Todd Teta, chief product officer of ATTOM Data Solutions claims, “Closing on a home purchase the day after Christmas or on New Year’s Eve can be one of the most financially beneficial holiday-season gifts you can get.” Although, some might think spring is the prime time for house shopping. December is the time to buy.
Analysis from his company shows that there are only three days in the year where homes are seen being sold below market value. All of which occur in December.
The report shows discounts of .3% over sales price the day after Christmas and discounts of .1% on both, New Years Eve and December 4. This study was determined with more than 23 million single family home and condo sales over the past six years.
If you haven’t found a home on one of these days, analysis shows December is the overall best month to buy with a stay pay premium 1.2% above market value. Which in comparison is better than any other month with premiums as high as 7.1%.
Throughout the year, home prices hover around the same median despite the drastic jump in premiums; $197,500 in October; $198,018 in November; $198,000 in December.
Moving away from yearly averages, and breaking it down by state shows homebuyers in Ohio experiencing the largest discount below market value, buying at 7.4% below market value in January. In Michigan, with prices down 7.2% in February; Delaware, with prices down 6.3% in February; Tennessee, with prices down 6.2% in January and New Jersey, with prices down 5.8% in December.
Teta explains, “While lots of folks are shopping the day-after Christmas sales or getting ready to ring in the New Year, our data shows that buyers and investors are buying homes on those days at a discount, that’s a far cry from buying during June, when they are likely paying about a 7% premium.”
The moment you’re just getting started with a new venture, particularly those that revolve around skilled investments such as real estate, you have a tendency to make a great deal of mistakes.
Most individuals who develop an interest in real estate investment end up looping from one mistake to yet another for years, even after devouring tons of ebooks, videos, and training courses on the subject.
What is the missing link stopping most aspiring real estate investors from attaining financial freedom with real estate investments? Why do some people attain massive financial success while some others see not even an iota of success?
Why Ebooks And Courses Simply Serve To Confuse You
Some hard-working investors have been able to get started on their own and make lots of money, but they are the exception. When you find yourself failing continuously, what you need is a real estate coach.
Electronic books and training courses drag you in various directions, but a real estate coach sets you on the right course to success. You gain extensive information from their expertise, and through their training, you are able to focus on a single goal at a time, which is critical to success.
They can also notice errors you’ve neglected and guide you on what to do as an alternative. It’s like they’re a teacher, holding your hand and telling you exactly what to do. With that type of support, your chances of success rise significantly.
The Only Real Estate Mentoring Program I Endorse
You’ll find numerous real estate mentoring programs online, all with similar assertions of helping you become a six-figure realtor in as little time as possible.
All of these programs are clearly expensive, so choosing the best one is of vital importance. Select the wrong one and you’ll likely end up regretting wasting time and cash you can’t ever get back.
I’m a successful real estate professional, and I got my training from my mentor, Phil Pustejovsky. Phil Pustejovsky runs the Freedom Mentor Apprentice Program – a program that shows you the ropes on the way to achieve financial freedom in real estate.
The Freedom Mentor coaching program is not a program you can just buy whenever you want. You have to put in an application first, and you’ll only be accepted to the program if your request is accepted.
The very fact that Phil Pustejovsky evaluates applications goes to show how much he wishes you to succeed. He’ll only accept coachable, action-oriented, and positive thinking applicants.
Phil was once an amateur as well. He began from rock bottom and only began to attain success after he met his coach, Tom.
Ever since, he has managed to close tens of millions of dollars worth of deals while earning millions of dollars in proceeds throughout the process.
If you believe Phil’s expertise would have a positive effect on your real estate venture, then you have to give undivided attention to the following paragraphs as I talk about his Freedom Mentor program in more detail.
Why Freedom Mentor?
Through signing up to the Freedom Mentor coaching program, you’ll gain access to premium tools and resources to assist you close your very first real estate deal.
These consist of access to a lender list, an instruction/lead-generating program to help you get deals quicker, and a personalized investing strategy.
That’s not all, though. You’ll also receive 3 real-time coaching calls every month with Freedom Mentor’s instructors, 2 conference calls weekly, and the capability to ask questions and instantly obtain responses from the mentors by means of an instant messaging platform.
There are a couple of really good features of this coaching program which help it stand apart from the competitors. The first feature is the array of helpful mentors and coaches it includes.
You won’t have access to just Phil Pustejovsky’s mentoring once you become a registered member. Freedom Mentor is made up of a team of mentors and coaches personally taught and mentored by Phil.
