Mankato Real Estate Soapbox >> by the Mankato Real Estate Guy

It's Almost Midnight, Folks!

Jim Scheller - ABR, SRS, e-Pro, GRI (Bridge Realty - Mankato) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 04:35:44 -0700

No, I don't mean the end of the world or the start of nuclear hostilities. I mean the end of the First Time Homebuyer Tax Credit, which is set to expire December 1 of this year.

To have a realistic chance of closing in time, you need to get your home under contract (have a purchase agreement signed by both parties and in hand, that is) in the next week or so. Banks and the appraisers working for them are going to be so busy from now on, closing times will be hard to come by. If you aren't working with a top-notch lender, you might want to think about changing. Or at least check in with him or her to make sure the time frame is still realistic from their point of view.

Talk to your favorite realtor NOW. Hopefully someone like yours truly whom you've come to trust and rely on.

Go get 'em, tiger!

Who wants $8,000? Who wants it sooner than later??

Jim Scheller - ABR, SRS, e-Pro, GRI (Bridge Realty - Mankato) — Tue, 05 May 2009 18:16:58 -0700

There is, indeed, an $8,000 tax credit waiting for all first-time homebuyers who buy their home between January 1st and December 1st of this year. So if you have never owned a home (or have not owned one in the last three years) you may qualify for this tax credit when tax time rolls around next year.

Just what is a credit? As opposed to a deduction (which is a reduction in the amount of income which is taxed), a credit is an actual reduction in the amount of tax you pay. If you owe less in taxes than the credit is worth, you get the extra back in the form of a check or direct deposit.

Here's an example: next February after the Super Bowl when you sit down to do your taxes you find you owe the IRS $1500 in total taxes for 2008. "Crap" you say, or something to that effect. Then you smack your forehead, say "Hey! I almost forgot! I bought a house last year!", sink back into your chair, and have another pretzel and swig of beer, smiling. Because you bought that house, instead of you paying the IRS $1500, the IRS pays you $6500! Sweet.

There are some conditions, though. Here's the actual Form 5405 First Time Homebuyer Credit which has everything you need to know about qualifying and filing for your $8,000.

GET YOUR REFUND NOW!

Here's what might be the most important thing: the 2008 Form 1040 has a line for the First Time Homebuyer Credit (line 69). So even if you already filed your 2008 return, you can file an amended form, include the $8,000 credit, and get your check right away! You don't need to wait until 2010.

Life is good, no?

Call or email me, and we can talk about how to best go about buying your first home so you can take advantage of $8,000 right away! (Not to mention great prices and low home loan interest rates!!)

507-317-0177 or jim@MankatoHomesOnline.com

218 Record St. Mankato - Price Drop!

Jim Scheller - ABR, SRS, e-Pro, GRI (Bridge Realty - Mankato) — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 11:48:20 -0700

Jim | Nu Star Realty of Mankato | jim@mankatohomesonline.com | 507-317-0177

218 Record St., Mankato, MN

The perfect home for making new friends, entertaining old ones, and kicking back when you're finished.

3BR/1.5BA Single Family House

offered at $144,500

Year Built	1922
Sq Footage	2,031
Bedrooms	3
Bathrooms	1 full, 1 partial
Floors	2
Parking	Unspecified
Lot Size	3,600 sqft
HOA/Maint	$0 per month

DESCRIPTION

In summer, Marlene will miss her front porch (and perennial garden) most; in winter, entertaining friends in front of the fireplace or escaping to the sunny library for quiet reading. This welcoming home is centrally located and has the charm of an older remodeled home which captures the imagination with its lovely dark oak, lots of windows, and solid character. This house is designed for comfort and livability. Lots of updates.

Qualified Buyers get an $8,000 tax credit!

see additional photos below

PROPERTY FEATURES

Central A/C	Central heat	Hardwood floor
Family room	Living room	Office/Den
Dining room	Breakfast nook	Refrigerator
Stove/Oven	Basement	Washer
Dryer	Laundry area - inside	Yard

OTHER SPECIAL FEATURES

Centrally located, within easy walking distance of food, gas, schools, churches, and downtown!

