Prosper, TX

Thinking you may not be able to hang onto your home much longer? Are your finances keeping you up at night? Hearing the news that the recession is over in DFW, but not seeing any help coming your own way to dig back out from the hole it created? You are not alone. Many families are getting by right now. Just barely getting by. There is no shame in it. It is a sign of the times. Our government knows that job creation is the answer, but that's a big ship that moves slowly, and help may not be coming for a while. What to do?

In 2008 and 2009, we were able to help many Prosper homeowners lease out their homes for a 1-2 year period, in order to alleviate their burden. That answer is a much better solution than a short sale as we head into 2010, as well. I shocked someone the day after Thanksgiving when I showed them that the home that costs them $1100 per month would actually lease for $1500 per month right now. I leased out a 4-bedroom home on Amistad in Lakes of La Cima this year on a two-year lease for $2400 per month.

Demand is still up for residential leases, and supply in Prosper is still low. Most of these homes lease in just a few weeks, even if they've been up for sale for many months. I have found a better quality of tenants are out there today. The ones I've encountered are just normal folks trying to find a good area in which to live, and they want good schools for their kids. Or, they are downsizing from something larger and don't want to leave the Prosper school district.

Only one of my leases from 2009 opted to do property management. The rest decided to manage their own properties and have done a fine job of it. In Prosper, many of the homes are still under the manufacturer's warranty and/or residential home warranty contracts, so servicing the home while the tenant is in the house is neither expensive nor burdensome.

Leasing can buy you the time you need to get back on top of your finances. Don't become a short sale without considering the option of leasing out your current home. If you are already behind on mortgage payments, then we need to move very quickly to get you up for lease. If the bank knows you are going to lease out the house, they may work with you while we find a tenant. I helped one family in 2009 that was four payments behind to the largest lender in our area. We leased their house in one day. Their lease is $650 above their house payment, so they are able to send the remainder to the lender to catch up on their back-payments. No foreclosure is underway, because I asked the owners to speak with their lender every Monday like clock-work with updates. The family moved to a smaller home just a short drive away, and the kids stayed in the same school. Crisis averted!

Have a blessed day!

Ronda

You say you want a great value, well here it is!!  A Romanticized Mediterranean Tuscan Spanish Old World Courtyard Home situated on 1.7 acres with an Exquisite Architectural appeal that blends class and elegance with comfort and style providing Richly stained custom Alder Cabinetry, solid wood beam coffered ceiling in the great room and the formal dining, refined stained and stamped concrete floors. Incredible sculpted stoned interior accent walls strategically placed for a majestic ambience that is both unique and captivating.  The kitchen is a chef's dream with Commercial Grade Appliances including an 8-burner kitchen-aid stove top with double ovens.  Retire to the Master Suite and enjoy a separate coffee bar, and Master bath with exquisite finish out including walk in shower and custom clawed cabinetry, and enjoy an adjoining separate reading room or nursery overlooking the courtyard.  The ostensible vision of Burton Custom Homes where impeccable design and extensive attention to detail are apparent in this magnificent masterpiece of architectural opulence that you could not re-create at this remarkable price.

It's the lowest inventory level I've seen since early in 2006. Prosper, Texas is down to just 137 available homes in the MLS as of 11-24-2009. This is remarkably low inventory and covers a range of homes from the $140,000's to $21,000,000.

WORK Those Signs

Not every agent is good at keeping their signs current, so the for sale signs can be misleading. Many of those homes with signs appear to be up for sale, but are actually homes that are in various stages of contract. Right now, there are 12 homes in Prosper in the buyer's option status and another 26 that have made it through option to contract pending status.

Why might an agent leave their for sign sign up, without current status? So that drive-by's in the neighborhood will continue to contact them for the status of the house, hoping that it's still available. Yes - if the home has been out of active status for longer than three days, this is a violation of our local MLS rules. But, it's a common practice for some agents in Prosper and all over Collin County. Personally, I'd like to see more enforcement by the local Board, so this practice would stop. It's just good business to work the signs and keep them current. It is very misleading to buyers when they think there are lots of available homes in a neighborhood, and leads to some practices like low-ball offers. If the agent is a good one, they'll find some other way than deception to make their phone ring.

If you live in Prosper and have a contract on your home, request that your agent provide a status rider for your sign. We have them in our garages, our offices, or can get them at the Board. They aren't expensive. This same practice impacts homes for lease, which tend to get picked up very fast in Prosper. Yet, the signs and the MLS may stay in the wrong status for weeks.

