Chance Gates' Blog

RISMEDIA, April 19, 2010—(MCT)—Latasha Hall never envisioned herself a homeowner. But by the end of the month, she will be. Just in time.

With the soon-to-expire tax credit for first-time buyers as an assist, the single mother plans to close on a $166,650 three-bedroom house in Clifton Heights, Pa. “If it hadn’t been for the credit, I wouldn’t have done it,” Hall said.

To be eligible for the federal tax credits—up to $8,000 for qualified first-timers and up to $6,500 for certain repeat buyers—houses must be under contract by April 30, with settlement by June 30, 2010.

With those deadlines in sight, some real estate agents say they are relishing their first busy days in months.

For some buyers, a tax credit is an added perk in an already-friendly market with good inventory and low mortgage rates.

For those like Hall, who is working toward her bachelor’s degree in behavior and addictions counseling and who works two jobs, it’s the last piece that fits the puzzle. In January, Hall visited Weichert Realtors for help finding a rental home after her landlord’s lender foreclosed.

Steve Madonna, a loan officer with Weichert, looked at her income (about $54,000) and her credit score (which needed some work, but not much) and suggested she buy instead. Madonna connected Hall with a state loan program that would provide $5,000 of the $8,000 credit up front, for use on closing costs or maintenance on the house. Hall set to work paying off two past-due bills and bugging the credit bureaus—sending weekly faxes and calling often—to update her score quickly. “If I hadn’t heard about this credit, I wouldn’t have worked so hard to get it done,” she said. “This is my time to go out and do what I have to do. I kept thinking about my kids.”

The new Clifton Heights neighborhood is safer, she said, and it’s just two blocks from the school her 9-year-old son attends. The credit has been “a blessing,” Hall said.

To Realtors like Daren Sautter, it’s a relief. “It’s nice to be busy,” he said.

Sautter, of Prudential Fox & Roach in Cherry Hill, N.J., watched showings and Internet leads triple in the first three weeks of March.

He expects to be slammed through the April 30 deadline, then figures he’ll see a lull before the spring market picks up some. “If you don’t sell a house in April,” Sautter said, “you’re not selling it.”

Sellers likely will be thinking the same thing, Realtors said, and listing prices could drop this month.

Sautter recently helped Pat Poole price her four-bedroom Cherry Hill house to sell. At $290,000, it went after just one day on the market. Recently divorced, Poole was looking to downsize. She sold the house to a young couple who used the repeat-buyer credit. Her next task: finding a new house for herself and her 17-year-old son in time to secure her own tax credit. “I’m going to get in under the wire,” Poole said.

A flurry of activity is noticeable in areas with a strong inventory of homes affordable to young families, Realtors said.

But some brokers are seeing a “trickle-up” effect. Would-be buyers are able to sell their homes, aided by the rush for the tax credit, and upgrade to communities with better school systems or more historic charm.

In Haddonfield, N.J., the proximity to Philadelphia and access to the PATCO High-Speed Line were big draws for Jeff Minors and Amy Henry. Minors will commute to his job as a financial-news editor in New York City. The couple, longtime renters, were looking to move to southern New Jersey from Norwalk, Conn., with their 2-year-old son. They recently moved into a four-bedroom home in Haddonfield that cost about $575,000. The first-time-buyer credit was an added bonus, Minors said. “We were more concerned about finding the right house at the right price,” he said. “But it’s definitely a nice benefit.”

As a Reno/Sparks real estate professional I encourage all questions and comments on the Reno/Sparks real estate market, or any of the articles posted.  I can be reached by email at chance@ballard-company.com or http://www.myspace.com/chancegates

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Off to a rough start so I’ll take a couple of favorites today.  I like the Colorado Rockies over the Washington Nationals.  Nationals are playing some really good baseball, but usually have an off day on the first game of a road trip.  Plus the Rockies have won 22 of the last 28 games against the Nationals.

The other game I really like is the San Francisco Giants against the San Diego Padres.  San Diego is playing well but Cain is on the mound for the Giants and getting a great line.  Whenever you can get one of the great pitcher with a good line, it is worth the shot.

Please remember these picks are for entertainment purposes.

As a Reno/Sparks real estate professional I encourage all questions and comments on the Reno/Sparks real estate market or any of the articles posted.  I can be reached by email at chance@ballard-company.com or http://www.myspace.com/chancegates

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RISMEDIA, April 15, 2010—The 30-year fixed mortgage rate on Zillow Mortgage Marketplace is currently 4.88%, down twenty basis points from 5.08% compared to this same time last week. The 30-year fixed mortgage rate rose last week, spiking Sunday at 5.05% before falling to 4.88% Monday.

