Everett Homes For Sale & Real Estate Information

Our Changing Market

2008-07-24T12:32:00.000-07:00

The housing market has undergone some fundamental changes over the past few months. With the mortgage industry debacle still haunting our thoughts and the resultant increase in foreclosure properties, now, more than ever, is a time for thoughtful deliberation.

Credit is tighter, inventory is higher, and with inflation eroding our finances, it’s a time to move carefully.

Today’s market is definitely not a good one for those wishing to “flip” properties. The rules and timetables have changed quite dramatically and that requires a more conservative strategy.

For first time home buyers, the time is generally right for you to enter the housing market; if you’re looking at investment properties, not so true. While there are and likely will always be, good deals on the market, this particular market is going to require a more deliberate and calculated approach.

For investors, we recommend rather than flipping, a strategy of refurbishment and renting / leasing at this time. There are many foreclosure properties that can make this an attractive course to pursue presently.

Time to Rent or Time to Buy?

2008-02-11T13:05:00.000-08:00

This is a question that never fails to elicit strong opinions. To Start the ball rolling, just click on the title directly above this post to get the opinion of one real estate professional.

As is the rule with most real estate, it's very important to remain aware that real estate is always an intensely localized market...

Your comments are encouraged and always welcome.

Buyers' Market?

2008-01-23T16:30:00.000-08:00

Looking at the amount of inventory available, it's easy to assume that it's a buyer's market again. Easy to assume unless you carefully study this particular market...

When you really investigate, it's true that there are more properties on the market than there were a year ago. The difference now, is that properties are remaining on the market longer, and generally, prices haven't really subsided relative to the current market conditions.

Part of this what I'll call market lag, is the unwillingness of sellers to face the realities of the day. Money is tighter, buyers are fewer and more cautious. As a result, market values are being challenged a bit and competition is greater due to the increased inventory.

Combine the current market conditions with the stiffer qualification required by lenders, and you've got a market that's a little sluggish.

The one tried and true cure for a sluggish market is price reductions. Unfortunately, many sellers are slow to wake up and smell the coffee, still clinging to the wild ride of a year ago when they could pound a sign in the ground and have an offer in hand before they walked back to the house. (Okay, okay, that's a slight exaggeration, just checking to see if you're really reading this post.)

Regardless, the market is a bit slower now than it was a year ago. All things considered and in the wake of the mortgage crisis, it's still not in too bad a shape.

One thing you must keep in mind is that no matter what the market, the best properties don't last. This is just a reminder that when you do find a home you like, make an offer, don't assume that it will still be available tomorrow and you may have found your new home.

There's a saying in the industry; "If you sleep on it, you may not sleep in it". This has never been more true than it is in our present market.

Planning to Sell Your Home?

2008-01-06T21:55:00.000-08:00

If you're considering selling your home, it's a good idea to obtain a loan pre-approval for your next home before selling.

With changes in the mortgage industry, the loan amount you qualified for in the past may no longer apply. You'll want to be sure that when you do sell your home, you'll have the ability to replace it with another.

A common misconception is that you shouldn't sell your home until you find another.

The reality is that it's best to sell your home first, then find another. As a minimum, you should have your home actively listed for sale prior to looking for another home in earnest.

The benefit to you, in selling first and buying later, is that you're in the best possible position to negotiate a good price. The reason you'll be able to negotiate a good price is that you'll be able to close on your new home quickly and that may be just what a seller needs.

This places you at a premium from a sellers point of view. The seller knows he has a bona fide buyer and will be more likely to agree to a lower offer from you, versus a person who still has to sell their existing home, or worse yet, someone who doesn't even have their home listed for sale.

Your agent can help to coordinate the closings on your present home and your new home to help mitigate any possible inconvenience.

2008-01-01T12:07:00.000-08:00

How to Buy a Home With Zero Down

2007-12-13T14:36:00.000-08:00

How to Buy Your First Home With No Downpayment

As a result of all the hype surrounding changes in the mortgage industry, there’s been a lot of confusion regarding zero down and first time homebuyer loans.

The news isn’t so bleak as you’ve been led to believe. There are still loans for first time homebuyers and zero down loans are still available.