These are the coaches you’ll be getting assistance from. You’ll have access to a combined pool of knowledge and experience from many of the leading coaches in the industry.
The second feature that makes this program so impressively effective at helping aspiring realtors achieve success is its 50/50 split.
This basically means Phil shares every one of his priceless real estate tricks with you, and you share 50% of the profits from your first couple of deals with him.
When you’ve closed your first few deals, you may then proceed to become an independent property investor, equipped with all of the knowledge you’ve acquired from the mentorship program.
If you possess a knack for teaching or mentoring, you could even establish your own mentoring program and show your students the actions required for success exactly like Phil does.
A few of Phil’s past students are currently running their own mentoring programs after turning into successful real estate investors.
Note: I know the program offering adjustments from time to time as they continue to fine-tune it and improve it. However, this is up to date as of this writing.
Summary – Action Takers Wanted
The Freedom Mentor coaching program is geared towards folks who are 100% dedicated to becoming successful real estate investors. If you aren’t ready to handle real estate investing like a business, this program might just not be for you.
The tools, resources, and mentoring offered in the program are more than enough to set you on the right path to financial freedom.
Since you’re splitting your first few profits with Phil, it’s in his best interest to help you succeed, and you possess as much determination to do just that. It’s a jointly advantageous arrangement, so you almost can’t fail if you put in the energy and time to make this work.
Overall, the Freedom Mentor program is the best way to get started in real estate investing. You’re receiving all the support you want from a veteran in the field. There’s truly nothing else you need to help make your real estate ambitions come true.
We all know that interest rates are still incredibly low. Plus, although they are rising, home prices are still affordable. However, don’t let this lead you into believing that any home purchase is a good one. Yes, we are currently in a buyer’s market. However, you do have to exert due diligence before you buy. There are plenty of red flags out there telling you to move away from a purchase. Some problems can be fixed, of course, but sometimes you should just move on. There are two things you definitely have to look into.
First and foremost, check the neighborhood. This is of absolute vital importance. The community is either growing and decline and you need to find out which one it is. If there are many foreclosed homes and businesses, the community is going through tough times. Do also come back to the neighborhood on different days and at different times. This is also a great opportunity for you to get to know the traffic. Do also come at least once at night, so you can see whether the streets are safe and quiet at night or not. Speak to the police and ask for statistics on local crimes.
The second key factor to look into is for you to figure out whether you are looking at a foreclosure or short sale property. Indeed, these properties tend to be the cheapest, but that is because they often require a lot of work or because the entire neighborhood is declining.
At the end of the day, you should never purchase a property that you haven’t had inspected professionally. With the information above, you should be able to tell whether or not you might want to hire a professional inspector, or whether it is a clear no on the purchase. If there are any existing problems, you may want to consider not buying the property at all, or asking for a very significant discount as you will have to invest in the repairs sooner or later. Also, always trust the advice of home inspectors. They are there to make sure you don’t buy something that isn’t worth your while.
Clear-Cut Ideas When Looking At Selling a House Clarified
Many folks are beginning to invest in real estate so if you have any plans of selling your property, you should do it now. The only issue here is that selling a property is quite challenging.
Many of you have possibly seen some articles informing you that selling a house is simple. There are also some advertisements that will tell you that they could sell your house within weeks. You may reduce the price of your house since it’s going to be more desirable to the customers, but this isn’t a good thing to do.
In the real estate market, the supply surpasses the demand, but there are a lot of methods on the best way to successfully sell your house. We’re going to offer you a few tips to successfully sell your house.
Look at Curb Appeal
First impression lasts so your property should have a specific impact when a buyer sees it the very first time. You should place yourself in the shoes of a customer and assess the curb appeal of your house.
Head out of your home and look at it to find out its faults. You should make certain that it is attractive enough to leave a good impression to possible customers and check all the things that need maintenance.
The potential buyers always see the exterior of house firsthand and many of them are always paying attention on how their new house would look like in the outside. You must prepare and fix everything.
Make The Right Upgrades
You’ll need to make the essential upgrades inside and outside the house to draw in the customers. They want a complete package where they will not have to make repairs on certain parts of the house.
If you’re the seller, you have to make sure that you’ll check anything that needs fixing and improvement. Even so, you can’t over improve the house since there are some improvements that will not make a huge difference in the asking value of your house.
Improvements can increase the price of your house and its odds to be sold, but you cannot make an improvement that will not pay in the end. You should do your research and invest in the things that may offer the best return.
