(OK, so let me start by saying how lame I am that my phone camera photo file was full and you will be deprived of enjoying all the photos I snapped of the happy event...all for naught, my climbing around behind sand dunes, feet entangled in doggie leash, trying to be invisible in my pjs (always walk doggie in pjs), as the happy couple and their guests gathered around the chuppah in the morning sun.)
So I'm walking Luna this morning, half asleep, and as we approach the beach I see alldressedup people on the beach, someone laying out a long carpet on the sand ---- is that a chuppah blowing in the breeze, is that a female rabbi????? ----- amidst a few early stragglers arriving with umbrellas, coolers and whining kids --- move over and let these optimists have their wedding!!!! I am convinced it's a gay wedding. Smiling, barefoot bald guy in fashionable black suit and sunglasses, female rabbi -- gotta be gay! Yippeeeee!!! New Suffolk leads the way again!!! Wrong, bride arrives, fashionably late, flowing white, strapless, backless gown --- wait a minute --- she has WINGS TATTOOED ON HER BACK!!!!! Yippeeeee again! You just never know what you're gonna see when you're walking your dog, in your pjs, on a Saturday morning in New Suffolk.
All this AND the NOFO Rock and Folk Fest this weekend in Cutchogue!!
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Thursday, July 28, 2011
4 Steps To Smart Home Ownership
Not so long ago, in a not-so-distant land, owning a home was thought of as the safest "investment" around. Fast forward to the present day, and home ownership seems super scary to many people who can afford homes, and would like to own them, but are paralyzed by the fear of buying a lemon, or having a mortgage catastrophe.
Here are 4 simple steps to minimize the risk that you'll become the main character in a homeownership horror story.
1. Stick with a fixed-rate mortgage. Recent data shows that adjustable rate mortgages, or ARMs, are increasingly popular, rising from 9 percent of the mortgage market in the fourth quarter of 2010 to 12 percent in the first quarter of this year. This might seem crazy to some, but in financially aggressive crowds, the lure of low, 3 percent(ish) interest rates on ARMs is enough to overcome any qualms. As well, today's ARMs tend to have lower lifetime interest rate caps and require payment of principal, so they don't adjust as violently as the subprime interest-only and option ARMs that contributed to the foreclosure crisis.
If the thought of your mortgage payment changing over time gives you the shakes, you don't want to live in a state of interest rate obsession for the next few decades, or you simply crave the simplicity and predictability of knowing what your housing payment will be for the next 15, 20 or 30 years, then stick to
a fixed-rate mortgage. The rates are higher, but with a fixed-rate loan, the risk of scary payment changes are not only lower, they are non-existent.
2. Put - and keep - a home warranty in place. One of the most frightening things about going from renter to homeowner is the prospect of being solely responsible for the care and feeding of your home and all its systems and appliances. Responsibility for both the costs and the actual logistics of repairing things like a leaky roof, a broken hot water heater or a haywire electrical fixture looms large in the minds of first-time buyers, in particular.
A home warranty plan kicks in when escrow closes, and depending on the coverage you select, will cover your home against the breakdown of major systems and even some appliances, like furnaces and water heaters. In some cases, you can even upgrade the coverage to protect against roof leaks and some plumbing issues. When a covered item breaks down, just remember to call the home warranty company first - for the cost of a service call you can get the item repaired or even replaced, if necessary. I remember the home warranty company replacing a $900 water heater in my first home; what a godsend!
Talk with your agent - you might even be able to negotiate for the seller to pay for the first year's cost of the warranty. Just remember to renew it when it expires every year, to keep a cap on your risk of unexpected repair costs for the duration of your tenure as a homeowner.
3. Get repair bids and estimates, not just inspections. After you find the home of your dreams (or the home of your budget!) and get into contract, you'll have a contingency or objection period ranging from 7 to 17 days during which you can obtain all the inspections you want. Most buyers start out with a general property inspection, a pest inspection and a roof inspection, then get more specialized inspections if the property calls from it. Pest and roof inspectors will generally provide an inspection report AND a repair bid for any work they find needs to be done.
But the overall home inspection could very well list a dozen needed repairs, upgrades and maintenance items, without providing any information about how much those repairs will cost. If your inspection report surfaces work you'll need to have done to fix things (or avoid bigger fixes down the road), work with your agent to schedule actual repair contractors to come in and give you bids on the work before your contingency or inspection period expires. That will position you to negotiate around repair costs with the seller, or to know what you're getting yourself into, cost-wise, if you take the property as-is.
4. Buy on the 10-year plan. Warren Buffett once famously advised stock investors to "only buy something that you'd be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years." The same advice is good for buying a home in today's real estate market. Take on a mortgage you know you can sustain, buy at a price you can comfortably afford and avoid having to sell because you need to move for some urgent reason, or because the home no longer meets your needs.