The changes relate primarily to minimum credit scores required. Those changes likely won’t affect most first time buyers provided they pay their bills on time. You’ll need to consult a mortgage professional for details on this as it may affect your personal situation.

Regardless of whether you’re a first time buyer or an old pro, it’s an excellent idea to find out how much you qualify to borrow prior to beginning your home search.

Armed with this information, and a pre-approval letter from your lender, you’re ready to begin your search.

Having a loan pre-approval letter in your pocket when you make an offer on a home places you in a very strong bargaining position. The seller, knowing that you’re a capable buyer will weigh your offer carefully in light of this information. This often results in a more favorable outcome for you. Sellers are much more likely to accept a lower offer when they know that you have the power to purchase their home.

In order to obtain a loan pre-approval (as opposed to a pre-qualification) you’ll need to meet with your mortgage professional and provide the needed documentation. This usually requires that you physically meet, and go over the information together.

Prior to your meeting, it’s also a good idea to have gone over your credit report and resolved any errors or surprises. You may obtain a free copy of your credit report by going to http://www.freecreditreport.com/ or http://www.annualcreditreport.com/

Please let us know if you have any questions, or need clarification of any of the information above. Our contact information is available at: http://www.themesarosteam.com/

The Home Buying Process

2007-12-06T14:10:00.000-08:00

10 Steps to Buying a Home in North King and Snohomish County
There are many things to consider when buying a home . Some of the most important steps to buying a home are:

Step 1: Learn the Home Buying Process

Start by learning as much as you can about how the home buying and mortgage application process works. Read as much as you can about buying a home. If you're a first time home buyer, check out the many books in your local library that offer hints to first time home buyers. Your agent can also provide you with valuable guidance.

Step 2: Find Out How Much You're Qualified to Borrow
It’s important to find out how much you can borrow before you start looking for a home. Your Mortgage Professional will assist you with this process. They'll be able to help you determine how much you can borrow based on your annual income. If necessary, your agent can help you find a mortgage professional to get this process started.

Step 3: Get Pre-approved for a Mortgage Loan
The next step is to get pre-approved for mortgage financing. This is similar to getting pre-qualified, but it’s a more formal process. Your Mortgage professional can help you get pre-approved. You will need to supply proof of your income for the pre-approval process to move forward.

Most real estate agents in North King and Snohomish County (as well as sellers) prefer potential home buyers to be pre-approved before searching for a home.

Step 4: House Hunting in North King and Snohomish County
After you’ve been pre-approved for your mortgage loan, it’s time to begin your home search. Your realtor will work with you to find the right home for your unique needs.

Step 5: Crafting Your Offer
After you’ve found the home you want, your real estate professional will work with you in formalizing the purchase contract and presenting your offer to the seller.

Your mortgage professional can provide you with a loan pre-approval letter. You’ll need a copy of this mortgage pre-approval letter to accompany your offer. You’ll also be expected to include a check for "earnest money" - the amount will depend on the price of the home you are buying. Usually, in our area, the minimum amount for the "earnest money" is generally 1 1/2 to 3% of the sales price. This amount will show that you are serious about buying the home, and will be applied toward your down payment at the close of escrow.

Step 6: Negotiation Process
If the seller accepts your first offer, congratulations, however it’s likely that the seller will come back with a counter-offer. This negotiation process can go back and forth for a while, depending on factors like the motivation of the seller, the local market conditions, and a host of other factors. Your realtor will help you through this negotiation, and make it less stressful. After all, they’ve been through this process many times before.

Step 7: Provide a Copy of the Purchase Agreement to Your Mortgage Broker
After your offer has been accepted, your agent will present your mortgage broker with a copy of the Purchase and Sale Agreement for the home.

Step 8: Work to Close the Mortgage Loan
After presenting the Purchase Agreement, you’ll need to work closely with your mortgage broker to ensure you meet all the conditions required for the closing of the mortgage loan.

