A Day Off in the Snow!

My wife and I took a day off to go up to Alpine Village in Tahoe. 

She is taking sit-ski lessons since her feet and legs can't do standard skiing due to here neuromuscular disease.

As always, when Cheryl sets her mind to something, she goes all out. Here she is taking on the jumps on the slopes!

Just Sold – 32 Zalema Ct

I have been working with a wonderful young couple on finding them the perfect home in Natomas. We started looking last Spring, took a little break from looking for their wedding in September and then went at it again. We must have put in 8 offers and sometimes went up against 25 other offers, been beaten out by all cash buyers and way over asking price offers.

On Tuesday they got a great Valentines Day present of receiving the keys for their new home!

I'm so happy to see them finally get the house that they wanted.

1716 36th Street For Sale

My New Listing at 1716 36^th Street it now for sale and in the MLS. This is a great East Sac home that was completely remodeled just a few years ago.

You won’t find another home this large and nice in East Sac for lower. It has a wonderful master bed & bath with his & hers sinks & closets.

The bright kitchen has granite counter tops, stainless steel appliances and butlers pantry on the other side of the formal dining room.

It has an extra deep lot with a garage facing the alley and a large, finished storage shed.

Arches, dual pane windows, high quality finishes, large back patio all waiting for you!

You can see the full listing here. 

FHA Mortgage Changes

This is important news for both buyers and sellers!

The mortgage insurance is going up on April 1st and on June 3rd they are going to make the mortgage insurance premium stay for the life of the loan!

The increase in rates isn't as much of a shock to me as making the mortgage insurance stick around for the life of the loan. This means that even if you have paid down the loan to 50% of the value of the house, you are still going to be paying 1.35% of the original loan amount every year for mortgage insurance. Over the 30 year life of the loan this will add up to a huge amount of money. For every $100,000 of loan a buyer will be paying $112.50 per month or $1,350 per year in mortgage insurance. That adds up to $40,500 over a 30 year loan, just for the mortgage insurance! And that is for every $100,000 in loan value, so a $300,000 loan would now cost you an extra $121,500 over the life of the loan.

You can refinance out of the loan at a later date, but right now interest rates are at a record low. Who knows where they will be when you are ready to refinance out of this FHA loan.

It should be obvious why this should matter to a buyer. If they are purchasing a home with an FHA loan, they need to do it quickly to avoid the increase in mortgage insurance and the mortgage insurance for the life of the loan.

For a seller, there are less obvious reasons that this is important to them. Obviously, if they are going to sell one house and buy another one with an FHA loan they will need to move very quickly. But here is the less obvious impact to sellers. As more buyers hear about this impending shift in the cost of their FHA loan and the date looms closer, they will start to feel even more pressure to get a home under contract. The article below suggests that if a buyer wants to avoid the increase, they should be under contract by March 25th. If this follows a similar pattern of the federal tax credit that ended on April 31st 2010 then buyers will pick over the inventory leading up to this date and prices will get pushed up. By the last few weeks it was a bit of a feeding frenzy.

Now, I don't expect it to be quite as crazy as it was in April 2010 but I do expect it to have an impact leading up to the April 1st date as well as the June 3rd date. Then again, even though the dates are split two months apart we have been suffering with a very low level of inventory in the market for over a year now. This might create a frenzy of activity, especially in the first time buyers market and the mid level move up market. I would expect to see a lot of pressure for any homes under the $500,000 price range. If a seller is thinking about selling in this price range, listing by March 15th would be a good plan. Listing after June 3rd might have their home entering a market where many of the summer buyers were pulled forward into the spring months and their property is now at a disadvantage.

I not big on trying to "time the market" but I do think it is my responsibility to take notice of the big items that might have a financial impact for my clients.


Here is the article that inspired my post:

FHA mortgage premium to rise on April 1

Borrowers who want to get a mortgage insured by the Federal Housing Administration should act quickly to avoid changes the agency is making to shore up its faltering insurance fund.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Administration announced the changes on Wednesday but didn't announce the effective dates until Thursday.

Here's the timing: FHA will raise the annual mortgage insurance premium on most loans that have a case number starting April 1 or later. To get a case number before the April 1 deadline and avoid the increase, borrowers should apply with a lender no later than March 25, says Julian Hebron, vice president with RPM Mortgage in San Francisco.

On most FHA loans, the annual premium will increase by 0.10 percentage point, or $100 per year for each $100,000 in loan amount.

For loans greater than $625,000 with a term longer than 15 years, the increase will be 0.05 percentage point, or $50 per year for each $100,000 in loan amount.

