Real Estate and Homes for sale in Carson City, Reno & Sparks, NV
Team Junell were excellent to work with! We changed our minds a thousand times regarding when to buy, what to buy, where to buy, etc. and each time we changed our minds, Team Junell were there with a smile on their face standing in our corner. They are amazing people and great to work with!
Iain and Melissa
Our market has changed. The first 6 months of 2014 we had multiple offers and prices increased. The second half of the year, from July on, homes stayed on the market longer, multiple offers were infrequent and prices stayed consistent. What a difference now. If you are a buyer and have been waiting to get into the market, you will find you have some very stiff competition. We are seeing all cash offers in the over $800,000 range, financed buyers offering $80K over asking and willing to bring in more cash to make up the difference if the home does not appraise. This past weekend, at one of our open houses, I ran out of our 70 fliers within the first hour! Another agent told me she went through 250 fliers over the weekend!
I have been in real estate long enough to remember the days when I would sit at an open house hoping I wasn’t wasting my time and people would show up. Now people are waiting in their cars when I get to the house waiting for me to open the door.
If you have been thinking about selling, now is a very good time. Don’t wait any longer. Call us now.
If you are a buyer, be willing to offer more than asking price, be creative with terms by being willing to pay sellers costs, give a free rent back (allowing the seller to stay in the home after close for a specified period of time), be willing to pay the difference of the appraisal and letting the seller know upfront to make your offer stand out. Sound crazy? If you want a house in this market you need to be willing to do crazy. Now, that does not mean offering more than you can afford. Look at houses below your budget so that you are not stretching yourself uncomfortably when you do need to offer more than asking.
Here are a couple of ways to look at the cost of waiting to purchasing a home for home buyers who are willing and able to purchase a home NOW…
Let’s say you’re 30 and your dream house costs $500,000 today, at 4.12% with 10% down, your monthly Mortgage Payment with Interest would be $2,179.62.
But you’re busy, you like your apartment, moving is such a hassle…You decide to wait till the end of next year to buy and all of a sudden, you’re 31, that same house is $540,000, at 5.3%. Your new payment per month is $2,698.78.
The difference in payment is $519.16 PER MONTH!
That’s basically like taking a $20 bill and tossing it out the window EVERY DAY!
Or you could look at it this way:
Let’s look at that number annually! Over the course of your new mortgage at 5.3%, your annual additional cost would be $6,228!
Had your eye on a vacation in the Caribbean? How about a 2-week trip through Europe? Or maybe your new house could really use a deck for entertaining. We could come up with 100’s of ways to spend $6,228 and we’re sure you could too!
Over the course of your 30 year loan, now at age 61, hopefully you are ready to retire soon, you would have spent an additional $168,000, all because when you were 30 you thought moving in 2014 was such a hassle or loved your apartment too much to leave yet.
Or maybe there wasn’t an agent out there who educated you on the true cost of waiting a year. Maybe they thought you wouldn’t be ready, but if they showed you that you could save $168,000, you’d at least listen to what they had to say.
They say hindsight is 20/20, we’d like to think that 30 years from now when you are 60, looking back, you would say to buy now…
How do you decide whether to add on to an existing home or purchase a new one?
There are a few things to consider, including cost, individual needs, and what will add value down the road. Also important: your emotional attachment to the existing home.
As designer and builder Philip S. Wenz, the author of Adding to a House: Planning, Design & Construction, notes, an addition is much cheaper than building a new home and can offer a “new” home without the heartache of moving.
Other considerations:
Explore your options. Make sure your decision is one you can live with – either under the same roof or under a different one. If you need assistance or guidance regarding your existing home or a new home purchase, call us at 775-432-6300.
If you are buying a new home on a tight budget, one of the options that will come to your attention is purchasing a condominium or townhome instead of a standard single family home. Because most of them share walls, condos and townhomes are more affordable. But before you consider moving into a multi-family complex, consider both the down and the up sides to such a purchase.
New buyers may be confused as to the difference between a condo and a townhome. Both are attached homes, where at least one wall is shared between two units. One difference between them is that a townhome does not have any units above or below, only on the sides. Townhomes are usually at least two stories, sometimes three stories. Condos on the other hand are often single story-although not always-and may have units both above and below as in an apartment building.
But the truly important distinction between the two is in the ownership rights of the buyer. Condo owners have rights that extend only to the walls of the unit, while townhomes usually have rights to the land as well. This can become a little complicated in the legal aspects, but that is the basic difference.
Condos usually have an association, run by the owners in the complex, that helps to take care of the shared areas of the complex and also maintain the standards set out in the rules. The condo association usually handles such things as lawn and garden care, painting of the outside of the building, and roof repair. Some townhomes may have a similar association as well, called a homeowner’s association. It handles things in much the same manner. Associations require monthly fees, and all owners can take part in the decisions made by the board.
Condos and townhomes have some potential downsides you should consider. There are often rules about pets, so you may not be able to take your dog or cat with you. You will also find that most such homes lack any sort of real yard, although some townhomes have a small yard. Shared green space is often available, but you will not have the same privacy.
There are also some things about this type of home you might appreciate, such as not having to do the maintenance on the exterior of the house or the yard.
Condo and townhome living is very well suited to some people, and less so to others. Consider all of the aspects when you are thinking of buying this type of home and give us a call if you have questions at 775-432-6300.