Category Archives: Sapphire, NC Real Estate

Sapphire Bank Owned Homes Still Offer Rare Bargains

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The return of a healthy Sapphire real estate market has meant that you don’t hear nearly as much about Sapphire bank owned homes. Back before the economic recovery had begun to take hold, the wave of foreclosures triggered a raft of Sapphire bank owned home auctions and sales. It created conditions which hadn’t been seen in living memory.

The combination of low mortgage interest rates and fire-sale prices allowed some fortunate buyers to become homeowners for the first time. In some instances, longtime renters who had been previously priced out of the market were able to take advantage of some once-in-a-lifetime bargains—to take the leap to homeownership earlier than they would have expected.

Today, although overall economic conditions have improved considerably, some sharp-eyed renters can still find the occasional bank owned home that represents the same kind of unbelievable value proposition. The foreclosure glut may be long gone, but historically low home loan interest rates remain (at least for the moment). What also remain are the cautions that any first-time buyer should be aware of—the additional factors that should be taken into account in deciding whether to purchase an area bank owned home.

The overriding factor is the condition of the property. What seems to be an unbelievably great deal may be literally too good to be true—especially if the property has not been maintained properly. Circumstances vary, but when a home’s ownership has reverted to the bank, it is often the case that the defaulting borrower has been unwilling to keep up a property which he knew he was going to lose. That can just mean that the lawn needs some TLC…or it could mean that the roof is ready to fall in!

Since bank owned homes are sold or auctioned in ‘as-is’ condition, it’s vital to do as much due diligence as possible to ascertain the true shape a bank owned home is in. This isn’t just to protect you from expensive corrections that might be needed to make the place livable. FHA loans are often a key factor in making a purchase possible at all, and to qualify for those government-backed loans, a home must be deemed to be in “saleable” condition. Broken windows, falling-down fences—even missing kitchen appliances—can delay or permanently derail a sale.

If you have been impatiently eyeing your own rising rental bills, the idea of checking into the possibility of finding a suitable Sapphire bank owned home bargain is just one possible way you might become a home owner—and sooner rather than later. The best way to find out is to go to the phone. Let’s chat!

Holiday Season can be a ‘Selling Your Home’ Season, Too

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Selling your Sapphire home during the holiday season may sound like a less than ideal game plan, but there are some advantages now present only at this time of year. It’s true that some extra effort may be called for, but it can be worth the endeavor: there are several factors that make showings at this time of year particularly promising.

The first advantage is the flip side of the greatest disadvantage: the slowdown in real estate activity we usually expect over the holidays. That relative paucity of active prospects means fewer showings, so the number of times you’ll be called upon to put your Sapphire property in peak condition will be smaller. The other side of that disadvantage? The showings we do expect will be to particularly motivated buyers. If they are interrupting their own Christmas and New Year’s activities to go house hunting, they probably mean business. And it’s also likely that they are motivated by a timing deadline. This makes those showings especially promising.

Another positive aspect to selling a Sapphire home at this time of year is how appealing the staging possibilities become—and with little extra effort. Your regular holiday decorations make the place festive and cheerful every year, anyway—usually little else will be needed to bring those enhancements into play for prospective buyers. Yuletide décor is automatically a kind of natural staging that brings out the cheeriest side of any home…and who doesn’t respond favorably to the scent of cookies in the oven or cider bubbling on the stove?

Along with those automatic holiday positives, owners selling their home in Sapphire do need to be careful to avoid some built-in potential downsides. Right now the sun stays lower—even at noon—than at other times of the year, so it’s important to make the most of the light that is available. Keep rooms well-lit and window drapes pulled back to allow as much sunlight as possible. Even during daylight hours, most rooms show their best with all lamps and ceiling fixtures turned on. Fireplaces are sought-after features—and this is the best time of year to make the most of yours by keeping a cheery fire blazing.

When you are selling your home during the holiday season you should also make the effort to keep your own schedule as flexible as you can—even more so than would ordinarily be called for. Potential buyers will have their own holiday obligations to attend to, and are often forced to jam showings into tight spaces. It can be worth it, though, when you keep in mind that holiday home shoppers are motivated prospects.

