Southern Utah House Finder.com

If you’re looking to buy a home in Southern Utah now is the time to buy.  There are a lot of great deals that are available on the market in all price ranges.  If you are looking to buy rental property you can finally find some that will pay for themselves.  You can buy some homes for a third of what they sold for less than 3 years ago.  There are many bank foreclosures on the market offering great value for the savvy buyer.  If you are looking for a place to find all of the bank for closures you can find them at: www.southernutahhousefinder.com.  There are also other great deals out there on the market.  I saw a Green Springs Home today that was over 3000 sq. ft for only 319,000.  If you can’t see the value of that home then you haven’t been in this market before.  The county tax record values the home at over $500,000.  Hello!

If you need help finding some of these great deals give me a call and I will get you hooked up with one of these great values.

My number is (435)-627-5402   Now is the time to buy.  You can still get loans regardless of what the financial doom seems to be.  It is always best to buy at the bottom of the market not at the middle or the top.  Sales went up in August by 10% over July.  The second quarter of the year was up over the first quarter by 14%.  With prices going down and sales increasing it’s just a matter of time until things correct themselves.  Don’t wait until they have corrected themselves, buy before so you can get the best deals.  If you would like the most current data on the St. George, Utah area market send me an email at: randersen@erabrokers.net and I will get you the information you need.

Thinking of getting a loan for your new home or trying to refinance your existing home? Before you commit to any lender you should ask some of the following questions:

1). What are the fees you charge for the loan? The lender should be willing to disclose these fees up front. If they don’t want to give you a break down of fees I would suggest you find a different lender.

2). Do you have any type of guarantee for meeting the settlement deadline? If you don’t meet the deadline what will you do to compensate me?

3). Do you have a float down on the rate? If rates drop during the processing time can I relock my rate at the lower rate.

4). Do you charge a yield spread premium on your loans? This is pure profit to the lender and most lenders don’t charge it. Some lenders will do this to buy down your rate but it usually makes the APR go up.

5). Be sure to get the APR rate as it is an indication of what you are truly paying for the loan. You can’t just rely on the quoted rate. Look at your down payment and what your monthly payment will be to find out if you are getting the best deal.

6). Do you table fund the loan? Will the funds be sent to the title company with the documents? This allows the title company to record the legal documents the same day, which means you can usually move in sooner! With the mortgage industry changing guidelines almost daily you need to ask the lender what type of guarantee they have that the loan you can get today will still be available when you go to close the loan. Some people have had loan programs disappear in the middle of the escrow period and have lost the home they were trying to purchase because they no longer qualify.

Why should the Federal Government save the Mortgage Industry? They shouldn’t save them from their own greed and stupidity. If I make bad decisions in my business they won’t bail me out. If you make bad business decisions in your business they won’t bail you out. If the mortgage companies would have adhered to sound business practices they wouldn’t be in the mess they are in. The housing crisis that we are currently experiencing in the country is a result of predatory lending practices of big mortgage companies. The Federal government should not only not bail them out they should investigate them and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law for what they have done to every home owner in this country. Because of the current market conditions the value of most homes across the country have lost considerable value in the past couple of years. The people who are the innocent victims aren’t the ones who signed bad loans, they are the people who have lost the equity that took years to build because of the down turn in the market. I have a small degree of pity for those who got stuck with bad loans, but most of them knew better and signed the papers anyway. I have to pay for the bad decisions that I have made and I have a feeling that most of them will as well. I think that the current crisis needs to run its course and that the government should stay out of it unless they get involved to prosecute those who have committed loan fraud. When the government gets involved they usually mess it up. For those who want to purchase real estate now is a great time and the people who will be able to take advantage of this market will benefit from the loss of others.

If you are sitting on the fence waiting for the market to hit bottom, it’s time to get off the fence. The month of January was the lowest month for sales on residential real estate in the past five years. There were a total of 93 residential units that sold. In the month of February those numbers increased to 133 units sold. This month looks like it will equal or do a little better. There are currently 35 bank owned homes on the Washington County Board of Realtors Multiple Listing Service. There are about 23 homes that are in the short sale process. These numbers are conservative because of data entry issues. The good news is that there are still a lot a screaming deals on real estate in Washington County. Most of the information that I have been given indicates that the market will continue to get better in the next 8 to 10 months. You must realize that Washington County doesn’t follow the trends of other real estate markets around the country. We have a lot of baby boomer’s moving to this area because of the beautiful scenery and the mild climate. Washington County will continue to grow and real estate will rebound from the current slow down and increase in value in the coming years. If you are looking to buy for the long term now is the time. Prices will continue to decline marginally on some of the over priced inventory, but there is a lot of inventory that is priced below market and it will go away quickly. Lot prices will continue to decline through the next year or so. I think you will see lot prices in the St. George area in the $50,000 range by the end of summer. The cost of building a home is not going to get any cheaper because of the fixed material costs. Labor costs have come down to about as low as they can get. The cost to build a new home is considerably more than what existing homes can be purchased for so lot prices will have to drop to make them competitive with existing homes. The area developers will have to lower prices on their lots if they want to sell their inventory. Once the lot prices hit a certain level new construction will pick up and new homes will once again become attractive to buyers because they will be more affordable. For up to date information and market conditions please contact me at randersen@erabrokers.net or 435-632-1622. Happy house hunting!

