What do you think about the trend?
Single Family Homes
Condo/Townhomes
Steve Mun, Silicon Valley Realtor
www.stevemungroup.com
Some more sales data.
Single Family Homes
Condo/Townhomes
Steve Mun, Silicon Valley Realtor
www.stevemungroup.com
We keep hearing about the how badly we are impacted by the sub-prime crisis.Sometimes, just looking at raw data helps put things into perspective. Here are sales statistics for February 2008 for Santa Clara County.
Single Family Homes
Condo/Townhomes
Steve Mun, Silicon Valley Realtor
www.stevemungroup.com
I have always advised (insisted) that all my buyers purchase the Home Warranty Plan when you are purchasing a resale home. This is perhaps the best investment you can make in the home buying procedure. I have seen over and over how a simple $400 plan can help save you thousands of dollars in the long run.
The perfect example was today: a recent buyer called saying sewage was coming up through the drain in his master-bedroom shower stall. Obviously he was in a panic because he had guests over and wanted to know if I knew a good plumber. I reminded him that I had negotiated a Home Warranty Plan in place paid by the seller; he did not have to try to get a plumber out there on his own. All he had to do was pay the $50 service fee and everything would be taken care of for him.
It took a few hours but the plumber came and he was only out $50 instead of the hundreds of dollars he would have had to pay just to get a plumber to come out and take a look. Not only did he save money, but he saved the time and effort it would cost him trying to find a reputable plumber who would do a good job.
Remember, there are few things that will be a godsend and often times, the Home Warranty Plan turns out to be one of those thankful items. Make sure you get one in place.
Steve Mun, Silicon Valley Realtor
www.stevemungroup.com
The economic stimulus package proposed by the government today will do something that the real estate industry in California has been fighting for many years. The conforming loan will finally rise from its current $417,000 to a more accommodating $729,000. Without getting into an overly complicated explanation, it simply means that conforming loans will cost the average home buyer less money to borrow than non-conforming or jumbo loans.
Typically, home buyers borrow 80% and come up with 20% as down payment to avoid PMI (private mortgage insurance). In Santa Clara County, where the median home is over $800,000, this means you will not have to come up with the difference between $417,000 and the purchase price. This means if you don’t have equity built up from a previous home, most buyers will borrow up to the limit of the conforming loan and come up with rest as a large down payment or a combination of down payment and a secondary loan. If the home were $800,000, then the 80% of the loan would be $640,000 (as opposed to $417,000), so it makes a big difference for us in California.
Now with the proposed limit increasing to $729,000, many more people will have greater chances of borrowing more money at lower rates. First time home buyers will not have to resort to “funny” loans to try to get into their first homes. Remember, it was all of those “funny” ARM loans that got us into this sub-prime mess in the first place.
Great News!
Steve Mun, Silicon Valley Realtor
Cupertino, Campbell, Willow Glen, Almaden, San Jose, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Los Gatos, Saratoga, Palo Alto, Mountain View, Santa Clara County
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