Remove The Clutter
When you’re talking about clutter, these are things that you must get rid of from the house when you’re selling it. You’ll need to get rid of your personal items, collectibles and art works because it’ll not help you in selling the house. Eliminate everything which are not required and just leave the furniture to make the rooms larger. The aim is to help the buyers visualize what they really want to do in your home when they bought it. When they enter your house, they will begin to visualize what they want to add so you must get rid of the unneeded and personal items inside the house. It will be difficult for them to do this if your personal items are still inside the house.
Place a Realistic Value
If you’d like to sell a home in Douglas, Nebraska, make sure that you place a competitive value for the house. If you’ll put a low value, it’ll be the same as leaving money on the table and if you put a high price, the customers will absolutely ignore it. When you’re referring to home buying, the customers will surely have a look at houses which are similar with yours and compare prices and if the house is too costly, they will not buy it.
You must understand that most buyers are depending on home financing so you could assume that they won’t consider a house that is very costly. If the price is low, selling the house will not be too hard, but your investments will not be returned.
Consider a Real Estate Agent
You should know that it is not easy to sell a house without the help of professionals and it’ll also be a bad idea to simply do this by yourself. You don’t have the knowledge and experience to manage everything so it’s going to not be an excellent suggestion to sell your house without hiring a professional real estate agent. If you will try to do this by yourself, there is a big chance that the house won’t be sold or you will not obtain an excellent deal for it. You may actually get fortunate to obtain a good deal for the house, but you must always understand that selling a house will not be about luck since a lot of money is at stake.
You have to think about the help of an agent and allow them to deal with everything. Of course, you will need to pay them, but it’s much better than acquiring a bad deal.
Before you do anything else, you need to be certain that you recognize how to sell your house effectively. The real estate market is definitely complex so you have to recognize how this works before you sell your house.
Please don’t begin house hunting without a budget. You should not begin a home search without knowing what you can afford. You really should get a pre-approval letter from the bank before you do anything else. This way you know for certain how much you can put down on the home, and how much you can get approved for. Just because you can get approved by the way, doesn’t mean that you should spend the entire loan amount. See: Pre-Qualified vs Pre-Approved Loans.
It is wise to buy a house a little below your means rather than beyond. People have all sorts of ideas for how lenders determine how much you can afford. Some say that you can afford a house that totals to 3x your annual income. The point is, you need to figure out how much money you want to spend each month on a mortgage, and how much you have to pay for annual taxes, maintenance, repairs, and utilities. If any renovations will need to be done, you’ve got to factor those in as well.
You should check your credit history, if you haven’t been doing so already. Ideally, this is something you should begin doing a few years before you plan to buy a house. This way, you have time to fix anything on your credit report. You’ll also have time for inquiries to fall off before you house shop. Inquiries last on a report for two years. If, for example, you have five credit inquiries on your report, by the time they fall off, your score will go up 25 points. Each inquiry generally deducts 5 points from your overall credit score.
Lenders usually request credit reports from all three bureaus. These three bureaus are: Transunion, Equifax, and Experian. Lenders also will typically use your FICO score which is a carefully crafted combination of the three. People try to guess at how a FICO score is calculated, but really, it is a total mystery and cannot be predicted. Read: Get Your Annual Credit Report.
The higher your credit score, the better loan and interested rates you can get. You really should have a score of at least 750 to get the best rates. If your score is lower, and all other factors are normal, you can likely still get a loan, you’ll just be paying more than you would if your credit score were higher. Sometimes it might be smart to go ahead and wait to buy that house until your score goes up. For further reading, see: How Much Mortgage Can I Afford?
Then, you’ve got to go to the lender and ask for a pre-qualification letter. Pre-qualification letters are different from pre-approvals. Pre-qualification letters are a letter stating that the loan approval for a certain amount has been based off of your income and credit history; this letter lets you and the realtor know how much you can borrow.
A pre-approval letter, on the other hand, meanest hat a lender has already chosen the amount of money that they will give you for a loan after analyzing your financial information. Keep in mind that pre-approval is still not a total promise that the lender will actually give you the loan, but its the closest you can get, without actually applying for it, which you can’t do yet until you find the house.
