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Homeownership is Cornerstone of American Dream

Thursday, March 14, 2019
by Christie Cannon

Homeownership is a Cornerstone of the American Dream

Homeownership is a Cornerstone of the American Dream |MyKCM

“The rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated.”

The famous quote attributed to Mark Twain can apply to homeownership in the United States today. During the housing bubble of the last decade, the homeownership rate soared to over sixty-nine percent. After the crash, that percentage continued to fall for the next ten years.

That led to speculation that homeownership was no longer seen as a major component of the American Dream. That belief became so widespread that the term “renters’ society” began to be used by some to define American consumers.

However, the latest report by the Census Bureau on homeownership shows that over the last two years, the percentage of homeowners has increased in each of the last eight quarters.

Homeownership is a Cornerstone of the American Dream |MyKCM

Going forward…

It appears the homeownership rate will continue to increase.

The 2019 Aspiring Home Buyers Profile recently released by the National Association of Realtors revealed that 84% of non-owners want to own a home in the future. That percentage increased from 73% earlier last year.

Bottom Line

In the United States, the concept of homeownership as part of the American Dream is very much alive and well.

 

To discuss if homeownership fits into our family & financial plan, contact one of our agents at 469-951-9588

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Millionaire To Millennials: Don’t Get Stuck Renting A Home… Buy One!

Monday, February 18, 2019
by Christie Cannon

Millionaire To Millennials: Don’t Get Stuck Renting A Home… Buy One!

Millionaire To Millennials: Don’t Get Stuck Renting A Home… Buy One! | MyKCM

In a CNBC article, self-made millionaire David Bach explained that: “The biggest mistake millennials are making is not buying their first home.” He goes on to say that, “If you want to build real financial security, real wealth for your lifetime, then you need to buy a home.”

Bach went on to explain:

“Homeowners are worth 40 times more than renters. Now, that first home doesn’t need to be a dream home, it can be a very small home. You might literally have to buy a small studio apartment, but that’s how you get started.”

Then he explains the secret to buying that home!

“Don’t do a 30-year mortgage. You want to take that 30-year mortgage and instead pay it off early, do a 15-year mortgage. What happens if you do a 15-year mortgage? Well, one, you pay the mortgage off 15-years sooner, that means you’ll be able to retire in your fifties. Number two, you’ll save a fortune (on potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest payments).”

What will it cost to pay your mortgage in fifteen years? He explains further:

“For fifteen years, you got to brownbag your lunch. Think about that! Brownbag your lunch literally for fifteen years. You can retire ten years sooner than your friends. You’ll have real wealth, because you bought a home – you’re not a renter. And you’ll be financially secure for life.”

Bottom Line

Whenever a well-respected millionaire gives investment advice, people usually clamor to hear it. This millionaire gave simple advice – if you don’t yet live in your own home, go buy one.

Who is David Bach?

Bach is a self-made millionaire who has written nine consecutive New York Times bestsellers. His book, “The Automatic Millionaire,” spent 31 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. He is one of the only business authors in history to have four books simultaneously on the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek and USA Today bestseller lists.

He has been a contributor to NBC’s Today Show, appearing more than 100 times, as well as a regular on ABC, CBS, Fox, CNBC, CNN, Yahoo, The View, and PBS. He has also been profiled in many major publications, including the New York Times, BusinessWeek, USA Today, People, Reader’s Digest, Time, Financial Times, Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Working Woman, Glamour, Family Circle, Redbook, Huffington Post, Business Insider, Investors’ Business Daily, and Forbes.

 

 

Christie Cannon | REALTOR
The Christie Cannon Team
Keller Williams Realty Frisco
972-215-7747
www.ChristieCannon.com
www.CannonTeamHomes.com

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How to Get a Better Perspective on Affordability

Thursday, February 7, 2019
by Christie Cannon

How to Get a Better Perspective on Affordability

How to Get a Better Perspective on Affordability | MyKCM

Headlines spotlight the fact that buying a home is less affordable today than it was at any other time in more than a decade. Those headlines are accurate.

