Archive for November, 2009
November 25th, 2009 | 
Author: Don’t let your excitement and enthusiasm about owning your dream home fade away with a faulty mortgage loan. It is best to calculate a mortgage before you finally take the plunge. Remember the ones that worked out their finances well in advance were the ones that could save their homes in foreclosure in majority of the cases. However, there may be instances when you tend to fall behind on payments for reasons that are beyond your control. For similar reasons it is said that you should always have an emergency fund that you can fall back upon if you face a sudden financial stalemate.
How will you calculate a mortgage to find out if a particular lender is offering you the best deal? First you need to shop around for mortgage quotes from different lenders. Keep your eyes open for the APR or the Annual Percentage Rate and the interest rate. These 2 factors can make a lot of difference to your mortgage payments as a whole. Although mortgage APR doesn’t affect your monthly mortgage payments since it is the total cost of the loan, the interest rate does.
Mortgage calculators can help you immensely when you calculate a mortgage monthly payment. What are the factors that you need to consider when you calculate a mortgage?
- Take the monthly principal as well as interest payment into account depending on the size of the mortgage you have taken out.
- Term of the loan – You may either opt for 30-year loan term or 15-year loan term. In case of 30-year loan term you will pay less every month but it will attract higher rate of interest. This is in sharp contrast to a 15-year loan term where the interest rate will be low but the amount you pay each month will be high.
- Rate of interest – Decide whether you want to opt for fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) or adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM). If you take out a mortgage as per ARM, your mortgage payments will fluctuate depending on the conditions in the mortgage market since the ARM is connected with the market rates. On the other hand if you opt for FRM, your mortgage payments remain constant throughout the term of the loan. FRM makes your mortgage payments foreseeable.
- Calculate property taxes that you are required to pay each year. Since you are calculating the monthly payments, divide the same by 12.
- Find out the PMI or the Private Mortgage Insurance if you require one.
- Once you have got the above figures, you can add them up to get the final payment that you are required to make every month.
Getting hold of a mortgage calculator isn’t difficult as there are many websites that offer mortgage calculator for free. And calculate a mortgage using calculators of more than one site as it will help you to check for errors.
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INSIDER TRADING – Be Careful What You Say – and to Whom
(How much did you divulge already?)
Copyright Carolyne Realty Corp – may be reprinted only by permission in writing.
The proper “representation” of your home can net you thousands of extra dollars. Ask Carolyne how she gets top dollar sale prices for her clients.
INSIDER TRADING – Be Careful What You Say – and to Whom
(How much did you divulge already?)
When you invite a Realtor into your home to be interviewed, as the prospective listing agent, typically the agent will ask you several questions and endeavour to answer yours.
However, before “you” answer any questions, be absolutely certain that you understand “agency”. You may even want to have the agent being interviewed sign off on a “Confidentiality” form.
There is no real need for anyone to know “why” you are moving: a divorce, a death in the family, retiring to a senior’s home, perhaps a relocation. Once you have chosen the agent with whom you are officially going to do business, then you can choose to divulge this information perhaps. In the meantime, the why related to your sale has nothing whatsoever to do with the value of your home – the bricks and mortar value. I have had countless numbers of agents tell me the why has a big impact on your business dealings and thus the “end price-sale price.” My question back to them is: WHY?
The house is the house. It is located where it is located. The market is what the market is. What and how does “why” you are selling it, impact its value. In my opinion, it simply does NOT. Even the definition of fair market value supports my thinking. Fair market value: what a willing buyer will pay to a willing seller, when the property has been sufficiently exposed to a given market, presuming neither the buyer nor the seller is under duress.
Perhaps preview other articles on our web site. There is an abundance of material there that will help you protect your position.
With no contract of any sort yet signed between you and the agent, covering agency/representation, you have none. The agent owes you nothing: no confidentiality, fiduciary duty, no representation of any kind. He, too, is merely “collecting information”. Granted he needs some information in order to formulate a helpful prognosis on how long your home will likely need to be marketed, and at what asking price. Based on his local expertise (and he should have plenty, specifically in your locale, if you are going to hire him to represent your best interests) in serving the area where your home is located, having viewed your property and assessed its saleability relative to current market conditions along with the condition of your home and how it shows – including curb appeal, and having compared it to existing market data, the agent will be able to suggest an asking price and a likely sale price.
Example: agent asks – “How much are you prepared to take for your house?” You answer.
