Real Estate New York

Market Update April 2010
1 Months Left to Use $6,500-$8,000 Buyer Tax Credit information

Don't forget our Real Estate New York 10% of our commission rebate up to $1,000 details

How to Turn $8,000 Tax Credit into Ready Cash

The only problem with the Federal $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers is that it kicks in the following year as a credit against tax liability. Unfortunately, most home buyers find that the dollar amount required to get into a first home can be daunting, even when down payments and closing costs are bundled into the monthly mortgage.

However, the IRS makes provisions for reducing the amount withheld for an employee's paycheck. This increases income can provide immediate help with monthly mortgage payments.

To calculate the reduced withholding the IRS has provided a calculator to determine how much a change in tax liability can affect withholding per pay period. The utility can be found at: http://www.irs.gov/individuals/article/0,,id=96196,00.html

In addition, an amended tax return can be files for tax year 2009 even if the sale did not occur in 2009.

In addition, it is highly recommended that a home buyer consult their tax professional for specific recommendations.

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Tips for Buying Your First Home

5 Essential Things You Need for Home Buying

I have written a ton of articles about the home buying path and gone into excruciating detail about every single step involved in buying a home. It dawned on me that buyers really need a basic overview. Especially for first-time home buyers who aren't familiar with the process.

Bear in mind that the steps in the process can vary from state to state, depending on local custom. However, when you strip away all of the crap, which may or may not happen to you, there are really only 5 basic steps to buying a home. You can do these 5 steps in any order you want.

Hire an Agent

Because I am an agent, I believe in hiring a buyer's agent first. But you don't have to if you prefer to go to open houses and look through a mumbo jumbo of homes online. Mostly, an agent will save you time.

• An agent can send you listings directly from MLS that fit your parameters, and you won't waste time looking at active short contingent listings that are under contract.

• Agents often know of new listings coming up that are not yet on the market.

• You can waste the agent's gas and not your own when you tour homes.

• Some agents will preview homes for you.

• An agent can generally spot overpriced listings and advise you accordingly.

Find a Home to Buy

Buying a home can be an overwhelming process and emotionally draining. Finding the right home is not always an easy task. I advise buyers to look at a maximum of 7 homes at a time because any more than that will make a buyer's head spin.

Most buyers conduct a lot of research online before ever stepping foot in a home. Buyers spend an average of 6 to 8 weeks, according to the National Association of REALTORS, trying to figure out where they want to live. But once the neighborhood is selected, most buyers end up buying a home after 2 or 3 home tours.

Get a Loan

It's not always necessary to have a mortgage broker or bank in your back pocket before buying a home, but it's smarter to get loan preapproval in advance. This way you know for certain how much home to buy.

I once bought a home without financing in place when I made the offer. I was just lucky. Many sellers won't look at an offer if the seller doesn't have assurance that the buyer can get a loan.

Popular first-time buyer loans are FHA loans because the minimum down payment requirement is much less than a conventional loan. However, if you are thinking about buying foreclosures, for example, conventional buyers tend to get priority with REO banks.

You can ask your agent for a referral to a mortgage broker or check with your own bank / credit union. Compare the types of mortgages available to you and your GFE.

Negotiate the Offer

Buyers sometimes make the mistake of comparing the sales price of a home to other homes they have seen. It's a mistake to compare sales prices among homes for sale. That's because sellers can ask any price they want. It doesn't mean the home will sell at that price.

An agent can provide comparable sales and examine the pending sales. Comparable sales are similar type homes in the same condition and location that have sold within the past 3 months. Pending sales will become the comparable sales by the time your home closes.

You may need to pay over list price in a seller's market, especially if many buyers are vying for the same inventory. Your agent can give you a reasonable price range and help to manage your expectations. An good buyer's agent knows there is always more to an offer than its price, but price is paramount.

Do a Home Inspection

In some states, a home inspection is conducted before buyers make a purchase offer. In other states, a home inspection is a contract contingency. A contract contingency means a buyer has the right to cancel the contract. You might not want to be locked in to buying a home that has a faulty foundation, for example.

