In what is most likely the last incarnation of the very popular $8,000 home buyers tax credit, those in the market for a house now have until April 30, 2010 to find and purchase one. There’s also a new wrinkle:  A tax credit of $6,500 has been expanded to include existing homeowners. The previous credits have been targeted at 1st time buyers.

I’ve written about the tax credit previously. For 1st time buyers – or anyone who hasn’t owned a house in the last 3 years – things are pretty much the same with this extension as they’ve been for months. The rules for getting the credit for current homeowners is a bit more involved. Here’s a quick FAQ (PDF) that may help sort out some of the details.

Suffice to say that getting a tax credit it is a good thing. Just ask anyone who gets a nice, fat tax refund check in their hands next year.

So, now that you have until April 30th to close on a house, plan a nice Thanksgiving and imagine how much you’ll enjoy celebrating next year’s holidays in your new home.

Talk to a good lender, find a good Realtor and start looking.

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The thoughts & opinions are mine. The quips that fall flat are someone else’s. Please feel free to shoot me an email with a question or a good joke.

And remember, real estate agents aren’t bad. We’re just drawn that way.

There are many clocks in our house. From the digital ones on the DVR box, wall oven, under-cabinet radio, alarm clocks for for both Mr. Durango and me to the ones at the bottom of the three computers to the watch our oldest son left here after visiting this weekend – it started beeping at 6:30 this morning – to the grandfather clock in the front hall to the mantel top clock in the den to the cuckoo hanging in our kitchen (the cuckoo CLOCK is hanging, wiseguy) we are covered, clock-wise.

Even so, time can still manage to slip up on us. And it is slipping up on all the 1st time home buyers who haven’t stepped up to take advantage of the $8,000 tax credit. As it is currently designed, the last day to close on a house and receive the credit is November 30th.

December 1st will be a day late and $8,000 short.

Let’s be clear. There is still time to find a home and go through the process and close by the deadline. But if you are hoping to take advantage of the credit, you might want to get going before the new seasons of “Lost” gets started as I understand that show can be quite the time suck.

There is a chance the deadline will be extended. And there’s a chance my youngest will become obsessive about his room being tidy as well. We can continue to have faith, but let’s not bank on either of things happening in a timely manner.

What should be your first step if you haven’t already started towards buying in time for the credit? Pretty much the same as always. Time is just really of the essence in this case.

So, my personal recommendation is to get thee to a good lender immediately. The loan process is what can take the longest in a real estate sales transaction and it can be started before you find the house which can save time. A lender can actually get your loan approved, contingent on whatever house you find appraising at the contract price, before you step foot into the first property on your search list. And the benefit is that the lender will have the information needed to finalize the loan once the house is found and you’ll know your perimeters, money-wise.

Once you’ve established the loan, get with a good agent and start looking at houses. Don’t mess around with looking with several agents. That’s not efficient, not effective and wastes time. You have to get to know each one, answer the same qualifying questions over and over and ultimately that doesn’t serve your purposes.

Find an agent you like and go for it.

Once you find the house, the negotiations will take as long as they take. Perhaps you and the seller will come to a meeting of the minds in a day. Maybe a week. That’s up to the parties. Try not to get bogged down in whether the seller will leave the 15 year old swing set or if the living room is intolerably orange. And if the seller gets bogged down in their own issues, consider moving on to another property.

It’s unpredictable but as a rule, when a buyer wants to buy a house that a seller wants to sell, things get worked out.

So, the countdown has started to November 30th. Here’s your “to do” list if you want to get that $8,000 tax credit:

• Communicate with a good lender and start the approval process
• Establish a relationship with a Realtor with whom you’re comfortable and start looking at homes that meet your needs and price range
• Eliminate those homes from your mind that won’t work. Try to compare no more than two houses at a time and eliminate all the rest. Otherwise, they start to run together and you can’t remember which one had the half bath off the kitchen that skeeved you out and which one had the killer deck.
• Stay on top of whatever your lender has told you she needs to get things completed
• Be prepared to get a bit freaked out. Nearly all 1st time buyer do. You’ll be glad you went through it all once your in your own place.

This is a rare, as in never before, opportunity to not only become a home owner but to receive massive coinage for the privilege of doing so.

It all adds up to this being the time to make that leap and reap the rewards, happiness-wise.

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The thoughts & opinions are mine. The quips that fall flat are someone else’s. Please feel free to shoot me an email with a question or a good joke.

And remember, real estate agents aren’t bad. We’re just drawn that way.

In the maze of non-intuitive sounding phrases associated with a home purchase – ‘origination fee‘, ‘FICO score‘, ‘amortization schedule’ – one that invariably concerns buyers is ‘closing costs’.

More than concerning them, it sometimes prevents them from moving forward with dreams of buying their own place.