ADDITIONAL PHOTOS

dining room	living room
Craftsman detail	kitchen
front of home	front garden

Contact info:

Jim

Nu Star Realty of Mankato

jim@mankatohomesonline.com

507-317-0177

For sale by agent/broker

Equal Opportunity Housing

Posted: Apr 29, 2009, 8:44am PDT

Help your Buyer find your home - online!

Jim Scheller - ABR, SRS, e-Pro, GRI (Bridge Realty - Mankato) — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 00:41:16 -0700

The last I heard, the official percentage of buyers looking online for homes was 84%. That's a lot of internet seekers! It's also why I focus so much of my efforts on attracting those buyers to my site, and why I've worked so hard to get www.MankatoHomesOnline.com onto the first page of Google search results for the most important search terms Buyers use.

So when someone searches Google for terms like these:

Mankato real estate (the most popular, by the way)
Mankato homes for sale
Mankato houses for sale
Real estate in Mankato
Real estate in Mankato MN
Homes for sale in Mankato
Homes for sale in Mankato MN
Houses for sale in Mankato
Houses for sale in Mankato MN
Realtors in Mankato

they will find my site on the first results page. (Many other ther search engines like Yahoo,com, Ask.com, and AOL.com get similar results.)

What does that mean to you? I get your home much more web exposure than the average Joe Realtor who simply puts your home on the local MLS, a sign in your yard, and hopes.

And that's just the beginning! More info in future blogs... keep watching.

So if you're thinking of selling your Mankato real estate, think of web exposure for your listing, and think of www.MankatoHomesOnline.com.

Jim Scheller
Nu Star Realty of Mankato

Visit my website: http://MankatoHomesOnline.com

In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of ... home buying!

Jim Scheller - ABR, SRS, e-Pro, GRI (Bridge Realty - Mankato) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 10:58:03 -0700

Spring is of course the time when more people begin looking for homes than any other, at least in Minnesota. Especially if you're a young man thinking of low interest rates, many affordable homes available, and $8,000 in pocket money when tax time comes next year! Oh, to be young again, and free!

You do have to be a first-time home buyer to qualify for that eight grand, but still. Happily the government defined s first-time home buyer as a person who has not previously owned a home or a person who has not owned a home in the previous three years! Very nice.

And what's the latest in loan (mortgage) rates? If you're in the Mankato area with good credit, rates less than 5% are available. Here's a link to find out more: http://www.bankrate.com/ (Check the national overnight averages, or plug in your zip code to get more localized information.)

As far as the number of homes goes, well, there was a page and a half of foreclosure notices in the paper this morning. Even though there is talk of the economy picking up in some sectors, it looks like there will still be a steady stream of foreclosed homes coming onto the Mankato real estate market, in addition to all the homeowners who simply want to sell for reasons of their own. There's no lack of homes to choose from!

Visit my website: http://MankatoHomesOnline.com

A word to the wise (Buyer):

Jim Scheller - ABR, SRS, e-Pro, GRI (Bridge Realty - Mankato) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:10:42 -0700

Realtors are professionals, and many of them have been around doing deals for many, many years. They probably have an idea of which lenders, inspectors, appraisers, and closers in the area are solid and which you might want to think twice about using.

Take the time to get the advice of your Realtor when deciding about these things. At least get your Realtor's opinion while your getting the opinions of your friends, neighbors, relatives and everyone else.

You may be glad you did.

Climbing Google with Karen

Jim Scheller - ABR, SRS, e-Pro, GRI (Bridge Realty - Mankato) — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 03:43:18 -0700

I'm sure you know of Karen George, a delightful AR poster and SEO specialist. She wrote a couple of blog entries about tags for blogs. Here they are: Part one, and part two.

These seem like very good ideas to me, but a question raised in one of the comments to these posts was never answered that I could see: is there some way to delete tags from the tags list here on activerain?

I made the same mistake Karen did, and would like to edit down my list of tags... can I do so?

Your replies are appreciated.

By the way, Karen George's blog is a serious resource. If you haven't already taken a look, you should. She has lots of SEO tips I have never seen before (although I'm not an expert by any means), and she wrote wonderfully.

Rule of 100 for investors

Jim Scheller - ABR, SRS, e-Pro, GRI (Bridge Realty - Mankato) — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 12:09:12 -0700

This was suggested by a real estate investor friend of mine. Using rental information, this is a quick way to evaluate whether a property is worth looking at any further. After checking out the idea while doing my own analysis of rental properties for myself and my clients, I found it to be pretty accurate.

