Buying Home

The latest figures from the The Real Estate Institute of WA shows the volume of Perth property sales in the March quarter reached its highest level in two years. The median house price is up slightly to $465,000. More >

Investment-home sales surged by 64.5% in 2011, the National Association of Realtors reported this week in its annual Investment and Vacation Home Buyers Survey. More >

Hey, baby boomers! Pondering what gift to get your kid who’s all grown up? For many of your peers, the answer is a house.

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The mortgage squeeze on hard-pressed, first-time buyers showed signs of easing in February, the Council of Mortgage Lenders said today.

Lending picked up after a poor start to the year with loans to those stepping onto the property ladder for the first time rising 13% to 12,400.

This increase was ahead of the 8% rise in the overall number of home loans made in February to 32,300, worth £4.6 billion in total.

Chancellor George Osborne also offered help for 10,000 first-time buyers in the Budget with a shared equity scheme – but lenders are still asking for average deposits of 80%, the CML’s figures showed. Worse still, annual comparisons show that year on year, lending is still falling with total mortgages down by 12% year on year, in both value and volume terms. More >

The Best Investment

As a fairly general rule, homes appreciate about four or five percent a year. Some years will be more, some less. The figure will vary from neighborhood to neighborhood, and region to region.

Five percent may not seem like that much at first. Stocks (at times) appreciate much more, and you could easily earn over the same return with a very safe investment in treasury bills or bonds. More >

Assuming you have the financial resources and the desire to eventually own your own home, there are very few good reasons to put off the purchase. You can miss out on years of appreciation if you do.

The main thing you want to avoid when buying a home is being put in a position where you will have to sell it too soon. If you have to sell a home before it has appreciated enough to cover the costs and commissions of selling, you could find yourself in a financial bind. This is especially true for those who buy a home with a down payment of ten percent or less.

Real Estate commissions traditionally run around six percent of a home’s sales price. The seller’s closing costs generally come to about one and a half percent. You can see how this can easily exceed the first year’s appreciation. If you made a minimal down payment, you could actually have to come up with cash out of pocket to sell your home. More >

Recession and Expansion

There are times when the economy is brisk and everyone feels confident about his or her prospects for the future. As a result, they spend money. People eat out more, buy new cars, and…

…They buy houses.

Then, for one reason or another, the economy slows down. Companies lay off employees and consumers are more careful about where they spend money, perhaps saving more than usual. As a result, the economy decelerates even further. If it slows enough, we have a recession. More >

No one likes to give money away, but a monetary credit from the seller to the buyer can solve a problem that might otherwise derail a home-sale transaction. Here’s a typical scenario where a seller credit could save the deal.

The buyers are stretching to buy their dream home. Tapped out financially, they panic when they discover during their home inspection that the roof needs replacing. The inspector impresses upon the buyers that the roof must be replaced immediately; it can’t wait. But the buyers don’t have enough extra cash to cover the cost of a new roof. More >