Here’s to kids and all the things that make a house a home.

How to Simplify the Home Closing Process

It is common to feel anxious while completing the home buying process and the last thing one wants is a last-minute surprise while they’re closing on their home. The closing process is the final hurdle you’ll face after you have agreed to purchase a home, however it is important to be prepared to avoid obstacles that may delay the sale. There are several steps which can help ensure the closing process goes smoothly.

Understand the closing procedure

It is crucial to fully understand the process of closing negotiations prior to entering into the closing. By knowing what to expect, one can ask appropriate questions and clarify aspects that they may not understand. It’s also to ensure that all parties are kept in the loop. Human error is natural. According to MSN Real Estate, details that get lost in the cracks can lead to delayed or canceled home sales. For this reason, it is extremely important to work closely with your agent so that you understand what to expect. Remember, no question is a silly question! Your agent is there to help and has the experience and understanding of what to expect during the closing process. They will also assist you with the important step of identifying and gathering all documents that should be brought to closing negotiations.

Review documents

Missed details in loan documents can either lead to mistakes in the paperwork or leave buyers with a product or payment scenario they are unhappy with. Reading loan documents may seem time-consuming, but it’s the best way to resolve potential problems or misunderstandings before they occur. Lenders are required to provide buyers with their loan documents, by request, at least 24 hours before the closing, so re-read the contents to make sure you understand what you’re signing.

In addition, make sure you have all that you need the morning of closing, including your check. The loan documents should spell out the amount required to bring to the closing. In some cases checks may need to be certified in order for the lender to accept it. You may have the option to wire transfer the funds, but this can take longer and delay closing, thus having a check ready may be in the your best interest. In addition to the check, bring a photo ID copy, homeowners insurance policy and good faith estimate, on top of loan documents.

Further Proof the Real Estate Market Is Coming Back

Last week, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) released their Pending Sales Report which showed that contracted sales were 12.8% higher than the same month last year and higher than any time since sales were impacted by the Homebuyers’ Credit back in April of 2010. The index stood at 101.4 which represents a level that is “historically healthy” (see methodology below).

Here is a graph showing pending sales over the last twelve months:

The Pending Home Sales Index is a leading indicator for the housing sector, based on pending sales of existing homes. A sale is listed as pending when the contract has been signed but the transaction has not closed, though the sale usually is finalized within one or two months of signing.

The index is based on a large national sample, typically representing about 20 percent of transactions for existing-home sales. In developing the model for the index, it was demonstrated that the level of monthly sales-contract activity parallels the level of closed existing-home sales in the following two months.

An index of 100 is equal to the average level of contract activity during 2001, which was the first year to be examined as well as the first of five consecutive record years for existing-home sales; it coincides with a level that is historically healthy.

-Taken from KCMBlog.com

Here’s to Driveways

When you look for a home chances are the driveway isn’t at the forefront of your mind. But I think when you look back at your childhood and even today you might be surprised to see just how many memories of home happen on the driveway. To test my theory I posted a question to my social circle on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ to share their favorite driveway memory. The response were entertaining to say the least.

Some friends talked about chalk drawings in the summertime or playing 4-square, hopscotch, and jump rope with friends. Others remembered childhood lemonade stands at the end of the driveway as they tried to flag down passers by for a 25 cents cup of Crystal Light. Washing cars, shoveling snow and even a first kiss were all memories made on the driveway.

The most shared driveway encounter had to do with learning to drive and amazingly quite a number of my friends have trouble driving on the driveway. The best story comes from my friend, Tami Meara, who shared this encounter:

The day before I graduated from drivers ed, my mom picks me up from drivers ed and I beg her to let me drive home. She says no. Then we stop at the gas station by our house and again I beg her to let me drive home. She (regretfully) lets me. I do fine until we get to our driveway. I turn into the driveway going way too fast headed for the garage. I turn to go into the middle stall of a 3 car garage and i cut it way too close to the passenger side. I side swipe the car along the brick pillar of the garage. My mom is screaming STOP! then the passenger side mirror bends back shattering the passenger window. So in a panic, I hit the gas instead of the brake! We went about 40 mph right into the house. No lie…I parked the car in our kitchen.

