home buyer tax credit: Here is Why Sacramento Real Estate Prices Are Falling This Summer
- 07/21/10 03:04 AM
A reporter called yesterday morning to ask me about the rising real estate prices and market recovery in Sacramento. After all, our Trendgraphix reports show a 42% increase in pending sales for June. That's the message delivered by Lyon Real Estate. However, inventory is up about 8% and sales are down by 2%. The average per-square-foot price also dropped by 2% to $125. The reporter asked me to comment on our market stabilization in Sacramento. Much as I would like to paint a rosy picture of the real estate market in Sacramento, I have to call it the way I … (11 comments)
home buyer tax credit: Do You Spend More Time Buying a Car Than Choosing a Mortgage?
- 06/01/10 02:45 AM
A survey released last month by Zillow showed consumers spend more time buying a car than shopping for a mortgage to buy a home. However, when you look closely at that survey, it makes sense. There might be more to buying a car than researching a mortgage. For one thing, you've got to decide on which car to buy. I think consumers start with the manufacturer, then they choose a model and, finally, they select options and discuss delivery dates. When choosing a mortgage, home buyers are buying a bag of money. All money is the same. It's the cost of … (17 comments)
home buyer tax credit: Mac Users Rejoice: Sacramento MLS Entered the 20th Century This Week
- 05/01/10 03:15 AM
Friday was the wrong day for techno glitches. First, ZIPforms would not recognize data fields on the signature lines. This means all those home buyers scrambling for the home buyer tax credit had to manually insert the date on their contracts. I thought I'd receive more offers on my listings than I received from buyers hoping to get into contract by April 30th. I managed to put another Sacramento short sale into contract yesterday but an offer on an Elk Grove short sale isn't likely to pan out. Second, MetroList, which is our Sacramento MLS, quietly announced it finally could be … (0 comments)
home buyer tax credit: Here is an Affordable Land Park Starter Home for $299,000
- 04/27/10 02:03 AM
On a side note, I hear the Federal Aviation Administration is urging airlines to adopt a no-distraction policy in their cockpits. They used the case of those Northwest pilots who flew past the Minneapolis / St. Paul airport because they were distracted by playing on their laptops. The FAA says pilots are increasingly using electronic devices in the cockpit such as cellphones and computers, which might cause pilots to take their eyes off of the clouds. I can see it now. A pilot Tweets: "Dude, did you know the polar ice caps are melting? Ten polar bears are sharing a block … (4 comments)
home buyer tax credit: How About a Land Park Home Priced Like a Short Sale But Owned by a Regular Seller?
- 04/21/10 01:42 AM
The only drawback to buying homes in Land Park situated on some of our block-long streets is that people who live on such short streets might not get fast pizza delivery. What? Where? How do you spell it? And even then the pizza delivery guy gets lost. On the bright side, these types of streets tend to receive only local traffic from the owners who live there. There is no through traffic. Little noise. Kids can play in the street if they want. In fact, when I shot the virtual tour for my new listing in Land Park, I stood out … (5 comments)
home buyer tax credit: You Might Be Able to Buy a California Short Sale and Get Both Home Buyer Tax Credits
- 04/09/10 02:32 AM
Apparently, there is a lot of confusion in Sacramento about the federal and state home buyer tax credits. Many buyers and some buyer's agents do not understand that a home buyer has this small window of opportunity to claim both of the tax credits. The trick to getting the $8,000 federal tax credit and the $10,000 state of California tax credit is to be in contract by April 30th and close by June 30th. Buyers who go into contract after April 30th may qualify only for the state tax credit. You probably have 2 questions. What does "going into contract" mean? … (6 comments)
home buyer tax credit: Short Sales Make Up 45% of the Pending Sales in the Sacramento Market
- 03/16/10 02:21 AM
I'm going to show you a chart, but it doesn't tell the entire story of the real estate market in Sacramento. It's just an overview. In fact, at first glance, an observer might come to the conclusion that sales are falling in Sacramento, but they aren't. The surprising tidbit in all of this is that pending short sales in Sacramento, which are not the active short contingent listings, make up almost half of the pending sales at 45%. These pending sales will morph into closed sales. Well, most of them. I have a pending short sale in Roseville right now that … (6 comments)
home buyer tax credit: Urban Life Awaits You -- Downtown Sacramento 3-Bedroom Home for $329,000
- 02/19/10 01:28 AM
Let me just come out and say there is nothing like this on the market in downtown Sacramento. Here is a unique opportunity to buy that 3-bedroom, 2-bath home your heart has been searching for at an affordable price. If you crave an urban lifestyle, this is the home for you. Of course, it sits across the street from multiple-family housing but what doesn't in downtown Sacramento? That's part of the lifestyle. You get a mix of rentals, sometimes commercial, among residential homes. That's what attracts urban buyers to downtown. Urban buyers want to live close to work, shopping and restaurants. … (6 comments)
home buyer tax credit: Don't Rush to Put Your Home on the Market in Land Park
- 01/04/10 02:08 AM
The year of 2010 is starting out very busy. I thought this weekend would be fairly quiet, but I guess as people sat around watching football or perhaps recovering from New Year's Eve activities, they started to think about buying and selling real estate in Sacramento. That's because I received a ton of phone calls: Should I list my Sacramento short sale now? Can I afford to buy a home before the first-time home buyer tax credit expires? When is a good time to put homes in Land Park on the market? Should I fix up my home or sell as … (10 comments)
home buyer tax credit: Will The First-Time Home Buyer Tax Credit Vanish on November 30th?
- 10/26/09 02:28 AM
People wonder what it's like to be self-employed. Having freedom from a boss is often quoted as one of the reasons that real estate agents go into the business. An associate in Sacramento says that being her own boss means that she's free to choose any block of 12 hours out of the day to work. It's not unusual for busy, full-time agents in today's market to put in 16 to 18 hours a day. I often start work at 5 AM. It's quiet. I can answer emails and questions from my About.com homebuying site. It's also when I write my … (27 comments)
home buyer tax credit: Why Do Military Home Buyers in Sacramento Get the Short End of the Stick With a VA Loan?
- 10/21/09 01:50 AM
Every so often, I have the pleasure of working with a home buyer who plans to use a VA loan to buy a home in Sacramento. VA buyers aren't as plentiful in the neighborhoods where I primarily work such as Land Park, Curtis Park, Midtown Sacramento or East Sacramento, which is why I don't write very many offers for VA buyers. It's not like it was in the mid-1970s when the odds of writing a VA offer were 1 in 3. I think the last VA buyer I worked with was maybe 2 years ago. And she ended up buying a … (12 comments)
home buyer tax credit: Last-Minute Home Buying Shoppers Hit the Sacramento Market
- 10/01/09 02:00 AM
It's almost like the week before Christmas in Sacramento. Home buyers are hitting the streets and their computers, frantically trying to buy a home before the deadline for the first-time home buyer tax credit expires on November 30th. In all reality, they do have a few weeks to get into escrow. A few Sacramento home buyers called me yesterday. John, we'll call him, announced, "Hello, I am a new client." Oh, you are, are you? He was very earnest and sweet. I smiled. John had signed up on my web site the night before. I had sent him an email asking … (5 comments)
home buyer tax credit: Some Sacramento Short Sale Agents Note in the Listing: Bank of America
- 09/26/09 02:42 AM
Most Sacramento short sale agents have worked on a Bank of America short sale at some point in their career. They know the challenges this type of short sale presents. In fact, some agents I know refuse to even list a property that involves Bank of America. There are different problems if the loan was originated by Countrywide and other nasty surprises in store if Bank of America holds the second loan. I have heard that Bank of America is reorganizing its procedures for handling short sales. A short sale agent told me last week that Bank of America is no … (11 comments)
home buyer tax credit: A Wave of Sacramento Foreclosures Are Coming to the Market in October
- 09/22/09 02:03 AM
I sort of feel like a modern day Paul Revere. As though I should lower the top on my car and go racing throughout Sacramento with a bullhorn screaming, "The foreclosures are coming, the foreclosures are coming." But why? Why, when I can write a blog about it instead? REO agents in my office have reported an uptick in foreclosure listings. They are busy cleaning out the trash from these homes and preparing them for sale. Our FAX machines are buzzing, paperwork is flying. Could it be that after waiting for months and months, pecking like a starving chicken through limited … (10 comments)
home buyer tax credit: My Land Park Yard Gets a Makeover -- New Sod and Walkway -- Day 1
- 08/26/09 01:37 AM
My work days lately have been brutal and long. It's that first-time home buyer tax credit that is partly responsible for fueling the unrelenting activity in Sacramento's real estate market, so I often find myself doing 3 things at once, on top of balancing new projects. An agent called yesterday about one of my short sale listings. He said his buyer was in Spain, but I heard him say that his buyer was insane. "Yeah, yeah, to some extent they all are," I replied. No, he really is in Spain. "Oh, I believe you, buyers are crazy mad," I laughed. The … (9 comments)
home buyer tax credit: Why Sellers Should List that Sacramento Short Sale in August Over September
- 08/14/09 02:04 AM
My watch stopped working last week, followed by a dead remote for my car. I was forced to wear an old wind-up watch and stick my ignition key into my car door to lock it. The horrors, right? How spoiled we get. I've been so busy listing and selling Sacramento short sales that I didn't have time to get new batteries much less figure out what kind of batteries I needed to get. Now, don't laugh, but my first solution was to go online and just buy a new watch. That was easiest. I looked at Macy's web site and found … (8 comments)
home buyer tax credit: Home Buyer Tax Credit Can be Applied to Your 2008 Tax Return
- 03/04/09 01:08 AM
Buy a home in 2009 before December 1, and the IRS says you can apply that $8,000 first-time home buyer credit to your 2008 taxes. IRS has revised its Form 5405, which you can access on the IRS.gov web site.Of course, if you want to apply the credit to your 2009 tax return when you file next year, that's permissible as well. But some home buyers might prefer to offset their tax liability for 2008, and this is a good way to do it. It all depends on whether you want the big tax refund in 2009 or 2010.Qualified home buyers … (15 comments)
home buyer tax credit: Senate Approves $15,000 Tax Break for Home Buyers
- 02/04/09 12:48 PM
This is exciting -- the Senate today voted on the economic stimulus package and approved a tax credit for up to 10% of the purchase price with a maximum of $15,000 for home buyers. It's an amended version of what the House passed, which means it still needs to go to committee. But this is double the amount of the present tax credit which, at the moment, isn't really a tax credit at all but instead an interest-free 15-year loan. President Obama is behind this big time. Doesn't look like the Republicans are as enthusiastic, but they are in the minority. … (32 comments)
Broker-Associate at RE/MAX Gold, Midtown and Sierra Oaks Sacramento office. Co-partner Weintraub & Wallace Realtors. Selling since 1974. Homebuying expert at The Balance. Weintraub & Wallace sells homes from Galt to Lincoln. <
Author Bio: Elizabeth Weintraub is a Sacramento real estate broker, author, home buying expert for The Balance, a Land Park resident, who specializes not only in older, classic homes in Land Park, Curtis Park, Midtown and East Sacramento but sells extensively from Elk Grove to Lincoln. Weintraub is prominently known as the #1 Sacramento Short Sale agent throughout the Sacramento four-county area. Call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759. Put 40+ years of real estate experience to work for you.
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