The premium itself varies depending on the loan size, term and loan-to-value ratio, but here's an example:

For a $500,000, 30-year loan with a loan-to-value ratio greater than 95 percent, the new premium will be 1.35 percent, or $6,750 per year, up from 1.25 percent, or $6,250 per year. On a monthly basis, the premium increase amounts to about $42.

For a chart showing premiums increases for various loan types, check out Hebron's blog at tinyurl.com/as4xsqb. These premium increases do not apply if a borrower refinances an existing FHA loan that was endorsed on or before May 31, 2009, into a new FHA loan under the streamline refinancing program.

FHA is not changing the one-time premium borrowers pay up front; it remains at 1.75 percent of the loan amount.

Bigger hit

In a potentially bigger hit, FHA borrowers will have to continue paying annual mortgage insurance premiums for a longer period of time - in most cases for the life of the loan.

This change will apply to new loans with case numbers starting June 3. To avoid this change, borrowers should try to apply by May 24, Hebron says.

In the past, FHA automatically canceled mortgage insurance on most loans when a borrower, anytime after five years, had made enough payments to reduce the balance to 78 percent of the original loan amount.

A borrower taking out a 30-year loan with 10 percent down could usually eliminate mortgage insurance after about six years making normal payments, or after five years if they made extra principal payments, Hebron says.

(If the original loan term was 15 years or less, the five-year rule didn't apply; FHA would cancel the insurance when the balance dropped to 78 percent.)

In the future, if the borrower starts off with a loan-to-value ratio above 90 percent, FHA will collect the premium for the life of the loan. If the original ratio is between 78 and 90 percent, FHA will cancel the premium if the balance drops below 78 percent of the original loan amount anytime after 11 years.

FHA mortgage premium to rise on April 1

Kathleen Pender

Here is the link to the full article:
http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/FHA-mortgage-premium-to-rise-on-April-1-4250685.php?goback=%2Egde_90005_member_211566523

A good day off in the snow

I took my wife to Tahoe for some good outdoor fun on Wednesday. For Christmas she had asked for sit-ski lessons and we have finally made it happen.

Here we are in Alpine Meadows near the end of her first of a several days of sit-ski lessons. Hopefully we'll make it back up several times this season!

966 Q Street is Pending

I am very happy to announce that 966 Q Street is now Pending Sale!

This is a wonderfully updated townhouse in the great Saratoga Townhomes community.

45 days out and we should be closing this transaction...

3331 L Street Just Listed

I have a great new listing in East Sac. This is a wonderful two story brick home. Nice and spacious at 1780 square feet.

Stop by during any of our open houses and see this wonderful and unique home.

You can see all the details about this property at www.3331L.East-Sac.Com or here.

4 Marina Blue Just Sold

Hey, I never posted that this one closed. It had everything that my client was looking for. We missed it on the first time through by a day and it went Pending as he put in an offer, but we got into back up position and when the first buyer fell out we stepped in and made the deal work!

You can see the full details of this property here.

4441 I Street Just Sold in East Sac

My investor clients just purchase this property. It is in need of lots of work and that is what they will do!

It is on a great street. Nice and quiet with a canopy of trees. This is the smallest house on the street right now, but soon it will fit in with the others a bit better.

You can see the full listing here.

900 Q Street Just Sold

Well, it sold a few weeks back, but I've been very busy and as usual, my blog suffers when I am spending all my time helping my clients.

It is a great 3 bedroom and 2.5 bath townhouse and I was happy to help the owner make this big transition. 

You can see the full listing here. 

1457 47th Street is Almost Done

The builders of 1457 47th Street are almost done with this amazing transformation!
In a few weeks we should be able to bring it to market and sell this great Fab 40's home.
It is going to be 3223 square feet with 4-5 bedroom and 3.5 bathrooms.

1210 40th Street New Listing!

The amazing property at 1210 40th Street is going to go live is the MLS today.

I'll be holding it open both Saturday and Sunday from 12:00 to 4:00. Please stop by and see the high quality of the craftsmanship of these builders.

You can see the full listing details of this property at www.Fab40.East-Sac.com

584 34th Street Floor Plans

Here are the floor plans for this amazing home that is being completely rebuilt at 584 34th Street.

The demo part of construction is pretty much finished now and they will start into building it up into an amazing home. I would expect them to finish with this one in early spring.

Sacramento A Seller's Market Again – Nathan Sherman on Fox 40 News

A little over a week ago Fox Dennis Shanahan of Fox 40 News interviewed me to talk about how Sacramento has become a seller's market again. This is something that us in the industry have known for most of the year, but now all the market data is out to support that.

The market analyst's over at Zillow had identified Sacramento as the third hottest seller's market in the country!

