weigh your options, feel free to give me a call.  I am here to help.

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Successful Homebuying

Buying a home doesn't have to be so stressful.  Having the right Realtor on your side to not only help with finding the right home for you, but successfully help you to complete your purchase is the key.  Here at NOLA Westbank Homes, I am committed to providing my Buyers and Sellers with up to date and accurate information to help them every step of the way.

Below you will find several articles provided by House Logic and the National Association of Realtors that will do just that.

Not sure if this is the right time to buy your new home?  This link will bring you to a brochure to help you know if this is the right time for you:  7 Reasons Why Now Is A Great Time To Buy A Home

• 

  Keep Your Home Purchase on Track

  You’ve found your dream home. Make sure missteps don’t prevent a successful closing. Read
• 

  7 Steps to a Stress-free Home Closing

  By doing homework in advance, you’ll understand what you’re asked to sign when you close the sale of your home. Read
• 

  8 Tips for Finding Your New Home

  A solid game plan can help you narrow your homebuying search to find the best home for you. Read

Visit houselogic.com for more articles like this.

Copyright 2010 NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®

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Smart Kitchen Remodeling

Most people realize that the Kitchen and Bathrooms are generally the 2 areas of the home that make a big difference when it comes to selling your home and can cost you the most money...
And if you bought your home at a discount so that you can fix these areas up for yourself to your liking, the articles I gathered below will be sure to help.

Since I was not here last week to blog (I was on vacation), I thought that I would gather a few articles this week to make up for the time lost...

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  Green Kitchen Remodeling

  If you’re ready to remodel your kitchen and want to go green, here’s how to create the healthy, energy-efficient, eco-friendly kitchen of your dreams. Read
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  7 Smart Strategies for Kitchen Remodeling

  Keep the same footprint, add storage, and design adequate lighting so you preserve value and keep costs on track. Read
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  Smart Options: Kitchen Flooring

  Choose kitchen flooring that marries your priorities—durability, sustainability, low maintenance, or an open floor plan—with the options. Read
• 
  
  

  10 Tips for Saving Energy in the Kitchen

  Maintain your large kitchen appliances is part of a smart home energy efficiency plan. Read

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4 Tips to Determine How Much Mortgage You Can Afford

By knowing how much mortgage you can handle, you can ensure that home ownership will fit in your budget.

Here are six surefire ways you can get your finances in order before you buy a home.

Homeownership should make you feel safe and secure, and that includes financially. Be sure you can afford your home by calculating how much of a mortgage you can safely fit into your budget.

Instead of just taking out the biggest mortgage a lender qualifies you to borrow, consider how much you want to pay each month for housing based on your financial and personal goals.

Think ahead to major life events and consider how those might influence your budget. Do you want to return to school for an advanced degree? Will a new child add day care to your monthly expenses? Does a relative plan to eventually live with you and contribute to the mortgage?

Still not sure how much you can afford? You can use the same formulas that most lenders use, or try another of these traditional methods for estimating the amount of mortgage you can afford.

1. The general rule of mortgage affordability

As a rule of thumb, you can typically afford a home priced two to three times your gross income. If you earn $100,000, you can typically afford a home between $200,000 and $300,000.

To understand how that rule applies to your particular financial situation, prepare a family budget and list all the costs of homeownership, like property taxes, insurance, maintenance, utilities, and community association fees, if applicable, as well as costs specific to your family, such as day care costs.

2. Factor in your downpayment

How much money do you have for a downpayment? The higher your downpayment, the lower your monthly payments will be. If you put down at least 20% of the home’s cost, you may not have to get private mortgage insurance, which costs hundreds. That leaves more money for your mortgage payment.
The lower your downpayment, the higher the loan amount you’ll need to qualify for and the higher your monthly mortgage payment.

3. Consider your overall debt

Lenders generally follow the 28/41 rule. Your monthly mortgage payments covering your home loan principal, interest, taxes, and insurance shouldn’t total more than 28% of your gross annual income. Your overall monthly payments for your mortgage plus all your other bills, like car loans, utilities, and credit cards, shouldn’t exceed 41% of your gross annual income.

