Columbus Housing Resale Statistics from the Board of Realtors - April 2007 vs. April 2006, Month and YTD
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Wanted: 250 to 400 tillable acres within a one hour radius of Columbus, Ohio
I have a client that is interested in finding 250 to 400 acres of tillable farm land for agricultural purposes. The acerage does not need to be contiguous parcels of land, but the parcels should be in relatively close proximity to each other. The acerage should be no further that a one hour drive from central Columbus.
Please contact me directly if you have any properties that meet the criteria listed above:
Vito Boscaino
Owner / Realtor / MBA
Help-U-Sell North High Realty
4485 North High Street
Columbus, OH 43214
614.447.3050 (office)
614.571.9054 (mobile)
614.447.3051 (facsimile)
email: northhighrealty@helpusell.com
Friday, May 11, 2007
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Don't let your ARM break you
See that adjustable-rate mortgage pain coming and plan accordingly
By Jennifer Openshaw
Last Update: 7:49 PM ET Apr 24, 2007
LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) -- You went a little large with that 2005 home purchase. It felt good. You bit off a lot in the form of a large adjustable-rate mortgage to get there, but you made it happen. The low 3.75% intro rate really helped. You knew it would eventually go higher, but hey -- home prices would go higher, and so would your income.
The problem is, it didn't happen.
Well, your income did rise, but so did your expenses: higher energy costs, growing family, rising taxes. Now about those home prices -- you know the rest of that story. See how home prices are flagging.
Now what? The honeymoon is about to end, and you're bracing yourself and your family for the inevitable. Your mortgage payment is about to go up, maybe by hundreds of dollars. And now is not a good time to join the stampede of foreclosures, preforeclosures, short sales and other forms of dire and unintended consequences.
What do you do?
Coverage of home buying and selling, housing prices, mortgage information and home improvement.
Panic? Probably not. Sure, it's a financial setback to see any cost go up a lot. But the secret to weathering any storm is to see it coming -- and plan accordingly. A lot of energy has recently gone into helping underwater homeowners avoid or deal with impending foreclosures.
Foreclosures? I'm guessing many of you will feel the pain or rising payments, but aren't in foreclosure land. You're not a subprime borrower. With a little planning and some modest sacrifices, you'll get over the hump. Here's how:
Know where you stand
The first step is to pick up the phone (or go in person) to your lender for exact figures. How big is the adjustment, when is it coming, and what will the next one be? Don't be reluctant. Human nature tells us to stick our heads in the sand when something bad happens financially. But know that lenders want you to plan and may even help.
Also, understand the full impact. Worst case, you might be looking at an extra $500 in interest payments after the reset. But for most it's tax deductible; the "net" impact is less.
If you plan far enough in advance, you may be able to save enough to get you over the hump. A $500/month adjustment is $6,000 a year. Not chump change, but not and an enormous sum, especially after tax effects are considered (in a 30% federal/state bracket, that $6,000 only costs you $4,200). If you could save enough to buy the home in the first place, you can probably save a good part of that $4,200 if you put your mind to it.
Find additional income sources
Obviously, if your costs go up, one solution to the problem is to expand your income. One way is to rent a room to a friend, relative, or insider. Not forever -- just until you can get your budget balanced again.
Or, find a small second job. Even a part-time retail job can pull $500 a month for about 15 hours a week. That goes a long way towards the reset, and you'll get a nice store discount besides (but don't spend it all!)
Refinance
I'm normally not a big advocate of bill consolidation loans, mainly because once smaller debts are wiped clean they have a way of reappearing. But consolidation can be a good way to offset a reset.
Why? Because reduced interest costs on credit-card and other high-cost debt can cancel out the increase in ARM interest, keeping your total interest costs relatively unchanged. This approach has risk, but makes sense with discipline.
The best idea, according to Eric Margolias, CEO of mortgage broker Source4HomeLoans, is to refinance into a fixed loan if at all possible. Fixed rates have stayed relatively constant, and with the ARM you remain exposed to rate increases. Prepare by fixing your credit, shopping at places like LendingTree.com and keep in mind that the percentage of fixed-rate applications being rejected is on the rise.
But for peace of mind -- and future financial prosperity -- "fixed" is probably where you should be anyway. Get there if you can.
Keep it in perspective
Margolias is adamant about looking at the bright side. Don't look at your ARM as a loan that got more expensive, but rather one that gave you a healthy discount in the beginning. You saved $6,000 a year initially on that $300,000 loan.
Tax implications aside, that's a big number -- where else can you get a discount large enough to buy a late model used car? It probably helped you get the home in the first place.
And finally, even if you don't successfully escape your ARM, history shows you're still in great shape. Two decades ago any mortgage under 10% seemed like a bargain. Today's interest rates -- even at the high end -- are among the lowest in history.
And that, as I see it, is the real bargain.
Jennifer Openshaw, author of the upcoming book, "The Millionaire Zone," is CEO of winningadvice.com. She is also host of ABC Radio's "Winning Advice with Jennifer Openshaw" and appears frequently on such shows as the CBS Early Show and Good Morning America. E-mail her at Openshaw@winningadvice.com.
Article courtesy of MarketWatch 04.24.07
Friday, April 20, 2007
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Spruce Up Your Home To Sell
By Mary Dalrymple
April 19, 2007
This article is part of our Subprime Survival Guide.
With housing sales slumping in many parts of the country, anyone forced to move at this less-than-opportune moment faces a challenge -- how do you get the best price for your humble abode when buyers can afford to be pickier than a diva in a shoe store?
One trick to making your home seem more attractive than all the rest is to, well, make it more attractive than all the rest. The experts call this staging. You can hire a professional to do the job for you, or you can do much of the work yourself.