Step 9: Home Inspection Prior to Closing
Within the first few days following acceptance of your offer, you're advised to have a thorough home inspection performed by a qualified and certified home inspector. A home inspection will protect you from flaws in the construction and condition of the home that are not obvious to the untrained eye. Home inspections can uncover things like foundation cracks, termite infestation and other home quality issues. There are many good home inspectors in the North King and Snohomish County area. If any problems are found, there is a provision in the contract to either withdraw the offer or request repairs.

Step 10: Close of Escrow
After the home inspection has been performed and the report has come back clean (or all the items uncovered have been repaired, or negotiated) the process will move forward to the close of escrow. In Washington, the close of escrow is pre-determined when the offer is made, the typical time is approximately 30 days following acceptance of the offer. Officially, the "closing" is when the deed is recorded, so you will be signing final documents, making the down payment and the mortgage loan will be funded prior to this. If you're from out of the area, all of this can be accomplished through fax or email.

The Mortgage Industry Meltdown Myth

2007-11-15T04:12:00.000-08:00

Web : http://www.themesarosteam.com/

Email: tmtnw@comcast.net

If you've got a pulse, its likely you've heard about the mortgage industry "melt-down". This kind of reminds me of a story I heard when I was a little kid.

Chicken Little.

No, the sky isn't falling, and the world isn't coming to an end just yet.

While it's true there has been a lot of controversy surrounding the sub-prime lending market, it hasn't caused any major waves in the Puget Sound Area and likely never will.

The reason this problem hasn't affected us dramatically here in the Pacific Northwest is simply that we have a very strong local economy, job growth is very good and our region never really got behind the sub-prime market as strongly as many other areas across the country.

It's important to understand that the real estate (and mortgage industry) markets are all very localized. Further, they're even localized within their respective markets. This is readily apparent to anyone who's looking to purchase real estate in our area.

As always, there will be "hot spots" and not so hot spots in every market, in every city across the USA. This is primarily due to the law of supply and demand. Supply and demand affects pricing, time on the market, and terms available as related to real estate.

This is an inescapable truth that we have to accept if we are to truly understand and make sense of what's going on the the financial markets. The fact of the matter is, there really is no mystery, It's simple cause and effect, or supply and demand.

Our market has enjoyed a very strong economy and it doesn't appear to be falling off anytime soon. It's this strength that has helped to insulate us from the disaster that's been predicted by the national media. Let's face it, shock value gets people's attention. It sells. Selling is what the news media is all about.

If you've been waiting for the market to correct itself, your wait is over. Our market has stabilized and suffered little as a result of the mortgage industry problems.

For more information regarding our local real estate market and the mortgage industry, please visit the following links:

Real Estate:

http://www.warealtor.org/images/Strong_market_West.pdf

Mortgage:

http://www.warealtor.org/channels/steve_francks_strong_market_editorial.pdf

It's my hope that this post will stimulate some discussion. Your comments are welcome.

How To Purchase a Home - A Guide

2007-04-18T09:48:00.000-07:00

http://www.themesarosteam.com
emailto:team@themesarosteam.com

If you're in the market for a home, whether it be your first, or fifth, there are a few things that you'll need to do in order to maximize your bargaining power.

Without question, the most important thing you can do is to sort out your finances. Start, by obtaining a copy of your credit report, and carefully screen it for errors. Yes, these people make mistakes as well, and it can cause you some embarrassing moments when you're looking for a loan.

Once you've screened your credit report and fixed any errors, it's time to get a pre-approval from a lender of your choice. There are a lot of misconceptions regarding pre-approval. This confusion is often exacerbated by the lenders themselves. Wanting to gain as much business as possible, they sometimes leave out important points to consider.

In order to clear up these misconceptions, we'd like to offer a couple of definitions:

Pre-qualification - This is the easy part. Pre-qualification may be obtained over the phone with most lenders. Pre-qualification merely requires that you verbally discuss your finances, assets and liabilities with a lender. Based on your conversation, the lender will give you an amount that you should be able to borrow. While this is good information to know, it's virtually useless when attempting to negotiate the best deal on a home purchase.
Pre-approval - Obtaining pre-approval is the process of proving to your lender that all the information you provided them during pre-qualification is complete and accurate. This will require that you meet with your lender with the documents they need to prove your financial status. Sometimes, an error on your credit report can cause them to turn down your loan request after the initial pre-qualification. It's important to do your homework by obtaining and screening your credit report before meeting with your lender.