Particularly in the case of first time buyers, the idea of coming up with money for just the down payment seems daunting, forget about money for an attorney, lender fees, inspections and flowers for their agent.

No, wait. That last one is purely optional.

The truth is, closing costs can vary from region to region and will be impacted by the specific circumstances of the purchase. So trying to plan for them when starting the home-buying process can be hard.

A little information might help:

“Closing Costs” are precisely what the name says. They are the charges required to get the house ‘closed’, or finalized with the deed recorded at the courthouse. Both buyer and seller incur costs but the lion’s share are usually in the buyer’s column. If one is paying cash, the closing costs for the buyer will be minimal (attorney’s fee, appraisal if so ordered, deed recording, inspections if ordered, buyer’s share of property taxes for the year).

When the buyer gets a mortgage for the purchase, closing costs go up appreciably. This is because the lender will require certain things in exchange for loaning the money. These items will include charges for things such as loan origination fee, credit report, commitment fee, flood certification fee, mortgage insurance, title insurance, collection of tax and insurance money in advance in order to set up an escrow account, etc.,)

So, getting to the point, how much are closing costs? As a very broad rule of thumb, one can plan on closing costs equaling about 3% of the loaned amount. Here is a partial list of some customary charges in the Greensboro area.

If you’re quickly calculating the numbers and realizing that the minimum amount of down payment one can generally get now – 3.5% with an FHA loan – and adding to that the above mentioned 3%, you may be thinking there’s no way and consider clicking away from this site to go over to see what Perez Hilton has to say about Susan Boyle.

But don’t do it. And not just because gossip is not nice.

When making an offer on a house, a buyer can request the seller to pay for some or all of the buyer’s closing costs. In doing so, the buyer may need to adjust the purchase price amount to make up for the seller paying those costs. But an increase of $3,000 or $4,000 dollars in purchase price will raise one’s monthly mortgage payment a small amount compared to having to come up with those $3K-$4K up front. And if one buys before December 1st of this year, there is the ability to use the $8,000 first time buyer tax credit towards closing costs.

The moral of all this is “Don’t let fear of closing costs stop you from buying a house”.

Talk to a reputable lender and ask about all this. A good lender will provide you with a “Good Faith Estimate” of costs and a really good lender will be able to nail those numbers within $10.

There’s no harm, or cost, in asking the questions about buying a home. Deal with knowledgeable people. Don’t assume only OTHER people can buy a house. Give yourself a chance.

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If you have questions, comments or a good joke to share shoot me an email.  I’m a full time Realtor®, I love what I do and would be thrilled to hear from you.

This morning John Robinson, the editor of the News & Record wrote a blog post about how publishing information does not always make one popular. While I’m no reporter, journalist or editor I can identify in the tiniest way because the topic about which I write – the Greensboro real estate market – provides statistics that are pleasant to share some times more than others.

Behold: One of the others.

This week’s numbers show that inventory of properties for sale in Greensboro are up and the average list price is down.* Again. And the number of active properties (that is, on the market and not ‘pending’ sale) is as high as it’s been since late December 2008.

This data will not make sellers happy. Nor real estate professionals. It doesn’t thrill me, let me tell you. But there you are. We have seen improvement in the number of foreclosures in Greensboro and that is definitely good news that we hope to see continue. But for now, overall inventory is higher than we’d like to see.

On the bright side, buyers should LOVE this news. So many houses from which to choose. Low rates. $8000 tax credit (that cat be used towards down payment).

Maybe I can be one of the popular people after all?

Now, chartville:

As always, whether the news is good or bad, you’ll see it here.

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If you have questions, comments or a good joke to share shoot me an email.  I’m a full time Realtor®, I love what I do and would be thrilled to hear from you.

* All data from Triad Multiple Listing Service (MLS) and is only as good as the information entered, which is done by humans, who make errors. The information is only for those residential zip codes for Greensboro and does not include the surrounding communities.

So much to write. So many numbers. So little time. I’ve been busy as a bee and, honey, it’s been great.

Granted, not all my time has been occupied with real estate. There was the last minute trip to the beach with Mr. Durango and training for the Dixie Divas Triathlon in which I am entered. But that’s a topic of another post – which I hope not to be writing from an ambulance on the day of the event.

Back to the topic at hand – the state of real estate in Greensboro. There’s a quick bit about some good news in an article in the News & Record. Good news is always, well, good. But here’s some drilling down:

Inventory of available properties in Greensboro as of today is shrinking*. That’s really good news for home sellers. But more importantly, it’s the latest indicator that this most influential component of our economy – housing – has indeed turned the corner.

While home buyers benefit when there is a glut of properties from which to choose, it’s really not in their interests to buy if things seem to be sliding down hill. In the case of Greensboro, that is really not the case.