If this December and January look like opportune times to be selling your own home in Sapphire, it’s not too late to give me a call. I will be active throughout the season, helping Sapphire prospects find the home of their dreams—the home they will be making holiday memories in for many years to come!

In Search of the Most Accurate Sapphire Listings

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Have you ever wondered about the way Sapphire listings appear on your screen when you search for houses for sale through one of the search engines? If you have already found a local Realtor’s® website (like this one!), it’s easy to search the Sapphire listings right from that site without bothering further. You’ll come up with the most current accurate information because it represents direct updated information from Sapphire’s multiple listing service.

But whenever you go searching for Sapphire listings through Google, Bing, or any of the other search engines (there are scads of them), you will see that what comes up will be quite different. You may find individual house listings, alternating with real estate agency home pages, mixed in with aggregators like Zillow and real estate magazine ads. Depending upon which search engine and the way you phrase your inquiry, you might actually come up with an interesting listing…or one that’s peculiarly inappropriate—like a listing from another town or state—or one that’s been out of date for months.

There are reasons for such disorder. They have to do with a historical scramble that has been going on ever since computers and the web started making house-hunting something you could do from your own living room. The logical first stage came about rapidly, as local realtors everywhere started putting their listings on their websites, then working out the technical details to allow the whole area’s MLS listings to appear.

Then came the original aggregators: Trulia, Zillow, Realtor.com—the deep-pocketed media companies that worked out ways to combine web data from all over to make listings into one gigantic national database. Except for house-hunters who weren’t set on moving to a particular area, the advantage to nationalizing the listings did not really go to the consumer—it went to the aggregators (also called ‘syndicators’). Since they could offer their information to a nation-sized audience, they could afford nation-sized advertising budgets to attract more views. Since they got more views, the search engines automatically found them to be ‘more popular’ than mere local agency sites, so their listings moved to the top of the search engine results pages.

It was a self-perpetuating cycle, especially once the aggregators started selling ‘spaces’ for local listings back to my colleagues, who were watching their own sites lose out in the race to attract web searchers. The aggregators were actually charging real estate agents to place their own listings on the aggregators’ pages! Realtors did not see the humor in this—and there are some ongoing legal challenges to illustrate their lack of appreciation.

The reason that this makes a difference to you, the, is that the original purpose of the big aggregators was to make searching easier for you, the Sapphire homeowner or listing searcher. One problem is that keeping listing data current and error-free has always been a problem for anyone with a nation-wide database to administer. Another is that data from other sources (like Craigslist ads) has been known to appear mixed in with verified listings. Since their authenticity is a sometimes thing, that can be downright misleading.

The upshot is that for serious house hunters, the best place to look for Sapphire listings is right here, on a site like mine—where I have a daily local connection with the properties that appear. Then, when you find the homes that look like they could be what you are looking for, all that’s left is to give me a call!

Sapphire Luxury Home Features Meant to Capture Taste Shifts

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When it comes to selling Sapphire luxury homes, you really can’t pigeonhole who the ‘typical’ buyer is likely to be. The 9% of buyers that make up the pool of ‘affluent’ prospects are themselves pretty much profile-proof—and the dollar value that 9% represents fluctuates substantially from one end of the country to the other. On the other hand, it is possible to take advantage of features that are growing in popularity with today’s luxury home buyers.

Realtytimes researchers found that affluent buyers are increasingly attracted to features that belong in the smart-home technology category. Smart thermostats that owners control right from their smartphones, wireless homes security camera arrays, and fully tricked-out home theaters are draws. To qualify at the high end, an entertainment center really should be controlled by a single device. Let’s face it: no matter how fancy a home theater might be, if three or four remote controls are visible, they’re certain to draw scowls!