Sellers are generally not required to make repairs if problems are discovered during a home inspection. A home inspection is for the buyer's edification. However, sometimes when a buyer gives a Request for Repair to the seller, rather than blow the deal, the seller will often agree to make a repair.

By Elizabeth Weintraub, About.com Guide

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Foreclosures Drop 2nd Straight Month in February

U.S. mortgage foreclosure filings dropped for a second straight month in February, and notched the smallest annual increase in four years as housing-rescue efforts contained activity, a report released on Thursday showed.

Foreclosures are by far one of the biggest threats to the U.S. housing market, which remains highly vulnerable to setbacks and heavily reliant on government intervention. If foreclosures keep dropping, it will be one of the strongest signals yet the market is on the path to recovery.

Foreclosure filings -- including mortgage default notices, house auctions and home repossessions by banks -- were reported on 308,524 properties in February, down 2 percent from January, but still up 6 percent from the year-ago month, real estate data firm RealtyTrac said.

"The 6 percent year-over-year increase we saw in February was the smallest annual increase we've seen since January 2006, when we began calculating year-over-year increases, but it still marked the 50th consecutive month of year-over-year increases in foreclosure activity," said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac, in a statement.

Read more from Reuters

Top 10 Geekiest Decorations for Your Home

We certainly wouldn’t advocate turning your home into some kind of over-the-top dork theme park, but a few witty items carefully placed here and there can brighten up the dullest work space with some geek chic.

Having a home gives you the chance to display things you might not get away with (or indeed, want to get away with) at the office. From magnificent magnets to clever clocks and wall decals, here’s a choice of ten products that will help you geek-pimp your work space in style.

Read more from Mashable

Home Tweat Home

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Each day Real Estate New York staffers pick the best
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Not Getting First Look Listings?

Most often this is caused by the clients spam filter stopping the email listing from arriving.

Usually this can be remedied by including: Email@ParagonMessaging.com as a Safe Sender or white listing the above email address as safe. If help is needed to do this you may contact:

Dennis Maier 518-312-4030 extension #1 or 888-749-3384 toll free

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Treasury Provides Details of New Short Sale Incentive Program

Less then a month after the announcement that the federal government was going to start an incentive program to encourage buyers and banks to sell houses at depressed values without foreclosures, David Streitfeld of The New York Times has the details — and they’re a little strange.

The basis of the program, which starts April 5, is much as it was described in February: The bank servicing the mortgage will get $1,000 for a short sale if it agrees not to go after the homeowner for the remainder of the mortgage; another $1,000 goes to the servicer of a second mortgage, if there is one; and the homeowner gets $1,500 in “relocation expenses.” If there’s a third mortgage, that bank gets nothing, but can still hold up the short sale.

The benefit is that short sale homes won’t be listed as foreclosures per se, so communities think they won’t be ransacked by former owners or vandals. Since if the bank took possession of the home and then short sold it, the bank would be listed as the seller of record in all legal documents, homeowners will seemingly keep possession of the homes, but they may or may not continue to occupy them.

In addition, Short Sales allow an owner to avoid foreclosure and damage to their credit rating. To the buyer, short sales represent an excellent opportunity to buy a home below market value.

Read more from The Washington Independent

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High Property Taxes? 4 Steps to Lowering Them

Home prices are still far below their highs just a few years ago. One bittersweet perk for homeowners is that property taxes should be lower too.

If your home's value has tumbled, you may be able to slash hundreds of dollars from your tax bill by appealing its assessed value. That's because local governments generally don't reassess homes every year, meaning the values they use to levy property taxes may be outdated.

Just how much you could save depends on your real estate market. But nationally, home prices are still about 30 percent below their peak in 2006.

The appeal process varies depending on your area, but here's a guide on the steps you'll need to take.

STEP 1: TRACK DOWN THE PAPERWORK

Property taxes are assessed on a local level. Most homes are only assessed by one jurisdiction, whether it's a town, city or county. But if your home has more than one assessment -- for example, if you live in a village within a town -- you need to file appeals with both jurisdictions since they operate independently.

