Austin Property Talk

6 Biggest Mistakes Home Buyers Make

CNNMoney.com posted an article on Monday about some of the biggest mistakes that uninformed home buyers make when they go through the process of purchasing a home.  These mistakes can become all the more prevalent with the approaching expiration deadline of the Federal Tax Credits.  Home buyers must be "under contract" by April 30th in order to qualify for either the $8000 First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit or the $6500 Repeat Home Buyer Tax Credit. 

As a result, the tendency is to try to skirt the normal time lines for purchasing a house in order to force a potential purchase that will qualify for one of these incentives.  This is further evidence as to why it is so important to seek out a trusted adviser, a skilled REALTOR who will guide you through the process helping you to avoid careless mistakes and/or oversights.   

According to this article, some of the biggest mistakes that buyers make include:

1) Not knowing your credit score before you start the process.  The differences in interest rate and loan fees can be significant for just a 20-30 point difference in your credit score.  Knowing that up front can help you to take the necessary steps to address errors and clean up glitches.  

2) Making large purchases on credit prior to or during the processing of your new home loan.   Making purchases such as a new car, furniture or appliances on store credit or your Mastercard can significantly effect your ability to secure the proper financing for your home purchase.  

3) Skimping on a Home Inspection.   If you ever watch those HGTV or TLC shows with novice house flippers or investors, one of the biggest mistakes some of them make is failing to have a home inspection.  They think that because the house is a "fixer-upper" anyway, the money spent on an inspection is pointless.  Same holds true for a regular home purchase.  Money spent on a home inspection is well worth it.  

4) Overlooking contract contingencies.  When a contract in Texas is written properly, there should be at least two major contingencies written into every offer.  The first is the option period which gives you a certain period of time to complete inspections and negotiate repairs.  The second is a financing contingency period which gives you an extended deadline to finalize your loan.  Both are meant to protect the buyer and save you money.  Again, all the more reason to seek advice from someone who has skills and knowledge in the real estate field.  

5) Not budgeting for Property Taxes and Insurance.   In Central Texas we are fortunate the we usually don't have to carry expensive insurance policies against major flood and natural disasters.  However, in other parts of the country, those can be a large added expense.  In Texas we do have to budget for higher property taxes than in other parts of the country.  Depending on the value and location of your house, taxes and insurance can run an extra $400-700 a month on top your mortgage principle and interest.  

While the road to home ownership can sometimes seem wrought with pot holes, as long as you are working with a professional, such as a REALTOR, who will educate you, you should not run into as many obstacles.  On the flip side, the road is littered with unfortunate stories of people who thought they could do it on their own or who wanted to save a buck and ultimately ended up in a nightmare situation. 

Buyer's representation on a home purchase is essentially free to you so you might as well take advantage of it.  I've put together a whole library of buyer's resources to help guide you along the way on your home purchase and protect you from unforeseen incident. 

April 2010 Newsletter

The April 2010 Better Austin Living Newsletter is now posted on the Newsletter Tab. In this month's newsletter you will learn how getting fooled can be fun.  Did you know that a cat is twice as likely to be injured when it falls between two and six stories than when it falls between seven and thirty two?  Me neither. 

Learn how to avoid infection while at the doctors office and get directions for a new direction.  Find out what I'm currently reading and read all about my Surprise 30th birthday party.  Enjoy the Newsletter. 

If you are not a subscriber to my newsletter and would like to be, shoot me an email - Ryan@BetterAustinLiving.com.  Enjoy!

Link it Up

4 Links to interesting news & insight about homes, home loans and the real estate market for you on this Friday.  

What's that in your mailbox (or directly deposited into your checking account)?  Woo-hoo -- your tax refund from the IRS! But that giddy feeling can lead you to squander most or all of the dough on stuff you don't really need. Here are three ways to make it easier to save at least some of it. (How to Save some of your Tax Refund)

Mortgage rates yesterday ended a rally streak that brought consumer borrowing costs back down toward their best levels of 2010. Almost erasing all the losses experienced before and after the Federal Reserve exited the secondary mortgage market. (Mortgage Rates Give Back Gains after Steady Winning Streak)

Spring in Texas: Bulbs blooming. Hail pounding your roof. There's nothing quite like that helpless, sinking feeling of wondering how many thousands of dollars you'll be out or worrying about what's happening to the new home you're trying to buy. (Know what to do when Hail and your Roof Meet)

Austin ranked 18th on a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency listing of metropolitan areas with energy efficient buildings, falling behind both Houston and Dallas. Read more: (Austin ranks 18th on green building list, behind Dallas and Houston - Austin Business Journal:)

Fancy Hands

I always have my eye out for cool ideas.  I subscribe to a lot of blogs in my Google Reader, but I'll admit I rarely devote the time necessary to get through them many of them.  There is one blog/website in particular that I check on a regular basis.  Daily Dashboard is a website by Dean Jackson and his wife Sony.  Its geared toward real estate agents but they usually post interesting content. 