NEW Home Construction

New home starts are up in Prosper, too. Drive through Prosper and you can see the concrete trucks lined up and the long arm pouring a new slab in Lakes of La Cima, Gentle Creek Estates, Willow Ridge, Saddle Creek, Whispering Farm, Quail Lake, Whitley Place, Prosper Lakes, Twelve Oaks, and on and on. You cannot arrive in Prosper as a buyer and convince me the market is down. That ship sailed in 2008 and has been gone for quite a while now. Prosper is vibrant and growing. The rooftops we need to get the commercial growth we've been promised is underway. This is an exciting time to live and work in Prosper, Texas. I personally cannot wait for the grand opening day for The Gates of Prosper.

Have a blessed day!

Ronda

~ Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve. - Dr. Napoleon Hill

~ Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius. - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

~ You can have everything in life that you want if you just give enough other people what they want. - Zig Ziglar

~ Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great. - Mark Twain

~ Great works are performed, not by strength, but by perseverance. - Samuel Johnson~ Never worry about the size of your Christmas tree. In the eyes of children, they are all 30 feet tall. - Larry Wilde

~ Minds are like parachutes. They only function when they are open. - Sir James Dewar

~ Peace on earth will come to stay, When we live Christmas every day. - Helen Steiner Rice

~ Don't go around saying the world owes you a living; the world owes you nothing; it was here first. - Mark Twain

~ Never worry about the size of your christmas tree in the eyes of children they are all 30 feet tall

~ If you can't describe what you are doing as a process, you don't know what you're doing. - W. Edwards Deming

~ All my life I've wanted to be someone; I guess I should have been more specific. - Jane Wagner/Lily Tomlin

~ Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest. - Mark Twain

~ Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. - Mark Twain

~ In life we all have an unspeakable secret, an irreversible regret, an unreachable dream and an unforgettable love. Diego Marchi

~ Do just once what others say you can't do, and you will never pay attention to their limitations again. - James R. Cook

~The most important thing about having goals is having one. Geoffrey F. Abert

One of the reasons I moved my family and my business to Prosper, Texas in 2006 is that emotional shift into low-gear that you feel as you cross the Dallas North Tollway at Hwy 380. Life gets prettier (we do live in a gorgeous community!), and the priorities of life seem to come into sharper focus. One thing I have noticed is that I don't get a lot of calls to show homes in Prosper on Sundays until after 2pm. That doesn't bother me. I can see online that it's a day when people are searching their home computers for housing options, but it's a day that they prefer to be at home. Unless I have an out-of-state buyer who needs to make a decision in a short amount of time, Sundays are a pretty light day. An open house or two, showing one of my own listings, then home by 5pm and the official end of my work week.

We moved to the Dallas/Fort Worth area in the late 1970's. Remember when the Blue Law kept businesses like car lots from even being open on Sundays? I didn't mind those days. We lived in the South Dallas bedroom community of Duncanville at the time. Sundays were long, lazy family days when you would head to church, have lunch, and relax. My three siblings would all be at home. In the Summer, we'd swim. If the weather was too cool, we'd have a pick-up basketball game in the driveway or throw the baseball around out in the backyard. In the Winter, it was a great day to work on a puzzle, read a book, or play a board game.

We actually stumbled upon Prosper in 2006. We had been living on the shores of Lewisville Lake in Frisco. We had been hearing about new housing starts in Prosper, with good schools, big yards and affordable prices. But, at the time, I primarily worked in Plano, Richardson, Allen, Murphy, McKinney and Frisco. My Husband was working in Louisiana after the hurricanes, and he suggested that I drive out and check out the Town of Prosper. We were in search of better schools for our son and a neighborhood environment with community amenities so he could have friends. It also seemed to make more sense for me to live more centrally located to where I worked - a little more to the East and maybe even a little more North to reduce my travel time to appointments.

Prosper was everything we wanted. The neighborhoods were impressive, and each offered something unique. It didn't feel cookie-cutter at all. The lot sizes made it okay for us to come off almost an acre on the lake and back into a community setting on .30 acres. Some of our favorite teachers were transferring to Prosper, and we found the wife of our favorite Principal would be the Principal at our Son's new school. I was able to get high speed internet for my home office, which was such a blessing. We didn't have access to high speed out on the lake. There were a few restaurants, a post office, and a quaint downtown area. There was a beautiful golf community and some amazing $500,000 to $10,000,000 homes that just made your jaw drop. It felt like home. And, even better for a Realtor, it felt like a ground-floor opportunity and a great investment.

In Prosper, Texas, we have found the ideal setting in which to raise our son and keep our focus on family values and simple pleasures. You can, too.

Have a blessed day!

Ronda