In the world of real estate purchasing, there are plenty of great resources available to both new and experienced buyers alike. There are many websites, e-guides, books, videos, and other resources available. This set of tips contains some of the best advice for helping a good buyer become a smarter buyer.

Fireplaces are to be considered when choosing a new home. They can serve as the focal point in the family, or living room, and can also increase the retail value of the home. Wood or oil burning fireplaces can save you money by providing heat during the cold months, as a viable alternative to electric heating devices.

Choose the best time to view a house. While most people wait until the ‘open house’, normally on a Saturday or Sunday, in reality you can request to see the house at any time. Choose a day in the middle of the week when the sellers aren’t there. The realtor will be happy to show you the house, and this way you aren’t looking at the same time as lots of other people. If you decide to make an offer on the house, you can be sure that you are the only one.

To get the best loan when buying a house, ensure that you are aware of your credit score. If your score is above 720, you may qualify for lower-interest loans and if your credit score is below 620, you may have difficulty qualifying for a mortgage loan in the first place. Knowing where your credit stands and when it needs to be improved, is essential to qualifying for a mortgage that you can afford.

Make sure that you carefully read and understand all aspects of your lease agreement before signing it. Many people assume that all that is on the lease is what the landlord has mentioned and many times there are other things there that are written in fine print. Once you sign it you will have no legal recourse, so read it thoroughly.

When you are searching for your potential future home, try to concentrate on the things you can not change. This is because something like the color of the walls or the type of carpeting is easy to deal with and change. However, you can not change the layout of the house or the neighborhood you live in. All this is what you will have to live with for the time you are there.

It is important that you visit a home more than once so that you get a true feeling for the neighborhood. A neighborhood may be completely different depending on the time of the week or the time of the day. It is necessary that you understand what you are getting yourself into.

After reading these tips, you can understand what it takes to be a smarter property buyer. There is lots of information out there and you need to know how to use it. With this in mind, you can refine your own strategy and research information that can help you avoid scams and buy the property you’ve always wanted.

Easy Ways To Get The Best Deal On Real Estate is a post from: mesa-az-mortgage.com

In the first month after the first time homebuyer tax credit expired, pending home sales plummeted 30%, as reported by Housingwire.

Prior to the tax credit expiration, the housing market experienced three solid month-over-month housing sale increases. The National Association of Realtors’ (NAR) pending home sales indexed declined to 77.6 in May, down from 110.9 in April—a 30% decrease in a month. It is also down 15.9% from its May 2009 level. The index is used as an indicator of future sales.

NAR Chief Economist, Lawrence Yun says that despite the drop in existing home sale prices, the tax credit helped stabilize home prices.

“Without the tax credit, there will be more aggressive price negotiations between buyers and sellers,” Yun said. “The key test on whether the housing market can stand on its own without stimulus medicine will depend critically on private sector job creation in the second half of the year.”

Yun also said that buyers are rational and that the rush to sign contracts by April followed by a slump in May is to be expected under the circumstances. He likewise predicts similarly low levels of contract activity in June numbers. This conflicts with projections he made in March where he claimed existing home sales would surge in April, May and June. He attributes these changes to a delay in the closing process and the 180,000 buyers who were in danger of losing the first-time-homebuyer tax credits. This has since been remedied with the recent extension of the closing deadline.

Yun is now projecting that home sales in June will remain elevated and then decline in July and August.

“If jobs come back as expected, the pace of home sales should pick up later this year and reach a sustainable level of activity given very favorable affordability conditions,” he said Thursday. “In most areas of the country there will be no sharp snap back in home prices in the upcoming years, although some local markets have experienced double-digit gains this year.”

Pending Home Sales Drop 30% After Tax Credit Expiration is a post from: mesa-az-mortgage.com

Like all home sales in the U.S., May numbers slipped significantly from April, as shown in the Phoenix Business Journal. However, sales in the West fared better than any other region.

The National Association of Realtors said that overall, existing home sales in May were over 19% above those in May of 2009 nationally.

The biggest gains were in the West. May sales rose up 4.9% from April, and prices were up 15.2% over prices a year ago. The NAR does not break down numbers by state, but Arizona is in the western region.

