Sandy Ogburn Sandlin - Fine Baton Rouge area homes

At the beginning of 2009, Baton Rouge was 9^th on Housing Predictor's midyear list of the 10 hottest housing markets for buyers. It is now was ranked 7^th on the list by midyear. Things are getting hotter and for good reason!

Housing prices in some sections of the country have been a roller coaster ride for buyers and sellers. This has caused buyers to hold off buying as they thought the prices would decline further and caused sellers to put off selling or grit their teeth and price their property low. In Baton Rouge and a few cities around the country, this has not been the pattern. They may have felt some impact of the housing recession, but the economy has generally been strong.

As previously noted in our blog Baton Rouge Area Economy Growing in Midst of Recession, Baton Rouge area housing prices have remained stable in the 9 parishes that make up the Greater Baton Rough area. Though housing sites like Trulia show that prices are down at the moment, the area is viewed as a market where prices will rise. In mid November, the average listing price of a Baton Rouge home is $259,189, with a median selling price of $167,250.

Unlike other markets, Baton Rouge has not been battered by foreclosures that would leave the landscape flooded with bank owned homes. Per the Brookings Report, there was 1 bank owned home per 1,000 mortgages. More conservative lending prices in past shielded the city from much of the housing crisis felt elsewhere.

Bask in the heat of the Baton Rouge housing market! Let Sandy and her team show you a wide selection of beautiful new and pre-owned homes in the Greater Baton Rouge area, including Baton Rouge, Prairieville, Gonzales, Denham Springs, Watson, Walker, Central, Greenwell Springs, Zachary, Baker, Port Allen, Brusly, Geismar, and St Amant. We can also you answer any questions you might have about the home buyer's ttax credit - $8,000 first time buyers or $6,500 for repeat buyers.

Business Week recently named Baton Rouge one of the U.S. Metro's Least Touched by Recession as well as placed it as No. 8 on the magazine's list of Top 10 Metros in the U.S. Based on a Booking's Institute's assessment of the economic health of 100 cities with populations over 600,000. Baton Rouge fared well in the four areas studied: job growth, gross metro product, unemployment change, and home price change.

As the capitol of Louisiana, Baton Rouge has a stable base of government employment plus a strong, expanding energy sector and a strong educational sector. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the vibrant economy in Baton Rouge has been sparked in part by a construction boom. Thousands of displaced families arrived in Baton Rouge after Hurricane Katrina and temporarily doubled the population.

Not everyone stayed, but the influx of people, as well as rampant property destruction, spurred demand for services and activity in the residential and commercial construction. Currently, there are $5.1 billion of commercial construction projects underway, which includes Katrina repair and corporate expansion. ExxonMobil (XOM), for example, is building a new chemical plant, while the French company SNF is building a new plant in the area.

This activity has made for good job growth and lower than average unemployment. Baton Rough unemployment is currently 7.1%, a good 3% lower than the national average. Wage growth has been weak.

It has also maintained the gross metropolitan product (GMP), which measures the value of all goods and services produced in the area. Baton Rouge peaked in 2009 and hasn't declined much. This indicates that demand has remained stable, despite the recession.

In the Baton Rouge area, housing prices were up 3.3% in through June 30, 2009 according to the recent report mentioned in BusinessWeek, and have remained stable in the 9 parishes that make up the Greater Baton Rough area. Though housing sites like Trulia show that prices are down in the city of Baton Rouge at the moment, the area is viewed as a market where prices will rise.

The Greater Baton Rouge area includes nine parishes - Ascension, East Baton Rouge, East Feliciana, Iberville, Livingston, Point Coupee, St. Helena, West Baton Rouge, and West Feliciana.

Beat the recession blues! Buy a new home in Baton Rouge! Let Sandy and her team show you a wide selection of beautiful new and pre-owned homes in the Greater Baton Rouge area, including Baton Rouge, Prairieville, Gonzales, Denham Springs, Watson, Walker, Central, Greenwell Springs, Zachary, Baker, Port Allen, Brusly, Geismar, and St Amant. We can also you answer any questions you might have about the home buyer's tax credit - $8,000 first time buyers or $6,500 for repeat buyers.

