WABROKER

Archive for the ‘House Values’ Category

Its important to get an accurate house appraisal whether you are buying or trying to refinance. Unfortunately the new guidelines and underwriting rules that apply to house appraisals make it harder for agents or their clients to have any input.

Once upon a time you could talk to the appraiser and tell him what your purpose was in ordering the appraisal and he or she would be able to tell you if you were in the range of possibilities or if you were being over optimistic in your expectations.

Now the rules make it almost impossible to have this friendly chat and the only way to find out what a house appraisal will be is to pay for it and hope for the best.

To make things even more difficult many appraisers are chosen from a pool of appraisers that work for an appraisal management company. These companies are generally very lender friendly and the appraisers working for them are under pressure to have the appraisal favor the lenders as opposed to being actually unbiased. Read the rest of this entry »

The answer to the question “ How much house can I afford” is a bit tricky. The simple answer is to talk to an honest and capable loan officer and get pre-qualified. This should take 24-72 hours from the time you hand the loan officer – 3 month’s worth of bank statements, the last two year’s of W-2′s and the most recent month of pay stubs.

But what if the bank qualifies you for more than you want to spend each month?

The main reasons that people give me for buying a home are always emotional and not rational. This is a quick way to end in disaster. Bills have to be paid with money not with hope, pride or good feelings.

Not being able to pay your bills will quickly take away your hope, pride, and your good feelings.

Better questions to ask yourself are: Read the rest of this entry »

House values should be steady and flat for some time to come with possibly a slight decline. The only reason house values don’t plummet is because lenders are not allowing properties to come on the market so as to keep the inventory of available homes steady in regards to the demand.

Of course control like this is difficult at best and there will be some fluctuations but by and large the holding back of inventory from immediate sale helps to prop up not the market but rather the prices the lenders receive for their foreclosures.

If every house in foreclosure that was seriously delinquent (over 3-5 missed payments) was suddenly made available for sale we would see another 20-50 percent drop in prices. The net effect of holding back the inventory is that the recovery will be much longer in coming.

At last check even the Chairman of the group of foreign nationals that control the banking cartel, which we call the Federal Reserve, stated recovery may be as much as Read the rest of this entry »

If you need an appraisal for the purpose of obtaining a loan then  someone will be paying for the  appraisal inspection.

It doesn’t have to be you though.

1.Try and negotiate for the seller to reimburse you with a closing cost credit.

2. Or ask the lender to pay it from the fees they will be earning.

To get a lender to pay any fees on your behalf the issue should be discussed at the time you are getting your loan approval.

Lenders have more than one way to do most things and discussing it early in the process gives you the best chances for success in getting this concession from your lender.

Your strongest bargaining position is to tell the loan officer Read the rest of this entry »

Before you buy ask yourself why you are buying.

1. There is little likelihood of appreciation for the next few years.

2. The tax benefits never came close to offsetting the interest costs of the home loan.

3.  Pride of ownership gives little real value especially when you don’t actually own the home.

If you have a loan on your house you are not a home owner, the bank is a homeowner in any real sense and you are renting it from them with the extra burden of having to pay the taxes and make all necessary upgrades and repairs at your own expense.

Would you rent a house on these terms?  Most of us Read the rest of this entry »

The value of a thing,  (this is especially true of house values) is determined on any given day by the amount that a cash buyer is willing to pay for the thing on that same day.

When the number of things for sale exceeds the number of buyers there is usually a corresponding drop in price to attract the limited number of buyers to the limited number of properties where the sellers are motivated to sell and not merely hoping to sell.

Because the market is  over loaded with inventory ( properties for sale) and the number of buyers is decreasing this can only put downward pressure on prices.

Since all the bailout plans so far have failed to stem the tide of foreclosures this inventory is  still increasing each day.

In spite of all the bailout plans the total number of buyers is decreasing each day as more and more potential homeowners lose jobs or pay to the recession that  we are experiencing.

So if you are in a position where you have to sell, Read the rest of this entry »