Tag: home buying

9 Tips to Successfully Rent Out Your Home

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During the pandemic, many home buyers — as well as homeowners who refinanced their loans — attained exceptionally low mortgage rates. As of the third quarter of 2023, an estimated 60% of homeowners reported that they had a mortgage rate below 4%, and more than 20% had a rate under 3%, according to a Redfin analysis of data from the Federal Housing Finance Agency. 

If you’re a homeowner with a rock-bottom mortgage rate and you’re looking to move, now could be a good time to purchase a new home and turn your current home into a rental property. Or, if you’d rather stay put, you could take some of the equity you’ve built up in your home and buy an investment property. Although rents decreased slightly in 2023, the national median rent is still almost $250 per month higher than it was three years ago, hitting $1,379 last December, according to Apartment List. 

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Your Guide to the Housing Market in 2024

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The one-two punch of swelling mortgage rates and record-low home supply dealt a tough blow to many aspiring home buyers in 2023. Just ask Drew and Lauren Coppel of Herndon, Va. The couple, who purchased their current townhome in October 2019, were looking to buy a larger house toward the beginning of last year but were reluctant to let go of their 30-year mortgage rate of 2.899%, which they scored by refinancing in 2021. When mortgage rates rose above 6.5% midyear, the Coppels decided to put their house search on ice.

“We’re going to wait for rates to come back down,” says Lauren. “We’ll probably wait for them to drop below 6% so that we can get more home for our money.” In the meantime, they’re going to beef up their down payment savings, zero in on what home features matter most to them, and research neighborhoods they want to live in.

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Mortgage Declined? Here’s What to Do

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No one likes to be told “no.” (Rejection hurts—we get it.) And having your application for a mortgage declined is particularly devastating, because it throws your entire dream of homeownership into doubt. Still, just because one lender rejects your mortgage application doesn’t mean you’ll never be able to buy a home.

So if you’ve been denied a home loan, the first step is to ask the lender why you had your mortgage declined, to know what you’re up against. Todd Sheinin, mortgage lender and chief operating officer at New America Financial in Gaithersburg, MD, says there are three main reasons why people get rejected.

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What You Can Negotiate When Buying a Home

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Good news, house hunters: Home buyers are getting more negotiating power.

Buyers received concessions from home sellers in 45.5% of home sales by Redfin agents between December 1, 2022 and February 28, 2023. That’s up from 31.1% in February 2022, according to a March 2023 Redfin report. And we’re not just talking about price cuts. As mortgage rates rise and home buyer demand cools, more sellers are picking up closing costs for buyers and footing the bill for home repairs to close deals. 

Still, most buyers don’t know what bargaining chips are on the table. “Many times, home buyers aren’t aware that they can negotiate for things other than a home’s sale price,” says Jason Gelios, a real estate agent at Community Choice Realty in southeast Michigan. 

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How Much Will Home Prices Continue to Rise in 2022?

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After watching four homes go to competing bidders over the course of seven frustrating months, Shubham Nath and Ankur Srivastava finally nabbed a four-bedroom house in Warren, N.J., last June. The couple pounced on the property when it hit the market. “We saw the home on a Saturday, looked at it a second time that Sunday and made an offer Sunday night,” says Nath. And this time they were prepared to best the seven other bidders: They offered about $60,000 above the home’s $849,000 list price, plus a 2.5-month closing period so that the seller would have plenty of time to pack up and move. And when the property appraised for $7,000 below the price they had agreed upon in the purchase contract, the couple paid for the appraisal gap. “We jumped through a lot of hoops,” Nath says. 

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Is the Housing Market Finally Cooling? A Guide to Home Buying This Winter

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nyone who has bought a house last year (or tried to) knows how hot the market has been. But as we head into 2022, the housing market may — finally — be starting to cool.

Let’s recap, briefly, how we got here.

A record-low supply of homes for sale and near record-low mortgage rates have propelled U.S. homes prices to an all-time high. The median sales price of a single-family existing home jumped about 23% in the third quarter of 2021, hitting $363,700, according to the National Association of Realtors’ quarterly report. Those rising home prices forced buyers to duke it out for a limited number of homes.

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5 Signs It’s Time to Break up With Your Real Estate Agent

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Your real estate agent can’t make more housing supply appear out of thin air or double the value of your home overnight. But they should make you feel supported and well represented in a crazy market. If not, it may be time to cut ties.

This is not a decision to make lightly, but if you do you certainly have no shortage of options. As of October, the National Association of Realtors, the real estate’s largest trade group, had 1,564,547 members — a 7% jump from the end of 2020. And many more real estate agents aren’t NAR members.

With all the competition, real estate agents are fighting tooth and nail for clients. “It’s a dog-eat-dog industry,” says Jason Gelios, an agent with Community Choice Realty in Southeast Michigan. Considering that you have plenty of agents to choose from, there’s no reason to stay with your agent if you’re not happy with their service.

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Negotiate a Better Deal

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The very thought of haggling, no matter what you’re haggling for, creates a crushing wave of anxiety in a surprising number of people. And while some personality types jump at the chance of striking a deal, many of us avoid negotiating at all costs.

But negotiating skills can be learned. And knowing how to negotiate when you’re buying a new car, making an offer on a house, asking for a cheaper cable or internet bill, or planning a wedding can save you a lot of money.

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How to Win in a Red-Hot Housing Market

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Laura Gross knew that she’d be facing fierce competition this spring when she was getting ready to bid on a four-bedroom house in Troy, Mich., a suburb of Detroit. So she pulled out all the stops: She waived an appraisal contingency, offered $30,000 above the home’s $285,000 list price, wrote a letter expressing why she loved the home (it reminded her of the house she grew up in a mile away), and offered the seller a free 60-day rent-back.

The seller chose Gross’s offer over seven others. “I knew I had to offer above list price and waive con­tingencies to even have my offer considered in this market,” says Gross, an accounting manager at a manufacturing company.

Gross is just one in a tsunami of house hunters who have flooded the housing market since the coronavirus pandemic began. She experienced firsthand how tough today’s housing market is for buyers.

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Half of Homes Are Selling for Over Asking Price. Here’s How to Decide What to Bid

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Home prices have always been negotiable. Usually, that has meant buyers pushing sellers below their asking price. But lately, in a nation marked by a record-low supply of homes for sale, the opposite has been happening.

Consider: half of U.S. homes sold for more than their list price during the four-week period ending May 16, according to Redfin. That marks a record high since 2012, when the brokerage began tracking.

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