Kitchen tech—of the kind that marries function with fashion—continues to gain in popularity. Bringing professional-level tools into domestic kitchens is a goal being incorporated in more and more top kitchen appliance offerings. On the leading edge: ovens with high-performance steam generators as well as blast chillers with touch-sensitive, intuitive user interfaces. All are designed “to create the kitchen that’s right”—one to match a buyer’s “level of culinary daring.” Digital Interiors found that 94% of such buyers “would sacrifice 1,00 square feet of living space for more technology…”—but keep in mind that most researchers find that, with few exceptions, 3,500 square feet is the non-urban baseline for qualifying in this market.

Selling luxury homes used to begin with location, location, location. But that may be undergoing a subtle shift. In Luxurydefined, one leading point is made that traditionally prominent ZIP codes are “no longer the defining baseline” for luxury homes. Newly included are areas where there is a “slower perceived tempo of life”—which fits in with the emerging interest in homes with ‘experiential’ features (like meditation gardens or outdoor showers).

Few of Sapphire’s luxury homes have those particular features, but being turnkey-ready is another matter. Brand new homes qualify automatically, but as has always been the case, existing residences that compete with other high-end homes in Sapphire can be expected to do best when they qualify as one of the ‘just bring your toothbrush’ properties.

Affluent prospects may be well-heeled, but they are also increasingly attentive to energy-efficient features. Some new homes designed with the luxury market in the crosshairs boast of ‘super-efficient’ floorplans built to consume 50% less energy than typical new homes. The draw is not entirely economical, either. That’s evidenced in how the current dip in energy costs hasn’t resulted in a proportional tapering in demand for homes reflecting conscious living (features reflecting environmental awareness and sustainability).

Luxury home owners, like their prospective buyers, have a pretty clear idea of what they demand when it comes to selling their properties. First and foremost: an agent with comprehensive knowledge of the local market—and experience with luxury homes. According to Money magazine, sales at the high end are growing faster than in any other market segment…which is another way of pointing out that if you are looking to get into our Sapphire luxury home market, now is a pretty good time to give me a call!

No-Debt Gurus vs. Today’s Sapphire Mortgage Reality

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12-2-mortgageThis past week, after a Thanksgiving feast wherein the average American is said to have enjoyed chowing down 2,000+ calories (equivalent to 3 Whoppers), the average American is said to have either trooped off to an early bird Black Friday sale mob scene or else (more likely) settled onto the couch to behold, in tryptophan-induced stupor, either the NFL football marathon or a Thanksgiving special like When Turkeys Attack! (“home video footage plucked from real families terrorized by turkeys”).

For those who waited until the actual Black Friday sales, some may have experienced moments of hesitation as they opened wallets and purses to hand over the credit cards. Certainly those who listen to the financial gurus would have had second thoughts— the basic wisdom of a debt-free lifestyle has been pounded into their consciousness.

One radio expert had been exhorting everyone to shop with cash and cash only as the singular way to hold to a holiday gift-buying budget. The expert did admit that store clerks would probably suspect you of being a Mafia family member every time you pulled out your envelope stuffed with cash—but the rewards would be worth it (never mind the security issues).

Sapphire mortgage holders (and soon-to-be Sapphire mortgage holders) who listened would have had to be wondering how many typical families actually succeed in following that advice. However laudable the whole idea of a no-debt-at-all lifestyle might be, you wouldn’t think it works out to be terribly practical vis-a-vis home ownership. For those of us who interact with the Sapphire mortgage industry, it certainly feels like a non-starter.

But what are the actual numbers?

There is statistical mumbo-jumbo galore when you try to dig into the official stats, but if you take the middle of the middle group (‘middle quintile’), the givens are as follows:

  • Median American family income is $67,802
  • After taxes, that works out to $59,000
  • Median American single family home costs $223,500

Now, the most recent median annual American family savings is nothing like 10% (some say it’s closer to zero); but for those who could manage the 10%, even pre-tax that works out to socking away $6,780 per year. In other words, you could finally buy your median American home after saving up for (wait for it)…33 years.

I’d say that should alleviate any residual guilt Sapphire mortgage holders might have felt about not living a totally debt-free existence. All the more so when you take into account the miniscule interest rate that savings accounts are currently earning (again, closer to zero than not)—as well as the historically low interest rates being quoted for today’s Sapphire mortgages.

