USDA Rural Home Loans Boost Your Buying Power

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Today I have Ben Zitting with me today to talk about an amazing program that is available for rural properties around St. George. Ben is a professional problem-solver like myself, and I am glad to be partnering with him today. He works with Veritas Funding and would like to explain more about a program to help you buy a home affordably.

In our competitive market, it is a challenge to get even the most clean, perfect buyer financed. However, there are some amazing opportunities that we have for you.

One of Ben's clients that was looking for a property in the St. George area and something amazing happen. You should know that inventory is very low in these areas right now, and he was looking for a home in the $150,000-$200,000 range. This buyer also did not have any money down, as most first-time buyers don't. In this case, our goal was to get the most home possible, for the lowest payment. For a while, we struggled to find a sufficient home.

Ben then expanded the search area for his client and found a great loan program that is offered to rural properties. After branching from St. George, he then found a great property in Hurricane that qualified for a USDA Rural Housing Loan. (Homes in Hurricane, Ivins, and La Verkin can qualify for this loan) Ben got his client a $200,000 dollar home for no money down, and only paid $1,209 in taxes and closing fees. This is significantly less money than you could rent a home for.

More on the USDA Rural Housing Loan:

• Your home must be in a rural area.
• You must meet income qualifications.
• In this instance, the property was closed in 30 days.
• If you're looking to maximize on your dollar, this is the loan for you.
• If you meet the qualifications, this is an absolute steal.
• For more information, visit here: http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/hsf_sfh.html

This is an amazing opportunity for homeowners that are a little more cash-strapped. If you qualify, you should contact me soon and we can get you a great home at an affordable price with very little interest.
If you need any help buying, selling, or investing in the St. George or Las Vegas areas (we now have an office in Las Vegas), please feel free to contact me. We can also help you with an IRA, because most people don't know that you can do self-directed IRA's into real estate.

Give us a call at (435) 229-4442 or shoot us an email at team@skinnerteam.biz

We love short sale referrals! Get $500 of your referral fee RIGHT NOW!

 Click here to find out what your home is worth or to search all area homes for sale.

The market has been picking up lately. Short sales have slowly been disappearing from the market. I'm still interested in negotiating short sales, so if you have any clients that need help in the process, you can send them to me!

For each, I'll pay you in advance the $500 referral fee. We are confident in our processes and our ability to close.

Thank you for watching!

What home projects can you do yourself?

Click here to find out what your home is worth or to search all area homes for sale.

We all want to save money, so when it comes to projects in your home, you may curious to know which you can do on your own and which you need a professional for.

The first thing to consider is you. For some people projects are fun and rewarding and for others they are stressful. Which one are you?

Next make a list of the projects you want done around the house and then evaluate that list. Is there anything on there that you have done before? Maybe it's painting or sanding a piece of furniture. These are great projects for you to do on your own.

How is your health? Some projects may require you to be on a ladder or lifting heavy things. Is that something you are comfortable with?

Always keep in mind, there are some jobs you need to leave to the professionals: electrical, plumbing, moving walls, etc. Your safety comes first!

How Interest Rates Affect Purchasing Power

Welcome back to my video blog. A lot of people have been asking me lately whether now is the time to buy or not.

There are two important factors to look at and those are the increasing home prices and the increasing interest rates.

Homes now are more affordable than ever, but that will soon change. In fact prices have been increasing by about .84 percent a month in Washington County.

Interest rates are also phenomenally low right now. That will soon change too. Rates have remained low because the Federal Reserve has continued purchasing bonds. As the economy improves, however, they will scale back their purchasing causing interest rates to increase.

So what do interest rates really matter? They actually play a huge role in your purchasing power.

If you have a monthly budget of $1,500 for a mortgage payment, right now with a 4 percent interest rate you could purchase a $350,000 home.

If that rate increases up to 5 percent, to stay within your budget, you are now looking at a $311,000 home.

With each point increase, the value of home you can buy drops by about $30,000. That’s why it’s so important to make your move NOW.

The Federal Reserve meet in mid Dec and we expect them to announce the beginning of their scale back.

Give me a call today so we can start looking for your new home and lock in that low rate.

Thanks for watching.

Interest Rates in St. George Are Going Up

I brought my buyer specialist, Jerrold Munson, in to talk about the rising interest rates here in St. George. Give us a call at 435.703.8767 to learn more.

Home prices have never been so affordable and that window is closing. Interest rates and home prices are on their way up and the inventory is shrinking.

Mortgage lenders are predicting interest rates will increase up to 6% by next year, and they are already on their way.

Now is the time to buy your new home. To schedule a buyer’s consultation please call 435.703.8767 and get your home at a great price.

Washington County Real Estate Market Update – November 2012

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For a few months now we had been waiting and watching as much of the nation held its collective breath to see election results. In terms of real estate, the impact of elections is largely undocumented but often translate to buyers (and sellers) preferring to hold back until there is a result on record. There is traditionally a spike in the economy during a Presidential election year, which, as we all know, boosts consumer confidence, and the whole cycle starts up.

Sales Are On the Rise Across the Board

Locally in our area we are experiencing a surge in sales, mostly due to the unprecedented low interest rates combined with equally as remarkable low property prices. Sales increases were reported throughout all regions in the US, including a few with increases logged in the triple digits – and equally, the St. George area marketplace mirrors this trend.

It’s An Excellent Time to Buy

This remains one of the best times ever to buy a home. Prices are low and interest rates continue to remain lower than ever before with some loan products offered at 2.25%! The current market trend has created the unique situation of an environment that is ripe with opportunity for buyers and sellers alike.

Sellers Are Also Enjoying Success

In fact, buyers are faced with the situation of having to figure out how to get the property of their dreams. With so few homes on the market we are seeing more and more price wars and the need to be highly competitive at the negotiation table.

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If you would like to explore the real estate market to see what is out there, contact us today. If you may have found the right home and now you need a team of qualified, experienced and expert negotiators by your side – get in touch with us! And if you know of someone that is looking to buy, sell or just feel the market out, send them across! We look forward to serving all your real estate needs!

435 767 1246

team@skinnerteam.biz

Ready to Unload Those Short Sales?

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In this business of real estate, things seem pretty much cut and dry. Until you get to work with a short sale. Now for most agents, that’s the last thing they want to do but some of us enjoy the process. That is why I am writing to you today.

As your fellow colleague, working with the Keller Williams Realty office here in St. George, I wanted to send a shout out to you and let you know of our agent referral program. We provide agents that send over referrals to short sale properties with a fee for their time and efforts. In fact, as one of the ways to show my appreciation to those agents that take the trouble to send these short sales across, I provide an advance of $500 for each listing as it gets posted on our MLS.

If you have evaluated your business in light of our changing market and decided that short sales is a worthwhile endeavor to get involved in and would like some help with any of that – please do not hesitate to contact me. I welcome the opportunity to work with you and assist in any way that I can.

If during the process of looking over your preferred angles of business you consider short sales to be a less than desired use of your time, please send those over to me. The same goes for any people you may know of that may be looking for alternatives easily obtained through a short sale.

As you can see, I have strong confidence in my team and our systems – so much so that I am willing to risk losing the $500 advance on our agent referral bonus in case a short sale property does not sell.

So once again, if you’ve got short sales that you’re stuck on or you know someone that is in a quandary and is not sure what their options are – I’d welcome the opportunity to meet with you, schedule a phone consult or anything else that may be of assistance.

I can be reached directly on my cell phone at 435.229.4442 and I look forward to hearing from you!