Displaying blog entries 31-40 of 91
This year started strong for real estate, but then the market began to soften. Home inventory in the starter and move-up categories dwindled to almost nothing, mortgage rates were projected to rise, and home sales had decreased for several months in a row.
To many, the outlook heading into 2019 appeared dim… at best.
Then, in a 24-hour window last week, things seemed to change. On Wednesday, the National Association of Realtors’ (NAR) revealed in their Existing Homes Sales Report that home sales had INCREASED for the second consecutive month. The next day, NAR’s economic research team announced that the percentage of first-time buyers in the market was higher than last month and even higher than a year ago.
You only needed to wait a few hours to find out. On the heels of NAR’s revelations, Zillow released their November Real Estate Market Report that explained:
“After nearly four years of annual declines in inventory, the number of homes for sale has now increased year-over-year for three straight months…”
Ending 2018, we now know two things:
Maybe a lack of inventory was the major challenge all along.
Last Thursday (the day after all of the above news), Freddie Mac announced that mortgage rates did not increase but instead decreased…again. From their release:
“The response to the recent decline in mortgage rates is already being felt in the housing market. After declining for six consecutive months, existing home sales finally rose in October and November and are essentially at the same level as during the summer months.
This modest rebound in sales indicates that homebuyers are very sensitive to mortgage rate changes – and given the further drop in rates we’ve seen this month, we expect to see a modest rebound in home sales as well.”
Will 2019 start out better than many have predicted? Perhaps, but we’ll have to wait and see. Things do look much better today, though, than they did just a month ago.
Christie Cannon | REALTOR
The Christie Cannon Team
Keller Williams Realty Frisco
972-215-7747
www.ChristieCannon.com
www.CannonTeamHomes.com
![Buyers Are Looking for Your Home, Now [INFOGRAPHIC] | MyKCM](https://files.mykcm.com/2018/12/20095142/20181221-STM-ENG-1046x808.jpg)
Christie Cannon | REALTOR
The Christie Cannon Team
Keller Williams Realty Frisco
972-215-7747
www.ChristieCannon.com
www.CannonTeamHomes.com
One of the most common loans you can get to buy a home is a 30-year fixed rate mortgage. If the thought of paying for your home over the course of 30-years seems daunting, here are some easy ways to shorten that term which will actually end up saving you money over the life of your loan.
Any additional payments to the principal amount (the original sum of money borrowed in a loan), helps to cut down the amount of interest that you will pay over the life of your loan and can also help to shave years off the loan as well.
When you make ‘extra’ payments toward your loan, the key is to let your lender/bank know that you want the extra funds to go toward your principal balance as they will not automatically do this for you.
You don’t have to double your mortgage payment to make a big difference either!
If you have a 30-year mortgage on a median-priced home ($250,000) with a 5% interest rate, you’ll be responsible for a $1,342.05 monthly principal and interest payment. Over the course of the loan, if you pay your exact monthly payment, you will have paid $233,133.89 in interest alone!
Benefit: In the example above, adding $111.84 to your monthly mortgage payment might not seem like a lot, but each year you will have paid one extra month’s worth of payments which will shorten the term of your loan by 4 years and 8 months, all while saving you $42,000 in interest!
Benefit: Fifty dollars might not seem like enough to make a difference on the term of your loan, but that small amount will save you over $21,000 in interest and will take over 2 years off the end of your loan. Twenty-eight years from now, you’ll be happy to pay off your loan that much sooner!
Benefit: If you find yourself with a little extra money after a yearly bonus, a tax return, or from investment dividends, paying that money towards the principal can cut your costs. This option, however, is less predictable than the extra monthly payments.
If you have higher interest debts, like credit cards, consider using any extra funds you have to pay those debts down before applying that money towards your mortgage. Also, if you do not plan on staying in your home for more than 10 years, paying extra toward your mortgage might not make sense.
If you’re wondering what strategies would work best for you to shorten the term of your loan, let’s get together to answer your questions.
Christie Cannon | REALTOR
The Christie Cannon Team
Keller Williams Realty Frisco
972-215-7747
www.ChristieCannon.com
www.CannonTeamHomes.com
Real estate is shifting to a more normal market; the days of national home appreciation topping 6% annually are over and inventories are increasing which is causing bidding wars to almost disappear. Some see these as signs that the market will soon come tumbling down as it did in 2008.