Now that is a memory of home that shall not soon be forgotten. From my small sampling of stories received almost 25% of responses talked about crashing the car into a garage. Evidently, it’s a rite of passage for high school drivers.

For me, I view driveways under a very strict criteria: how will it work as a basketball court. My driveway growing up was the ultimate place for basketball. It was wide enough to allow for shots from the side and deep enough that I could practice NBA length 3 pointers. I would guess I shot close to 100,000 shots on that driveway growing up. It’s where I learned how horrible a free throw shooter I am and fine tuned an alley-oop cartwheel dunk. It was my home court where every buzzer beater was made and I reenacted every memorable Michael Jordan move.

A driveway is more than just a place to park the car or a burden to shovel in the long winter months. It’s a blacktop playground that’s used by toddlers to teenagers alike as a place for memories of home.

Here’s to driveways and all the things that make a house a home.

 

Picture courtesy of Chagrin Valley Paving

Find some forgotten square footage in the basement

Sometimes, when faced with what we shall euphemistically describe as a  basement with issues, a real estate agent’s natural inclination might be just  to shut the door quietly and tiptoe away, hoping that a buyer will fall in love  with the rest of the house.

But in space-crazed Manhattan,  every inch counts — even a lower level that’s so paint-splattered that it might  have caused artist Jackson  Pollock to recoil.

Except that this homeowner wasn’t using all of that valuable lower-level  square footage — about 800 square feet, total — for any of those rather  traditional purposes. This was a studio for a painter, one whose canvases were  not filled with delicately daubed idyllic landscapes.

“His paint was a mixture of glue and acrylic and shellac and all  sorts of things — it was incredibly sticky,” Swift said. “It was  even all over the powder room, because that was where he cleaned his brushes.”

This lower-level space, which was used as an artist’s studio, presents a serious challenge for the seller. Photo courtesy of Kathryn Swift.

Swift, who also does home staging, convinced the seller that the lower  level had to be portrayed as “livable” and that would-be buyers  needed to be able to realize how they might use the space.

To save costs, the homeowner installed sheet-vinyl flooring over the  existing paint extravaganza in the would-be recreation room.

“It’s not the most high-end flooring, but it looked so much better,”  she said. “Four hundred square feet doesn’t seem like a lot, but to have a  bonus room in New York  — that’s pretty nice. You could have two work stations there, or a recording  studio.”

The hard work came at the hands of a painter who laboriously scraped the  paint splatters that covered every wall surface in the 800-square-foot space,  then applied a neutral color. Two couches that seemed to be too big in their  existing spots upstairs came down to help create the “recreation room”  feeling.

“It’s a 1,600-square-foot duplex, a unique property, with the main  living area and bedrooms on the street level,” explained Kathryn Swift, an  agent with Sotheby’s International Realty in New York.

“Downstairs, there’s a 400-square-foot recreation room, plus a  separate media room or home office and a half bath.”

Sheet-vinyl flooring, some wall-scraping and a fresh coat of paint creates livable space from this space’s previous use as an artist’s studio. Photo courtesy of Kathryn Swift.

The bigger lesson, she said, is that home sellers mustn’t squander a  home feature — in this case clean, usable square footage — in a market that  is hot for that one feature.

“If it’s a ranch-style house where your living is all one level and  you have a sprawling, unfinished basement, you may be able to overlook what’s  down there,” she said. “But this apartment was 800 square feet on the  main floor and 800 on the lower level — half the entire space.”

After the makeover, the owner opted, instead, to rent out the unit, and  found a tenant easily — one who was attracted, no doubt, by the possibilities  of that lower-level space.