You may have just given away your profit margin. Not only that, but if you decide not to hire this particular agent to represent you and the sale of your home, now you have committed to a possible acceptable sale price, to an agent who is not even “your” agent. That’s not to say you cannot change your mind, but you have provided him with ammunition to use against you at offer time, if he should be the one to ultimately bring an offer, while acting for the buyer, not for you as your representative. He’s working for “the other guy.” And there’s nothing to prevent him from sharing the information you have provided to him with his colleagues back at the office, when the listing appears on the system, with someone other than him, as the listing agent.
Think it through when you are interviewing multiple agents before choosing one you will work with. If you do not hire this particular agent, and your property appears on MLS at a particular price, the agent(s) you have “interviewed” are now all privy to your insider information. Each one now knows how much you said you would take for your house. So, since you haven’t engaged them with your for-sale contract (called a listing contract), and they appear with a buyer, in a typical transaction, the agent with the buyer will be working for – GUESS WHO? Not you.
He/she will be working for the buyer, not for you, and he will be the first one to remind you of what price you had told him you would take. He will likely have a buyer agency (there’s that “agency” word again) contract with the buyer. That means that he is working under contract FOR that buyer; his total onus is obligated to that buyer. That buyer, just perhaps, may have been willing to pay your full asking price, but you already told the agent you would accept a lesser amount and he has divulged this information to his buyer. He is now obligated while working for a buyer, to divulge all the information you provided willingly to him, to the buyer who is now his client.
So, since that agent is now working for the buyer and not for you, you can expect any offer coming through that process will be in favour of the buyer, not in your favour.
So, should you answer questions put to you, when you are interviewing agents?
Only some kinds of questions, but not the master question – how much are you willing to take? You may release this information to “your” agent, once you have chosen which one you are going to contract to have “represent” you, because “your” agent must keep your private information private. He must NOT share what he knows, with anyone else. When contract time rolls around, the contract will speak for itself, and “your agent” will guide you through it appropriately at that time. Market conditions may have changed since you initialized your contract. Your agent will keep you up to date throughout the process, and will bring you up to date again at the time of an offer presentation.
Use this information as a guideline only; but, know when not to talk. By answering this one important question, and by giving away your private information, you could be costing yourself thousands of dollars.
This information © is brought to you – compliments of:
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Carolyne Realty Corp. BurlingtonHomes@Carolyne.com www.MillcroftHomes.com
Competition Bureau probe may change rules
Karen Mazurkewich, Financial Post Published: Tuesday, November 03, 2009
A landmark investigation by the federal Competition Bureau may dramatically change the way homes are bought and sold in Canada.
The Canadian Real Estate Association has informed its members that a two-year inquiry by the Competition Bureau has been completed and that significant changes to their practices have been requested.
CREA is still negotiating a settlement with the Competition Bureau, but it is expected that the industry will be forced to loosen its restrictive access to the MLS system and allow discount brokers into the market.
The Canadian Real Estate Association says 135,182 homes were sold countrywide in the third quarter, up 18 per cent from a year earlier and the most ever for the period.
It’s the biggest year-over-year increase since early 2002, the group said Thursday.
People walk past new homes for sale in Oakville, Ont., in April. Nationally, housing sales increased by 18 per cent during the third quarter, the CREA says. People walk past new homes for sale in Oakville, Ont., in April. Nationally, housing sales increased by 18 per cent during the third quarter, the CREA says. (Nathan Denette/Canadian Press)
Building on two previous quarterly increases, seasonally adjusted home sales on the agency’s Multiple Listing Service now stands 48 per cent above the low reached in the fourth quarter last year.
Quarterly sales increases in Vancouver (34 per cent), Toronto (11 per cent), and Calgary (19 per cent) were the largest contributors to the national increase.
The rise in sales activity is combining with fewer new listings to draw down inventories and drive up prices, compared with year-ago levels, the association said.
There were 208,215 homes listed for sale on MLS in Canada at the end of September 2009, down 16 per cent from a year earlier.
That’s the fifth consecutive year-over-year decline in active listings and the largest decline in more than six years, the association said.
On the price side, at $327,736, the average price of a home in Canada rose 11 per cent in the third quarter, compared with a year earlier.
The national average price continues to be skewed upward by a sharp rebound in activity at the higher end of the price spectrum in some of Canada’s priciest markets, the CREA said.
The national average price surpassed all previous monthly levels in September 2009, rising 13.6 per cent year-over-year to $331,602. July and August also posted new average price records.
Several provinces set price records for September. Ontario posted the highest average price on record in the province, at $326,698 — 10.7 per cent higher than the level during the same quarter last year.
Nationally, the number of months of inventory was 4.9 months in September, down slightly from August and well down from the recessionary peak of 12.8 months in January.