Here's what you do: take the amount of monthly rent the property brings in and multiply that by 100. If the price is at or below that number, you might want to take the time to look further into whether the property will cashflow or otherwise meet your investing goals. Usually if the price is much higher than that the property won't make much sense and you don't need to spend the time or energy analyzing it.

Having said that, when interest rates are low, the multiplier should probably change to reflect the lowered cost of money. I haven't thought about it before, and I'm not in a position to run any numbers at the moment, but I would imagine you might safely raise the multiplier to 110 or so and be safe. After all, it is just intended to be a quick rule of thumb, after all.

Hopefully that will be of some value to those of you interested in investing in rental real estate.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, the Rolling Stones." REOs, Mick, and you

Jim Scheller - ABR, SRS, e-Pro, GRI (Bridge Realty - Mankato) — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 14:47:03 -0700

"When the Lord gets ready, you gotta move!" You might remember these lyrics from a song by Mississippi Fred McDowell. Or you might remember the way the Mick Jagger and company sang them. As memorable as that song is, if you're an Buyer looking at REOs, you might want to remember them as a reminder about what to do when good bank properties come onto the market.

I just had a call from an investor to whom I've been automatically sending listings for new bank properties. He got this new REO listing notification yesterday, and called me just now to go see it. Well, today is all of day number three on the market, and after getting in touch with the listing agent, I had to call and tell him it was effectively sold already. Ouch.

(I'm sure you can do this with your MLS. If you're not already sending listings to your contacts, or if you know you can but haven't taken the time to figure out how to do it already, then you should sit down right now and take care of it. This single capability has been a godsend to me. I've increased the number of Buyer contacts I'm "working with" exponentially with this tool. You can make it work for you as well.)

The moral of the story is that if you think a house may be a good deal, someone else probably will too, and you better make darn sure you get over there to take a look just as soon as you possibly can. And while you're at it, try to either

•· have an approval letter ready to go or be able to get one immediately from your lender if you'll be financing your purchase with a conventional loan, or

•· have a proof of funds letter from your bank ready to submit with your purchase agreement if you're paying cash.

Sometimes banks will entertain offers for a few days, and ask all interested parties to submit a "highest and best" offer by a certain date and time, but as my story today proves, you certainly can't count on it.

Good luck!

Contract for Deed - a summary of points

Jim Scheller - ABR, SRS, e-Pro, GRI (Bridge Realty - Mankato) — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 07:43:05 -0700

If you've been following my series on Contracts for Deed, you've seen quite a bit of information come your way. Here's a quick summary:

•· A contract for deed is another way of buying a house, but with the seller providing the financing for the buyer instead of a bank or other lender.

•· Because the seller is doing the financing, and because he probably doesn't want to be in that position, you will probably have to pay for the privilege of buying his house.

•· That means a higher price than you might otherwise pay, and a higher interest rate than banks are offering. Sometimes a significantly higher rate.

•· You may have your credit checked before the seller agrees to finance you.

•· You will also have to get the seller out of the deal when the balloon payment is due, or sometime before. You'll most likely do that by refinancing, but you could also do that by selling the house for enough to pay him off.

•· That's one of the main reasons to buy on a contract for deed: it is easier for someone who already owns a home to get it refinanced than it is for that person to get financing to buy the house in the first place.

•· The worst thing from the seller's point of view is to get his house back from you in terrible shape. In order to keep that from happening, you will need to provide a substantial down payment. Part of this will be to pay his Realtor's commission, if he used one, and the rest will be insurance: the more money you have in the deal, the less likely you are to either cut and run or let the house fall into disrepair.

•· You will be responsible for paying for repairs, insurance, taxes, etc. It is your house.

•· If you're thinking of entering a Contract for Deed as a buyer, you should have your attorney review the document. Better would be to have your attorney prepare the contract, but that may be problematic.

There you have it. I probably missed some important and obvious points, but at the moment they are not coming to mind.

Good luck with your new home!