Zillow’s real-time mortgage rates are based on thousands of custom mortgage quotes submitted daily to anonymous borrowers through the site, and reflect the most recent changes in the market. These are not marketing rates, or a weekly survey.

The rate for 15-year fixed home loans is currently 4.29%, while the rate for 5-1 adjustable-rate mortgages (ARM) is 3.49%.

The total volume of mortgage requests in the past week was up 4.5% from the prior week. Of last week’s requests, 21% were for refinance loans, 77% were for purchase loans and 2% were for home equity loans. The prior week, 25% of requests were for refinance loans, 73% were for purchase loans and 2% were for home equity loans.

As a Reno/Sparks real estate professional I encourage all questions and comments on the Reno/Sparks real estate market of any of the articles posted.  You can email me at chance@ballard-company.com or http://www.myspace.com/chancegates

For more information, visit www.zillow.com.

I decided that it would be kind of fun remembering some of my fatherhood experience.  One of my many lessons I learned about with my first child goes like this.

As a new farther I found one of the easiest ways of giving my son a bath was to take him into the shower with me.  When I was done I would call to my wife who would come and dry him off, and get him ready for his day.

One morning the baby needed his diaper to be changed.  I figured I needed to shower anyway, I’ll just take him into the shower with me.  The first alarm was the wife telling me “I’m crazy just change the diaper then go shower”.  I was a young man and didn’t believe the wife knew what she was talking about.  The shower is started and set to the proper temperature, as I am taking the diaper off I noticed how the soiled diaper was really pasty.  This set off the second alarm that maybe this was not a good idea, but I’m still confident that this will work.  The third alarm goes off when, right before I climb into the shower, a clump of poop falls on my foot.  I figured I’ll wash my foot, when I’m in the shower no problem.  Notice how I didn’t listen to the third alarm either. Now the fourth alarm really should have stopped me, but I was a young man and could not bring myself to admit that the wife was right.  I was climbing into the shower, I placed my dirty foot into the water to triple check and make sure the water was not to hot.  After all I don’t want the baby to get burned.  When I did this I noticed the poop wasn’t coming off my foot.   I’m not confident now; I’m just hoping that by placing the baby’s bottom closer to the shower that the water pressure will be enough.    I placed the baby up with his behind getting a steady stream of water. OH NO!  It’s not coming off.

Meaningless to say after taking a shower, I got to clean the bathtub. Guys I hate to say it but every once in a while the wife is going to be right.  My new wife tries to tell me that she is right about 80% of the time.  I’m not a young man anymore and I have learned that about 95% of the time I need to apologize.  That is probably the biggest difference between the two marriages; one last less than two years and the other is still going strong after 12.

As a Reno/Sparks real estate professional I encourage all questions and commnets about the Reno/Sparks real estate market or any of the articles posted here.  I can be reached by email at chance@ballard-company.com or http://www.myspace.com/chancegates

RISMEDIA, April 14, 2010—Some 89% of Americans said they were at least fairly well organized or better when it comes to their important financial documents, but nearly one-quarter had either lost or forgotten about critical paperwork, according to a nationally representative poll by the Consumer Reports National Research Center.

Worse, 16% had lost money or incurred a charge because of the poor organization of their paperwork. The survey also revealed that 40% of Americans think they can find a document at a moment’s notice, and 49% can do so with little looking.

Married and domestic couples agree as to which sex is more organized: 58% of the women surveyed said they had a better idea of where their most important documents were than their spouses did; only 30% of the married men thought they had a better idea.

But some of the respondents may not know as much about their partner as they think – 5% admitted they had hidden accounts from a spouse or significant other.

“Good record keeping is essential and makes regular events like tax time or unexpected emergencies like the passing of a loved one go smoother. If you’re disorganized about your paperwork, you can lose a significant amount of money on late fees and interest charges,” said Mandy Walker, sr. project editor, Consumer Reports Money Advisor (CRMA).

Consumer Reports Money Adviser’s experts say that to help avoid identity theft, people should shred anything they plan to throw away that contains personal data. More than 50% of the people surveyed said they put documents through a shredder, 26% tear them up, 15% claim to burn them, and 5% admit to doing nothing before they trash them. Consumer Reports recommends consumers look for a crosscut shredder rather than a strip one, which leaves long paper bands that can be reassembled.

