8553 W Amazilia Place Tucson AZ 85757

 
Awesome newer home with granite, great flooring and all new appliances. Includes Washer, dryer and refrigerator! Lots of roof, HVAC, and Termite warranty left on this newer home. Great area with a ton of things close by. Backyard is great for BBQ’s or just relaxing watching the awesome sunsets after the Monsoon rains. This one will not last long. Click here to see more. Schedule a showing today! Call 520-477-7653 or email us at info@nobodydoesmore.com.

Should You Buy During the Holiday Season?

Every year, I meet somebody who says they want to buy a home but they think they’d rather wait until after the first of the year. They’ve heard that the holidays aren’t the greatest time to buy a house. Conversely, now may be the greatest time of the year to buy a home. Let me dive into why that is.

Most of the sellers looking to test the market won’t go through the inconvenience of having their home on the market and having it shown throughout the holiday season. This year, we’re at an all-time low in inventory so if a seller puts their home on the market, it’s likely going to sell and they’re likely going to get what they want for it.

During the holiday season, there are fewer homes that come to market. That means that sellers who list their home at this time of year typically are more serious about selling. Additionally, buyers who buy during this time of year are more serious about buying. If you’re a buyer looking to buy during the holiday season, you may find a seller that’s quite motivated to sell. There may also be fewer opportunistic buyers in the market, which means you may be able to get a little bit better deal.

In the last month, in Austin, TX, I’ve had two buyer transactions below $400,000 and I’ve been able to get the property 5% below the listed price. In the peak season this year, that was unheard of. Everything was selling 20% over the list price. I strongly encourage you to see what’s available in your market and if you think about buying, don’t hold off. Get started now and take advantage of the lull on the market because all the predictions say that spring 2022 may be the strongest spring that we’ve seen yet.

If you’re ready to take action or if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to give us a call. I’d love to help you.

Why Would a Seller Give a Buyer Credit?

Here’s what you need to know about sellers paying buyers’ closing costs.

Recently, I’ve received a lot of questions about sellers’ closing costs. Are sellers giving buyers credits at closing? Let’s talk about it. 

Not too long ago, it was common for a buyer to ask a seller to pay a portion of the buyer’s closing costs. If a buyer is purchasing the home with an FHA loan, they may not have a ton of cash to pay for their closing costs, which typically run about two or three percent of the total cost of the home. In this case, the buyer could add the costs to the price, then ask the seller to help them pay. This is a great strategy for first-time buyers. 

“As long as everyone is on the same page, both parties almost always work something out.”

Why does this matter today? There are two main places you negotiate what closing costs the seller will pay: when you write the offer and when something comes up during the inspection. If something goes wrong in the inspection, the buyer can ask the seller for a credit. This way, the seller doesn’t have to go through the hassle of fixing it themselves, the buyer doesn’t have to pay for the repair, and the sale can continue without a hitch. 

The issue arises when loans become involved. Some loans have strict rules about the amount of closing costs a seller can pay on a buyer’s behalf. There are also rules about what happens to a seller’s contribution if you don’t use it; usually, you end up losing it. This is why it’s so important to communicate with your agent and your lender about closing costs. As long as everyone is on the same page, both parties almost always work something out. 

If you have any questions about today’s video, please feel free to call or email me. I am always willing to help!

What to Know About Mortgages and Credit

This is how mortgage companies operate and why credit is so important.

Today is part one of my two-part video series detailing the mortgage process. Two-thirds of all homebuyers purchase with a mortgage loan. What do mortgage companies actually do? I think understanding that will help you realize the importance of your mortgage.

What most people don’t realize is that mortgage companies are very sophisticated manufacturing lines. They take all of your info and package it in a way to create a saleable asset (their loan package) into the secondary markets. Most of the lenders making loans today will fund the loan with their own money and then sell those loans in bulk to the secondary market.  

“One of the best practices is to use a little credit and pay it off each month.”

When they do that, it allows them to remain liquid and give out more loans. In the event that a lender doesn’t package that loan file the right way, and they can’t sell it in the secondary market, they either have to work with you to refinance that property or hold on to it in their portfolio. However, they don’t want to do that because they want to turn that money over, give another loan, and make their money on loan fees. 

As a homebuyer looking to get a loan or a homeowner looking to refinance, there are four major things that lenders look at. Today I’m going to focus on credit, and next time I’ll cover the other three.

Your creditworthiness to a lender is not all about your score. Depth of credit is important too. It can impact your ability to qualify for a loan. If you have a bunch of maxed-out credit cards, your score won’t be very good because your utilization rate is very high. If you have a ton of cards and aren’t using them at all, your score won’t be great either. One of the best practices is to use a little bit each month and pay it off on time. 

Other derogatory consumer debt items, like a car, can work against you as well. It’s important to communicate with your lender throughout the process, especially if you need to improve your credit to qualify for a better loan. You may make a mistake, but a loan officer will advise you on the best path forward and help you avoid any deal-killing mistakes.

We’ll examine the roles of income, assets, and collateral in our next post. If you have any real estate-related questions for me in the meantime, don’t hesitate to reach out via phone or email. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

What You Need To Know About Inflation and Rates

What you need to know about interest rates and inflation as a buyer.

I know a lot of you are watching interest rates right now. Since we’re getting an array of of questions about them, today I wanted to talk about inflation, interest rates, and buying a home in 2022.

If we look back in time, there’s a precedent for what’s going on in the current market. In the early ’80s, we had massive consumer price inflation, and the Federal Reserve dealt with that by raising interest rates very quickly. Some people think that could happen again.