You can take this last step to hedge against losing money on your home by planning your space, career and lifestyle needs out 5, 7, even 10 years in the future - everything from how many bedrooms and garage spaces you'll need to where you'll want to be located, geographically - and selecting a home that will meet those needs for that foreseeable future. As a general rule of thumb, the harder hit the area was in the recession, the longer you should plan to hold it.
SOURCE: TRULIA.COM
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Sellers: 4 Questions To Ask Your Buyer
On today’s market, some sellers struggle to get even a single offer - much less an offer from a qualified buyer, at a reasonable price, on terms they can live with. But just because the market is down doesn’t mean sellers are utterly powerless. Proactively asking prospective buyers the right questions can help put together the best possible deal, and stacks the decks in favor of it closing, as well - so here are those questions!
1. Where’s your proof? Real estate transactions fall out of escrow on today’s market more than ever (that just means that a contract is cancelled sometime between the time buyer and seller sign it and the time it was supposed to close). This is a seller’s worst nightmare - to get your hopes up and your moving plans in motion then have to cancel it all because the deal falls through. And that’s just where the awful-ness begins; every seller fears pulling their home off the market in reliance on a contract that later implodes because of the reality that they might forgo other good buyers while your home is marked “pending.”
Deals often fall apart because the mortgage lender fails to approve the short sale, or the home appraises way below the seller’s bottom line. But another common deal-killer is when the buyer’s financing falls apart. While nothing is bullet-proof, smart sellers have their agents ask the buyers agent for robust proof that the buyer can actually do the deal.
If your home’s buyer plans to use mortgage financing, you should get a pre-qualification letter from a mortgage pro who has actually run the buyer’s credit, seen their down payment money and checked their income and assets - it’s not overkill for your agent to call the buyer’s mortgage contact and check on how recent and how strong (or tenuous) this approval is. (The more recent the better - down payment savings can be spent and even jobs can be lost between the time of the approval and the time of the offer, if many moons have passed.)
If the buyer is using cash, the listing agent should insist on receiving a recent proof of funds, like a bank account statement, documenting that the buyer has the cash they’ll need to close on hand.
2. Is there anything you’d like? This question is all about personal property - the “stuff” that’s inside your home, from your furniture to your home electronics (not including the children - or the in-laws, if you have some in residence). If you have things that are in great condition, are difficult to move, are very well-suited or custom-made for the home or that you were planning to sell in the course of your move anyway, you might want to ask your home’s buyer if they are interested in them. Maybe you have a price in mind, or maybe you are willing to give it away for the convenience of not having to move it - I’ve even seen sellers who can’t meet a buyer’s counteroffer by reducing the price instead offer up a valuable item of property instead, sealing the deal that way.
If you do agree to leave some things behind - whether for a fee or for free, make sure you explain to the buyer in writing that you cannot offer a warranty on the item(s), and work with your broker or agent to ensure that the paperwork doesn’t run afoul of any lender guidelines.
3. For offers over the asking price: What’s your plan if it doesn’t appraise? Even on today’s market, a well-priced home in a great neighborhood can generate multiple offers, with the top offer usually exceeding the asking price. The problem is that if the recent sales in the area aren’t in that same price range as your amazing offer, your home could very well fail to appraise for the asking price (low appraisals are a very common problem these days - causing thousands of transactions to fall out of escrow). And the other problem is that some crafty buyers count on this, strategizing to make a sky-high offer to beat the others out, planning all the while to demand a price reduction when the property appraises low.
Before you accept an offer that is higher than you or your agent feels your home will realistically appraise for, ask the buyer what they plan to do if the property appraises below their offered price. Better yet, when it becomes clear that you’ll be receiving multiple offers, let all prospective buyers know that before you accept an over-asking offer, you will either (a) require that the winning buyer waive the appraisal contingency, and/or (b) require an agreement that the successful buyer will make up the difference between the appraised price and the purchase price, and proof that they have the cash on hand to do so. This is a surefire shenanigan minimizer, and will cause people to make only offers they will stand behind later. (Now, if the home appraises below the listing price, that’s a horse of a different color.)
4. Did you read the reports? Some savvy sellers who know their homes need a little work here and there (or a lot, as the case may be) take the smart step of having their home inspected or appraised in advance of even putting it on the market. If they can’t afford to do all the work indicated in the report, many will adjust the list price to account for needed repairs, some even going so far as to obtain repair estimates from local contractors and offer them up to prospective buyers in the home’s disclosure packets.
In their excitement to find a property that meets their needs, some buyers barely skim the reports and may not realize that the list price reflects a discount for the needed repairs. Best practices for sellers who have advance reports is to require buyers to acknowledge them (as by signing a receipt), and to even call out - in writing - the specific repairs for which the price is being discounted. Some listing agents in these situations even advise their sellers to insist on an as-is contract, so that the buyer has a crystal clear understanding that the seller cannot do any repairs.