Tax season is the perfect time to start tackling the paper piles. The act of filing (or gathering your information for a tax preparer) forces you to become reacquainted with your finances. You can divide nearly all of your financial records into four categories: papers that you need to keep for the calendar year or less; ones that can be destroyed when you no longer own the items they cover; tax records, which you should save for seven years; and papers to keep indefinitely.

What to keep for 1 year or less:

CRMA’s experts advise people to set up a place to keep bills until they’re paid. As soon as a bill comes in, put it in a folder labeled “bills to pay.” Then set an electronic calendar reminder when you’re going to pay them. Documents that you have no long-term need to keep include:

Bank records. Keep deposit and ATM receipts until you reconcile them with your monthly statements.

Credit card bills. You don’t need to keep them after you’ve paid them unless they support a deduction you’ll be taking on your taxes, such as for a charitable donation (in which case you should file the bill with your current-year tax records). If an item you’ve charged is under warranty, keep the bill until the warranty expires.

Investment statements. You can shred your monthly and quarterly statements from brokerage, 401k, IRA, Keogh, and other investment accounts as new ones arrive. But hold on to annual statements until you sell the investments.

What to keep for a longer period:

Documents relating to investment purchases, loans, and other items that expire can be stored in an out-of the way file cabinet. But try to go through them once a year and toss out papers below including:

Household furnishings paperwork. Keep receipts, warranties, and instruction booklets for major appliances and electronics.

Loan documents. Keep closing documents for mortgage, vehicle, student, and other loans in a safe-deposit box. You can get rid of them after the loan is paid off.

Savings bonds. Hold these in a secure place until you cash them in. Or you can convert them to electronic form using the Treasury’s SmartExchange program.

What to never toss:

Hold on to essential records such as birth or death certificates, marriage licenses, and divorce decrees. Social Security cards and military discharge papers should be kept in a safe-deposit box. Other documents to hold on to forever:

Defined-benefit pension documents. Keep pension-plan documents from your current and former employers. Store them in your file cabinet.

Estate planning documents. Keep copies of wills, trusts, and powers of attorney in your safe-deposit box. You should also make sure your attorney and your executor have copies.

Life insurance policies. For permanent life insurance- policies that have a cash value or investment component- keep documents and a list of the companies that issued them and their phone numbers in your safe-deposit box.

For more information, visit www.consumerreports.org.

As a Reno/Sparks real estate professional I encourage any questions or comments or the Reno/Sparks real estate market or any of the articles posted.

Contact me at chance@ballard-company.com  www.myspace/chancegates

I don’t believe in pessimism. If something doesn’t come up the way you want, forge ahead. If you think it’s going to rain, it will.
Clint Eastwood

I have a very strict gun control policy: if there’s a gun around, I want to be in control of it.
Clint Eastwood

I tried being reasonable, I didn’t like it.
Clint Eastwood

I’m interested in the fact that the less secure a man is, the more likely he is to have extreme prejudice.
Clint Eastwood

I’ve never met a genius. A genius to me is someone who does well at something he hates. Anybody can do well at something he loves – it’s just a question of finding the subject.
Clint Eastwood

If you think it’s going to rain, it will.
Clint Eastwood

If you want a guarantee, buy a toaster.
Clint Eastwood

In school, I could hear the leaves rustle and go on a journey.
Clint Eastwood

It takes tremendous discipline to control the influence, the power you have over other people’s lives.
Clint Eastwood

Men must know their limitations.
Clint Eastwood

My old drama coach used to say, ‘Don’t just do something, stand there.’ Gary Cooper wasn’t afraid to do nothing.
Clint Eastwood

Respect your efforts, respect yourself. Self-respect leads to self-discipline. When you have both firmly under your belt, that’s real power.
Clint Eastwood

Sometimes if you want to see a change for the better, you have to take things into your own hands.
Clint Eastwood

The less secure a man is, the more likely he is to have extreme prejudice.
Clint Eastwood

There’s a lot of great movies that have won the Academy Award, and a lot of great movies that haven’t. You just do the best you can.
Clint Eastwood

There’s only one way to have a happy marriage and as soon as I learn what it is I’ll get married again.
Clint Eastwood

They say marriages are made in Heaven. But so is thunder and lightning.
Clint Eastwood

This film cost $31 million. With that kind of money I could have invaded some country.
Clint Eastwood

We are like boxers, one never knows how much longer one has.
Clint Eastwood

We boil at different degrees.
Clint Eastwood

As a Reno/Sparks real estate professional I encourage any questions or comments on the Reno/Sparks real estate market or any article posted.

You can email me at chance@ballard-company.com

Which is the better investment to build equity?