If you have put off buying a home in Southern Utah now is the time to act. With the inventories at all time highs and with interest rates at 3 year lows it’s time to purchase. Last year the average price of a home in Washington County only dropped 2%. If you expected another 2% drop this year then it will still pay to buy now because of the low interest rates. Some of the homes currently on the market are priced like they were before the 2005 market increase. There are some great deals to be had. If you wait too long and others start taking advantage of the market, then the market will start to stabilize or go up. Historically, real estate increases between 4%-5% a year. We have seen a great increase in the amount of people looking at homes. We have also seen a large increase in the amount of homes put under contract in the first 3 weeks of 2008. Many people wait for years to be able to take advantage of these kinds of deals. If you have looked at the St. George market in the past couple of years and thought you couldn’t afford to live here then it is time to take another look. The reasons people have been moving here in the past 30 years are still here. Lots of sunshine, clean air, and the beautiful scenery. We’ve even added a few restaurants and big box stores and strip malls. It’s also a little easier to get around town. We still have some of the lowest utility rates in the country. Dixie Rural Electric Company, which services the area south of the Virgin River, has the lowest rates in the state of Utah. If you would like to find a great deal on real estate in Southern Utah, now is the time.

In the past several months and looking into the future, many people will be wondering if a short sale is the best move for them to make. If you are in a situation as a home owner where you can no longer afford your mortgage, you may wonder what to do. Some will suggest that you market your home as a short sale. This is usually a situation where you have no equity in your home, or worse yet the value of your home is less than what you owe on it. If this is the case, you would be in line for a short sale (short on funds to be able to sell your home and pay off your mortgage). The question you should ask yourself is, “What will this do to me financially?” If you sell your home in a short sale, you will have a tax liability on the difference of what you sell and what you owe. For example, if you sell your home for $250,000. and you owe $300,000. on it you will have a tax liability on $50,000. This means the bank can send you a 1099 form for $50,000. in income. If you are in a 25% tax bracket, you would have a tax liability of $12,500. quite a shock if you don’t expect it. The loss the bank took on your home will be shown as income to you if the bank files the 1099. You need to know this up front to make the right decision in trying to sell your home. Please contact your accountant to see what the ramifications will be in your individual situation. Many people are surprised when they get the 1099 tax form because nobody told them about it. There are many Realtor’s involved in trying to help people out of their bad situations. Some may forget to tell you about the tax liabilities and others may not even know. Please be aware of all the stipulations of the short sale. Sometimes it may be better to try and borrow the money to make up the difference, especially if you can save your credit. If your credit has already been destroyed, then you may want to look at a voluntary foreclosure instead of a short sale. Basically you call the bank and tell them you can no longer make the payments on your home and that you would like to surrender the home voluntarily. If it is a foreclosure, then there is not a 1099 situation that I am aware of. Please check with your accountant.

If you are one of the smart buyers looking for a deal during this buyers market, you need to be aware of what is going on with the short sales as well. You will find the home that you want to try and purchase, you will then submit an offer on the home to the seller subject to the banks approval. You will usually have to wait several days to several weeks and you may never receive a reply. If you are the patient type and don’t mind being put on hold while the bank and the seller look for a better buyer then maybe this is the route for you. Remember that if there are junior liens then you will also be waiting on them. Ask if there are any junior liens up front. Many times the junior liens have no incentive to release the liens and so, even if you come to an agreement with the seller and the primary lien holder, the second lien holder may not be so amenable to the deal especially if they are not getting their money out of the deal. Also consider that just because someone else is in a financial bind it doesn’t always equate to the best time or best deal. I have seen several homes that didn’t sell when they were in short sale status and they came back on the market as foreclosures and were priced thousands of dollars less as foreclosures than they were as short sales. If you are only dealing with the bank and they have already foreclosed on the property you can usually make a lot better deal. So, if you would like a little advice from this Realtor, wait and buy the homes that are bank owned. That being said don’t over look the homes that are on the market by owners that need to sell them as well. You can usually buy them as well as the foreclosures but you will usually get a home that is in much better condition and that comes with sellers property disclosures and warrantied items, which you won’t get from the bank. Bottom line is, there are great values to be had if you know where to look. The easiest transactions are buying from the home owner, second would be the bank foreclosure and if you just have to punish yourself go for the short sale. Happy shopping!