And he’s no longer indulging his artistic inclinations in his own  residence.

“Oh, he has a separate studio now,” she said. “That  certainly has changed.”

Article Courtesy of Inman News by Mary  Umberger

NAR: 2012 home sales will be strongest in past 5 years

February pending sales up 9.2% from year ago

By Inman News, Monday, March 26, 2012.

 

The National Association of Realtors is predicting existing-home sales will jump 7 to 10 percent in 2012 to the highest level in five years, based on an “uneven but higher sales pattern” so far this year.

Pending home sales fell a seasonally adjusted 0.5 percent from January to February, which was up 9.2 percent from the same time a year ago, NAR said today in releasing its latest Pending Home Sales Index.

Last week, NAR reported a similar trend for existing-home sales, which were down 0.9 percent from January to February, but up 8.8 percent from a year ago.

The pending sales data released today provides a glimpse into more recent trends, because it tracks homes that were under contract in February — deals that will in most cases be finalized within one or two months.

NAR said 31 percent of Realtors experienced contract failures in February, in some cases because buyers’ mortgage applications were rejected or because appraisals came in below the negotiated price.

In the Northeast, NAR’s index slipped a seasonally adjusted 0.6 percent from January but was up 18.4 percent from a year ago.

The Midwest saw a month-over-month gain of 6.5 percent and a 19 percent gain from a year ago.

Pending home sales fell 3 percent in the South from January to February, but were up 7.8 percent from a year ago.

In the West, the index declined 2.6 percent from January to February and was 1.8 percent below the index rating in February 2011.

In its latest economic forecast, NAR predicts existing-home sales will total 4.65 million in 2012, up 9.1 percent from last year. That forecast assumes that the U.S. economy will grow at a 2.3 percent annual rate and add 2.7 million jobs this year.

 

Americans More Confident in Housing Recovery

Potential homebuyers and sellers are growing more confident that the U.S. real estate market will begin to recover as soon as next year, according to a Real Estate survey.

Sixty percent of people surveyed last month had positive views about the housing market and 70 percent expected property values to improve over the next two years, according to the survey released today. About 63 percent of respondents said they considered real estate a good investment, up from 52 percent last year, the Irvine, California-based broker reported.

This is the second consecutive year consumer confidence in housing has improved, signaling the property market may “finally be climbing out of its deep hole,” Stephen Van Anden, chief marketing officer for a large National Real Estate Franchise, said in a telephone interview.

While foreclosures and declining home prices have contributed to a six-year real estate slump, rising employment and low mortgage rates may be bolstering buyer confidence. The Federal Reserve, in its regional Beige Book business survey issued Feb. 29, said the housing market “has improved somewhat in most districts” with Boston, Cleveland, Atlanta and Dallas among cities reporting increases in home sales.

More than 90 percent of respondents in the survey said the housing crisis is a reminder they must be more cautious in buying and selling property. About 80 percent of people polled said homeownership is important to them, while 15 percent said the economic downturn made owning a home less important.

“There is still a desire for homeownership, and as we see continued improvement in the job market, there is going to be an unleashing of pent-up demand,” Van Anden said.

Survey respondents were 25 to 64 years old with a household income of at least $50,000, and either recently bought or sold a home or are considering a purchase or sale. The Real Estate Franchise collected responses from 1,251 people.

-taken from Coldwell Banker Blog

Wichita IS The Real Estate Market To Watch: We Are Moving Up!

Wichita FACTS:

Total population (2010): 623,061

Median sales price (Q3 2011): $120,900

% ch. median sales price (Q3 2010-Q3 2011): 5.5%

Sales volume (# units sold Nov. 2010-Oct. 2011): 9,002

% ch. sales volume (Nov. 2010-Oct. 2011 vs. Nov. 2009-Oct. 2010): -10.8%

Sales per population (Nov. 2010-Oct. 2011): 1 sale per 69 people

Unemployment rate (Nov. 2011): 7.1%

Foreclosure activity rate (Nov. 2011): 1 in 958 units

Walk Score: 41

Like Raleigh-Cary and other markets on this list, home prices in the Wichita metro area weathered the housing downturn comparatively unscathed.