As it becomes easier for buyers to obtain mortgages, many are suggesting that this is definite proof that banks are repeating the same mistakes they made a decade ago. Today, we want to assure everyone that we are not heading to another housing “bubble & bust.”
Each month, the Mortgage Bankers’ Association (MBA) releases a measurement which indicates the availability of mortgage credit known as the Mortgage Credit Availability Index (MCAI). According to the MBA:
“The MCAI provides the only standardized quantitative index that is solely focused on mortgage credit. The MCAI is calculated using several factors related to borrower eligibility (credit score, loan type, loan-to-value ratio, etc.).” *
The higher the measurement, the easier it is to get a mortgage. During the buildup to the last housing bubble, the measurement sat at around 400. In 2005 and 2006, the measurement more than doubled to over 800 and was still at almost 600 in 2007. When the market crashed in 2008, the index fell to just over 100.
Over the last decade, as credit began to ease, the index increased to where it is today at 186.7 – still less than half of what it was prior to the buildup of last decade and less than one-quarter of where it was during the bubble.
Here is a graph depicting this information (remember, the higher the index, the easier it was to get a mortgage):
Though mortgage standards have loosened somewhat during the last few years, we are nowhere near the standards that helped create the housing crisis ten years ago.
Christie Cannon | REALTOR
The Christie Cannon Team
Keller Williams Realty Frisco
972-215-7747
www.ChristieCannon.com
www.CannonTeamHomes.com
The Hottest Housing Market in the Country is Not Where You Think!
The month's hottest housing market is in an unlikely place - Midland, Texas. In November, the industrial West Texas city had some of the fastest-selling and most in-demand homes in the country, according to Realtor.com’s latest market index report. On average, homes sold within a median 44-days while properties in the area received 2.1 more views than the national average.
The report looks at parts of the country in which demand has been growing faster than the number of homes available for sale. Texas’ Midland and Odessa, another Western industrial town, have been experiencing an explosion in the number of people looking to buy homes, though the report does not state the reasons for the rapid growth. Read the full story and who the runners up were here.
The Christie Cannon Team is ready to serve you in Midland, TX with our new expansion team! Check us out at www.cctmidland.com.
Christie Cannon | REALTOR
The Christie Cannon Team
Keller Williams Realty Frisco
972-215-7747
www.ChristieCannon.com
www.CannonTeamHomes.com
National home prices have increased by 5.4% since this time last year. Over that same time period, interest rates have remained near historic lows which has allowed many buyers to enter the market and lock in low rates.
As a seller, you will likely be most concerned about ‘short-term price’ – where home values are headed over the next six months. As a buyer, however, you must not be concerned about price but instead about the ‘long-term cost’ of the home.
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), Freddie Mac, and Fannie Mae all project that mortgage interest rates will increase by this time next year. According to CoreLogic’s most recent Home Price Insights Report, home prices will appreciate by 4.8% over the next 12 months.
If home prices appreciate by 4.8% over the next twelve months as predicted by CoreLogic, here is a simple demonstration of the impact that an increase in interest rate would have on the mortgage payment of a home selling for approximately $250,000 today:
If buying a home is in your plan for this year, doing it sooner rather than later could save you thousands of dollars over the terms of your loan.
Christie Cannon | REALTOR
The Christie Cannon Team
Keller Williams Realty Frisco
972-215-7747
www.ChristieCannon.com
The interest rate you pay on your home mortgage has a direct impact on your monthly payment. The higher the rate, the greater the payment will be. That is why it is important to know where rates are headed when deciding to start your home search.
Below is a chart created using Freddie Mac’s U.S. Economic & Housing Marketing Outlook. As you can see, interest rates are projected to increase steadily throughout 2019.
Depending on the amount of the loan that you secure, a half of a percent (.5%) increase in interest rate can increase your monthly mortgage payment significantly. But don’t let the prediction that rates will increase stop you from purchasing your dream home this year!
Be thankful that you can still get a better interest rate than your older brother or sister did ten years ago, a lower rate than your parents did twenty years ago, and a better rate than your grandparents did forty years ago.
Christie Cannon | REALTOR
The Christie Cannon Team
Keller Williams Realty Frisco
972-215-7747
www.ChristieCannon.com
www.CannonTeamHomes.com
PGA of America is Heading to Frisco!
