Journal

What are the costs for Bank owned properties

2009-11-11T13:33:04Z

Ron Donavon, wrote an amazing article on the costs that are/may be associated with purchasing a bank owned property. Please read it here. The cliff not version of his article is as follows.

Home inspection is $250-$300 radon inspection is ~$180 more ( this is not requird but strongly encouraged)
City and villages are instituting mandatory inspections at the buyers expense and fixes they determine must be fixed at buyers expense as well before certificate of occupancy( not all municipalities does this, have your agent check this out)
Air test for molds, which normally costs 200 dollars

I would like to add a couple more costs that the buyers may need to be aware of when buying banked owned properties.

Some lenders will not pay for any costs that are typically occurred by seller, such as survery, pest inspections, and others, read all documentation so you can make sure you know seller is willing to pay.
Some banks,(Fannie May for example), will accept No contingencies, that means home inspections, mortgage, attorney review.
The upside is most banks are allowing closing costs to be added to the closing which means you can offset some of these costs.

Again Please contact your Trusted Real Estate Consultant, and I'm sure they can help you minimize the costs associated with buying Bank Owned Properties.

Tax credit extended

2009-11-11T04:13:54Z

The Tax Credit has been extended for first time homebuyer till april 30th 2010. the contract has to be signed up in april 30th and closed by july 1st.com. they also added $6500 for prospective buyers that owned and lived in their home 5 out of the last 8 years. As soon as I get more information I will place it hear.

Everyone's affected by this economy

2009-10-23T18:03:54Z

So, two agents in our office, spent considerable time building an amazing tool that will help us analyze what homes will sell for in Todays market. The tool backbone is built on the Case-Schiller index. the Case-Schiller is a housing index that is widely recognized by professionals that work in the real estate world.

So Im a gadget guy and I love to play with new tools. so i spent last night (till about 1am) playing with this tool. What i found was amazing, one example is a property that I helped a family member purchase three years, they bought for over $350,000. This tool tells me they couldnt sell for more than $280,000. I find this to be amazingly true, watching homes in this neighborhood sell for way under $300,000. It amazes me to still see homes asking for over $450,000 and on the market for 365+ days.

This is just an example of a neighborhood I watch,I believe you will find this to be true everyone in the chicagoland area.

Tell me your thoughts, concerns, or disagreements

Prices Sell homes

2009-10-21T02:44:03Z

Just make a quick observational point for this weeks blog. My observation is based on Dekalb, although i believe this observation to be true in any location in this market.

I have had a couple buyers looking for Deals in homes right now, so they are looking at short sales and REO homes right now. When a home hits the right price, you will get at least 2 offers on these homes, if not more. now this doesn't mean the market is picking up, cause actually with 2 more years of ARMS coming due, it is unlikely that the direction market is going will change anytime soon. What it does mean is that there is buyers out there and able and willing to buy.

For buyers what does this mean;

when the price is right you have to offer competitive.
predict where homes need to be priced and make offers there before the price makes it competitive(most likely will need a real estate professional for this)
be properly motivated and prepared.
traditional sales home have to be just as competitive, look there as well

for sellers what does this mean;

Price Sells!
if you need to get something out of your home, probably not the right motivation to successfully sell home
this is a have to sell market.

It is a great market to buy and sell! Come to dekalb and see

Also don't miss the Pumpkin Parade in sycamore this weekend. it is a great time, and you may see me helping cook pork chops!

The Fall slump

2009-10-14T04:00:27Z

Homeowners like to take their home off the market from the months of october to march. The why's varies. Dont want to worry about it for the holidays, we want a break, it wont sell during the winter months, and many more. Ok now I understand all the reasons why we want to take our homes off the market during these months. all the reasons makes since and I completely respect each and every decisionm BUT I am going to take a different perspective on this.

if you are currently not listed, you should not take your home off the market. if you are contemplating listing your home you shouldnt wait till spring and here is why.

1) Prices are still dropping, so the longer you wait the less you will get for your home

2) Inventory in the winter months is less, which means less competition for your home

3) motivated buyers want to be in before the new year.

4) you want to be in your new place before the new year

In the end, I know challenge you to keep your home available for sale during the winter months, you will get more and sell quicker if you do.

