HOW TO MAKE A WINNING OFFER ON YOUR NEXT HOME!

1. Listen to Your Real Estate Advisor

An article i read from Freedie Mac gives sound direction on making an offer on a home. From the start, it emphasizes how trusted professionals can help you stay focused on the most important things, especially at times when this process can get emotional for buyers:

“Remember to let your homebuying team guide you on your journey, not your emotions. Their support and expertise will keep you from compromising on your must-haves and future financial stability.”

As a real estate professional, I feel it is very important to be the expert guide you lean on for advise when you’re ready to make an offer.

2. Understand Your Finances

Having a complete understanding of your budget and how much house you can aford is essential. The best way to know this is to get pre-approved for a loan early in the homebuying process. Only 44% of today’s prospective homebuyers are planning to apply for pre-approval, so be sure to take this step so you stand out from the crowd. Doing so makes it clear to sellers you’re a serious and qualified buyer, and it can/will give you a competitive edge in a bidding war.

3. Be Prepared to Move Quickly

According to the latest Realtors Confidence Index from the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the average property sold today receives 3.7 offers and is on the market for just 21 days. These are both results of today’s competitive market, showing how important it is to stay agile and alert in your search. In my local market homes are active for 3-7 days prior to hearing offers. Most homes are receiving 2-8 offers depending on their price point. So, as soon as you find the right home for your needs, be prepared to submit an offer as quickly as possible.

4. Make a Fair Offer

It’s only natural to want the best deal you can get on a home. However, submitting an offer that’s too low can lead sellers to doubt how serious you are as a buyer. Don’t make an offer that will be tossed out as soon as it’s received. The expertise your agent brings to this part of the process will help you stay competitive and psooibly win the house!

5. Stay Flexible in Negotiations

After submitting your offer, the seller may accept it, reject it, or counter it with their own changes. In a competitive market, it’s important to stay nimble throughout the negotiation process. You can strengthen your position with an offer that includes flexible move-in dates, a higher price, or minimal contingencies (conditions you set that the seller must meet for the purchase to be finalized). There are, however, certain contingencies you don’t want to forego. Resist the temptation to waive the inspection contingency. Without that very important Inspection contingency, you could get stuck in contract with a home you cant afford to fix!

Today’s competitive market makes it more important than ever to make a strong offer on a home. Reach out to your local real estate professional to make sure you rise to the top along the way. Feel free to call, text or email me anytime for help finding your dream home or selling your existing home to find your next dream! 925-330-3878 / stevepoirier@pacbell.net

Is now a good time to sell my home?

In my humble opinion the answer is YES! Last year, many homeowners thought twice about selling their houses due to the onset of the health crisis. This year, however, homeowners are beginning to regain their confidence when it comes to selling safely. The latest Home Purchase Sentiment Index (HPSI) by Fannie Mae shows that 57% of consumers believe now is a good time to sell.

Check this quote out from Doug Duncan, Vice President and Chief Economist at Fannie Mae, explains:

“Overall, the index’s monthly increase was driven largely by a substantial jump in the share of consumers reporting that it’s a good time to sell a home, with many citing favorable mortgage rates, high home prices, and low housing inventory as their primary rationale.”

In my past 30+ years in this game spring is the usually the busiest season in the housing market – this is the time when many homeowners decide to list their houses. While this is obviously not a normal year since the pandemic is still very much upon us, experts are optimistic that consumer positivity around selling will lead to more homeowners making moves this year. Furthermore Duncan continues to say:

“We will pay close attention to see if this newfound optimism develops into a trend.”

What this means if you’re thinking of selling your house:

The fact that there are so few houses available for sale today is one driving force that’s encouraging consumers to think more positively about selling. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) states:

“Total housing inventory at the end of January amounted to 1.04 million units, down 1.9% from December and down 25.7% from one year ago (1.40 million).”

With so few homes available to buy, your house will be more likely to rise to the top of an eager purchaser’s wish list in this competitive market. Today’s high buyer activity is creating an upward surge on home prices and more multiple-offers. According to the Realtors Confidence Index Survey from NAR, the average home for sale is receiving 3.7 offers today, up from 2.3 offers just one year ago. This makes selling even more enticing.

In this kind of sellers’ market, you have a huge advantage in the process. And here’s another win – you can also use your equity toward a down payment on a new home when you move.

Maybe you are wondering where you’ll go if you try to move while it’s so challenging to find a home to buy? Well, in many areas, there are more homes available at the higher end of the market, so finding a move-up home may be less of an issue if you’re ready to search for your dream home this spring.

Bottom Line

If you pressed pause on selling your house last year, now may be the best time to put your plans back into motion while inventory is so low. Please feel free to contact me anytime to obtain a Contact-less Social distanced (if in person) market evaluation for you property today! Stephen 935-330-3878 or email me at StevePoirier@pacbell.net

Home Prices: What Happened in 2020? What Will Happen This Year?