You can start by searching for your assessor's Web site, where you'll find the form to file an appeal. It will probably be a page or two, and ask for basic information and your home's parcel or lot number. The latter should be listed on your mortgage or property tax bill, or you might be able to look it up on the assessor's Web site.

Deadlines for appealing an assessment in a particular year are often in the spring, so get moving if you're seriously considering it.

Filing fees vary; it could be free, it may be a flat fee of $15 or so.

STEP 2: UNDERSTAND THE PROCESS

There are two important technicalities to understand, but they're simple to grasp and shouldn't daunt you.

The first is your home's assessed value. This is the basis for your property tax, and isn't always the same as your home's market value.

Some local governments assess homes at a fraction of their market value. For example, if the assessment rate is 60 percent, the assessed value of a $1 million home would be $600,000.

The appeal form will likely ask for assessed values, so you may have to do a little math once you've collected market values on comparable homes.

Assessment rates can change from year to year too, depending on the area's funding needs.

It's also important to know the date your area's assessments are based on. In New Jersey, for example, homes are assessed by local governments on Oct. 1 of the previous tax year. So if you're requesting a new assessment for 2010, you'd need to research home prices from around Oct. 1, 2009.

If you're having trouble finding either the assessment rate or date, don't be afraid to call your assessor's office and ask.

Read more from The New York TImes Business

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SONYMA Home First Time Home Owner Plan Thrives

Agency offers low interest rates for first time homeowners.

George Leocata, a senior vice president at SONYMA, says demand for the agency's loans are at an 18-year high. And SONYMA is on pace to finance $530 million in mortgages, which would make this one of the biggest years in the agency's 40-year history.

SONYMA mortgages are limited to first-time home buyers. And that just so happens to be one of the more active segments of a generally sluggish housing market, thanks to the $8,000 tax credit for new buyers launched last year by Congress. The popularity is also tied, Leocata believes, to low interest rates and tightening credit standards that have led some buyers to turn to SONYMA. SONYMA also has stepped up its marketing efforts. "We're trying to make more people aware that we're out there," Leocata said. "We feel that for first-time buyers, we're one of the best programs (available)."

Many housing counselors and others in the mortgage industry agree, although they suggest that SONYMA lending standards may have also tightened during the credit crunch and note that the agency's loans carry income limitations that exclude many borrowers.

Indeed, in the Capital Region, households with one or two people must have annual income below $74,100 to qualify for SONYMA mortgages. If there are three or more people, the annual household income limit rises to to $85,215. But there are unique advantages to SONYMA loans, including relatively low deposit requirements and even down payment assistance.

"For people who don't have a lot of money to work with, it's definitely a good loan," said Linda Roberts, a mortgage consultant at First Priority Mortgage in Clifton Park. Bobbi Carter, director of the homeownership center at Troy-based TRIP Inc., a nonprofit organization, agreed and said she encourages borrowers to consider SONYMA.

Carter added that tighter credit standards are affecting many potential buyers. "Any mortgage out there right now is more difficult to get approval for," she said. "There's difficulty in all types of loans."

Read more from The Albany Times Union

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Mortgage Rates and Trends

The link to up to the minute New York State mortgage information seems to work better than presenting the actual graph. Click for up to the minute mortgage rate information

Buyers' versus Sellers' Market Report

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The graph above shows the number of sales in a given month divided by the number of homes on the market in the four main counties of the Capital Region.

March sales figures show a slight reversal toward seller territory. This is typical of this time of year plus the additional influence of the $8,000 First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit due to expire at the end of the month.

*This ratio can be used to determine whether we are in a buyers' or sellers' market as indicated in Dennis Maier's article on Market Timing featured in eZine Real Estate. In general, if it would (theoretically) take less than 6 1/2 months to sell the current inventory it's a sellers' market. If it would take more than 9 months to sell all the homes on the market it's a buyers' market.

Market Statistics as of April 1, 2010

The average list and sale prices for the month of March 2010 show a significant reversal of trend and a level well below February prices.

The average asking price to sale price has increased from 96.89% in February to 97.67% for March. The number of sales at 388 is up from 280 last month as is typical for this time of year.

This is an indication that buyers are returning to the market and getting good deals, especially for first time home buyers.

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