Do I see rates going to 8%, 10%, or even 16%? Not really. Today we have this anchor called the federal debt; if rates got that high, the government wouldn’t be able to service its own debt. It’s unlikely that rates will return to those historic highs, but they will probably go up in 2022.

“Rates have risen an unbelievable amount these past few months.”

The Federal Reserve has called for four or five rate hikes this year, and while those federal rates are not directly connected to mortgage rates, they do affect them. Some of my clients saw rates as low as 2.5% last year, but as of mid-February, rates are hovering around 4%. 

Keep in mind that a 1% increase in rates comes out to a 10% change in your payment. If you bought a $300,000 house with today’s interest rates, it is the same as if you purchased a $330,000 home at the previous rate.

Inflation causes two kinds of price growth in the real estate sector: home price growth and rental price growth. It’s unbelievable how much rents have risen across the country in the last few months, and it can be a huge problem for people looking to rent in today’s market. 

Home prices have also gone sky-high. A $200,000 home a year ago probably costs more like $270,000 today. The benefit is that the mortgage payment on that house will be less than you would pay to rent it. Even with all these big moves, homes have remained more affordable than renting.

In short, it is a great time to buy. If you are looking for a new home, call or email me today. I’d love to come up with a unique strategy for your situation. If you just have some questions, I’d be happy to answer those as well.

Get Your Home Ready for the Spring Market

A couple of quick tips to help sellers get ready for spring.

Today I’ll talk about preparing your home for sale this spring. I know that it’s still early in the year, but there are a lot of people that are considering selling their home when things start to warm up. Here are two quick tips for you to consider as you prepare your home for sale:

1. Time is your friend. When people decide to sell their home quickly, it’s often because they found another house they want to buy. Then it’s a rush to get the home on the market, get photographs, and get an offer so you can go buy the other house. One of the great things that we do is leverage the extra time to get photos on a day with optimal lighting, help you get the home staged, and do any painting or repairs well in advance of you putting the house on the market.

2. Staging. Even in this market, homes that aren’t presented well can sit on the market for months and not sell. To get your house ready for the spring selling season, you should declutter, paint, landscape, and consider renovating key spaces like kitchens and bathrooms.

If you want some tips on your specific situation or want to take a look at what it may cost to get your home ready to sell, reach out to me by phone or email. I’m happy to do a free consultation with no obligation. I look forward to hearing from you.

Changes to Homestead Exemptions in Texas

The latest change to the homestead exemption law is great for new owners.

The homestead exemption allows you to exempt a portion of your primary residence’s value from property taxes. In the past, you had to wait a year after you bought a home to be able to claim your homestead exemption. New changes to the law make it so you can actually take that deduction in the first year.

That’s great news if you’re a homeowner who bought a piece of real estate in 2021. Make sure to go to your county tax assessor’s website and fill out the appropriate homestead exemption forms. If you bought a home with my team last year, I’ve already emailed that information to you.

If you have questions, feel free to reach out to me by phone or email. I look forward to hearing from you.

3 Reasons To Buy in This Market

Our current market conditions make this a great time for buyers to act.

What the Current Market Means for You

What you need to know about the recent changes in the housing market.

Our market is full of interesting changes. Despite what you may have heard in the media, year-over-year price increases remain steady. However, month-over-month prices have taken a small hit. What does this mean for our market? Is it seasonal, or does it indicate a huge shift in our market? Today I’ll take you through all the latest stats and explain what they mean for you.

You can listen to my full market update in the video above or skip to each topic using the timestamps provided:

0:00 — Introduction

0:38 — Prices have pulled back slightly, but it’s normal for this time of the year

1:32 — Inventory is increasing across the board

2:11 — We were in an extreme seller’s market for a long time; now things are more balanced

3:07 — Some velocity is gone from our markets, but they remain strong

3:42 — Fewer new homes are coming to market

4:27 — There are plenty of opportunities in this market

5:28 — Sellers have to be more aggressive in today’s market

6:08 — Wrapping up

If you have questions about this topic or anything else, please call or email me. I am always willing to help!

Explaining What’s Happening to Interest Rates

Here’s what you should know about our rapidly changing interest rates.

Why are mortgage rates rising? When will they go back down or go even higher? I was recently interviewed by money.com to talk about this. Here’s a link to the interview if you’d like to read it.

Going back to the topic of mortgage rates, we have a lot of uncertainty in the real estate market and the global economy today. When you ask what interest rates are doing, there are two driving forces behind it that we need to look at: The first thing is the traders’ level of uncertainty and their appetite to buy mortgage-backed securities. The second one is that interest rates tend to closely follow the ten-year Treasury yield. 

What we know thus far is that as rates continue to be increased by the federal government in the central banks, the ten-year Treasury yield becomes more attractive, and the yields go up. Typically, mortgage-backed securities or interest rates trade somewhere about 100 to 120 basis points above those ten-year Treasury yields. If the ten-year Treasury yield is 3%, you should expect to see an interest rate of around 4.5%. However, in times of uncertainty, yields go further and further apart, and they get as much as 300 or 350 basis points apart.

When this happens, the ten-year rate is around 3%, but then mortgage interest rates are around 6%. Eventually, some of that uncertainty goes away. The tenure stays where it is, and mortgage rates snap back to their normal levels of 100 to 150 basis points. In fact, we saw this happen last week. Consumer inflation came out a little bit softer than expected, and overnight, you saw interest rates go from 7% to 5.5% and then to 5.75%. 

Why does this matter for homebuyers and sellers? You have to pay attention because the market is moving fast. We’ve rarely seen volatility like this, but volatility creates opportunity.  Reach out to one of our agents, and we will help you take advantage of the opportunities in this market. I look forward to hearing from you!