The real estate market was on fire during the second half of 2020. Buyer demand was way up, and the supply of homes available for sale hit record lows. As you may know, the price of anything is determined by supply and demand, due to short supply and high demand, home prices skyrocketed last year! See the below comment from Dr. Lynn Fisher, Deputy Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Division of Research and Statistics I thought you might find interesting:

“House prices nationwide recorded the largest annual and quarterly increase in the history of the FHFA Home Price Index. Low mortgage rates, pent up demand from homebuyers, and a limited housing supply propelled every region of the country to experience faster growth in 2020 compared to a year ago despite the pandemic.”

That being noted - Here are the year-end home price appreciation numbers from the FHFA and two other prominent pricing indexes:

• Federal Housing Finance Agency 10.8%
• CoreLogic 9.2%
• S&P Case-Shiller 10.4%

I think we would all agree that the past year was truly a remarkable time for homeowners as prices appreciated substantially. In my humble opinion, nobody states it better than Lawrence Yun, the Senior Economist at the National Association of Realtors (NAR):

“A typical homeowner in 2020, just by being a homeowner, would have accumulated around $24,000 in housing wealth.”

What will happen with homes this year?

I strongly believe, like so many experts believe buyer demand will soften somewhat as mortgage rates are poised to bump up slightly. Some also believe the inventory challenge will ease as more listings come to market this year.  Based on this, most forecasters anticipate we’ll see strong appreciation in 2021 – but not as strong as last year. Here are seven prominent groups and their projections:

My/The Bottom Line

Home price appreciation will be strong this year, but it won’t reach the historic levels of 2020. If you’d like to find out what your current home value is, feel free to call, email or text for a contactless social distancing Price opinion of your home...

WOW! HOME OWNERSHIP ANNUAL GAINS HIGHEST SINCE 2017

The prices in California are consistently through the roof! This type of information is always interesting to me.  From what i found reviewing the results from the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Data that was released, it shows me that the Rate of Home Price Increases across the U.S. has continued to go through roof!.  See below:

YEAR-OVER-YEAR The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index, covering all nine U.S. census divisions, reported a 8.3% annual gain in January, up from 4.6% in the previous month. The 10-City Composite annual increase came in at 10.2%, up from 3.7% in the previous month. The 20-City Composite posted a 13.6% year-over-year gain, up from 8.1% in the previous month. Las Vegas, Phoenix and Minneapolis reported the highest year-over-year gains among the 20 cities. In January, Las Vegas led the way with a 15.5% year-over-year price increase, followed by Phoenix with a 10.5% increase and Minneapolis with a 8.1% increase. Only one of the 20 cities reported greater price increases in the year ending January 2020 versus the year ending December 2019. 

Update on Wednesday, March 3, 2021 at 3:48PM by Steve Poirier

so true -seems to hols for the first qtr of the year for sure...

This could be a very big issue...

California may soon become the first state in the nation to require that virtually every new home be equipped with solar panels.

The California Energy Commission on Wednesday is expected to mandate solar arrays on almost all new single-family homes as part of the state’s fight against global warming. The rule also would apply to new multifamily buildings up to three stories tall.

The proposal, years in the making, would provide an immense boost to the state’s solar industry, which lost jobs in 2017 after years of rapid growth. It would also move California closer to a long-held goal of creating "zero net energy buildings" which generate as much electricity as they use over the course of a year.

But the solar requirement would come at a cost.

Together with tough new efficiency standards for windows and insulation that the commission will consider Wednesday, the solar mandate could add $10,538 to the cost of building a house, by the agency’s own estimate. The extra expense would hit at a time when California is suffering a severe and deepening housing affordability crisis.

MORE ON SOLAR POWER

The move’s supporters insist the solar homes would save their owners money by slashing monthly utility bills. That savings could be worth $16,251 over the 30-year life of the house, according to the commission.

“We do not minimize the cost of housing in the state — everyone recognizes that’s an issue,” said Andrew McAllister, one of the Energy Commission’s five voting members. “Their cash-flow position will be improved with the addition of solar. It won’t make it worse.”

Although housing developers had concerns about the move, Bob Raymer with the California Building Industry Association said the commission had given the new rule enough flexibility to make it work — for example, if the roof is too small or shaded, the builder can compensate by using energy-efficiency measures inside the house. And he agreed that the energy savings for the new solar homes would offset the up-front costs.

“We’re going to be able to look the home buyer in the eye and say, ‘You are going to get your money back,’” said Raymer, the group’s technical director.

California first started imposing new energy-efficiency standards for homes in the 1970s, slowly ratcheting them up over time. As a result, per-capita electricity demand in the state largely stayed flat, even as it grew elsewhere in the country.

The fight against global warming gave those standards new urgency. In 2007, both the Energy Commission and the California Public Utilities Commission set a nonbinding goal of having all new residential construction by 2020 be zero net-energy.

That same year, the state initiated solar programs both for new homes and owners of existing houses. But the state’s solar market was still in its early stages, and it wasn’t clear whether or how California could meet its zero net-energy goal.