Here’s how that works. If your gross annual income is $100,000, multiply by 28% and then divide by 12 months to arrive at a monthly mortgage payment of $2,333 or less. Next, check the total of all your monthly bills including your potential mortgage and make sure they don’t top 41%, or $3,416 in our example.

4. Use your rent as a mortgage guide

The tax benefits of homeownership generally allow you to afford a mortgage payment—including taxes and insurance—of about one-third more than your current rent payment without changing your lifestyle. So you can multiply your current rent by 1.33 to arrive at a rough estimate of a mortgage payment.

Here’s an example. If you currently pay $1,500 per month in rent, you should be able to comfortably afford a $2,000 monthly mortgage payment after factoring in the tax benefits of homeownership.

However, if you’re struggling to keep up with your rent, consider what amount would be comfortable and use that for the calcuation instead.

Also consider whether or not you’ll itemize your deductions. If you take the standard deduction, you can’t also deduct mortgage interest payments. Talking to a tax adviser, or using a tax software program to do a “what if” tax return, can help you see your tax situation more clearly.

Adopted from Information Provided By: G. M. Filisko

Published 2010-03-11 16:55:18

Other web resources

A worksheet on home affordability

Freddie Mac information on home affordability
G.M. Filisko is an attorney and award-winning writer who’s owned her own home for more than 20 years. A frequent contributor to many national publications including Bankrate.com, REALTOR® Magazine, and the American Bar Association Journal, she specializes in real estate, business, personal finance, and legal topics.

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Updated Westbank Statistics to include May 2010

Last week I gave you Westbank Statistics of Single Residential Home Sales for 2009 vs 2010.  I now have in the results for last month in May and added this to the charts below.  May is showing that the Inventory of homes on the market took a dip,while the average sales price is only slightly higher but the number of homes sold is more. Click on the charts for a larger image:

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Price your Home Correctly to Sell - How are Home Sales in 2010 vs 2009?

Price your Home Correctly to Sell

To those of you who own a home, you probably realize that your home is special to you.  For most people, even when it comes time to sell a home for whatever reason, they can think of many reasons why their home is worth more than their neighbor’s home.  You may be moving because your home is becoming too small for your family, or maybe it is getting too big as your children grow older and move out.  Maybe you feel it is time to move up to a nicer home, or maybe you need to move for a different reason like a job transfer.  Whatever is the reason for selling your home, you most likely have it customized to your own likes and needs.  So when it comes time to put a price tag on it, many people believe the value of their present home to be much higher than it really is.

When you price your home, you need to compare homes similar to yours that sold recently in your neighborhood.  This can be hard for many people to do accurately on their own.  Neighbors sometimes do not report accurately to you what their home really sold for.  Or you may just be remembering what the home listed for instead of the real selling price.  Then people tend to put the actual cost of upgrades they had done on the home on top of the sold price of their neighbor’s home.  In actuality, the value is not going to be dollar for dollar when it comes time to sell.  Then your favorite color for your walls and carpet may not be as attractive to many buyers as it is to you.  For these reasons, you need to seek the help of a professional and listen to their advice.  The statistics I will show you here will prove why this is so important.  These statistics also show that too many people are still pricing their homes too far above market value.

How are the sales so far in 2010 compared to 2009? Let’s take a look…

We are still in a Buyer’s Market, which means we have more supply of homes on the market than we have buyers.  All statistics below are for Single Family Residential Homes on the Westbank only, and are compiled from actual figures provided by the New Orleans MLS (Multiple Listing System) used by the Realtor Association in our area:

Above shows that on the Westbank, 10% less homes sold so far this year compared to the same time period last year.  The Average Price of homes on the Westbank for all of 2009 was $156,235 while the year to date Average for 2010 is slightly lower at $151,841 (2.8% lower). 

But look at the Average Listed Prices - The overall Average List Price of All listed Homes are much higher than the Average List Price of the homes that actually sold! 