That way, you don’t get two weeks into the transaction when the buyer understands the condition problems and (a) bails out of the deal, (b) asks for repairs or for more of a discount, or (c ) has their loan fall apart because a previous FHA appraisal came in low or their lender will not allow the home to be sold with your home’s particular “issues.”
SOURCE: TRULIA.COM
1. Where’s your proof? Real estate transactions fall out of escrow on today’s market more than ever (that just means that a contract is cancelled sometime between the time buyer and seller sign it and the time it was supposed to close). This is a seller’s worst nightmare - to get your hopes up and your moving plans in motion then have to cancel it all because the deal falls through. And that’s just where the awful-ness begins; every seller fears pulling their home off the market in reliance on a contract that later implodes because of the reality that they might forgo other good buyers while your home is marked “pending.”
Deals often fall apart because the mortgage lender fails to approve the short sale, or the home appraises way below the seller’s bottom line. But another common deal-killer is when the buyer’s financing falls apart. While nothing is bullet-proof, smart sellers have their agents ask the buyers agent for robust proof that the buyer can actually do the deal.
If your home’s buyer plans to use mortgage financing, you should get a pre-qualification letter from a mortgage pro who has actually run the buyer’s credit, seen their down payment money and checked their income and assets - it’s not overkill for your agent to call the buyer’s mortgage contact and check on how recent and how strong (or tenuous) this approval is. (The more recent the better - down payment savings can be spent and even jobs can be lost between the time of the approval and the time of the offer, if many moons have passed.)
If the buyer is using cash, the listing agent should insist on receiving a recent proof of funds, like a bank account statement, documenting that the buyer has the cash they’ll need to close on hand.
2. Is there anything you’d like? This question is all about personal property - the “stuff” that’s inside your home, from your furniture to your home electronics (not including the children - or the in-laws, if you have some in residence). If you have things that are in great condition, are difficult to move, are very well-suited or custom-made for the home or that you were planning to sell in the course of your move anyway, you might want to ask your home’s buyer if they are interested in them. Maybe you have a price in mind, or maybe you are willing to give it away for the convenience of not having to move it - I’ve even seen sellers who can’t meet a buyer’s counteroffer by reducing the price instead offer up a valuable item of property instead, sealing the deal that way.
If you do agree to leave some things behind - whether for a fee or for free, make sure you explain to the buyer in writing that you cannot offer a warranty on the item(s), and work with your broker or agent to ensure that the paperwork doesn’t run afoul of any lender guidelines.
3. For offers over the asking price: What’s your plan if it doesn’t appraise? Even on today’s market, a well-priced home in a great neighborhood can generate multiple offers, with the top offer usually exceeding the asking price. The problem is that if the recent sales in the area aren’t in that same price range as your amazing offer, your home could very well fail to appraise for the asking price (low appraisals are a very common problem these days - causing thousands of transactions to fall out of escrow). And the other problem is that some crafty buyers count on this, strategizing to make a sky-high offer to beat the others out, planning all the while to demand a price reduction when the property appraises low.
Before you accept an offer that is higher than you or your agent feels your home will realistically appraise for, ask the buyer what they plan to do if the property appraises below their offered price. Better yet, when it becomes clear that you’ll be receiving multiple offers, let all prospective buyers know that before you accept an over-asking offer, you will either (a) require that the winning buyer waive the appraisal contingency, and/or (b) require an agreement that the successful buyer will make up the difference between the appraised price and the purchase price, and proof that they have the cash on hand to do so. This is a surefire shenanigan minimizer, and will cause people to make only offers they will stand behind later. (Now, if the home appraises below the listing price, that’s a horse of a different color.)
4. Did you read the reports? Some savvy sellers who know their homes need a little work here and there (or a lot, as the case may be) take the smart step of having their home inspected or appraised in advance of even putting it on the market. If they can’t afford to do all the work indicated in the report, many will adjust the list price to account for needed repairs, some even going so far as to obtain repair estimates from local contractors and offer them up to prospective buyers in the home’s disclosure packets.
In their excitement to find a property that meets their needs, some buyers barely skim the reports and may not realize that the list price reflects a discount for the needed repairs. Best practices for sellers who have advance reports is to require buyers to acknowledge them (as by signing a receipt), and to even call out - in writing - the specific repairs for which the price is being discounted. Some listing agents in these situations even advise their sellers to insist on an as-is contract, so that the buyer has a crystal clear understanding that the seller cannot do any repairs.
That way, you don’t get two weeks into the transaction when the buyer understands the condition problems and (a) bails out of the deal, (b) asks for repairs or for more of a discount, or (c ) has their loan fall apart because a previous FHA appraisal came in low or their lender will not allow the home to be sold with your home’s particular “issues.”
SOURCE: TRULIA.COM
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