themarycoxteam.wordpress.com - Investment

Steps in Home Buying Process

The process of buying a home can be different based on the price range and whether a mortgage is needed. While some things are different, others are similar regardless of price, financing or local customs.

Each year, the National Association of REALTORS® surveys buyers and sellers who have purchased or sold in the previous twelve months in order to identify the process and steps taken. It provides a lot of information for the people who will be going through the process now and in the near future.

44% of all buyers looked online for properties for sale. This might be considered a logical first step to determine the prices of homes in certain areas and what features they offered.

17% of all buyers stated that their next step was to contact a…

1419 Views, 0 Comments

Invest in Equity Build-up

Equity build-up could be one of the biggest advantages to buying a home. There are two distinct dynamics that take place to make this happen: each house payment applies an amount to reduce the mortgage owed and appreciation causes the value of the home to go up.

It is easy to make a projection based on the type of mortgage you get and your estimation of appreciation over the time you expect to own the home. Even conservative estimates can produce impressive results.

Let's look at an example of a home with a $270,000 mortgage at 4.5% for 30 years and a total payment of $2,047.55 payment including principal, interest, taxes and insurance. The average monthly principal reduction for the first year is $362.98. If you assume a 3% appreciation on the…

781 Views, 0 Comments

America Still Considers Real Estate the Best

35% of respondents, in a recent annual Gallup poll that dates back to 2002, identified real estate as the best long-term investment option compared to 27% who identified stocks.

The top choices included real estate, stocks, savings accounts and gold. Even with the remarkable prices of the different U.S. stock indices recorded in 2019 through April and May, homes have the highest confidence in the minds of the respondents.

This seems to be based on the stability of the housing market and the expectation that home prices will continue to rise. Homeowners build equity from both appreciation as well as reducing principal with each payment made. These same factors exist for investors of rental homes in predominantly owner-occupied neighborhoods.

…

972 Views, 0 Comments

Determining Property Type

The Internal Revenue Service considers four different types of real estate. Specific types of properties have benefits based on their classification. The determination does not depend on the property itself as much as it depends on how the property is used and what the owner's intentions are.

Principal Residence ... a principal residence is the place a person lives or expects to return if they are temporarily away from it. It could be a single family, detached home or condominium or a duplex, tri-plex or four-unit. The owner(s) can deduct the qualified mortgage interest and property taxes on the schedule A of their tax return. There is a capital gains exclusion on profit of up to $250,000 for a single taxpayer and up to $500,000 for a married…

814 Views, 0 Comments

Get Leverage Working for You

Leverage is an investment term that describes the use of borrowed funds to control an asset; sometimes referred to as using other people's money. Borrowed funds can affect the investment in your home positively.

For instance, if you had a $100,000 rental property, collected the rents and paid the expenses and had $10,000 left, you would earn a 10% return (divide the $10,000 by the $100,000.) With no loan on the property, there is no leverage.

If you decided to get an 80% mortgage at 8%, you would owe an additional $6,400 in expenses leaving you only $3,600 net. However, your return would grow to 18% because your investment is now $20,000 in cash (divide the $3,600 by $20,000.)

Leverage, the use of borrowed funds, causes the return to increase…

960 Views, 0 Comments

Reasons Rental Homes Rank Highest

Single family homes offer the investor an opportunity to borrow large loan-to-value loans at fixed interest rates for long terms. Lenders will loan 75-80% of the purchase price at 5.5% to 6.5% interest rate for thirty years. Compare that with other popular investment alternatives like precious metals, commodities, stocks, and mutual funds and it will be hard to find financing available at all.

There may be some short term, one-year, loans at a floating rate tied to prime plus with no guarantee that it will be renewed. Some of those loans require you to have a 50% margin of equity and if the value goes down, you'll have to put up additional cash or be forced to sell.

The advantage of having long-term mortgages is that an investor could find the…

578 Views, 0 Comments

More Than Just an Address

For a short time after the housing crisis a decade ago, some homeowners thought the value of home is a place to live rather than an investment. A home certainly has an appeal as a place to call your own, raise your family, share with your friends and feel safe and secure. It can be more than an address; it can also be one of the largest investments homeowners have.

Most mortgages apply a portion of the payment toward the principal amount owed in order to pay off the loan by the end of the term. This acts like a forced savings for the homeowner because as the loan is reduced, the equity grows which increases their net worth.

The other contributor to equity is appreciation. Most homeowners don’t realize the increase in value until they sell the…

1033 Views, 0 Comments

44 Times More Than a Renter

The Federal Reserve Board's Triennial Survey of Consumer Finances recently revealed the net worth of a homeowner was $231,400 compared to $5,200 for a renter. The net worth of homeowners increased 15% from 2013 to 2016 while renters' decreased by 5%.

Appreciation and principal reduction are the two dynamics that affect a homeowner's equity. Each payment is applied to the interest for the previous month and the principal reduction to retire the mortgage.

A $300,000 home purchased with a $294,566 FHA mortgage at 5% for 30 years has an average monthly principal reduction $362 in the first year. Two percent appreciation would benefit the buyer by $500 a month. In this example, the equity grows by $860 a month for the homeowner. A tenant would have…

664 Views, 0 Comments

It’s Not Just the Tax Benefits

When the standard deduction for married couples filing jointly was increased from $12,700 to $24,000 for 2018, there was some speculation that the bloom was off the rose of homeownership. The thought was that if the tax benefits from being able to deduct the property taxes and interest was less than the standard deduction, that maybe, the buyer would be better off continuing to rent.

With mortgage rates as low as they have been for the past eight years, payments have been lower and so has the amount of interest that was paid. This and the fact that sales and local taxes, which include property taxes, are limited to $10,000 a year on the Itemized Deduction form have made it harder to reach the increased standard deduction.

The reality of the…

668 Views, 0 Comments

When Neighbors Don’t Seem to Care

A home that isn’t being maintained like others in the neighborhood can negatively affect your visual sense of appeal and in some extreme cases, even affect property values. It might be an overgrown yard, a fence in need of repair, excessive noise, unruly pets, paint peeling on the home or even a car or boat parked in front of the home that hasn’t moved in weeks.

Most people want to be good neighbors and may be willing to correct an issue once it is brought to their attention. A practical, but possibly confrontational, solution is to contact the responsible person and describe your perception of the issue. However, they may not always agree with the same urgency and it might be necessary to seek other remedies.

An owner-occupant may be more…

705 Views, 0 Comments