10 Reasons You Should Buy a Home Now!

When is the best time to buy a house? It is a question that many people ask themselves from time to time. Are the housing prices right? Are the mortgage rates low enough? Well MSN has reported that NOW is the best time to buy a house, and here are 10 reasons why!


1. You can get a good deal- It is a buyers market and if you play hardball, you can pick up a house at a bargain price. Since the tax credits on purchases have expired, we have seen a decrease in the number of buyers.


2. Mortgages are cheap- You can get a 30 year home loan for about 4.3% right now, and these are the lowest rates on record. If inflation picks up, you will not see these mortgage rates again. And if we see deflation and the rates drop further, you can always refinance.


3. You'll save on taxes- You can deduct mortgage interest from your income taxes. You can also deduct your real-estate taxes and a tax break on capital gains- if any- when you sell your home.


4. It'll be yours!- When you own, you can make your home however you would like it! You can paint the walls, re-do the kitchen, upgrade the bathrooms, whatever you want! You also feel better knowing you own the home you live in. Any upgrade you do will only increase the value of your home when re-selling.


5. You'll get a better home- In many parts of the country, it is hard to find a good rental. Landlords don't necessarily keep the house/condo modern and clean if they are renting. When owning, you tend to take better care of your home.

6. It offers some inflation protection- Although housing can't totally protect you from inflation, studies show that over the long term, housing has tended to beat inflation by a couple of inflation points a year. That's valuable inflation insurance, especially if you are young, raising a family and thinking about the next 30 to 40 years.


7. It's risk capital- Your home isn't the stock market and it should not be viewed as a way to get rich, but if the economy does surprise us all and start booming, sooner or later real-estate prices will go up again, too.


8. It's forced savings- If you can rent an apartment for $2,000 a month instead of buying for $2,400 a month, renting might make sense. But will you save that $400 for the future? Most people won't. You have to do the math, but the part of your mortgage payment that goes to principal repayment isn't a cost. You are just paying yourself by building equity. As a forced monthly savings, its a good discipline.


9. There's a lot to choose from- There are a ton of homes on the market right now, the National Association of Realtors puts the number of available homes at around 4 million. That is below last years peak but well above the typical levels. More homes continue to come onto the market as the banks slowly unload their inventory of unsold properties. This means great choice as well as great prices.


10. Sooner or later the market will clear- Eventually, demand and supply will meet. The U.S. population is forecast to grow by over 100 million people over the next 40 years. That means maybe 40 million new households looking for homes. Meanwhile, this housing glut will work itself out. Many of the homes will be bought, but many more will simply be destroyed.


So, if you are considering purchasing a house, look over these reasons why now is the time to buy. And when you do buy, call CRS to help you move!

People One Year Ago or More Living in Different States

In the recently released Census Bureau American Community Survey, one of the interesting studies was for people who lived in different states one or more years ago. This study shows the states where people are more likely moving into still, and those that are not seeing new people move in. Overall, 2.3 % of the population in the US lived in another state one year or more ago.

Alaska and Wyoming take the top of the list with 5.9% and 5.8% of the population respectively having lived in a different state one year or more ago. The next states with 3.7 to 4.7% of the population having lived in a different state are all in that same part of the country as Wyoming. They were Idaho, the Dakotas, Nevada, Colorado, and Kansas.

The bottom of the list for movement in were surprisingly states like California at 1.3%, New York at 1.4%, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

The lime colored states were 2.7-3.5% living in another state 1 or more years ago.

Still trying to find out what states all the people moved from! In our business that would be the key.

State house sale listing statistics

The National Association of Realtors website publishes stats on homes for sale including the average listing price, and time of the market. I went through the map which tags each states stats, and by clicking on the state it provides a snap shot of that state. What I found in a random clicking, was that California had the lowest average days on the market of 155 days! That really surprised me. Vermont, which has not felt the housing bust as much, was higher at 175 days. Rhode Island, was the lowest I could find at 143 days. New York was 157- but there are states where the average days on the market are way over 200 days; like Florida at 229, Colorado at 215. But it looks like most states are in between 150 and 190 days.

Not sure where these stats were last year.

America's Strongest Housing Markets in 2014

I was sent this great article on the projected turn of the housing market and since that has been a popular topic recently, I only found it fit to post on todays Blog! America's Strongest Housing Markets in 2014 was found on Bloomberg Businessweek and it discusses where in the country the housing market will rebound the most.

According to the Fiserv Case-Shiller indexes, home prices in the U.S. have declined 29.5% over the past four years. David Stiff, the chief economist at Fiserv estimates that early next year, the median home price will be down roughly 32.9% from the 2006 peak. He also states that in early 2014, prices will have climbed about 7.2% from 2010 levels.

And the winners are.................

There were 384 locations surveyed and it was determined that the Bremerton-Silverdale area in Washington State had the highest four-year growth forcast with prices expected to increase 44.7% from 2010 to 2014.

Bend, Oregon is in second place with prices expected to jump 33.6% by 2014 and Detroit, Michigan with 33.1%.

Markets with the weakest projections include.....

Miami, Florida, Naples, Florida, Atlantic City, New Jersey

Prices are expected to continue to fall over the next four years in these 3 locations.

To find out where your city stands visit the Bloomberg Businessweek.

What if our new home has bedbugs?

With all the publicity about this problem, so far we have not had a customer with a bedbug problem; that we know about. Of course since we are moving them out of a home, we probably wouldn't know unless their old home had bedbugs. Makes me itch just thinking about this topic.

The bed cover

I did some research on bedbugs, wondering how we might counsel a customer with who may encounter this problem. And I found some pretty interesting information. One study, published by Cornell University can be found at the following link-

http://www.nysipm.cornell.edu/publications/bb_guidelines/files/bb_guidelines_nyc4.pdf

Another person, moved into a home that was infested with these bugs. The bottom line is that they sealed all their beds in simple covers that they purchased at Walmart that had been used to protect from dust mites. They developed a blog site listed below which could be very useful.

http://thebedbugwar.blogspot.com/

We certainly hope that none of our customers or anyone reading this blog for that matter encounter this problem, but the information contained here will be a good start in understanding the problem and how to deal with it.

Fall Foliage in Vermont!

It's that time of year! The colors in Vermont are at their peak and everyone is getting excited for winter. Check out this photo!

NAR reports increase in Pending Home Sales

"The Pending Home Sales Index,* a forward-looking indicator, rose 4.3 percent to 82.3 based on contracts signed in August from a downwardly revised 78.9 in July, but is 20.1 percent below August 2009 when it was 103.0. The data reflects contracts and not closings, which normally occur with a lag time of one or two months."

This is the second good report for housing in the last 2 weeks! Although we are still lagging way behind 2009, it looks like maybe we are going in the right direction.