Don’t Let Your Emotions Interfere With The Sale Of Your House
Selling a home takes a big toll emotional on the seller(s). A home is where you have shared all of your fondest memories, from holidays, to birthday parties, to watching your kids grow. As you start packing up your home to start all over, you can get very upset and let your emotions run you during the process of selling your house. There are some people that can’t wait to get rid of the house; they are lucky. Remember when you get down, that starting a new home will be exciting. See: Three Reasons Sellers Shouldn’t Be Present at a Home Showing. You’ll still have all of your belongings and furniture, so it won’t be a total shock, as you will have all the things you’ve collected over the years with you. Here are some ways that you can disconnect when selling your house.
Consider viewing the home as a product rather than a home. You don’t need to pretend you never lived there, but if you change your outlook on the process, you’ll be better off mentally, physically, and be realistic when it comes to the list price and negotiations. You’ll be able to create new memories when you move. Read: Three Things Buyers and Sellers Should Know About Credits. As they say, home is where the heart is. While a home played a significant role in your life, be excited at the prospect of transitioning. You don’t have to think of it as “starting all over.” Taking that mindset on will put you in a depressive state of mind.
Removing your personal belongings from the home will help you slowly detach. This is good, because it won’t be a total shock, since you’ll be doing it in small strides. You won’t have a uHaul show up and pack your entire house up in one day. That is scary. Baby steps are the way to go. Besides the fact, that you really don’t have an option other than packing up your personal things. When you show your house, buyers don’t want to see your family photos. They want to imagine themselves there, not see a photo of grandma baking cookies in your new kitchen.
Do not interact with the buyers. This will deter them away from wanting to buy your house. The general reason behind this is that you will likely talk too much. You might tell them “when we moved in the whole plumbing system was messed up and we re-did them.” See: How to Break Up With Your Real Estate Agent.
This can make them nervous. You’re basically telling them that when you moved into the home, there was already a major problem that you likely spent thousands upon thousands of dollars to fix. Aside from this reason, its also just plain awkward to a buyer to have the seller constantly talking to them.
Selling a home is an emotional process. The important takeaway is that whatever strategy you choose to disconnect from your home, its something that has to be done in order to have a sound mind, and look at the house as a business transaction, which is what it is.
The Lowest APR is NOT Always Going to Be The Best Mortgage Deal
One of the first thing a buyer does is shop for the best mortgage and interest rates when looking to purchase a home. This is great news, because you’re on the right track. This is something you definitely should do initially before beginning your house search. However, lenders give borrowers all sorts of loan options.
It can be very difficult to choose one, when you’ve got several different lenders offering you several different rates. It is absolutely overwhelming. Know that this is a trap, and that there is always a “catch” to every transaction or “favor” in life. Do not make the mistake of just going with the lowest APR, or, “annual percentage rate.” Read on: Five Tips for Picking the Right Mortgage Lender.
The APR is not the same thing as an interest rate. Know this beforehand, and you’re already one step ahead! An interest rate is a percentage of the loan that you will need to pay the lender to actually take out the loan. The APR on the other hand, is interest plus any other fees by the lender that they want to add initially, and/or over the terms of the loan. Here is a little more information about annual percentage rates:
Further information regarding APRs:
1. Absolutely no standard exists regarding what the fees that the lender can and can’t include in the APR. When you buy a house, you’ll have to pay closing fees, and those vary depending on what lender you choose for a loan, as well as the loan terms. An APR on its own, cannot tell you what costs are negotiable, and what costs are non-negotiable. See: FORBES How to Choose a Mortgage Lender.
2. The annual percentage rate is calculated by looking at the entire life of the loan. If you don’t plan to stay in the home for more than a few years, you won’t choose the 30 year loan term. Due to this, you’re going to pay a much higher APR than you would if you planned to stay longer as your monthly mortgage payment is spread out when the loan term is longer.
3. The economy is unpredictable, and as such, APR’s cannot adjust to whether or not you’ll refinance your house at some point, move before the mortgage loan term is up, or whether or not you pay your mortgage off before it is due. Also, there are some types of loans other than traditional, that will require you to pay PMI (private mortgage insurance). APR cannot predict when you will stop paying this. Read on: How to Choose the Right Mortgage Company.
4. You cannot compare one type of loan to another. APR’s work in different ways. Because of this, you cannot follow the myth that the APR is the best option. APR’s can be very confusing, and this is a common question among homebuyers. You should instead compare mortgage rate, as well as the lender fees when deciding on a lender, and a mortgage term. You can also choose to compare mortgage rates without closing costs. Sometimes, a seller will cover these costs for you in the contract.
If you take nothing else away from this article, take away the fact that you should absolutely not choose a loan just because it has the lowest APR out of the lending options. Here is a great video to help you distinguish between an APR and the interest rate: