When it comes to buying a home, whether it is your first time or your fifth, it is always important to know all the facts. With the large number of mortgage programs available that allow buyers to purchase a home with a down payment below 20%, you can never have too much information about Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI).
What is PMI?
Freddie Mac defines PMI as:
“An insurance policy that protects the lender if you are unable to pay your mortgage. It's a monthly fee, rolled into your mortgage payment, that is required for all conforming, conventional loans that have down payments less than 20%.
Once you've built equity of 20% in your home, you can cancel your PMI and remove that expense from your mortgage payment.”
How can you buy and sell a home in a competitive market like ours? We kill two birds with one stone by looking at “Under the Radar” properties.
Welcome to the latest episode of “What’s Working Now!”
Recently, I helped my clients kill two birds with one stone by buying and selling a house at the same time.
No one wants to make an offer contingent on the sale of their home but in this case, that had to happen. Instead of going after a property already listed on the MLS and competing with non-contingent buyers, we set out to find an “Under the Radar” property that hadn’t yet hit the market.
One of my client’s friends pointed us towards a great home in a co-op building. We got the key, went to see it, and my clients loved
There are some experts questioning whether the current pace of residential home sales is maintainable. Are too many people buying homes like in 2004-2006? Are we headed for another housing crisis? Actually, if we look closely at the numbers, we can see that we are looking at a very healthy real estate market.
Why the concern?
Some are looking at the last four years of home sales and comparing them to the three years just prior to the housing bubble. Looking at the graph below, we can understand that thinking.
However, if we go further back in history, we can see the real picture. After taking out the “boom & bust” years, the pace of sales is growing at quite a natural pace.
And new home sales are way below historic numbers. Dave
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Updated 2 bedroom condo with 2 full baths, great kitchen, balcony w/ park views and garage parking. First class building with 24-hour front desk, 2 pools, party/social room, fitness center, laundry room on each floor, underground access to Giant, steps to Metro, restaurants & shops.
Monthly Condo fee: $986.00 includes gas, electric, water, sewer, heat/AC, reserve funds, professional management, maintenance of commons areas, trash removal, condo liability insurance & building amenities.
Building Amenities: 24-hour front desk w/ package acceptance, 2 pools, fitness center, party room, washer & dryer on each floor, underground access to Giant, steps to Metro, up to 2
Real Estate mogul, Sean Conlon, host of The Deed: Chicago on CNBC, was recently asked the question, should you buy? Or should you rent a house?
Conlon responded:
“I am a true believer that you save every penny and you buy your first house… and that is still the fastest path to wealth in this country.”
Conlon went on to suggest that first-time buyers put down 10-20% “if they can make it work,” and to remain in their home at least 4-5 years to see a return on their investment.
Who is Sean Conlon, and why should you listen to his advice?
Within a few years of working in the real estate industry, Conlon had established himself as one of the leading agents in the United States and has founded 3 billion-dollar brokerages dealing in
In school, we all learned the theory of supply and demand. When the demand for an item is greater than the supply of that item, the price will surely rise.
SUPPLY
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) recently reported that the inventory of homes for sale stands at a 3.8-month supply. This is considerably lower than the 6-month supply necessary for a normal market.
DEMAND
Every month NAR reports on the number of buyers out in the market looking for homes, which is also known as buyer traffic. As seen on the map below, buyer demand in March was strong or very strong in 45 out of 50 states nationwide, and Washington, DC.
Many buyers are being confronted with a very competitive market in which they must compete with other
Saving for a down payment is often the biggest hurdle for a first-time homebuyer. Depending on where you live, median income, median rents, and home prices all vary. So, we set out to find out how long would it take you to save for a down payment in each state?
Using data from the United States Census Bureau and Zillow, we determined how long it would take, nationwide, for a first-time buyer to save enough money for a down payment on their dream home. There is a long-standing ‘rule’ that a household should not pay more than 28% of their income on their monthly housing expense.
By determining the percentage of income spent renting a 2-bedroom apartment in each state, and the amount needed for a 10% down payment, we were able to establish how long
Forbes.com recently released the results of their new American Dream Index, in which they measure “the prosperity of the middle class, and…examine which states best support the American Dream.”
The monthly index measures several different economic factors, including goods-producing employment, personal and commercial bankruptcies, building permits, startup activity, unemployment insurance claims, labor force participation, and layoffs.
The national index score was rounded out to 100 in January and saw a modest jump to 100.5 in February.
Alaska represented the lowest score on the index at 80.7, due mostly to the recent collapse in oil prices. Nevada came in with the highest score at 108.8, boosted by big gains in goods-producing jobs and new
According to the Beracha, Hardin & Johnson Buy vs. Rent (BH&J) Index, the U.S. housing market has continued to move deeper into buy territory, supporting the belief that housing markets across the country remain a sound investment.
The BH&J Index is a quarterly report that attempts to answer the question:
In today’s housing market, is it better to rent or buy a home?
The index examines the entire US housing market and then isolates 23 major cities for comparison. The researchers “measure the relationship between purchasing property and building wealth through a buildup in equity versus renting a comparable property and investing in a portfolio of stocks and bonds.”
While most of the metropolitan markets examined moved further into buy