You can see the two minute news spot here.

I had the good fortune to have the whole video shot in my upcoming listing at 1210 40^th Street. This is an amazing 5 bedroom 4.5 bathroom home in the Fab 40's of East Sac.

Here is the text summary from the Fox 40 site, but much more was covered in the video.

Real estate website Zillow recently listed Sacramento as the third hottest sellers’ market in the country, right behind San Francisco. San Jose was listed number one.

FOX40 visited with Nathan Sherman of Dunnigan Realtors in Sacramento, who confirmed what the Zillow ranking suggests.

“There is not nearly enough inventory, and buyers are struggling to get a home under contract,” Sherman said of the Sacramento market.

Year-over-year detached resale home prices in Sacramento County have been consistently positive over the past six months, according to DataQuick. The median price in November was $185,000. That is 17-percent higher than the price in November of last year. Potential buyers are finding themselves in bidding wars.

Sherman also said it is not uncommon these days to call a listing agent when a house comes on the market, and learn that the agent already has ten offers in.

People waiting for the right time to buy a home might be well advised to start looking soon, before things heat up even more.

As Sherman put it, “People were waiting for the bottom of the market. That has come and gone.”

http://fox40.com/2012/12/13/sacramento-a-sellers-market-again/

1344 39th Street Just Sold

To complete my Just Sold catch up series, we just closed on 1334 39^th Street in the Fab 40's of East Sac!

This is an amazing 3100 square foot 5 bed, 3 bath home on a large lot. I got my client in contract on this property back in mid-September while the property was still under construction. We just closed on Monday and I was able to hand off the keys to this amazing new home.

Some times in this competitive market we have to get it under contract long before it hits the market...

You can see more details about the home here. 

7001 Pocket Road Just Sold

To continue the catching up on my Just Sold series, 7001 Pocket Road closed last week! This is a great half plex that my wonderful clients wanted in order to be in the right neighborhood to get their adorable daughter into a great school in a couple years. Genevieve Didion Elementary is known as a great school in the Pocket/Greenhaven neighborhood.

There were many offers before we were able to get them under contract. I think the cute family photo in our cover letter help cinch us this deal.

You can see more about the property here.

584 34th Street Starting Construction

The builders have started work on 584 34th Street. This will be an amazing home with 5 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms and 3146 square feet that is just steps from McKinley Park.

They expect to be finished with the addition and complete remodel some time in the Spring.

I'll post the floor plans and other details here as the project moves on.

Here is the digital rendering of what the property will look like when they are done with all the work.

905 46th Street Just Sold

OK, it has been over a month since my last post almost a month since 905 46^th Street has closed. I have been very busy and the idea that the holidays is a slow season is again proving to not be the case for me. I'm not complaining, I'm just justifying my neglect of my blog :)

905 46^th Street is a great property that my favorite builders have done a complete remodel and addition to. It fits well into East Sac and it's location just outside of the Fab 40's is perfect.

I have some other projects coming up with these builders and know of many other that will be coming on the market, so give me a call if you would like a home that is pretty much new construction nestled into the old world charm of East Sac.

Click here to see more details about this house.  

Less Foreclosures, Less Discounts

I read an interesting article in the Washington Post today. 

It was about the reduced number of foreclosures and the greatly reduced discount of buying a foreclosure. These have both been obvious to any agent that is active in the Sacramento market, but it is always interesting to see the national market and media realize it too. 

The quote that I like the most out of the article is “Zillow found that in Las Vegas and Phoenix, there is “no discernible difference” between foreclosure and non-foreclosure sales. Discounts have shrank to less than 1 percent in Sacramento, 3 percent in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area and barely 4 percent in Los Angeles.”

While I never refer to Zillow for specific property prices, they are a huge number crunching organization and have a vast amount of data at their command. For them to state that the discount for a foreclosed property in Sacramento is only 1% is a pretty significant statement. 

The market has shifted greatly and inventory is down to less than one months supply, the lowest it has been in over a decade. Prices have been climbing since December and multiple offers are common. 

To top it all off, the national news is now reporting all about the tight market. 

The housing market has definitely shifted! 

New Listing: 966 Q Street, Downtown Sacramento

I have a second wonderful listing in the Saratoga Townhomes in Downtown Sacramento. This is a great complex and I love having listings here. This is one of the few complexes in the downtown/midtown area that has garages with direct access to the units. Add that this is within walking distance to the Capital and lots of great restaurants and you can see why these sell so well. Low HOA dues, great updates, light and bright, what else could you ask for?

You can see all the pictures and the full listing at www.966Q.east-sac.com or at my site.