I get asked this question all the time by people wondering, “Is now a good time to buy?” I ask a couple of questions before I answer them. The first thing I ask is, “How long are you planning on staying in your new home?” This is usually followed by,  “How much down payment are you planning on putting down.?” If the answer to the first question is over a couple of years, then the answer would be, “Yes, I think that now is a great time to buy.” If they are planning to be in their home for less than two years then I tell them they should look at the possibility of renting a home. The best time to buy property is when the market is saturated with inventory, as it is now. You have a wonderful selection of homes on the market and you have motivated sellers who are willing to negotiate to get the homes sold. Many of the people I deal with will ask me if the market has hit the bottom or will it continue to fall. I don’t know how much more the market will fall, but this I do know, it will at some point start to go back up. Historically, housing has appreciated about 4%-8% a year depending on the area that you look at. If you look at the crazy appreciation of the 2004-2006 years then you know that it will take several years to return to where things start to appreciate. In our market we experienced about 35% appreciation. This was due to a couple of factors; our market was way under valued at the time, and people were looking to invest in real estate. There were many speculators trying to get rich quick. With all the hype about being able to make a fortune in real estate, on every television channel in the market place, a lot of people jumped on the band wagon who didn’t have a clue about what they were doing. Some of them got rich, but most of them got in at the wrong time. They are now suffering the consequences. If you check out the amount of loan defaults across the country, a large number of them were speculators who can no longer pay the mortgages on the homes they bought. They can’t sell them for what they paid for them because of the decline in the market. Now the banks are foreclosing on the loans and are trying to dump the inventory back on the market at reduced prices. This will hurt those people trying to sell their homes, but if you are trying to buy a home it will give you a great selection and better pricing.

If you are trying to buy a home with no money down then you need to asses the amount of money you may have to come up with if you have to sell your home in the next couple of years. If you take into account the cost of selling a home which is about 7%-8% then you need to be prepared to save that amount over the course of the next few months or come up with a contingency plan to compensate for the lack of down payment. Buying a home in a buyers market makes the most sense to me. The real investors in real estate are buying homes all over the country because they know the market will come back. With all the bank foreclosures taking place there is a real need for rental properties. Those people who are losing their homes to foreclosure need a place to live. It is a given that they won’t be able to purchase a home for several years. They will be forced into renting a home. Many of the rental properties that were purchased by speculators will also go into foreclosure because the owner has stopped making payments on the home. Many of these renters will also need a place to live.

When looking to purchase a home, ask yourselves the two questions that I ask and decide what is best for you. If you decide that buying is right for you, give me a call. I will help you find the best deals on the market. I will also help you understand your finance options and what the implications of the different options could be for you. If you are an investor and are trying to find properties that will be sound investments please call me and I can show you those properties that make the most sense.

With many of the major mortgage lenders going out of business in the past few months and the news of others on the brink of joining those ranks, what will the impact be on the consumer? Prospective buyers should be asking this question or at least thinking about it. What will happen if you are in the middle of a transaction then a few days before closing you find that the lender you have chosen no longer has funds available or they have gone out of business. This has been a reality for many people who have ventured to take advantage of the current buyers market. What should you do?

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If you have recently received your tax notice for the coming year and were shocked that your property values went up, you’re not alone! What you need to know is that for the most part in Washington County between 2005 and 2006 price actually increased if you look at the average sales price and the median sales price for those two years. If you look at the first 7 months of 2007 the numbers actually went down considerably. What does all this mean to the property owners who find themselves in this position? If you want to appeal what your assessment value will be you need to go to the county assessors office and get a form and fill it out and turn it in. If you have a current appraisal which would substantiate your values as less then the county should accept it or at least consider it in reevaluating your property. If you have a Realtor friend and they are willing to do it for you they could run a Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) on your property. The CMA is what Realtors use to help sellers come up with a value on their properties when listing their properties for sale. If you have to spend money to have an appraisal done for you, you are probably better off to pay the increase in the tax and hope that the appraisers office gets it right next year. An appraisal usually runs around $350.00. Don’t get mad at the assessors office because based on values as of January 1, 2007 the assessors aren’t far off on the values of the homes. If you have an older home that hasn’t been reappraised in the past several years you may be better off to not file a dispute, because your home may be under valued to start with and filing the dispute may cause an increase in your tax unless you can substantiate a lower value than the assessed value. If you have any real estate questions that I can answer for you feel free to contact me at (435)627-5402 or email me your questions at: randersen@erabrokers.net .

Welcome to my new Real Estate blog. Check back weekly for new information about Southern Utah Real Estate. Check out our featured homes page or search for homes and lots for sale in Washington County. If you have a topic that you would like to discuss, please email it to me at: randersen@erabrokers.net