This morning I went over there to see what they have posted recently and I came across a post that Dean wrote yesterday about Fancy Hands.  Fancy Hands (@fancyhands)?  What is Fancy Hands?

Fancy Hands promotes itself as "Personal Assistants in the Cloud"  Okay, still what the heck is that?

Well, Fancy Hands is a new start up side project by Ted Roden that provides a blanket virtual assistance service for all tasks menial.  For an introductory rate of $30 per month, the team of assistants at Fancy Hands will take 15 small tasks off of your plate.  These tasks can range from calling to make a dinner reservation to scheduling car service to researching Fantasy Baseball statistics for your upcoming draft.  You just send Fancy Hands an email with instructions for what you want to accomplish and they take it off your plate.  This frees your time up to spend on something more important. 

"It's not about the value of the task, it's about the value of me not having to do it, or even think about it anymore." That is how Ted Roden describes Fancy Hands.  

When you think about it, that is pretty cool.  For example, on my way home late last night, my Service Engine Soon light came on.  I have been holding off on getting service done on my Infiniti because I don't want to take it into the dealership anymore.  They always take one of my arms and one of my legs when I'm done servicing my car there.   Maybe Ill get fancy hands to research a local shop that can service my car in the next day or two because I don't have the time or the desire to research it myself.   

In his post on Daily Dashboard, you'll see that Dean asked for some help in finding a local store that had an IPAD in stock for him to pick up over the weekend.   The response that he got was pretty neat and probably saved him a good 30-45 minutes of research.   And that is just one task.  He gets 14 more.  My guess would be that this service wont be this affordable for long but it might be worth giving a test run at such a low introductory price. 

Here is another review/article about Fancy Hands.

Austin home prices will increase Q1, 2011

Austin area home prices are expected to stop falling in the final quarter this year, according to Federal Housing Finance Agency and Moody's Economy.com data.

The Fiserv Inc. (Nasdaq: FISV) report released today projects Central Texas residential price tags rising in the first quarter next year, reaching levels from before the recession by 2016.

The document estimates prices will have fallen about 4.8 percent by the time it reaches the trough at the end of the year. It said prices began the free fall in the final quarter 2008.

Read more: Report: Austin home prices will increase Q1, 2011 - Austin Business Journal:

Travis Property Values face First Drop since 2003

The recession that wiped out thousands of jobs in Central Texas also erased $6.5 billion from the market value of Travis County properties.

The 5.3 percent drop in values from 2009 was the first decline since 2003, according to preliminary figures from the Travis Central Appraisal District.

The news means tough decisions for local government leaders, who must decide whether to raise tax rates, cut budgets or both to compensate for tens of millions of dollars in lost property tax revenue.

"It means more belt-tightening," said Travis County Judge Sam Biscoe, who presides over the Commissioners Court. "It'll probably be some combination of cuts and small tax increases."

The drop does not necessarily mean lower tax bills for all homeowners. Housing prices declined only slightly last year, despite the recession

Read the Rest of the Article

Foreclosures Hit the Rich and Famous

If you have yet to spend some time at my Austin Foreclosure Finder website, I'd invite you to swing on over and click around.  This is an exclusive member's only website that I keep updated on a weekly basis.  It includes all of the latest foreclosure information in the Austin area.

This week's tribute is to Nicolas cage who lost his Bel Air Mansion to Foreclosure this week.  According to a recent ReatyTrac study completed for the Wall Street Journal, houses with loans of more than $5 million are likely to see a steep spike in foreclosure activity this year. 

One of my favorite celebrity quotes of all time comes from Patrick Ewing, he said, "we make a lot of money, but we spend a lot of money too."  This article details a couple of the ultra wealthy who got in over their heads.  

In honor of Nic Cage and all other less fortunate rich and famous, I've added a Luxury Bank Owned Properties tab to the website.  This link will feature only those recent bank foreclosures listed at $500,000 and above.  Some range as high as $2-3 million.  If nothing else, they are fun to look at.

March 2010 Status Updates

I just spent the time reviewing (cutting and pasting my March Facebook and Twitter updates) as promised in my previous post at the beginning of the year.  March was definitely filled with less personal updates and more quotes and inspirational messages; many coming from the books that I've been reading.  

It was a little bit harder to choose what to highlight this month because I committed myself to tweeting every day in the month of March.  That led to a much higher volume than I am used to.  

By using Hootsuite, I was able to spend some time each morning loading up the messages that I wanted to send for the day.  It is a much more efficient way to send out tweets.  Then over the course of the day, I will supplement those messages with some updates of interesting things going on during the day. 