Home Price Index - Chicago

2009-10-14T03:01:45Z

Case Schiller is a common Home price index used by real estate professionals to help determine trends in home Pricing . I saw one today that i thought was pretty interesting. Red line represents the historic average since 1999 and blue line represents CS index.

there is a couple points of interests to point out 1) from 2000-20007 we were increasing homes beyond there historical average(2007 was peak) 2)2009 case-schiller index came back to the historical average. so what does this mean.

Hopefully it means that homes pricing are finally getting back to where home prices belong. Does this means prices are done falling. Probably not, there is still a considerable amount of inventory of Foreclosed and short sales homes out there, which will still drop the home prices.

The good is, this is still an amazing time to buy or invest in real estate. it may take a long time for the market to get back to where it was in 2007, but hopefully we are on the bottom half of this decline.

tell me your interpretation of the case-schiller index

Fall fun in Dekalb county

2009-09-11T02:09:57Z

Fall is quickly arriving, which means lots of fun is to be had in and near the DeKalb area. Some of the activities are listed below;

September 11 is the castle challenge; football game between sycamore and DeKalb,

September 25-27th is the Septemberfest. St. Mary’s host a 3 day festivity of music, carnival rides and good times.

October 25th is the Pumpkin parade in Sycamore.

Tis also the season for apples and corn mazes here are some local ones.

Jonomac Orchard opened Aug 19th and the corn maze opened sept 4th

The other orchard I like is Edwards’s apple orchard, it’s not in DeKalb County but it’s worth the drive to poplar grove.

There is more fall events, more apple orchards in the area, and more corn mazes in the area. i will continue to update this post, but if you would like to help, please comment on your favorites in these categories.

Kane County Tax Emptions

2009-09-02T15:31:47Z

Holy Cow, Kane County has increased their Homestead exemption from $5000 to $5500(this is for owner occupied homes). the best thing about this is the fact that will increase again in 2009 from $5500 to $6000. What this correlates to in bills may not be much but something is definitely better than nothing.

The Senior exemption will increase from $3000 to $4000 in 2009 as well

Why am I telling you this in a Dekalb area blog? Firstly, I am hoping like everything else does, it travels from Chicago to the outlying areas then to us. Secondly I do have Clients that currently live, want to live, or travel to/through Kane county and I thought this information was worth repeating to the masses.

Is Social Media necessary for the Real Estate business

2009-08-28T18:20:26Z

Just read a great article about social media and the need for it business.

article was written by the Real Estate Phoenix guy. this blog.

this article in short talks about the fact to run a business you do not need a social media, but you understand about. i would encourage to go this blog post to review the video, and make your own decision

Housing Market is local

2009-08-19T09:19:23Z

In the news you will hear the markets up, the markets down, housing sales have inclined or housing has declined. So the question becomes what is the answer, how is the real estate market doing? The answer is it depends(yeah i know the perfect politically correct answer), it depends on your local market. For Instance if you are living in Nevada home sales have increased from last year, the homes there have finally reached the appropriate price levels for investors and home buyers to buy back into the market.

So why do I tell you this, I am encouraging you to come here to check on our local stats in the Dekalb Sycamore area.

In the DeKalb, the last three months the average sales price $141,000, the average time on the market was 116 days, and the housing supply is at 12.66 months(this means it would take over 12 months for all the homes to sell, if no other home came on the market.) from 3 months ago prices were at $165000, 143 days of market time, and a housing supply of 22 months.

In sycamore, the last three months, the average was $181,250, with an average market time of 106 days and a housing supply of over 15 months. the previous 3 months had an average sale price of $177,250 with an average market time of 200 days and a housing supply of over 29 months.

So what does all this mean? means that we are still in a buyers market(anything over 10 months is considering a buyers market and a declining market. both Dekalb and sycamore have improved their market by selling more these past 3 months than in the previous 3 months. Dekalb average price dropped where sycamores rose a little, this doesn't mean much considering that summer months are typically the highest selling months in our market(Feb-Sept). with programs like the $8000 tax credit it should prove interesting to see if this help maintain the incline in the market we have seen the last 3 months. either way we can watch together cause i will update these stats monthly.