“If you think about the context of 10 or 12 years ago, things were a lot different,” McAllister said. “Solar was not an everyday thing. Well, now it is.”

About 20 percent of new homes in California are built with rooftop solar arrays, Raymer said. And prices have tumbled as the solar industry, both in California and around the world, matured.

The national average installed cost of a new residential array has fallen by more than half since 2007, according to the annual "Tracking the Sun" survey from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. In California, the median price hit $4.3 per watt in 2016, the most recent year for which data are available. For a 3-kilowatt system, that adds up to $12,900.

California’s solar industry endured a rough 2017 as a longer-than-usual rainy season and state regulatory changes drove down both new solar installations and employment for the first time in years. About 86,400 Californians worked in solar power last year, down 13 percent from 2016.

Then in January, President Trump dealt the industry another setback when he imposed temporary tariffs on imported solar panels, which will push up the installed price of new solar arrays unless installers find ways to trim their own operational costs.

McAllister said the commission revised its calculations following the tariff announcement and concluded that the new rule would still make financial sense.

“It’s very clear that solar will be cost-effective,” he said.

To environmentalists, the move is an important step to curbing greenhouse gas emissions. When the electricity they use is factored in, buildings represent the second-largest source of greenhouse gases in the state, behind only transportation. California law calls for cutting the state’s total carbon emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030.

“This is a key measure to reduce (greenhouse gases) in the building sector, which is one area in California where there hasn’t been enough attention,” said Rachel Golden, a senior campaign representative for the Sierra Club. “We have strong policies to clean up the utility sector, strong policies on transportation, but we don’t have strong policies on the decarbonization of buildings.”

Consumers Place Personal Loans Atop the Credit Mountain...

When faced with the choice of which debts to pay and which to miss, consumers in financial distress tend to prioritize unsecured personal loans ahead of other credit products such as auto loans, mortgages and credit cards.

The most recent study incorporates unsecured personal loans for the first time since begining to analyze the payment hierarchy dynamic in 2010. Beyond personal loans, this most recent analysis is consistent with prior studies in finding that consumers have historically prioritized auto loans over their mortgages and credit cards, and have done so consistently since at least the beginning of 2004.

“It is quite surprising to us that, for most struggling consumers, unsecured personal loan payments are prioritized over other prominent credit products such as mortgages and auto loans,” said Ezra Becker, senior vice president and head of research for TransUnion’s financial services business unit. “While personal loans have existed for a long time, recent growth in the number of such loans led us to explore this product’s position along the payment spectrum. The prioritization of personal loan payments above all others is counterintuitive, but our study results are clear. We believe the relatively short duration of these loans—usually less than 30 months—is a key factor in the decision process of consumers.”

RECORD-LOW HOUSING INVENTORY IS 'FREAKING ME OUT'

The number of homes for sale in America has been falling steadily for the past year, but the situation is apparently getting much worse as our traditional spring demand heats up. The inventory is reaching historic lows. It's never declined faster than it did last month. It's freaking me out. I think the overall industry for the first time is seeing sales volume really limited by the inventory crunch. I believe the lack of inventory on a new dynamic in housing: It's a new landlord nation where everybody is renting out their basement. When somebody moves up they don't sell their old place, they rent it out to somebody else, and it's because they want to keep that 30-year mortgage for 30 years, and it's because they can easily find somebody on Airbnb who will take the place. Also related: CALIFORNIA’S HOUSING AFFORDABILITY PROBLEMS Source: LA Times California’s housing affordability challenges remain daunting and continue to increase, according to a draft report from the state’s Department of Housing and Community Development. Thirty-two percent of millennials between the ages of 20 and 26 say they owe between $10,000 and $50,000 in student loans. The average student loan balance was $10,205. The report found: Housing production over the last decade fell more than 100,000 new homes short of demand and continues to lag, leading to surging prices at all income levels. The state’s homeownership rates are at their lowest since the 1940s. One-third of the state’s renters spend more than half their income on housing costs. California has 12 percent of the nation’s population, but 22 percent of the country’s homeless population. The report includes a range of potential solutions, including streamlining local and state land-use and environmental rules and boosting funding for low-income housing.

Today’s home sellers are facing an interesting dilemma: Where can they buy a new residence?

In a survey of 800 real estate agents, 65.6 percent of respondents said that low inventory was the greatest challenge facing the sellers in their markets. And the homes that are available become very popular very quickly: 57.2 percent respondents reported being involved in at least one instance of a home receiving 10 or more offers this year; a mere 1.8 percent of agents said they yet to be involved in a bidding war.

What can sellers do to ensure they can move from their sold home into a new place? Eileen, a real estate agent in the Boston area, insisted that sellers move ahead with their house sale before securing the purchase a new home.

 “They should consider temporary rental options, or moving in with relatives after they sell,” she said. “Then they will be able to take the time they need to find their dream house, know exactly what they'll have to work with financially, and won't end up adding unnecessary contingencies to offers, which will give them a better chance to get the home.”

Take the advice of your local Realtor!