You might still try the all-cash holiday shopping experiment, but probably don’t need to put off your homeownership hopes for that three decades. A better idea: give me a call to work out the real world details!

Sapphire Homeowners Have a Range of Financial Options

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It’s because the purchase of a home involves such a substantial sum that Sapphire homeowners are often thought of as being financially constrained. With years’ worth of income bound up in a mortgage, it’s the dominant figure in many a financial statement.

But there is also another way to look at it—and it’s the way much of the financial world does. They know that homeownership is a very positive attribute. It indicates stability; dependability; substantiality; soundness. That’s why second mortgages are so common. And it’s why the financial ‘constraint’ that people think of in connection with owning a home can be a bit of a mischaracterization. Sapphire homeowners can actually be the recipients of several financial options available only to them.

Let’s first be clear about some terminology. A home equity loan is also known as a home equity line of credit, or HELOC. A true HELOC carries a variable rate of interest, continuous use of funds, and future amortization. It is most often used for purchases made over time: college tuition is a frequently cited example. HELOCs can be an option for those planning a series of home improvement projects. Home equity lines of credit can be very convenient to use: often the credit can be accessed via credit card.

On the other hand, to handle a single large expense, a second mortgage may be more advantageous. A second mortgage is borrowed as a single lump sum that is amortized in the same way as the first. Its interest rate may be fixed or variable, but is usually higher than that of the first mortgage. The standout advantage to most second mortgages is that the interest portion of payments is, like a first’s, tax-deductible. That can make them an attractive alternative for the Sapphire homeowner who wishes to consolidate other debts—for instance, to pay off credit card balances, which usually have higher interest rates. That fact, combined with the tax features, can make a second mortgage a prudent alternative.

HOWEVER…the very fact that these options—available only to homeowners—are so attractive is also why they should be chosen only after their long range effects have been taken into account. In the mortgage101 web site, for instance, you can read that “both types of loans can reduce your debt”—a statement which is at best misleading. Any loan increases debt. If the proceeds are used to pay off an existing debt, that won’t “reduce your debt;” it will just rebalance it. That might make good financial sense, but (let’s get real) the only way to reduce a debt it to pay it off. When in doubt, do be sure to run any plans by a trusted financial advisor.

Homeownership does include significant financial options, which is one reason it’s a major touchstone of the American dream. I hope you will let me know if I can help you with your Sapphire home ownership plans!

Searching for a Sapphire Home for Sale: What’s the Best Approach?

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If you had to characterize the way future homeowners approach how they find their next home for sale, you’d likely say that they fall into a couple of major categories. Both approaches work: which is better is really about the way you tend to tackle any problem. But if I had to choose, there is one approach I’d have to say is superior.

The first approach is to dig right into it. You call up the Sapphire Realtor® to discuss the state of the market, lay out your goals and ideas, and listen to what is proposed as the next step. If what you hear sounds good, you give the thumbs-up, and—voila!—it’s underway! Taking this approach, you let the pro ask the questions that her or his experience dictates. Fine points not covered initially will come up as the process narrows.

This is an approach that certainly makes sense—after all, who knows better what details are most important as you begin your house hunt? Most people find themselves searching for a home for sale only once in a blue moon. The real estate pros are at it daily. Plus, we know the current local inventory: homes that are currently on the market (and often, some that will be coming on before long). If there is a Sapphire home for sale that fits your criteria but which is likely to be gone soon, a showing can be arranged at once. Especially for those whose time is at a premium, this approach is efficient.

The other approach is for those who naturally gravitate to a more ‘hands-on’ plan of attack. This is automatically adopted by people who are more comfortable after they’ve prepared as much as possible. They want to familiarize themselves with the state of the market and everything that’s currently affecting it. They will almost certainly have been online for a while, have examined the listing details for relevant current homes for sale in Sapphire, and possibly even dropped in on some weekend open houses. When they do contact their Sapphire Realtor, they know pretty much the direction their house hunting project should be pointing toward.