While it’s a little easier now to get a condo loan than it was a year ago, you’ll still find tight restrictions, particularly if you need a Federal Housing Administration-backed mortgage. Typically, an FHA lender will approve you only if at least 50% of the units in a complex have either been sold or placed under contract (by owner-occupiers, not investors). Additionally, if 15% or more of the units are more than 30 days past due on payments, that could be another loan stumbling block. If a condo board doesn’t set aside at least 10% of its dues toward reserves and improvements, loan approval also might be a problem, especially if the complex is in an area where values have consistently declined.

If you do go the FHA condo route, be prepared for the loan-approval process to take longer while the lender applies those tests. However, if an entire condo project is FHA-approved, which many now are, buyers will find a smoother road to financing. At present, down payments for condos are a little higher (20% to 25%) than for houses (10% to 20%), although FHA down payments can be much lower.

• On our blog, ‘Listed’: Prefab home grows to two stories, still eco-friendly

Among the pros for condo living are ease of upkeep and “location, location, location,” especially for city dwellers who desire amenities and transit options that are usually within short walking distance. Condo cons include the monthly maintenance fees and a condo board that decides how those fees are spent, sometimes forcing owners to subsidize amenities they don’t use. (By the way, condo maintenance fees aren’t tax-deductible.) In many condo communities, foreclosures and delinquent dues have forced associations to pass along shortfalls to other owners. You’ll also have to get the condo board’s permission for any renovations you might want to make (some housing developments also have associations and similar restrictions).

• MSN Money: Big changes come to student loans

In a house, you will have a yard, the freedom to make improvements and the option of having pets, but you’ll also have greater upkeep requirements and a lot more space to fill with potentially expensive stuff.

In either case, always consider the neighbor of the condo or home. As a fresh-out-of-college person, you’ll probably want to be around young professionals instead of the baby-boom set, and both groups tend to reside more heavily in urban condos. Also, remember, great location is a bigger factor in buying a condo than a house.

Dollar for dollar, condos tend to appreciate less in value than houses, but not at all price points or in all markets. Single-family houses are generally a little easier to sell, particularly now, with so much available condo inventory.

So do your homework

Read more at realestate.msn.com

As a Reno/Sparks real estate consultant I encourage and questions or comments on the Reno/Sparks real estate market or any of the article I post. Please send emails t0 chance@ballard-company.com

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Bet Milwaukee (Davis) +140

Early season baseball lines are extremely volatile and subject to overreaction based on short term events.  That definitely appears to be the case here.  The Cubs are a -150 favorite, and that’s based almost exclusively on the performance of the respective starters in their first game of the season.  Doug Davis allowed 4 runs in 4 innings of work and didn’t factor in the decision as Milwaukee beat Colorado, while Ryan Dempster pitched 6 innings of 3 hit baseball allowing 1 earned run in a 3-2 loss to Atlanta where he wasn’t involved in the decision.  Please regard all picks for entertainment purposes.

As a Reno/Sparks real estate consultant I encourage any questions on the Reno/Sparks real estate market or any of the articles that are posted.  Email me at chance@ballard-company.com

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

The current market presents some of the most favorable conditions for homebuyers in years, particularly for first-time buyers.

Why is everyone nagging you to buy a house these days?

When real-estate values were crashing — prices dropped nearly 33% from the second quarter of 2006 through April 2009 — renting that apartment was darned savvy. And since home values are projected to drift lower in 2010, getting into the market now may seem like financial suicide. But the truth is, even the worst housing slump since the Great Depression can’t remove the long-term benefits of homeownership.

Meanwhile, the combination of lower prices, cheap mortgage rates and a special tax perk from Uncle Sam has produced some of the most favorable conditions for homebuyers in years. And without the need to unload one property to purchase another, first-time homebuyers are in a position of particular strength this year.

Although the real-estate bust wiped out nearly $6 trillion of housing wealth through November 2009, the financial advantages of homeownership remain. “When you own a home, you are slowly but surely building strength in an asset that you can utilize to your great benefit at some point,” says Keith Gumbinger of HSH.com, a publisher of consumer loan information. Homeowners who accumulate enough equity can borrow against the property to put Junior through college, or they can sell it down the road to purchase that retirement bungalow in Boca Raton, Fla. And federal tax breaks make home mortgages less costly than other forms of debt. “It is a long-term forced savings plan,” Gumbinger says.

