My New Blog

One would say with all the media attention that you should be able to put an offer on a house in Denver for far less then the list price. Afterall, they say the market is soft and there are a glutton of foreclosures out there. I wanted to give you a quick snapshot of what is really going on in the housing industry here in the metro area.

For example did you know there are public websites that show you data on trends of what houses are listed for versus what they sold for?

Here are a few examples:

20040 Mitchell Cir Denver~ Listed for: $135,000 and sold for: $155,000

7157 Huron St Denver~ Listed for $105,000 and sold for $131,500

6971 Saulsbury St Arvada~ Listed for $135,000 and sold for $175,000

7179 S Kline St Littleton~ listed for $200,000 and sold for $250,000

So there is Denver, Littleton, and Arvada as examples. This is even happening in Aurora as well guys. So what I am getting at is don't completely think when going to make your offer that you can write it for whatever you want and the seller will cave in to sell to you. This is good signs that our market is stronger then you expect from what you might hear on the news. Keep in mind that these examples are bank owned homes, so you can imagine that they needed some work. Now think how an individual selling their own home with pride of ownership will be sitting if they want to sell at a reasonable price right now??

Also, if you have friends buying they may be able to tell you as many of my agent friends have. It is tough to get an offer accepted because the competition is fierce right now.

My advice is to be ready! Meaning have all your financial ducks in a row with a pre-approval not a pre-qualification. Make sure you are ready to write your offer and not hesitate or think through it too long, unless you don't care too much if you miss out on that specific house. While all this is going on, you can still get the sellers to pay closing costs, but if this continues to strengthen you will have less luck with the sellers willingness to pay closing costs for you.

Happy house hunting~

Ray

You may be thinking to yourself there is no way to give yourself a pay raise when you buy your home. What if you could buy your first home in Denver using a mortgage credit certificate that would allow you to adjust your W4 and take home more money every paycheck? What if that money directly allowed you to buy a home that were 20% more expensive than what you could qualify for without the mortgage credit certificate?

It is all true and not a sham! There is a program out from the City and County of Denver for qualified first time buyers to take advantage of a mortgage credit certificate. This certificate gives you the legal right to adjust your W4 filing with the I.R.S and take home 20% of the mortgage interest you would otherwise deduct from your taxes. So it becomes direct benefit to your finances when you buy, not later.

HOW does it work?

Let's say you bought a $175,000 home at 5.25% for a 30 year mortgage. We know you would pay roughly $9,187 in annual mortgage interest ($175,000 @ 5.25% = $9,187). Now take 20% of that $1837 for your annual mortgage credit certificate. From there you take the $1837 divided by 12 months and get a credit for $153 per month that you can have added back to your pay after you buy!

So, if your home payment (interest, taxes, mortgage insurance) on a $175,000 home were $1,027, then you would only have to qualify for $874 per month and in essence you could choose to qualify for more home, if you chose!

To learn more visit http://www.milehigh.com/housing/for-sale/mcc-program and you will see my number as an approved lender (the list is very short of approved lenders by the city and county)~

Call with questions~

Ray

303.779.0591 ext. 101

You may have heard or start to hear, that mortgage rates have gone up. In fact on new loans I am doing, I have seen anywhere from a .5-.75% increase in rates since May 21st.

So what is the reason for all of this you ask? Even though the fed is buying mortgage backed securities, they are being offset by the supply of mortgage backed securities hitting the market. The reason for this new supply is the result of all the mortgages that have closed as a result of the lower rates. Those mortgages have now been securitized and are being sold on the open market as mortgage backed securities. This new supply is offsetting the purchasing power of the fed and just may lead us to higher rates. As you can imagine there are still loads of mortgages that will be securitized and sold as mortgage backed securities. This could offset anything the fed can do in purchasing more mortgage backed securities.

My advice, if you were waiting for lower rates to refinance, you may miss the boat as the anchor seems to have been pulled.