To obtain a free copy of your credit report, go to www.themesarosteam.com and click on the button in the left hand column under the heading "Mortgage Info" then choose "Free Credit Report". You'll be taken to a site provided by the three major credit reporting agencies, and given the options of ordering your free report either online, via postal mail or over the phone.

This is a valuable service, and a free report may be obtained from each of the three agencies once a year. It's not a bad idea to do this anyway, as it is a tool you can use to help fight identity theft. Be advised, if you order from all three at once, you're done for the year.

Upon successfully obtaining a pre-approval, your lender will issue a pre-approval letter which defines the amount you are approved to borrow. There is usually a thirty day period where the pre-approval will be honored. If you go beyond thirty days, you'll have to talk to your lender and update them on any changes.

A word of caution here: Don't make any changes to your financial situation until you've successfully purchased your home. Changes to avoid that may cause your pre-approval to lose it's validity are:

Change in Employment
Student Loans
Large Purchases
Change in marital status
Co-signing on another loan

The list is by no means conclusive, but the idea is not to change your financial picture prior to getting into your new home.

Your First Investment Property

2007-04-03T11:06:00.000-07:00

Ok, you’ve decided to take the plunge and purchase a “fixer” type investment property.

A little planning is in order here, and it can save you a lot of frustration.

If this is to be your first experience with a “fixer” property it’s advisable to consider all that’s involved. Are you willing to devote the time, money and effort required to a project like this?

A little self-assessment is a good thing to do in preparing yourself for this endeavor. A good starting point is to ask yourself the following questions to determine how you wish to proceed with a project like this:

Will the skills you now have, be adequate to prepare a fixer home for market.

Do you feel that additional learning / training will be needed?

What level of disrepair are you prepared to take on?

Will you do all the work yourself?

What are your strong points with regard to home construction / remodeling?

Can you learn the skills needed to do all the work yourself, or do you plan to hire some of the work done?

How much time can you devote to the project?

How much money do you plan to devote to the project?

What is your goal with the project?

Once you’ve answered these questions to your own satisfaction, it’s time to begin your search. If you’ve determined that you’ll need additional training to do all the work yourself, excellent training can be obtained (usually free of cost) at many of the larger home center stores. Lowes’s and Home Depot hold classes on a regular basis covering most of the skills you’ll need to successfully complete the work necessary to prepare a home for market.

As always, our advice to the person attempting this for the first time is to plan on purchasing a “cosmetic fixer” as your first effort. This will give you the needed experience to determine if this is right for you, or if you decide to choose another approach.

Your questions are welcome here, and will be responded to on a timely basis.

www.themesarosteam.com

Preparing Your Home For Sale

2007-03-06T04:02:00.000-08:00

So... you've decided to place your home on the market...

Don't let the process overwhelm you; take control by using the following checklist to defuse most objections before they arise.

This is not intended to be a complete course on how to prepare your home for the market, just the top ten items we’ve compiled as the most common objections voiced by prospective buyers:

Curb Appeal – If needed, a fresh coat of paint is worth thousands. Curb appeal is number one, and fresh paint is the single most efficient way to spend your money for the best return.
Lawn, Garden & Garage– Assure that the lawn is mowed, edged and trimmed, and that all garden areas have been recently spruced up. Do some serious organizing in the garage, and move most of the contents to storage prior to showing.
Driveway and Entry – Pressure wash your driveway and sidewalks as needed. Repaint or replace your entry door, and assure that all hardware is either new, or well polished.
Roof – If your roof is more than five years old it will be an item of concern for most prospective buyers. To minimize attention, be sure that the roof is clean and any required maintenance has been done. This includes gutters, downspouts and splashblocks.
Interior – Take a close look around and remove as much furniture as possible. It’s best to plan on renting a storage unit while waiting to move into your next home.
Kitchen – Cleanliness is of utmost importance here, as is lack of clutter. Remove and store all countertop appliances. Thoroughly clean your refrigerator, range, countertops and sinks. Keep all dishes out of site and be sure the sinks are spotless, and dry. Be sure to keep trash emptied.
Interior Paint – If your interior paint is more than a few years old, or if you have young children, it’s advised to repaint here as well, or at least scrub down any high traffic areas.
Carpeting – Assure that carpets are clean. If worn, replace with a mid-range carpet in a neutral color.
Bathrooms – Next to the kitchen, these rooms receive more scrutiny than any other. Again, cleanliness is essential, as is elimination of clutter.
Windows – Clean windows make a home really stand out in the minds of buyers.