As you may have read in our recent blog Put on Your Shopping Shoes, Ascension Home Buyers!, the homeowners tax credit has not only been expanded but been made better. Greater Baton Rouge, including Ascension Parish and East Baton Rouge Parish, have economies that are doing better than many places and so offer a stable place to settle. If take a look at the pictures in we include here, you will notice that the area is also a beautiful place to call home.

Who is eligible for this tax credit?

First home buyers and repeat buyers are eligible for a credit.

• First time buyers, which includes those who have not owned a home for three years or more.
• Current homeowners who have owned and lived in a home a primary residence for at least five of the past eight years prior to purchasing the new home

Which homes qualify for the tax credit?

Any home that will be used as a principal residence will qualify for the credit, provided including single-family detached homes, attached homes like townhouses and condominiums, manufactured homes (also known as mobile homes) and houseboats. However...

• The purchase price must be less than $800,000
• You must use the home as your principal residence -no vacation homes or investment property
• You cannot buy a home from a relative or spouse

Does the tax credit have to be repaid?

NO - this is a tax credit that does not have to be repaid.

How is the tax credit figured?

The tax credit is 10% of the home's purchase price, up to $8,000 for first-time home buyers and $6,500 for buyers having already owned a home.

When must you purchase the home?

To qualify for the home buyer tax credit, the principal residence must be purchased on or after January 1, 2009 and before April 30, 2010. However, you have until June 30, 2010 to close.

Is eligibility based on the home buyer's income?

Yes. Single taxpayers must have income of $125,000 or below to qualify while married couples income must be $225,000 or below. This is an increase from the previous bill.

How does the homeowner figure their tax credit?

The credit will come to you as a refund once you have filed your taxes. You must complete IRS Form 5405 to figure the amount of credit you will receive and claim it on your income tax form.

You must provide documentation that you purchased a home.

You can also check these government sites about the Home Buyer Tax Credit for more details:

• Frequently asked questions about the $8,000 first-time home buyer tax credit.
• Frequently asked questions about the $6,500 tax credit for repeat home buyers.

Sandy and her team can help you answer any questions you might have about the tax credit and then show you a wide selection of beautiful new and pre-owned homes in the Greater Baton Rouge area, including Baton Rouge, Prairieville, Gonzales, Denham Springs, Watson, Walker, Central, Greenwell Springs, Zachary, Baker, Port Allen, Brusly, Geismar, and St Amant.

If you have slowed down your efforts find your new Ascension Parish home because you figured that you could not complete your sale in time to qualify for the $8000 first time homebuyer tax credit, put on your shopping shoes! Not only is the credit extended till next April, it's now offers some new provisions that will help you as a first time buyer and also help existing homeowners who want to move by offering a $6,500 tax credit. The redesigned credit allows you to make more money and still qualify ($125,000 for single, $225,000 for married, phase out of credit for incomes up to $20,000 higher.) For repeat buyers, the only consideration is that they must have used their current home as a primary residence for 5 of the last 8 years.

By extending the credit to more potential buyers, the credit will help everyone. First time buyers typically buy homes at the lower end of the price spectrum, while current homeowners often are ready for a more expensive house when they are making their second or third purchase. Some folks who are ready to move have been put off by the prospect of a slow sale, so have put their moving plans on hold. With the new credit available, there will be a renewed interest in both starter and move-up homes.

Right now in Ascension Parish, the average home price hovers around $217,500 for new homes and $208,782 for resales. There is a 3 month supply of homes under $100K and about a 5 month supply of homes up to $250,000. For homes in the $351-400K range, the inventory is 18 months, while homes over $400 have a 40 month supply. The new credit is likely to open up more buying opportunities for entry level buyers and encourage the sellers to buyer properties that are likely to be more costly. It is good on properties up to $800,000.