Two important things to know about Mankato

Jim Scheller - ABR, SRS, e-Pro, GRI (Bridge Realty - Mankato) — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 12:49:04 -0700

First, a bit of history: after following a high school flame to Minnesota, I ended up living in the Twin Cities for many years before going east to find a wife and a guru before returning to the frigid north. I had the chance to move to Mankato to open the first Barnes & Noble store there as Manager, and I took it.

Two important things I discovered about Mankato:

there is almost no traffic, and
you can see the stars.

After living in big cities full of cars and light pollution for a long time, I found these discoveries to be quite refreshing. I hope that when you move to a new location, you find something equally refreshing.

To open or not to open? That is the question.

Jim Scheller - ABR, SRS, e-Pro, GRI (Bridge Realty - Mankato) — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 12:07:59 -0700

Are you getting ready to sell your house? Or do you already have it on the market? I bet one of the things you expect of your real estate agent is an open house, or maybe even a series of open houses. This is a common expectation, but it may not be the best thing for you or your sales prospects.

Why? Well, according to the National Association of Realtors, the chance of actually selling your house through an open house is very small. I've heard either two or four percent, and the smaller percent was a more recent reference. Whichever is right, the percentage is tiny. If that's the case, who benefits from an open house?

The realtor, usually. Although you spend time cleaning and getting the house ready only to be kicked out of your house for a few hours, the agent is the one who profits by getting the chance to meet new buyer prospects. Granted, he or she has to pay for an ad or two in the local paper to get people to show up (although I've had open houses people came to just following some directional signs), but the benefits seldom go to the homeowner.

I will say, though, that if the realtor does his job well, he or she will make it a point to invite the neighbors so that they will know your house is for sale and have a pretty good idea of what your house is like inside. Neighbors can be the best referrals - they may know someone at work or have family that might want to live close, for example.

So should you expect your agent to have open houses? Maybe, if they're looking for buyers. But don't expect a sale to result.

If I was selling my home, would I have an open house? Nope.

400th Subscriber to the Late Night group. Sweet.

Jim Scheller - ABR, SRS, e-Pro, GRI (Bridge Realty - Mankato) — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 01:03:34 -0700

Hey! I just found out about you people and thought it would be a perfect group to join. Most of my posting happens after midnight, after all. I look forward to hearing what other late-nighters have to say.

Regards!

Contract for Deed (part four) >> Down payment

Jim Scheller - ABR, SRS, e-Pro, GRI (Bridge Realty - Mankato) — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 14:26:56 -0700

It's been a while since we talked about I contracts for deed, and now the time has come to talk about the down payment you might need if you buy on a contract.

The things you need to keep in mind when buying a home on a contract for deed are the seller's costs and other interests. If the seller has his home listed with a Realtor, then he will owe his agent their commission. (Buying a home on a Contract for Deed is the same as buying it with any other financing.) That's a big one. So if you're buying a $150,000 house on a contract and the seller has an agreement to pay, say 5% commission, then you will need at least $7,500 to cover this cost.

The seller of any house will have other closing costs as well, but they will typically be minimal.

The other major interest the seller will have is the safety of his investment, namely, the house you're buying. He will want to know that you will take good care of it, and the way to show that is by putting money down. The more money you put down, the more you have invested, the greater the stake you have in the house, the better he'll feel. He doesn't want you to neglect the house or, worse, walk away from the contract.

So you'll have to come up with a substantial amount of money to buy a home on a contract for deed, just as you would if you were buying a home with normal financing. How much depends, of course, but I would not be surprised if the seller required seven, eight, or even ten percent down.

But don't forget: outside his costs to close (commission, etc.) everything is negotiable.

Robins in Winter, the follow-up

Jim Scheller - ABR, SRS, e-Pro, GRI (Bridge Realty - Mankato) — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 03:55:14 -0700

It turns out that where we are, in southern Minnesota, robins do over-winter. We are in a chunk of their range where robins stay put. Or maybe the robins we see in winter here came from somewhere up in Canada or Alaska, the northern parts of their summer range, while the robins we see in the summer took off south themselves when the days grew short.

I wonder if anyone has ever tagged robins with radio transmitters to answer that question? My robin research can only go so far, so don't count on me for that answer!