Understandably, buying a home is more expensive now than immediately following one of the worst housing crashes in American history. Over the past decade, the market was flooded with distressed properties (foreclosures and short sales) selling at 10-50% discounts. There were so many that this lowered the prices of non-distressed homes in the same neighborhoods. As a result, mortgage rates were kept low to help the economy.

Prices have since recovered. Mortgage rates have increased as the economy has gained strength. This has impacted housing affordability. However, it’s necessary to give historical context to the subject of affordability.

Two weeks ago, CoreLogic reported on what they call the “typical mortgage payment”. As they explain:

“One way to measure the impact of inflation, mortgage rates and home prices on affordability over time is to use what we call the ‘typical mortgage payment.’ It’s a mortgage-rate-adjusted monthly payment based on each month’s U.S. median home sale price. It is calculated using Freddie Mac’s average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage with a 20 percent down payment…

The typical mortgage payment is a good proxy for affordability because it shows the monthly amount that a borrower would have to qualify for to get a mortgage to buy the median-priced U.S. home…

When adjusted for inflation, the typical mortgage payment puts homebuyers’ current costs in the proper historical context.”

Here is a graph showing the results of CoreLogic’s research:

How to Get a Better Perspective on Affordability | MyKCM

As the graph indicates, the most recent calculation remained 28% below the all-time peak of $1,275 in June 2006. That’s because the average mortgage rate at that time was 6.68%. As seen in the graph, both today’s typical payment and CoreLogic’s projection for the end of the year are less than it was in January 2000.

Bottom Line

Even though home prices are appreciating at a slower rate, home affordability will likely continue to slide. However, this does not mean that buying a house is an unattainable goal in most markets. It is still less expensive today than it was prior to the housing bubble and crash.

 

 

Christie Cannon | REALTOR
The Christie Cannon Team
Keller Williams Realty Frisco
972-215-7747
www.ChristieCannon.com
www.CannonTeamHomes.com

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One More Time… You Do Not Need 20% Down to Buy a Home

Tuesday, February 5, 2019
by Christie Cannon

One More Time… You Do Not Need 20% Down to Buy a Home

One More Time... You Do Not Need 20% Down to Buy a Home | MyKCM

The largest obstacle renters face when planning to buy a home is saving for a down payment. This challenge is amplified by rising rents, which has eaten into the amount of money renters have leftover for savings each month after paying expenses.

In combination with higher rents, survey after survey has shown that non-homeowners (renters and those living rent-free with family or friends) believe they need to save upwards of 20% for their down payment!

According to the “Barriers to Accessing Homeownership” study commissioned in partnership between the Urban Institute, Down Payment Resource, and Freddie Mac, 39% of non-homeowners and 30% of those who already own a home believe they need more than a 20% down payment.

The percentage of those who are aware of low down payment programs (those under 5%) is surprisingly low at 12% for non-homeowners and 13% for homeowners.

In a recent Convergys Analytics report, they found that 49% of renters believe they need at least a 20% down payment.

The median down payment on loans approved in 2018 was only 5%! Those waiting until they have over 20% may already have enough saved to buy now!

There are over 45 million millennials (33%) who are mortgage ready right now, meaning their income, debt, and credit scores would all allow them to qualify for a mortgage today!

Bottom Line

If your five-year plan includes buying a home, let’s get together to determine what it will take to make that plan a reality. You may be closer to your dream than you realize!

 

 

Christie Cannon | REALTOR
The Christie Cannon Team
Keller Williams Realty Frisco
972-215-7747
www.ChristieCannon.com
www.CannonTeamHomes.com

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4 Proven Ways Real Estate Can Build Sizable Family Wealth

Thursday, January 31, 2019
by Christie Cannon

4 Proven Ways Real Estate Can Build Sizable Family Wealth

4 Proven Ways Real Estate Can Build Sizable Family Wealth | MyKCM

Recently, David Greene, co-host of the BiggerPockets podcast and a nationally renowned author and speaker, wrote an article in Forbes explaining how investing in real estate could help build wealth. Many of the points he made also apply to a family owning their own home. Here are a few:

1. Appreciation

“The rising of home prices over time, is how the majority of wealth is built in real estate. This is the ‘home run’ you hear of when people make a large windfall of money. While prices fluctuate, over the long run real estate values have always gone up, always, and there is no reason to think that is going to change.