In 2009, the overall Average Price of Homes Listed was 18% higher than the Average List Price of the Homes that actually Sold.  As of the end of April 2010, this amount decreased to 14%.

This next Chart shows How many homes actually sold in both 2009 and 2010 compared to how many listings there are on the market:

When you need to sell your home, you want your home to be in the best possible position for a Sale.  This means pricing it correctly for the condition it is in.

The following Chart shows a comparison of Homes Sold in 2009 vs 2010:

The following Chart shows the Average Number of Days on the Market of Homes that Sold and compares 2009 to 2010:

This Chart shows the amount in Inventory of Homes on the Market measured in Months.  This is found by dividing the amount of homes we have on the market by the number sold in any given time period.  This is called the “Absorption Rate”:

Even though there are a few less sales so far this year compared to last year, overall the amount of inventory we have is very similar.  We are also noticing that the amount of time on the market of the Sold Homes is dropping.  This shows signs of a slow stabilization of the market.

So if you have a Home to sell, give your Professional Realtor a call to help you determine how to get your home in the best condition you can, set the best price and get it Sold!

To see these charts clearer in a larger scale, visit our website and get a closer look at these statistics and more as we make it available.  Click on our weblink below to get to our Website:

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Safe Ads for Your Listing/ How to Avoid Being Scammed?

Recently, a colleague posted a Blog about scammers using Craigslist to try to scam people out of their money. She, just as I do, uses the internet very heavily to promote listings and therefore we both repost all of our listings on Craigslist weekly. To good Realtors, this has been thought of as part of a good marketing plan. This colleague raised the question, “Is having your home listed on Craigslist worth it?” This colleague claims she only had one real buyer in 3 years contact her from posting on Craigslist. Well let me give you some details before I give you my opinion and then you can judge for yourself.

The scenario for the scam is done by taking real Home For Sale Ads and fraudulently reposting them on Craigslist in the rental section with a very cheap monthly rental fee. The scammer claims to have had an emergency that caused him and his family to leave the country, therefore needing to rent their property. When you respond to his anonymous e-mail, he replies that they are willing to send the keys over to someone to rent the property after sending them a $500 deposit by money order. I know this scam is really happening because it has happened to a few of our listing ads and I once e-mailed a scammer myself… He actually wrote back and did exactly what I described above. He didn’t even notice that I am the same person he stole the ad from!!!

Unfortunately, we live in a world that we have to always be on the lookout for fraud. It is everywhere. Much of it can be avoided just by becoming informed and using a little common sense. Statistics show that buyers are looking for their home on the internet. The most recent publication on the “Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers 2009”, posted by the National Association of Realtors, shows that “For more than one-third of home-buyers, the first step in the home-buying process was looking online for properties” and “Nine in ten homebuyers and 94% used the internet to search for homes”. It is also known to the well known internet vehicles how valuable Craigslist is to web marketing. It is reported by several that I’ve seen, including Visual Tour, that on the web “Craigslist generates 93% of all classified ad traffic!” Therefore, we cannot ignore the internet. Scammers are going to use whatever is most popular. Right now Craigslist is Hot, but scammers can find the same information anywhere on the web to copy. We just have to be cautious not to fall into their trap. Stop and think! Why would you e-mail an anonymous person, with no proof of affiliation, and be willing to send money to them to rent a home you never saw? Most people are smart enough to pass by the property and find the real estate sign or Google the address to see it is listed by a Realtor. I not only had more than one real buyer from Craigslist in the last 3 years, but I actually helped a renter that found one of my fraudulently copied ads to find another property! Having a Realtor is important. A Realtor is your first line of defense. Not only do we have a code of ethics we are sworn to abide by, we would lose our license if we worked illegally. The Real Estate Commission is ready to help if you have a legitimate Realtor complaint.

One more point for Sellers to remember: if you are a For Sale By Owner that is posting on the internet, this can cause more of a problem for you. I noticed that scammers also use information they find in public records in attempt to make themselves appear real. If a property is listed by a Realtor, this would not work so easily when a buyer realizes a Realtor is involved.

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