“We are witnessing the ongoing effects of the homebuyer tax credit, which we’ll also see in June real estate closings,” said NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun. “However, approximately 180,000 homebuyers who signed a contract in good faith to receive the tax credit may not be able to finalize by the end of June due to delays in the mortgage process, particularly for short sales.”

The good news is there’s been a small reprieve for those 180,000 pushing paperwork to get the benefits of the tax credit. Congress recently passed a tax credit closing extension that now places the closing deadline at September 30, 2010.

Arizona State University also recently released a report showing projections that Phoenix housing prices will gain a little and taper off in the coming months.

In April, 49% of existing home sales were from first-time homebuyers seeking to use the tax credit, and 46% of those first-time homebuyers accounted for existing home sales in May. These first-time homebuyer numbers are expected to trickle into June sales, and with the recent deadline extension, it’s possible those numbers could trickle further into the next month or two.

At the end of May, total housing inventory represented an 8.3 month supply, down from the 8.4 month supply that existed in April. A healthy housing market is generally supposed to have less than a 6 month supply. There are plenty of houses available, interest rates are at record lows, and housing prices are way cheap. If you’re thinking of buying, ask us how we can close on your new home in just 10 days.

Western U.S. Existing Home Sales Up is a post from: mesa-az-mortgage.com

The New York Times reports that the slow number of home sales and new home builds in May hit record lows highlighting the importance of new job growth and government stimulus programs.

These low numbers coupled with an increase in job loss makes the economic recovery look further away than before (unemployment in May was 9.7% and 9.8% in June). New statistics show that both new home construction and pending sales declined. Some manufacturers did report gains last month, but they were still down from May and below estimates.

“The idea of a growth slowdown in the second half of 2010, a long-held belief of ours, is catching on as the data increasingly reinforces this idea,” said Dan Greenhaus, the chief economic strategist for Miller Tabak & Company.

The National Association of Realtors‘ chief executive, Lawrence Yun, said that now the determining factor in the housing market recovery sans a federal stimulus is potential job growth. The association noted that their housing indexes of pending home sales shows that after the tax credit expired, home sales are now down 16% from where it stood in May 2009. That is the lowest reported figure since the association started tracking these indexes in 2001, and it reversed three months of reported increases when homebuyers were pushing to utilize the tax credit.

“How much growth depends on what starts to happen in the next few months,” he said. “We need to see some further support from things like construction, consumer spending, and we are a little nervous about the export picture over all because Europe is weak an there are some early signs that China is slowing down.”

New home construction is also dependent on the labor market, and construction spending also fell in May.

Manufacturing is the only area to report any gains. In a survey of 18 different anufacturing companies, employment was still expanding though it slowed by 2% in June when compared to May figures.

Home Sales and Building Decreased in May is a post from: mesa-az-mortgage.com

Post-recession buyers are on the prowl for the perfect house at the perfect price, according to the New York Times.

Exacting buyers are upending the battered real estate market, agents and other experts say, leading to last-minute demands for multiple concessions, bruised feelings on all sides and many more collapsed deals than usual.

Before the boom, the sellers often had the upper-hand in the competition over the sale of their home, but the roles have now flipped. Many brokers are seeing a new trend in buyers who make demands at the last minute knowing the seller’s other alternative may be to place their undervalued home back on the market.

After the $8000 tax credit expired, a temporary housing slump was expected, but the results have been more drastic than initially expected. In some places sales dropped 20% from May 2009. Builders are also seeing a decrease in home sales, down 17.2% since April. Building permits for future construction dropped 10% which will result in a decrease of home building this summer.

Even the lowest home mortgage rates in decades are not doing much to invite deals. The Mortgage Bankers Association said Wednesday that applications for loans to buy houses were down by a third compared with last year. Applications are back to the level of the mid-1990s, when the country’s housing market was smaller.

Buyers feel they are being smart, yet many sellers cannot afford to make many concessions. A few $1000 could push them under the water and push the sale into one directed by the bank.

Since many of the sales were initiated just before the April 30th cut-off for the tax credit, the numbers will continue to be reported through June. The real result of which will not be known until the fall of this year.

On the upside, some experts argue that come July people will need to start buying again, and the Mortgage Bankers Association did note that the purchase application index rose slightly this week after a 5-week decline.

Buyers Demands Slow Housing Market is a post from: mesa-az-mortgage.com