Which approach is better? Which one is more likely to find your dream house? (I bet you know that’s a rhetorical question.)

The safe answer is that the best approach is a level-headed combination of the two.

For people in the first group, taking a look at the online listings to get a feel for the homes for sale in Sapphire is an incredibly effortless and efficient way to get an instant overview of what’s out there (and at what cost). For the second group, likewise: it’s no longer necessary to spend hours or days preparing a detailed wish list of must-have and nearly must-have and would-be-nice property feature alternatives. Point your agent at an MLS listing or two for any Sapphire homes for sale that seem interesting, and you’ll receive back a list of serious candidate properties to take a look at—followed by a proposed in-person home tour agenda.

Well—at least that’s what will happen if ‘your’ agent happens to be me…so let’s have a chat!

Sapphire Residents Find Wider Retirement Community Choices

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As Sapphire residents age, we grow wiser—at least we hope we will. If we take good care of ourselves, are lucky enough to have inherited good genes, and have some luck, too, we hope to be able to stay physically and mentally active long past many of the birthdays that used to mark old age—or even “advanced old age.”

But if wisdom does actually accrue along the way, even the spryest of Sapphire seniors eventually begins to consider whether it might not be a good idea to explore some of today’s alternative post-retirement residential directions. Advil or not, the most physically active seniors will tell you the morning after a full round of golf or a couple of sets of tennis: ouch! Even copious amounts of positive thinking can’t match the persuasive power of aching joints and muscles. Some accommodations to Father Time are going to be called for…

It turns out that on this front, there is a lot of good news developing out there. Probably because the massive wave of Baby Boomers is sweeping into traditional retirement age, more and more residential options are opening up. Sapphire residents approaching retirement have more choices than ever before. Some of the major headings include—

⦁ Staying with family. This used to be the hands-down leading choice when infirmity was at hand: moving in with care-taking relatives (or the reverse). This can be a terrific solution when the family situation fits and doesn’t create unworkable demands on family members.
⦁ Roommates. Sometimes sharing living quarters is an alternative that isn’t given much consideration, but a homeowner who could use help with daily living chores can choose to share their home in exchange for help with shopping, cooking, cleaning, etc.
⦁ Board-and-Care Homes are usually small-scale: residences that provide room and board and varying degrees of daily activity support.
⦁ Congregate Housing caters to seniors able to take care of themselves; providing meals, communal activities, and/or housekeeping services. Retirement Communities can add resort-level facilities and activities into the mix.
⦁ Assisted Living residences—all the way to full Nursing Homes—provide levels of care from minimal all the way to skilled nursing support.
⦁ Continuing Care Retirement Communities—are designed to meet the reality that residence and assistance needs change over time. CCRCs consist of separate apartment-style or condominium units as well as full assisted-living facilities. Residents can move from one to the other if more independent living becomes impractical. Residents pay an entrance fee and monthly charges (they can be hefty)—but CCRCs have the advantage of allowing residents to remain in a familiar community at junctures when a greater dislocation would be much more stressful.

Of course, many local seniors are not about to even consider moving away from Sapphire, choosing instead to simply look into downsizing—or switching to a more [knee-friendly] stairless neighborhood home. For those and other real estate endeavors, I’m here to help!

Selling a House in Sapphire Can Take a little ‘Plastic Surgery’

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Suppose you finally came to an important decision—that this fall is going to be the right time for selling your Sapphire house. If you had been biding your time, watching other Sapphire houses being listed and closed throughout the summer, you may also have been getting a head start on some major maintenance or remodeling projects that you knew would be needed once you put your own place up for sale.

You may even have cleared away some extraneous furniture or décor items that had accumulated through the years, and made sure the landscaping was in good trim. If you had done those things—de-cluttered, spruced up, cleared the decks, etc.—you would have been just about ready to contact an agent to get the show on the road…

But what if even all the prep work nonetheless left you with the feeling that the old place still wasn’t quite ready. What if something still seemed to be missing: something you couldn’t quite put your finger on, but something that you just knew was needed to pep up the showings that would soon be taking place.