However, there is a cool site Cornell Lab of Ornithology has put together which seems pretty definitive about robins and North American birds in general: http://www.birds.cornell.edu/

All About Birds by the same folks seems like it would be especially useful for school aged kids (who tend to soak up all kinds of information) with an interest in birds. When my kids were little and we were homeschooling them, the internet wasn't as prominent as it is now. But if it had been, we would definitely have bookmarked this site.

ch-ch-ch-changes

Jim Scheller - ABR, SRS, e-Pro, GRI (Bridge Realty - Mankato) — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 03:15:48 -0700

If you have been checking on my blog for the last couple of weeks on my site www.MankatoHomesOnline.com, you will undoubtedly notice the fact that the look of my blog changed dramatically yesterday. That's because it's an RSS feed from activerain, a site for real estate professionals.

Before yesterday, I had only a vague idea of what an RSS feed is. I now know enough to be dangerous and to put it on my Mankato real estate site's blog page.

You can't make comments on my website, but you can come back to my blog on activerain to make any kind of comment you like there. I hope that if you find something helpful you'll let me know. Likewise if you take issue with something I've written. That's what makes life interesting, after all.

In the meantime, I wish you all well. Oh, and by the way, this RSS feed thing also has a cool feature: you can subscribe to my blog and get updates automatically. I would like you to do this. So if you are inclined, please take the critical step and head to my blog on activerain, look for the <Subscribe> button, and click it.

Many thanks.

Your own font! Really! For a measly nine bucks!

Jim Scheller - ABR, SRS, e-Pro, GRI (Bridge Realty - Mankato) — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 03:02:29 -0700

You heard it here first, or maybe you heard about it from Karen the AZ Home Loan Lady like I did. In any case, this is worth passing along: there is a site out there with software that will allow you to create your own font that, theoretically, will look like your own handwriting! As a Realtor, I think it would be great to have my own font so I could type out an address on an envelope and have it look like I wrote it longhand.

(Marketing studies show people open envelopes addressed personally much more often than they do those that are not. They also will open envelopes written with blue ink more often than other colors too. That may be more than you care to know about how far marketing people will go to increase their chances to get their envelopes opened, but the lure of making money... In fact, I saved an article from somewhere about the 13 fallacies about marketing envelopes on my desktop. As a marketer, I actually found it very interesting! If you think you will too, email me and I'll send it to you.)

You download their form, write your letters in the boxes, upload the form, and you can preview the font before you buy it. If you like it, you hand over all of $9.00 and you can download it for your own use.

I see a potential problem with this idea: if you look carefully at all the "handwriting" fonts out there, you will see that the letters are crafted so that they join up when they are next to each other. I don't know about you, but my writing surely doesn't do that. Not in any way, shape, or form.

But if that doesn't deter you, here's the link: http://www.fontifier.com/signature.html

They just introduced a cool feature, though, that I might take advantage of: instead of uploading letters, you can upload your signature, pictures, sayings, greetings, or anything else you might like to add to an email, memo, or whatever to make it look more personal or folksy.

Now that's cool. You can do the same thing, by the way, if you have a notebook computer that allows you to write on it and assorted software to create a jpeg, which is what I've done for my own signature, but if you don't have the notebook and the Adobe Acrobat and Photoshop or whatever, for nine bucks you can't beat it.

Nobody profits monetarily from recommending Fontifier except the Fontifier people. Just so you know.

Contract for Deed (part three) >> More on amortization, plus interest rates

Jim Scheller - ABR, SRS, e-Pro, GRI (Bridge Realty - Mankato) — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 02:51:34 -0700

Time to cover another important number, but first a regression to yesterday's topic.

As I said in part two of this series on contracts for deed, as the Seller of some fine Mankato real estate, I wouldn't go for anything but a standard 30 year amortization schedule with a two or three year balloon unless there were special circumstances. But that doesn't mean you, as the Buyer, shouldn't make the attempt to negotiate the terms. There are no rules that state that a contract for deed needs to be written this way or that way. The thing about contracts is that they basically commit to paper what two people or two parties have agreed about. It's conceivable you could buy a home on a contract and have the entire amount of your monthly payment go towards the house and not pay any interest at all! It would probably take some serious convincing on your part, or you might just be in the right place at the right time to find someone who is feeling extremely generous to buy from, or maybe you'll buy from someone who should have spoken to their lawyer or financial planner before agreeing to your terms, or maybe you're buying from your mother. But that is life. If you get a good deal, I'm not the one to say you shouldn't take it. You have to be able to sleep at night, though, so think it through.

Now, having said that, we can get on to the topic at hand: the interest rate on your loan.

We'll now assume that you, as the Buyer, will be paying me, the Seller, according to a 30 year amortization schedule with a three year balloon payment at the end. I want the interest rate on my loan to you to be higher than the going rates for a regular bank loan for a couple of reasons:

· I'm not a bank, and I don't have systems set up to deal with losses associated with problem properties. I just have me and my bank account. That means that I will want to see more cash flow to allow me to protect myself if you should begin, for whatever reason, to stop paying your monthly payment. Banks have lots of money; I don't, so I want to have more in case of emergencies.

· If you're paying a comparatively high interest rate to me, it will encourage you to refinance with a bank or other lender to pay a lower interest rate. And when you do, I'll be out of the deal.

Normally, I will want you to pay anywhere up to 3% more on our contract. (But that's negotiable. Sound familiar?) 3% plus the going rate these days (5%) equals 8%, but you talk me down and we agree on 7.5%.

Next time: Down payments.

Contract for Deed (part two) >> Amortization and Balloons

Jim Scheller - ABR, SRS, e-Pro, GRI (Bridge Realty - Mankato) — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 02:44:15 -0700

Before we get to the actual balloon payment, I want to talk about amortization schedules. In my contract with you, I'm going to insist on a regular amortization the way a bank would. None of that "Every $800 payment will be $200 towards the house and $600 interest"* stuff for me. That works out for you as the Buyer much better than a regular amortization schedule would, so I'm not going for it. Besides, regular amortization schedules are standard for contracts for deeds. With every payment you make the amount of principal paid will go up while the amount of interest will go down. (This is a link to my favorite amortization calculator, and you can use it to see how amortization works if you're not already familiar with the concept.)

[*However, if I was in your position as the Buyer, I'd definitely suggest that kind of payment arrangement to the Seller! Worth a shot.]

So what is a balloon payment, anyway? A balloon payment is a single payment when all the rest of the money owed on the contract is owed all at once. Yep, every penny.

So the date the balloon payment is due becomes a major deadline for you. By the time the balloon payment gets here, two or three years from now (or whatever length of time we agreed on) you will have to get your hands on a large enough amount of money to pay me off. Usually, the only way to do that is to refinance your home loan, typically with a bank or other commercial lender. So between now and then you had better be working on getting your credit situation in order! That's actually one of two main reasons to sell on a contract for deed:

· you get some time to fix whatever credit problems you might have so you can get a regular mortgage with a regular bank, and

· it's easier to refinance your home (the house you are buying from me is your house, just like anyone else who buys a house with regular financing) once you own it and have made payments for a while than it is to finance it in the first place.

So if you're careful with your credit you should be able to refinance when the time comes. If you can't, you are in danger of losing the house altogether, but that's a subject for another time.

Any questions on balloon payments?

Next up: your interest rate.

Contract for Deed (part one) >> The Basics

Jim Scheller - ABR, SRS, e-Pro, GRI (Bridge Realty - Mankato) — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 02:40:35 -0700

In Minnesota, contracts for deed are called contracts for deed, obviously, but elsewhere they might be called land contracts or installment sale contracts.

So, your credit isn't the greatest, and you've heard a contract for deed might be a good idea, but you don't really know what they're about. To illustrate, let's pretend you will be buying my house on a contract for deed.

Instead of you having a loan with a bank, I will be your banker instead. Why would I do that? First, I want to sell this house that you want to buy. That's a good thing. The down side is that your credit is bad enough that you can't get a loan from a bank. So that means if I want to sell you my house, I have to provide the financing for you until you can get a loan from a bank. Usually there will be a balloon payment in two, three, four or five years, although it could be anything. I could even give you a contract that lasts thirty years, just like a regular bank, although I wouldn't. I need to have you out of my life long before that. Nothing personal, it's just that I'm not a bank, and I don't want to be. That's why there will be a balloon payment when you buy from me (or most other Sellers).

Next: the balloon payment.

Robins, spring, and people buying!