There you have it. The top ten objections dealt with before your first prospective buyer walks through your front door.

Elimination of Clutter (This includes the art gallery on the refrigerator, as well as knick-knack collections, and family photos. De-personalization is key here in order for your prospective buyers to envision this as their home, not yours.

Clean – Clean – Clean – A home can never be too clean. Remember, you’re showing your home against your competition of new homes and the distinction is often lost on prospective buyers. Assure that there are no unpleasant odors lingering from pets or cooking. Don’t attempt to mask odors, eliminate them by doing whatever is necessary.

NOTE: How you live in a home has absolutely no bearing on how your home needs to be prepared for sale. No one lives in a model home, and few would want to. However, most people prefer to see a “model home” when looking for their new home. It’s been proven that many people would rather not “look past” the deficiencies; they want to see a “model home” and it’s much more cost effective to have the work completed before your home is placed on the market.

We sincerely hope this advice helps you get your home sold quickly and for the best price. Remember, any time spent preparing your home is time saved in days on the market.

Don't hesitate to give us a call, email, or visit our site at: http://www.themesarosteam.com for more helpful information.

Zero Down Home Loans

2007-03-03T12:05:00.000-08:00

Zero down home loans are a good bet if you've got little cash available, have military service, and are eligible for FHA / VA type loans. You'll need decent credit, a desire to get out of rental properties, and into your own home.

One of the really nice things about a VA type loan is that you can use these over and over, again. The only requirement is that the original loan be paid off before using your benefits again.

Investment Properties, Fixers and Bank Repos

2007-02-19T04:40:00.000-08:00

If you've ever considered dabbling in fixer properties but didn't act on that idea due to the intense competition for these properties, all is not lost. Did you know that you could have the latest fixer properties delivered to your email inbox every day?

Our Quick Arrow delivery of properties does just that. Just go to www.everetthomesource.com and let us know what it is exactly, that you're looking for. We'll set up a search based on the criteria you enter, and you'll be the first to know of any new properties that become available.

We provide this service free of charge because we know just how stiff the competition really is for such properties.

Fill out a form on our web site, tell us the details, and we'll do the rest. Just sit back and wait for your targeted properties to appear in your email inbox.

If you'd rather have us work with you to locate a property, just email or give us a call and we'll work with you to locate the property you want. This method is usually faster since we have a very good grasp of the local market, and can frequently find properties that haven't even been listed with an agent. This is possible due to our involvement with local lending institutions, investors, and For Sale By Owner sellers.

If you've considered this, but were unsure as to how to proceed, just give us a call (or email) and we can help get you going in the right direction. Contact us ASAP for your free, no obligation counseling session.

Spring........

2007-02-10T16:48:00.000-08:00

Surprising how a few sunny days can change your attitude. This seems to be the case for both home buyers and sellers.

With the sunshine, a new crop of For Sale By Owner signs are popping up all around the area. Lots of homeowners are looking to make a move this spring.

With this, come questions from both buyers and sellers of the best plan to use when making a real estate transaction.

The most important issue to consider whether buying or selling is your own personal motivation. What do you want, and when do you want it? Are there other issues that come into play that would affect your decision regarding price, terms, location, or other variables?

These are some of the questions you'll need answered for yourself before proceeding. There are pros and cons to be considered either way. For helpful information in assisting you with these choices, please visit www.themesarosteam.com. You'll find a great deal of information ranging from getting pre-qualified to how to prepare your home for sale.

Please feel free to post any thoughts, questions or concerns and we'll get answers for you here.