Protect yourself with a new construction inspection

Builders of new homes offer or are required to warrant their work for a specified period. Municipal inspections are generally required during different stages to "ensure the life, health, safety, and welfare of the public" but even if something is missed, the ultimate responsibility for building to code belongs to the builder, even if the …

Higher Interest Rates May be the Help You Need

Like opening and closing a faucet increases and decreases the water flow, lowering interest rates increases home sales and raising interest rates decreases home sales. When home sales increase during periods of limited inventory, demand increases and prices go up. Contrarily, when home sales decrease, demand could lessen and prices moderate. There is opportunity with …

Shopping Mortgage Rates

Nobel Prize recipient, Richard Thaler, in his research into seemingly irrational economic behaviors, "found that consumers generally search too little, get confused while evaluating complex alternatives, and are slow to switch from past choices, even if it costs them." "Why are consumers leaving money on the table?" Based on this behavior, a borrower securing a …

Who Benefits from Selling a Home “As Is”?

A person’s decision to sell their home comes with a lot of other decisions causing an owner to stress or procrastinate. Early in the process, the owner will consider selling the home "As Is" to avoid the looming issues that accompany selling a home. From a seller’s standpoint, "as is" means the buyer will purchase …

A Lesson on Housing from the 80’s

Doing nothing may be a lot more costly than doing something. With rates twice what they were in 2021 and the first half of 2022, many buyers are sitting on the sideline. For some, it has to do with not being able to afford the home they want at today’s mortgage rates and for others, …

Make Your Home Offer the Most Appealing

Sales in February 2023 were up 14.5% month over month and still down 22.6% year over year according to the NAR Housing Snapshot. The median sales price dipped 0.2% to $363,000 and there are 2.6 months supply of homes on the market compared to 1.7 months a year ago. "Inventory levels are still at historic …

A New Perspective on the Housing Market

The housing market in 2021 and part of 2022 was anything but normal. Mortgage rates were at all time lows and may never reach those levels again. Double-digit appreciation drove prices to new heights. Low inventories fueled by high buyer demand made multiple offers a normal expectation. As we look at the market snapshots provided …

Rethinking Backup Offers

Like with any professional, there are tools and techniques available to help with particular situations. They might be more popular at certain times and might even be put aside or forgotten at others. For real estate professionals, one of those is the backup offer. In a situation where there are multiple offers, the seller can …

Playing Monopoly Is Good Homework

If you’ve ever been in a Monopoly game after most of the properties have been purchased and developed, it can be a relief to land on Free Parking, knowing the dice must rotate to the next player giving you a respite from paying rent. Like the game, in real life, it would be nice to …

Getting Comfortable with the New Normal Mortgage Rates

The biggest shock to homebuyers is the soaring mortgage rates of 2022 that doubled in one year resulting in approximately 15 million mortgage ready buyers displaced from the market due to affordability issues. As of February 23, 2023, the 30-year fixed rate mortgage was at 6.5%. While that is twice as high as it was …