Here is a link to my March 2010 Tweets and Status Updates.  

You can find the links to my social networks on the left of this page. 

My twitter accounts are RyanFrance and ATXRealEstate

The HGTV Generation

Its interesting.  One of the first things that I am starting to hear on a lot of my listing appointments is "I know we have to de-clutter and de-personalize before we can list the house for sale."  Or, "I know they say on HGTV that you are supposed to do this (fill in the blank)."

 While on one hand its a bit humorous to hear, its also a positive sign.  I owe the HGTV-type shows a little gratitude for educating home sellers that throwing a sign in the front yard and lockbox on the front door will no longer sell a house.  

Its helpful when you walk into a listing appointment and know that more often than not, there is at least an awareness around the fact that they way most of us live in a house and the proper way to show the house for sale are not always synonymous.   

The best place to start is to go room by room in your house and take pictures from the doorways.  Pictures don't lie.  These pictures allow you to gain the perspective of a home buyer.  There are many things as homeowners that we learn to tolerate over time.  The soap scum on the glass shower door, the carpet stain in the corner or the broken closet door hinge - just to name a few.  While those particular things become second nature to us, they are the very things that are likely to turn off the casual buyer or at the least cause them to question the condition of the house. 

This past Saturday morning, Kristin and I spent some time helping one of my new clients move furniture & boxes to storage and stage her house prior to us preparing to list this coming weekend.  She and her daughter had already done a tremendous job of de-cluttering the house.  The process started with taking pictures of the house and providing those pictures to the homeowner who was a little surprised at what the house really looked like from that vantage point. 

She and her daughter have dedicated themselves to doing whatever they need to do to make the house cleaner, less cluttered and more attractive and the results were fabulous.  It makes my job much easier when I finally do stick the sign in the front yard and pictures on the internet.  I owe them a lot of thanks as well as my wife, Kristin, but at the same time they are a perfect example of a seller who is dedicated to the process of actually selling a home. 

Its refreshing and I have to say I owe probably HGTV one here.  Now, if I could just figure out a way to show my buyer clients three houses and force them to pick one of the three to buy just like they do on TV.  Someone help me with that one?

Link it Up

5 Links to interesting news & insight about homes, home loans and the real estate market for you on this Friday. 

Austin space is the place. Texas' capital largely avoided the brunt of the recession because there was no home appreciation bubble to burst. At about 4 percent, the city enjoys one of the lowest unemployment rates in the nation . . . (Hottest Housing Markets for 2010)

Think you spend lots of money in your city? According to a study by Bundle.com, residents of Austin, Texas spent an average of $67,076 a year on non-real estate purchases, putting it ahead of Scottsdale, Arizona and San Jose, California as the highest spending metro areas in the US. (Austin Texas Named Highest Spending City in US)

Central Texas builders started nearly 31 percent more homes in the first three months of this year compared with a year earlier, the first year-over-year quarterly increase in 3½ years and a sign the local housing market may be turning around.  (Austin New Home Starts Jump)

Attention shoppers: You have barely a month left before the homebuyer tax credit expires. But depending on where you live, you might not want to rush out to buy. First-time homebuyers may qualify for up to $8000, while those who are trading up could get as much as $6,500. But either way, buyers have to ink sales contracts by the end of April and close before July 1 to see the refund. (30 Days and Counting: Homebuyer Tax Credit Expires)

April 1, is day one in the mortgage market’s expedition into uncharted territory — uncharted in the sense that mortgage rates have been corralled by the Fed’s MBS-purchase program for well over a year now. The big question — the 800-pound gorilla in the room, if you will — has been, “what will happen to mortgage rates now that the Fed has stepped out of the picture?”  (Predictions abound as Mortgage Market Enters Uncharted Territory) 

How to Sell Your House For the Most Money In the Shortest Possible Time

Here’s a quick note to let you know how I can help you or anyone you feel comfortable introducing me to. . .   

Regardless of the changing economy, sometimes people need to sell their home quickly but still need to get as much money out of their home as possible.

The next time you’re in a conversation with a friend, family member or neighbor and they mention they want to sell their Austin are home fast and get the most money possible, would you stop, take out your cell phone, look up my number (512-773-3493) and call me immediately?  I’ll send you my free report, How to Sell Your House For the Most Money In the Shortest Possible Time, so you can give it to them.

Ryan France, Your Friend in the Real Estate Business
StoneHaven Realty - (512) 773-3493

P.S.  What a homeowner does right now can make a huge difference in getting their home sold quickly.  Who’s the next seller you know who could benefit from this free report?  Be sure to give me a call so I can send this report to you to pass along.