The Wichita metro’s median sales price rose 5.5  percent from third-quarter 2010 to third-quarter 2011, to $120,900. For 2011 as  a whole, the city of Wichita  posted one of the top 10 year-over-year median sales price hikes nationwide, up  17.2 percent, according to a chart provided for this report by Onboard  Informatics.

Despite the price increase,  the Wichita  area had the second-highest affordability rate among the 10 markets in the  third quarter, with 86.8 percent of homes affordable to households earning the  area’s median income.

“I think where we  really shine is home affordability. You can get a great house for not a lot of  money. Even in great years, we only had 3 to 5 percent annual appreciation, so  housing costs never really passed normal inflation rates or incomes,”  A Wichita Broker said.

Homes in the  $100,000-$160,000 price range are most popular among buyers and represent about  a quarter of the market, he said.

While sales in the Wichita market have  fallen at a slightly higher rate than at the national level, its sales rate  well exceeds that of the nation as a whole. While there was one sale for every  83 people nationwide between November 2010 and October 2011, there was one sale  for every 69 people in the Wichita  area during that time period.

Buyer activity in the area  has been steadily increasing, Grbic said, and he expects an improvement in  sales this year to slowly eat into the market’s excess inventory.

ProximityOne estimates the  area’s population will grow 1.4 percent between 2011 and 2012 — above the  expected 0.9 percent growth rate at the national level.

Brokers partially attribute the health of the housing market in the Wichita  area to its jobs market. The unemployment rate for the Wichita metro area was 7.1 percent in  November, compared to 8.2 percent nationally.

Moody’s Analytics projects  jobs will grow 1.6 percent in the area between third-quarter 2011 and  third-quarter 2012 compared to a 0.9 percent expected growth rate nationwide.

Known as the “Air  Capital of the World,” Wichita  is home to several aircraft companies, including Spirit AeroSystems Inc.,  Hawker Beechcraft, Bombardier Aerospace Learjet Inc., and Cessna Aircraft Co.

Health care providers Via  Christi Health and Wesley Medical Center,  petroleum refining and chemicals company Koch industries, meat processor  Cargill Meat Solutions, Wichita   State University,  and various other local and state government entities are also major employers.

Wichita, Kan.	Metro	U.S.
Unemployment rate (Nov. 2011)	7.1%	8.2%
1-yr. forecasted job growth (Q3 2012 vs. Q3 2011)	1.6%	0.9%
% ch. median household income (2009-2010)	-4.3%	-0.3%
Median sales price (Q3 2011)	$120,900	$169,500
% ch. median sales price (Q3 2011 vs. Q3 2010)	5.5%	-4.7%
% homes affordable at median income (Q3 2011)	86.8%	72.9%
Sales per population (Nov. 2010-Oct. 2011)	1 sale per 69 people	1    sale per 83 people
% ch. single-family bldg. permits issued (Jan.-Nov. 2011 vs.    Jan.-Nov. 2010)	-13%	-8%
Population (2010)	623,061
% ch. population (2000-2010)	9.1%	9.7%
% 2010 population lived in other state in 2009	2.2%	2.2%
1-yr. forecast population growth (2011-2012)	1.4%	0.9%
Foreclosure activity rate (Nov. 2011)	1 in 958 units	1    in 579 units
% ch. foreclosure activity (Nov. 2010-Nov. 2011)	-50.8%	-14.5%
% distressed sales (Oct. 2010-Oct. 2011)	16.7%	28%
Vacancy rate (2010)	10.2%	13.1%
% ch. vacancy rate (2009-2010)	34%	4%

 

 

Comprehensive Home Listing Report

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