So, if you’re looking to buy its not too late to take advantage of what is still a buyer’s market (mostly). But you don’t want to dawdle too long. And if you haven’t owned a house in the last three years you REALLY don’t want to miss out on $8,000 of free money – in the form of a tax credit – from the federal government. And yes, that tax credit is legit. For real. Not a trick or tease.

Now let’s see what I’ve been typing away about. Take particular note of the fact that even as the total number of listings is down, the number and percentage of those under contract is up. The active/pending percentages are now 80%/20%. The strongest showing since at least last December. And list prices are holding pretty steady.

As always, whether the news is good or bad, you’ll see it here.

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If you have questions, comments or a good joke to share shoot me an email.  I’m a full time Realtor®, I love what I do and would be thrilled to hear from you.

* All data from Triad Multiple Listing Service (MLS) and is only as good as the information entered, which is done by humans, who make errors. The information is only for those residential zip codes for Greensboro and does not include the surrounding communities.

It’s a lovely day here in Greensboro. Trees are budding, birds are nesting and – in another tradition of approaching Spring – houses are going on the market.

I cannot say that this is as welcome a sign as the daffodils this year, but facts are facts. And there is plenty of inventory available for buyers who are ready.

What buyers may want to take note of, though, is that while national news stories report of home prices dropping faster than a middle-aged woman’s tush, list prices in Greensboro have risen from their lows of the 4th quarter 2008  and have remained very stable  for weeks now.

What this means is that, with some exceptions, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of benefit to waiting to buy if you are indeed in the market. Unlike prices for electronics, one can’t count on  housing prices to be lower in 6 months than they are now.

Also, way back in early December when I first starting tracking this data, the percentage of listings that were ‘pending’ was 11% of the total listings. That number has steadily risen to the point where this week, the number of listings ‘pending’ is 17% of the total. This is further evidence that waiting may cost you – if not in dollars then in missing out on the house you want.

That, along with the $8000 1st time buyer’s tax credit and all the inventory on the market means that sitting on the fence probably won’t save you any money.

And almost certainly isn’t comfortable.

Now, those fancy charts:

As always, whether the news is good or bad, you’ll see it here.

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If you have questions, comments or a good joke to share shoot me an email.  I’m a full time Realtor®, I love what I do and would be thrilled to hear from you.

* All data from Triad Multiple Listing Service (MLS). “Single-family” does not include Duplexes or manufactured homes.

[UPDATE: The tax credit has been extended to April 30, 2010 and expanded to include existing homeowners who will receive a $6500 credit when they meet certain criteria]

I’ve resisted writing about this very important tax credit because it has changed several times since introduced a few weeks ago as part of the economic stimulus package. Now that President Obama has signed the package into law, let’s take a look. For those who want a quick read, here’s a PDF of the new tax credit compared to the one from last year.

Nuts & Bolts:

• 1st time home buyers – or those who have not owned a home in the past 3 years – are eligible
• it’s good on single-family, townhouses and condos
• it does NOT need to be paid back (this differs from the previous credit)
• there are income limits
• purchases made between 1/1/09 and 12/01/09 are eligible***[SEE COMMENTS]

Now, some VERY basic explanations. For complex answers, ask a deeper thinker or, better yet, a tax expert.

A tax credit is different than a tax deduction. A tax credit is a dollar for dollar reduction in the amount of tax burden (what you owe in taxes). A tax deduction reduces your amount of taxable income on which your tax burden is calculated.

So this tax credit means that if at the end of the year your tax burden is, say, $8,000, and you receive the $8,000 tax credit  because you wisely purchased your 1st home, you will owe ZERO dollars in federal tax.

If your tax burden is $5,000 and you get the $8,000 tax credit, you would receive the difference. $8,000 credit – $5,000 owed = $3,000 in your pocket.”

Some are bellyaching that this is not a a true stimulus for home buyers.

I guess those folks don’t look at $8,000 as real money. Mazel Tov to them.

There are plenty of 1st time buyers who will be more than thrilled to get $8,000 credited to them come tax filing season next year. And that’s in addition to the benefits of the mortgage interest payment tax deduction on those same returns.

Consider this as well – When those tax refund checks start going out in the spring, there will be a whole new generation of homeowners, with houses to furnish, decorate and all that comes with owning your own place.

Sounds stimulating to me.

When you look at this tax credit, the low interest rates, the motivated sellers and high inventory it’s hard to imagine a better time to buy.

As I’ve repeated many, many times, most people are having to pay to live somewhere. And those renting are indeed paying for a mortgage. Just not theirs. And they’re not getting the benefits of it.

Time they started reaping those rewards themselves.

[BTW, the president is announcing a separate plan of those who currently own homes, The Help for Homeowners Plan. I'll write about then when there's complete information available. The White House has a link to it here.]