Start with some criticism
If you have a few opinionated friends (and who doesn't) and a couple of free weekends, you can make major improvements without shelling out a lot of money. It could be just like one of those home and garden television shows, but without the chummy banter among the thin, well-dressed designers. Start by asking your opinionated friends to come over and walk through the house as though they were potential buyers. Ask them to point out anything that might turn off a home shopper. Don't take their comments personally. Everyone who comes to look at your home will walk through a critic. Better to hear the bad news now than suffer the consequences by settling for a lower price, or by watching your house sit on the market too long.
With your friends' list of complaints in hand, tackle the job. Next, get rid of clutter. We all have it, and we get used to looking at it. It's time to banish it. Think in terms of making your home look like the picture-perfect rooms in those glossy magazines. What makes them so alluring? To begin with, your husband's shoes aren't strewn all over the floor, and the dining room's not piled high with junk mail and dusty knick-knacks.
Empty it out
Remove things that overwhelm visitors with your personality. We know your collection of porcelain dalmatian dogs is charming, but it may interfere with buyers trying to imagine themselves living in the house. Along these lines, experts recommend you remove all your family photos. It's my humble opinion that one or two well-placed snapshots give the warm impression that your home made your family happy and can do the same for others.
Consider removing some furniture if your house is stuffed to the gills. To keep costs low, resist the urge to put everything in self-storage. Give away or sell anything you know you won't use in your new home. Don't pile it all into the basement or into a closet. Buyers will look in your closets, your kitchen cabinets, your garage, your basement, and probably even your underwear drawer. Almost nothing's off limits.
Scrub-a-dub-dub
Then, clean. Clean like you've never cleaned before. Pretend Martha Stewart and your mother-in-law will stop by at the same time to inspect for cobwebs in the corners, dust on the mini-blinds, and streaks on the windows. Your potential buyers will consider your house well maintained if it looks sparkling. Even old kitchens and bathrooms can look newer if they're scrubbed to a shine.
Also, go through your home with a bloodhound's nose. Now is the time to eliminate the musty odor in the bathroom and eradicate any scent suggesting that Misty the cat likes to hang out in the basement. I recently found myself charmed by a house for sale in my neighborhood for no other good reason than the scent of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies hanging in the air.
Freshen it up
If you've been to many local open houses, you've probably realized that first impressions count, and that means your front yard and front door should be inviting. Even if you're not a green thumb, planting a few colorful annuals can cheer up an entrance. (Just pull them out if you can't keep them looking healthy.)
Anything, including the front door, can look fresher with a new coat of paint. Even urbane city dwellers who know a screwdriver only as a drink with orange juice can usually manage to paint. If you're not that handy, this can be one of the less expensive jobs for a professional. Make your priority any room that has decor you can date. Take note if your opinionated friends say something like, "That's so mid-1980s country kitchen."
Now is also the time to fix all the "quirks" that make your house your home. Fix the leaky faucets and running toilets, the broken stair rail, the loose doorknobs, and all the other little things that buyers won't want to do themselves.
Watch your budget
Like many household improvements, this one can get expensive quickly if you let it. Before you know it, you could be thinking about buying that new sofa you've been eying and upgrading all your kitchen appliances.
But remember -- you don't want to give all your extra home profits to Lowe's (NYSE: LOW) or Home Depot (NYSE: HD). Don't get carried away if you don't want to spend a lot of money on this project. Put some elbow grease into the job -- by cleaning and getting rid of clutter -- before you start the projects that cost you money. Then set a budget and do whatever gives you the most bang for your buck. Put repair jobs for obvious problems and paint at the top of the list. Flip through some of those glossy magazines for inspiration, and if you need some help, visit the Fools on the Building & Maintaining a Home discussion board. You can also learn to Be a Smart Owner from the Home and Mortgage center.
If you're contemplating more extensive repairs or renovations, check out these other Foolish articles:
Fool contributor Mary Dalrymple hopes to avoid all that cleaning by never moving, and she welcomes your feedback. Home Depot is an Inside Value recommendation. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Columbus - March 2007 Home Sale Statistics from the Columbus Board of Realtors
March 2007 Home Sales
Finally, home prices inching up
(April 18, 2007) After nine consecutive months of negative home price appreciation, central Ohio home prices are again headed in the right direction. The average price of a home sold in March was $168,586, up 2.3 percent from one year ago according to the Columbus Board of REALTORS®.
"The average price of a home was up 2.0 percent in February and now 2.3% in March," said Brad Bennett, President of the Columbus Board of REALTORS®. "As 2006 was the only year on record where the average home price appreciation fell, the turnaround is a welcome relief to all home owners."
Although January home sales were up 12.2 percent, February sales fell almost two percent and March sales followed up with a drop of 16.1 percent from last year. Year to date, there have been 5,101 home sales in the first quarter, down 4.6 percent from 2006.
"We anticipated the drop in closings for March," says Bennett. "It's a direct reflection of the record low temperatures and snow emergencies we experienced back in January and early February which kept most of us indoors as much as possible. As a result, home showing activity and consequently offers to purchase homes dropped significantly."
There were 5,200 homes listed in March, up almost one percent from last year. This puts the number of residential homes for sale at 17,699 which is 10.7 percent higher than were on the market at the end of first quarter 2006.
According to Bennett, "we added over 52 percent more homes to the market in March as compared to February. This is partly due to the traditional 'coming out' season, but also due again to the weather in February which put the chill on listing activity as well."
"Now is definitely a great time to buy a home. There is an excellent selection of homes to choose from and interest rates are still very competitive. And real estate is unquestionably the best long term investment," adds Bennett.
Monday, April 16, 2007
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