Selling a house to yield its maximum value can be more art than science. One of the skills that’s quite important is being able to envision what prospective buyers see. Especially with older properties, selling a house that to you seems filled with comforting familiarity might seem worn out (or just plain used) to others. Although many prospects do prefer older neighborhoods over newer ones, most folks also have a contradictory impulse: they appreciate the allure of the new. They may hanker for the mature landscaping and established community structures of older neighborhoods, yet simultaneously would prefer a place that seems freshly renewed.

Fortunately, taking a few steps to make an older property ‘new again’ needn’t be hugely expensive:

  • Cabinets – It’s relatively easy to put a fresh face on worn cabinet doors and drawers to rejuvenate a tired-looking kitchen. You can find a wide range of reasonably priced panels that fit many cabinets. Sometimes the same effect can be achieved by re-staining—or simply changing the cabinetry hardware (go for stainless or brushed nickel to achieve the look the majority of today’s Sapphire buyers prefer).
  • Appliances – Full kitchen remodels can be more expensive than is really practical, but sometimes much of the same effect can be achieved by simply replacing an old range, oven, dishwasher or refrigerator. Re-facing appliances that are perfectly serviceable (especially stainless surfaces that can’t be rescued) is another budget-wise option.
  • Tired-looking sinks and fixtures can all but ‘sink’ the prospects of selling your Sapphire house. Sometimes the addition of stylish faucets and some fresh caulking can transform a kitchen or laundry room.

As you close in on the time for selling your Sapphire house, sometimes a fresh pair of eyes can help you see what still needs to be done—or, importantly, what doesn’t! It’s a very good reason to give me a call!

Choosing a Sapphire Agent with this ‘Must Have’ Quality

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There is one overriding quality you must demand when you hire the Sapphire agent who will be your partner and representative. It’s a quality you and you alone are qualified to judge. And it should be the final determinant—the last factor you consider before you make your final agent choice.

Now it’s true that in many instances, this quality isn’t even one you have to think about. That’s true when you have previously worked with a Sapphire agent who did what she or he had promised. When you’ve bought a home or sold one, been helped through successful negotiations, dealt with the unexpected snags with a minimum of disruption—and finally wrapped up the closing paperwork on schedule—you probably need search no further. It couldn’t be easier: pick up the phone, and voila! Your agent is on the job!

But if you’re new to the area; or previously had only a so-so experience with a Sapphire agent; or if your Sapphire agent is no longer available for some other reason, Job One before any selling or buying begins in earnest is the only part of the process that you will have to undertake completely on your own: identifying the agent who will serve you best.

When you choose a lawyer or accountant to represent you, a number of factors come into play that aren’t involved in choosing a real estate agent. With other professionals, their fee structures can be crucial. Although hiring the best lawyer in town can be out of reach for strictly financial reasons, that’s not true in real estate. If you’re buying, your agent’s fee come out of the seller’s proceeds—in other words, all town real estate agents, from best to worst, cost you nothing! If you’re selling, most agents work on substantially similar percentages. Another factor that plays a greater role in choosing candidates in other professions is convenience—where their offices are located. With real estate, everyone who actively works in the Sapphire area will make your location (or the addresses of your prospective next home) the focus of activity. The agent’s own location isn’t a determining factor.

So what is that final determinant? After you have interviewed the agents who seem initially qualified—what should be the decisive factor?

It’s trust.

In the momentous enterprise that lays before you, the overriding factor has to be the degree of trust you feel in the individual who will be your teammate. It’s why you are the only one qualified to make the choice.

The process of buying or selling a home involves laying out your highest hopes and deepest reservations about home ownership—and trusting that between the two of you, the best opportunities will be uncovered, the best bargains struck, and all will be protected by properly executed documentation. Trust is the feeling you have for how the two of you interact—how the chemistry is there or is not. It’s how comfortable you feel when you are communicating, because you should trust your agent’s insight into your needs and goals, so that you can depend on the guidance he or she provides.

I hope when your next real estate venture is close at hand, you’ll make me one of your interviews. And if we’ve worked together before—welcome back!