The PGA of America is moving its headquarters from Palm Beach County, Florida to Frisco, Texas, the ‘2018 Best Place to Live in America,’ where it will anchor a 600-acre, mixed-use development with an initial investment worth more than half a billion dollars. This groundbreaking agreement is estimated to have an economic impact of more than $2.5 billion over the next 20 years.
The PGA of America is teaming with Omni Stillwater Woods (OSW), a joint venture led by Omni Hotels & Resorts with Stillwater Capital and Woods Capital; the City of Frisco, as well as its Economic and Community Development Corporations; and the Frisco Independent School District.
“Our move to Frisco will be transcendent for the PGA of America,” said Seth Waugh, CEO, PGA of America. “Everything great starts with a dream. This is the beginning of a bold, new journey as we bring together world-class partners in a world-class location – to deliver innovative and differentiated experiences for our nearly 29,000 PGA Golf Professionals, golfers of all abilities and our staff.”
Two championship golf courses, a short course, and practice areas totaling 45 holes; a clubhouse; Class AA office space; a 500-room Omni resort and 127,000-square-foot conference center; a technologically advanced retail village; parks and open space plus several miles of trails, will complement this unique, signature development.
A welcoming gateway at Frisco’s northern border, the upscale development will be located at Rockhill Parkway and Legacy Drive, approximately one-third of a mile south of U.S. 380. The 600 acres are primarily situated within 2,500 acres being master planned by Hunt Realty Investments. The development will be open to the public, as well as golfers.The entire project will have an initial, estimated public-private investment totaling more than $520 million.
The PGA of America will invest $30 million to build its 100,000-square-foot global headquarters and education facility. OSW will invest $455 million to purchase the land, construct the hotel, conference center, retail space, parking facilities, and golf courses. The golf course, club house, practice areas and associated public facilities will be owned by the city. More than 300 FISD high school golfers will practice at the facility on a weekly basis.
The golf courses are expected to open in summer 2022. The hotel, convention center, and other facilities are expected to open within six months of that date. The development will host the KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship in 2023.
Christie Cannon | REALTOR
The Christie Cannon Team
Keller Williams Realty Frisco
972-215-7747
www.ChristieCannon.com
www.CannonTeamHomes.com
Home sales numbers are leveling off, the rate of price appreciation has slowed to more historically normal averages, and inventory is finally increasing. We are headed into a more normal housing market.
However, some are seeing these adjustments as red flags and are suggesting that we are headed back to the same challenges we experienced in 2008. Today, let’s look at one set of statistics that prove the current market is nothing like the one that preceded the housing crash last decade.
The previous bubble was partially caused by unhealthy levels of mortgage debt. New purchasers were putting down the minimum down payment, resulting in them having little if any equity in their homes.
Existing homeowners were using their homes as ATMs by refinancing and swapping their equity for cash. When prices started to fall, many homeowners found themselves in a negative equity situation (where their mortgage was higher than the value of their home) so they walked away which caused prices to fall even further. When this happened, even more homeowners found themselves in negative equity situations which caused them to walk away as well, and so a vicious cycle formed.
Today, the equity situation is totally different. According to a new report from ATTOM Data Solutions more than 1-in-4 homes with a mortgage have at least 50% equity. The report explains:
“…nearly 14.5 million U.S. properties were equity rich — where the combined estimated amount of loans secured by the property was 50 percent or less of the property’s estimated market value…The 14.5 million equity rich properties in Q3 2018 represented 25.7 percent of all properties with a mortgage.”
In addition, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, 30.3% of homes in the country have no mortgage on them.
If we take both numbers, the 30.3% of all homes without a mortgage and the 17.9% with at least 50% equity (25.7% of the 69.3% of homes with a mortgage), we realize that 48.2% of all homes in the country have at least 50% equity.
Unlike 2008, almost half of the homeowners in the country are sitting on massive amounts of home equity. They will not be walking away from their homes if the housing market begins to soften.
Christie Cannon | REALTOR
The Christie Cannon Team
Keller Williams Realty Frisco
972-215-7747
www.ChristieCannon.com
www.CannonTeamHomes.com
Displaying blog entries 31-40 of 91