One thing to consider when it comes to real estate appreciation affecting your ROI is the fact that appreciation combined with leverage offers huge returns. If you buy a property for $200,000 and it appreciates to $220,000, your property had made you a 10% return. However, you likely didn’t pay cash for the property and instead used the bank’s money. If you consider that you may have put 10% down ($20,000), you actually have doubled your investment, a 100% return.”

2. Leverage

“By nature, real estate is one of the easiest assets to leverage I have ever come across—maybe the easiest. Not only is it easy to leverage the financing of it, but the terms are incredible compared to any other kind of loan. Interest rates are currently below 5%, down payments can be 20% or less, and loans are routinely amortized over 30-year periods.”

3. Paying Off the Debt

“One of the best parts of investing in real estate is the fact that … you’re slowly paying down your loan balance with each payment to the bank… After enough time passes, a good chunk of every payment comes off the loan balance, and wealth is created.”

4. Forced Equity

“Forced equity is a term used to refer to the wealth that is created when an investor does work to a property to make it worth more…

Example of this would be adding a third or fourth bedroom to a property with only two, adding a second bathroom to a property with only one, or adding more square footage to a property with less than the surrounding houses.”

Though Green was talking about investors, the same could be said about a family upgrading their own home.

Bottom Line

Green put it best by saying:

“There are many ways to build wealth in America, but real estate might be the safest, steadiest and simplest way to do so.”

To read the full article, click here.

 

 

 

Christie Cannon | REALTOR
The Christie Cannon Team
Keller Williams Realty Frisco
972-215-7747
www.ChristieCannon.com
www.CannonTeamHomes.com

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DFW Housing Market is HOT! According to Zillow

Tuesday, January 29, 2019
by Christie Cannon

DFW Housing Market is HOT! According to Zillow

Dallas-Fort Worth's housing market is on fire according to a recent report by Zillow. The Metroplex earned one of the top spots on Zillow's latest ranking of the country's 10 Hottest Real Estate Markets in 2019. DFW came in at #7 and was the only major Texas metro area on the list.

The real estate website says it crunched several sets of data to compute a “hotness” score for each of the 50 largest U.S. metros. In the “hotness” mix were projected median home value, projected rental growth, recent income and population growth, recent unemployment rate and recent number of available jobs.

DFW's ranking shows a shift away from the West Coast housing markets to more affordable housing markets in the south & southeast, according to Aaron Terrazas, senior economist at Zillow.

“Affordability is attractive — for both young professionals and booming businesses — earning markets like Orlando, Minneapolis, Dallas and Nashville top billing in 2019,” Terrazas says in a release.

Zillow states that four of the five hottest markets offer more job opportunities per person than 42 other major metros. 

 

Christie Cannon | REALTOR
The Christie Cannon Team
Keller Williams Realty Frisco
972-215-7747
www.ChristieCannon.com
www.CannonTeamHomes.com

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Selling Your Home? Make Sure the Price is Right!

Friday, January 25, 2019
by Christie Cannon

Selling Your Home? Make Sure the Price is Right!

Selling Your Home? Make Sure the Price is Right! | MyKCM

If you’ve ever watched “The Price is Right,” you know that the only way to win is to be the one to correctly guess the price of the item you want without going over! That means your guess must be just slightly under the retail price.

In today’s shifting real estate market, where more inventory is coming to market and home values are projected to appreciate at lower rates, homeowners will not be able to price their homes as aggressively as they were able to just last year.

They will have to employ the same strategy: be the closest without going over!

As we have explained before, pricing your home at or slightly below market value actually increases the number of buyers who will see your home in their search!

Over the last six months, more inventory has come to market while the months’ supply of inventory available has dropped. This means that the demand for homes to buy is still very strong throughout the country!

Homeowners who make the mistake of overpricing their homes will eventually have to drop the price. This leaves buyers wondering if the price drop was caused by something wrong with the homes when in reality nothing was wrong, the price was just too high!

Bottom Line

If you are thinking about listing your home for sale this year, let’s get together to properly price your home from the start!