Meanwhile, the housing meltdown and the federal government’s response have created some compelling reasons to consider jumping into the market this year. First, lower prices make buying more tempting. By late 2005, breezy credit and speculative fervor had pushed the national median home price to median household income ratio — a key measure of real-estate affordability — to more than 2.3, according to Moody’s Economy.com. That’s significantly higher than the 1.9 average for the 15-year period that ended in 2003. But by the third quarter of 2009, plunging prices had dragged the ratio down to 1.67. And although Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com, expects an additional 10% decline before prices hit bottom late this year, the likelihood of a sizable drop is much smaller today than several years ago. “The risks to all homeowners are much lower now because house prices are a lot lower,” Zandi says. “You’re not going to see the kind of price declines that are really going to cause you problems.”

Mortgage rates are sitting near all-time lows, with 30-year, fixed mortgage rates falling to an average of 4.88% in November from 6.09% a year earlier. And while they’re likely to increase, rates should remain attractive throughout 2010, experts say. If that’s not enough, Uncle Sam is handing out tax credits worth up to $8,000 for qualified first-time homebuyers who close the purchase of a primary residence by the end of June. “You have got some of the best housing affordability conditions in many markets that (buyers) have seen certainly in their lifetimes — and perhaps even their parents’ lifetimes,” says Mike Larson of Weiss Research. “If you are not encumbered by a previous home you are trying to sell, this is great for you.”

Jobs first. Many Americans are taking advantage of these conditions to become homeowners, with first-time homebuyers accounting for more than half of home sales in November. But as we learned during the housing bust, “because everybody’s doing it” is a terrible reason to buy property. Instead, would-be buyers must first determine whether it’s the right time for them. And that means they must take a critical look at their employment situation. Although the economy is showing signs of life, the national unemployment rate stood at 10% as the year began, and it is projected to move higher. Since a steady income stream is essential to homeownership, only those with sound job security should pursue a home purchase.

• MSN Money: 5 keys to finding housing bargains

Second, remember that all those headlines about the national housing market aren’t nearly as important as what’s going on in the area you are looking to buy into. The trajectory of home prices will vary a great deal from one place to the next. Home values in Tacoma, Wash., for example, are expected to increase more than 40% over the next five years, while prices in Atlantic City, N.J., are projected to fall more than 10%, according to Moody’s Economy.com. Markets with a diversified economic base of faster-growing job providers — like high-tech or business service firms — are in a good position to experience growth in employment, population and wages, says Celia Chen, senior director of housing economics at Moody’s Economy.com. Such factors will help stimulate housing demand and juice property values over the long term.

A market’s current pricing trends are important as well. Although the housing bubble popped more than three years ago, prices in some markets remain significantly higher than fundamentals suggest they should be. Homes in Asheville, N.C., and Portland, Ore., are more than 20% overvalued, according to IHS Global Insight. To determine if buying today makes financial sense in a given market, check out the local rental stock. “If you can find houses in that market that are renting for considerably less (than what you would pay each month to buy a comparable property), then you are in a marketplace where it still makes more sense to rent,” says real-estate analyst Jack McCabe.

As a Reno – Sparks real estate consultant I encourage all questions or comments on the Reno – Sparks real estate market or any of the articles I post.

By Margaret Kelly

RISMEDIA, April 6, 2010—Real estate is, as always, a sound long-term investment–and I mean that for careers as much as for consumers.

The key word, however, is “investment.”

If you’re motivated and have the right attitude, you’ll earn your share of those sales.

To get the results you’re looking for, it’s critical first to evaluate whether the time and money you’re spending is being spent wisely.

Remove the clutter. Cut costs and tasks that aren’t about putting you in front of clients. Evaluate every line item in your budget and ask yourself how the expense directly generates business for you.

Don’t be too quick to nix training opportunities. There’s truth in the phrase “Learn more to earn more.” And even one referral from a networking event or class could make up for any fees and other expenses.

Create curb appeal. Now’s the perfect time for a fresh advertising campaign. Take your best new idea and incorporate it into print materials (letters, flyers, mailers, newspaper ads); then update your website and other online platforms. A sharp look and cohesive message can attract new attention and second glances.

Give some extra thought to sprucing up your business card and e-mail signature by adding a new designation to your name. When you earn designations, their symbols trigger curiosity, generate referrals and represent your expertise.

Consider upgrades. It never hurts to look the part. Evaluate your image and make sure you’re conveying professionalism, knowledge and trustworthiness inside and out.

And think about working with a real estate coach. They’re great at helping you stay productive-rather than “busy”-through slower periods.
Smart investments of time and resources can make all the difference in your business when you’re not the only option on the block.

As a Reno – Sparks real estate consultant, I encourage all question or comments on the Reno – Sparks real estate market or any of the articles I post.  I can be reached by email at chance@ballard-company.com

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