Though the new credit is good through April 30, 2010, you are only required to have a contract in place, but the closing need not be complete until July 1, 2010. Currently, the credit that was due to expire on November 1 required the closing to be complete by that date. Given that the whole loan-appraisal-closing ritual now takes longer, some buyers were likely to be clogged in the pipeline as the credit expired, while others put off the purchase figuring they would make it through in time. With the new credit, buyers with contracts have three months for the process to be completed. This means you can buy in confidence right up to April 1, with the knowledge you will be able to claim the credit.

This is also good if you want to buy a newly built home. Even if you are just looking at the floor plan today, you have plenty of time to buy one of the beautiful homes now under construction in Prairieville, Gonzales, Sorrento, or Geismar. Builders have tended to construct model and a small quantity of homes so they are not left with unsold inventory, but could easily build more to accommodate buyers like you New home sales are on course to approach 500 homes in the parish this year.

Sandy Ogburn-Sandlin and her team at Re/Max Excellent Properties can explain all the details of the new credit to you, as well as show you the best new and resale homes in Ascension Parish as well as neighboring cities in the Greater Baton Rouge market. It's likely that homes will move quickly with the new incentives in place, so contact Sandy's Team today to jumpstart your housing search!

Ascension Parish is booming these days, with its 6.7% unemployment over 2% lower than the national average, as new businesses going up all over town. If you happen to be one of the unlucky people who lose their job, you have to figure how to stay afloat until you return to work. If you have a mortgage, you want to save your home while taking care of your other bills too. These days, many households already have two wage earners, so if one loses a job, there is no one else who can jump into the job market to help out.

Ideally, you should have three to six months in savings to carry you over in case of emergency, but many people live paycheck to paycheck without this safety net. Finding a new job is often taking longer so having savings will not spare you from what every homeowner needs to do: develop a game plan for making it through till income returns to normal. When your income is down, you must the order in which you pay your bills, but every creditor feels like they should come first. You need to first pay your mortgage, insurance, utilities, and other necessities like food, followed by your car note, then your loans and credit cards. If you have no reserves, obviously you will have to modify the list.

When you income changes and you have having difficulty paying your mortgage, there are programs designed to help make it through and avoid what will happen if you cannot ultimately pay: foreclosure. Before you get to that point, it's good to ask yourself if you want to keep the home. You may realize that the maintaining the home always made things tight for you. Though the current real estate market can be challenging, you might consider selling. If you owe more on the home than it is worth, you may ask your Realtor® about selling it on a short sale, where the bank agrees to accept less than the loan value as full payment. In any case, the time you are off is a good time to prepare the home for sale in case you would later decide to that. Even though you might not be able to afford costly remodeling projects, you can paint and declutter - tasks you may have need to do anyway.

If you want to keep your home, you need to take advantage of available resources. This means contacting your lender (or an outside housing counselor who will do this for you). Your lender may be able to help you if you contact them early and agree to reduced payments, forbearance (where you don't have to pay for a short time), or a loan modification.

For some of these plans to work, you need some income. This may mean that you accept a job that pays less than what you were making but is enough to cover the house payment and your other basic expenses. There is no point of jumping through all the hoops to get a loan modified if you will default in a few months because the payment is still too high for you.

Some people who have tried to get help say contacting the lender is more than a notion. Though lenders say they want to work with customers, many distressed borrowers report that they can't reach them, don't hear back from them, or wait forever, only to be told that they don't qualify or that they should apply to the Federal Making Home Affordable program. This is why it is often a good idea to talk with a HUD-approved counselor who might be able to get in touch with your lender or at least help you explore other resources before foreclosure looms.

In trouble with your mortgage due to job trouble or any other reason? The State of Louisiana has many resources to help you. Want to discuss your situation with a knowledgeable Realtor®? Sandy-Ogburn-Sandlin and her Team can talk to you about selling your home at short sale. We can show the best homes in Ascension Parish, as well East Baton Rouge Parish or Livingston Parish.