Jim Scheller - ABR, SRS, e-Pro, GRI (Bridge Realty - Mankato) — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 02:11:08 -0700

(I originally posted this entry on www.MankatoHomesOnline.com March 16, 2009)

The other day I decided that winter was over. (Just after we had the last cold front move out, that is.) Now we're seeing sixty degree days and a nice south wind to dry things out. It won't be long before the farmers can get out into their fields. Life is good.

Along with the temperature, it seems buyers' collective interest is heating up. We've had lots of people come to open houses, and I've had buyers call me to look at places they've been eyeing for a while online. One set even coming from California! (Don't you love the internets?)

So, what does that mean for you?

If you're a buyer, get out there NOW, because there are a lot of you starting to look at Mankato real estate. Real estate outside Mankato, too. (Check out my $5,000 Buyer Savings Guarantee.)

If you're a seller, you might want to put your home on the market sooner than later to catch some of this springtime enthusiasm. Buyers love real estate in the spring. (Don't forget, I have an Easy-Exit Listing Agreement, and some of the best online marketing around.)

And this morning I saw my first robin! But the person I was showing a house to told me that, actually, robins don't really go anywhere during the winter, that they just hang out in sloughs with lots of tall grass. He said he sees them in his backyard all winter long.

I guess I'm not sure what I think about that. Robins heralding spring is pretty traditional, after all.

Maybe I'll google <robins in winter> and see what I can find out. I'll let you know.

Too many houses spoiling the broth? Not if you're a buyer! Market saturation in the Mankato marketplace

Jim Scheller - ABR, SRS, e-Pro, GRI (Bridge Realty - Mankato) — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 02:03:11 -0700

When it comes to the price attached to a home for sale, buyers and sellers are looking for opposite things. Sellers want to sell their home for as much money as possible. Buyers want to pay as little as possible for their new home. Who wins? It depends on the state of the market: how many homes are available, and how many buyers are looking? Market saturation is the term relating those two numbers.

An average market is considered to be one in which there are roughly three to six months worth of homes on the market. That means that if no more homes came on the market, it would take three to six months for the Buyers who are looking to buy all the homes available. The market saturation is three to six months.

Much less than that and you have a Seller's market, in which Sellers generally have more say in a home's sale price than Buyers. An example of an extreme Seller's market was in the early 2000's, when homes in some parts of the country (including some in the Twin Cities) sold so quickly that in some cases a Seller had multiple offers before their home hit the MLS. At that time the market saturation was probably three weeks or less.

Let's talk Mankato real estate now. The Mankato/North Mankato real estate market is about as far from a Seller's market as it can be. At the moment we have a little over 12 months worth of inventory on our hands. This is a serious Buyer's market, and looks to stay that way for a while.

Happily spring is on the way, and we should see more closings in the coming months than we saw in the last few. That will help with our numbers.

If you want to take advantage, give me a call.

Curb appeal face-lifts pay off big time!

Jim Scheller - ABR, SRS, e-Pro, GRI (Bridge Realty - Mankato) — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 01:59:14 -0700

Spring is coming, and now is the time to give you home's chances of selling a shot in the arm.

A study done recently by the University of Michigan showed that increasing a home's "Curb Appeal" increased home value by anywhere from six to eleven percent! That's huge.

Here's a good way to look at it: Let's say you have home you're thinking of selling, and it's worth $200,000 in today's market. You know the yard and the front of the house could look better, but you never knew it could mean so much to your pocketbook. You call me up, I give you a couple of ideas and the names of good contractors, and you find you'd need to spend $10,000 to get this work done (assuming you don't do any of the work yourself to save even more) and make the home look absolutely tops from the street. (And on the web, where this can be your home's biggest draw.)

Is it worth it? If you just increased your home's value by the six percent minimum, that's in increase in the eventual sales price of $12,000, meaning you picked up $2,000. If you top out at the eleven percent maximum, you gained an extra $22,000 in sales price, netting you an extra $12,000. So if you stand to make $2,000 at worst, and pick up $12,000 at best, why wouldn't you?

And here's another point: if you do nothing, your home may sell quickly or it might not, no matter how much you market it. In this kind of market, it's not unusual for a home owner to have to take a price cut eventually, sometimes for much more than $10,000. Doesn't it make more sense, now that warmer weather is coming, to spend some money now instead of taking a price cut (or two or three) after the home's been on the market for a few months?

