Here’s a couple of things I’ve learned of doing this past week:

1. Get a seller to pay out a Buyer’s lease and the seller gets their home sold and the Buyer gets into the market at a great time. This is particularly timely because there are so many Buyers out there, waiting for their lease to finish. You can even structure it so that the seller doesn’t have to pay out the entire lease – just email me for more info.
2. Offer to be your client’s negotiator for them. Most people can’t / don’t want to / don’t have the time to negotiate their mortgage renewal, and end up paying 1 or 2% more than they need to – agents should provide a free negotiation service for their database.

3. We’re just launching a new program – going to HR people and offering to counsel their employees about keeping their house in this economy.
   Routing Number VIRGINIA COMMERCE BANK

   60% of the private-sector jobs in my town are vanishing – companies hate to do it to their employees – if we can get in front of those people before they get in trouble on their mortgage, maybe we can help them stay in the house, even if they sell it to an investor, rent it back with purchase option for 2 yrs down the road. The employer will look like a hero for it. The employees will love it, and we will feel good for helping keep people in their homes and maybe build our investor business and maybe grow our business. As an agent, we don’t even have to know how to do the process – just be the middleman for the whole thing and bring in the experts.

As we move some of our blogging over to this new platform, we are discovering ways to bring you the information that we didn’t have with our previous provider, in an effort to make the information more useful to you. The chart below is one example of this – a weekly summary of activity for the last 7 months.

Milton Real Estate Market Overview

This next chart is this weeks Total Market Overview, which gives a price-range breakdown of the information contained in the corresponding row in the table above. Commentary on an -in-the-market, street-level will follow shortly.

Milton Total Market Overview

As I mentioned in the post ‘Danger Will Robinson!!’ post, things seem to be turning around in the market, judging by the number of phone calls and emails coming in, the higher level of buyer activity, and the number of sellers calling about wanting to get their house on the market. This increased activity is being fuelled in several ways – the crazy-low interest rates available (3.69% for 5 years closed – call me today for details!), the lower prices, and the pronouncement by those all-knowing (yeah, right!) people in the media that things are turning around. In talks with agents, seller’s and buyers clear across the GTA, I hear of multiple offers and of houses selling much faster than they thought would happen.

When it comes to your home buying or selling experience, don’t leave it to chance and rely on what you read in the mainstream media or what you hear from friends and so-called experts; rely on the numbers. You can get those numbers here on a weekly basis. And if you’d like them broken down more specifically for an area or a type of house, just ask and I’ll be glad to do it for you.

Line 219 – Moving expenses

The following information will help you determine the moving expenses deduction you can claim.

It was bound to happen. A combination of factors has led to a lot of refinancing activity.

But not all lenders are able to process the applications in a timely manner.

With up to 60 days or more from the time of application to the time of closing, it is not uncommon for life situations to change. But be careful because some changes can blow the application out of the water.

Some things you can control, and some things you can’t control. It is smart to control those in the first category, so that you avoid circumstances that may negatively impact your application. That is especially true in the current environment.

Here are at least 8 things you should NOT do, in order to keep your refi plans on track,.

1. Don’t buy that new car, and avoid a trade-up to a bigger lease.
2. Don’t quit your job or change professions.
3. Don’t change your salaried job to a commission income job.
4. Don’t move large sums of money between accounts.
5. Don’t neglect to pay your bills in a timely manner.
6. Don’t open new credit cards, even at better rates.
7. Don’t take a cash gift without completing the proper “gift” paperwork.
8. Don’t make unusual and undocumented deposits into your bank account.

If you have a circumstance that may cause you to break any of these – for example, a cash gift from family that may be needed to make the deal fly – just check with your loan officer to make sure it won’t be a problem for your application.

The mortgage application process can have numerous “minefields,” so it pays to be careful with life changes, especially now that the process itself is taking a longer time.

[This post was written by Kathy O'Neal and re-posted with her permission.

The Kathy O’Neal Team serves home buyers and sellers in Northern Virginia, with special focus on Chantilly, Centreville, and the communities of the Western Fairfax region.]