 

 

Christie Cannon | REALTOR
The Christie Cannon Team
Keller Williams Realty Frisco
972-215-7747
www.ChristieCannon.com
www.CannonTeamHomes.com

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The Importance of Homeownership to the American Dream

Wednesday, January 23, 2019
by Christie Cannon

The Importance of Homeownership to the American Dream

The Importance of Homeownership to the American Dream | MyKCM

For centuries, people in this country have seen homeownership as part of the American Dream. Whether they were born here or immigrated from another country, they wanted to own a piece of America. With so many prominent societal changes over the last few decades, it is fair to ask if people in America still feel the same way about owning a home. The answer was made abundantly clear in two separate reports released earlier this month.

In their market trends report, As Housing Trends Shift, So Does Renter, Buyer and Seller Sentiment, Trulia revealed that:

“After two years of no change, the share of Americans who say that homeownership is part of their personal “American Dream” ticked up from 72 percent to 73 percent of Americans.”

At the same time, the National Association of Realtors released their Aspiring Home Buyers Profile. As the report explained:

“For both homeowners and non-homeowners alike, homeownership is strongly considered a part of the American Dream. For non-owners, roughly 75 percent reported that homeownership is part of their American Dream. For owners, nine in 10 believe it is part of their American Dream.”

Bottom Line

The belief among the vast majority of Americans, whether they rent or own, is that purchasing a home still remains a major step toward accomplishing the American Dream.

 

 

Christie Cannon | REALTOR
The Christie Cannon Team
Keller Williams Realty Frisco
972-215-7747
www.ChristieCannon.com
www.CannonTeamHomes.com

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JPMorgan Chase Plans to Expand Its Huge Legacy West Campus

Monday, January 21, 2019
by Christie Cannon

JPMorgan Chase Plans to Expand Its Huge Legacy West Campus

 

Almost one year ago, financial giant JPMorgan Chase opened its 1-million square foot regional campus at Legacy West in Plano. The 49-acre development is home to thousands of JPMorgan Chase employees.

Chase is now requesting approval to expand the second phase of its $300 million project. The campus currently is home to three large buildings and two parking garages. The initial site plan details an additional 7-story building and 1.900 additional parking spaces in a new parking garage to be built on the south-side of Highway 121.

The Chase office is one of the biggest components of the Legacy West development, which is also home to office for Toyota, Liberty Mutual Insurance, Boeing & FedEx Office. Read about all the details here.

 

Christie Cannon | REALTOR
The Christie Cannon Team
Keller Williams Realty Frisco
972-215-7747
www.ChristieCannon.com
www.CannonTeamHomes.com

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Texas is Still #1 on UHaul's List of Top Growth States

Wednesday, January 16, 2019
by Christie Cannon

Texas is Still #1 on UHaul's List of Top Growth States

 

Texas maintained it's top spot on UHaul's annual Top 50 Growth States for the 3rd consecutive year. 

Texas arrivals of one-way U-Haul trucks were up 5 percent compared to the state’s 2017 numbers, while arrivals accounted for 50.2 percent of all one-way U-Haul traffic in Texas to keep it the top state for netting do-it-yourself movers.  North Texas, along with the Austin area, led the way for the state's inbound traffic, U-Haul said in its ranking.

"North Texas is truly bursting at the seams,” Kevin Flanagan president of U-Haul Company of Northwest Dallas, said in a prepared statement. “McKinney, Frisco and the entire Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex has been growing substantially in recent years. Texas is gaining more residents than any other state."

Florida followed Texas on the U-Haul report at #2. This was Florida's third consecutive year at the second-place ranking.

U-Haul notes that its migration trends data does not directly correlate to population or economic growth, but shows which states people are moving to and from.

 

Christie Cannon | REALTOR
The Christie Cannon Team
Keller Williams Realty Frisco
972-215-7747
www.ChristieCannon.com
www.CannonTeamHomes.com

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Photo of Christie Cannon Real Estate
Christie Cannon
Keller Williams Realty
5933 Preston Road #300
Frisco TX 75034
972-215-7747
Fax: 972-215-7748
Send an Email
Keller Williams Frisco - The Christie Cannon Team - http://www.christiecannon.com

 

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