You decide to give it a shot: you bite the bullet, but you don't want to go crazy. You decide to spend $7,500. Your home still looks a ton better than it did before, and I capture that in my photos and video of you home (which I put on youTube and link everywhere...). Because of this, even though you increased the list price from $199,900 to $219,900, your home sells within 30 days for $209,000.

You didn't quite make the six percent threshold, but you did clear $1,500 more than you spent on the upgrade, and your Mankato home sold quickly to boot!

I'd say it's worth it. BUT, you need to take advantage of good marketing to make it happen; if Buyers don't see your home, it will have been a waste of time and money. That's where I come in. I make sure Mankato Buyers see your home, and lots of them.

Call today to find out about my extensive web marketing reach. And think about upgrading your home's curb appeal! It can pay off.

How the $8,000 tax credit for first time homebuyer works; an example

Jim Scheller - ABR, SRS, e-Pro, GRI (Bridge Realty - Mankato) — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 01:55:00 -0700

Now that the stimulus package is in place, you can count on getting the $8,000 tax credit if you are a first time homeowner (definition: either you never owned a home or you haven't owned one for three years) when tax time rolls around next year. You will be eligible for a tax credit equal to 10% of the value of your home purchase, up to a maximum of $8,000. Unlike the 2008 housing bill this tax credit will not be repayable. So that means that you will get a direct reduction of the actual amount of tax you owe of your eligible tax credit, and if you have any left over, you will receive a check for that amount from the government. Here's how it might work:

You are just starting to look around, but this whole tax credit thing sounds good. You like the area so Mankato real estate is what you decide you're after. You decide you like the Mankato MLS Map Search on my site, so you go to www.MankatoHomesOnline.com and look around a bit for a four-bedroom home. You decide you could use one for you and your spouse, one for each of the girls, and one for your home office.

You find a few likely candidates, give me a call, we figure out your status with your lender, and go out looking. Together we find just the Mankato house for you and we put in an offer. After a bit of negotiating, we come to a price and terms amenable to all the Principals involved.

The inspection and appraisal both come back okay, and you close on your new home successfully in the next month or two. Time to unpack! You love your house and your new neighborhood, the months fly by, and sooner than you can say "Jack Frost" it's Christmas. Then tax time. You breathe a sigh of relief, because the Mankato house you bought in 2009 is going to make this a very good spring indeed.

You take your taxes to your tax person, or you buy some software, or you just sit down and crunch your numbers. Turns out you owe Uncle Sam $5,200 dollars for 2009.

However, and this is a big however, you paid $179,000 for your new Mankato house (which you thought was a steal), and your income is not high enough for the reduced eligibility to kick in, so you qualify for the entire $8,000 tax credit.

The money your employer took from your paychecks for Federal taxes totalled $4,800, so the net amount you would have owed to the IRS if you had not bought your new home would have been $400 ($5,200 - $4,800). Instead, the government writes you a check for $7,600. Not taxable, not anything. Spend it (as the President would have you do), save it, or put it against your credit cards. Whatever.

The point is, you can do anything you want with this money. And you can only get it if you buy a home in 2009.

Give me a call.

What's better? To blog on your own site or on activerain?

Jim Scheller - ABR, SRS, e-Pro, GRI (Bridge Realty - Mankato) — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 11:44:21 -0700

Okay good people,

I've been blogging quite a bit lately on my website www.MankatoHomesOnline.com and thought I was doing the right thing.

Then last night I ran across the blog of Karen George, the AZ Home Loan Lady, who, sadly, passed away from cancer last year, if I read it right. In addition to being the sort of person you wish everyone could be, she was a big fan of SEO and activerain, and her posts are quite illuminating and fabulously entertaining. (If you haven't seen her blog, click here. You and your Google ranking will be glad you did. The blog is being written now by her husband, btw.) The fact that she was so big into activerain has me rethinking my blogging.

So, what is better? To blog on your own site? activerain? Post the same thing both places? If just one place, what is the best way to relate activerain to my site, or vice versa?

I really am at a loss as to how to go about this and will appreciate your feedback. Thanks in advance!