The American Dream has always been to buy your own home. However with the current housing crisis many people are reassesing whether this is the best thing for them. This housing crisis has and will change things going forward so what are some of the steps you should take before you start looking.

1. Make sure you get a copy of your credit report. You can easily obtain this free online once a year. Check your credit report over to make sure there are no errors. If there are contact both the bank or creditor to sort it out and the credit reporting agencies. There are three, Transunion, Equifax and Experian
2. Make a budget and stick to it, pay your bills on time and don't spend everything you earn.
3. The last few years mortgages were easy to obtain, that has changed with banks demanding more money as a down payment. Start saving now! That may mean revising your budget and making some sacrifices so you can build up a sizeable down payment, but it will help you later.
4. Don't forget you will also require money for closing costs these vary from state to state and township to township, a realtor can advise you on these for your area.
5. Lastly consider if buying is right for you now. It may make more sense to postpone buying and renting or staying with family instead. It is easy for a Realtor to draw up a rent versus buy comparison that takes into consideration tax breaks you get for owning a home, make sure it includes homeowner association fees if there are any to get a true comparison.

It may be right for you to buy a home, but it may not, so make sure you get good advice and don't be pushed to buy before you are ready. But taking these few steps now may help when you do decide to buy a home.

Every year the Pennsylvania Association of Realtors reviews different forms. Last year the Pennsylvania Agreement of Sale was given a review in light of comments from Realtors using the form. These changes are just about to be released with the new version of the Agreement of Sale in 2010. There are a lot of changes to language but let's discuss a few of the highlights.

How will these changes affect you as an agent, a seller or as a buyer? As an agent you need to become conversant with the new forms and what changes have been made and how these affect your customers.

As a seller or buyer the forms now have all parties involved in the transaction located on the front page with the address of the property, zip and school district noted as well. Not only is broker information provided but also all contact information for the agent handling the transaction for each party.

The seller assist has been moved to right below the offer price, so it is now more obvious to a seller if they are being asked to provide any monetary assistance to the buyer. Whilst this does not show the net the seller will receive it does make it more understandable and gives less chance of being missed in a review of the agreement terms.

The mortgage block now includes a loan to value appraisal option for both the first and second mortgages if this contingency is selected, alternatively you can still use a separate appraisal addendum. Buyers if using the defaults are now required to act quicker to apply for their mortgages and arrange appraisals. Also buyers are required if given the option by their mortgage provider to lock their loan rate not less than 15 days before settlement.

Under inspections gone is the confusion between option 1 and 2. There is now only one option that requires the buyer to either terminate the transaction or submit a written corrective proposal to the seller within the agreed time lines. Each inspection is now initialed to select or waive, making it much clearer what inspections are being selected, these include an option for a survey, not usually done in Pennsylvania but not a bad idea if you want to be certain of what you are buying. Again time lines have been tightened up.

New language has been inserted to cover the oil, mineral and gas rights that have become a large issue in many parts of the state due to the Marcellus Shale and the natural gas rights being leased.

All paperwork, other than homeowner and condominium documents if delievered to the agent for the buyer or seller is considered delivered to the seller or buyer. However, condominium and home owner association documents must be delivered to the buyer direct before time lines take effect.

Another big change is the information regarding deposits and how they will be distributed in case of a dispute and how this can actually be decided by both parties before there is a dispute.

Mediation is a now a default rather than being selected.

As I said these are just a few of the changes to the new agreement of sale, when writing an agreement make sure you understand fully what you are agreeing to and take time to read over the notes as well as the agreement itself.

Upper Providence Township in Delaware County is holding a meeting next week to disucss raising the Real Estate Transfer Tax by 0.5% making it the highest suburban Philadelphia Transfer Tax. With home sales already suffering the township is considering raising taxes on home sales? What are they thinking?

This will affect all sellers and buyers of homes in the township making their transaction more expensive. The state legislature along with many other townships has seen the light relaizing that Real Estate Transfer tax is unreliable and very narrowly focused. It being far better to tax on a broad base rather than a narrow base. But Upper Providence is going against the grain. With home prices dropping and economists predicting further price drops in 2010 this township simply ignores what is best for their residents and future residents by making the cost of transferring a home more expensive.

Feburary 11th is the hearing come out and make yur voice heard.

In a recent article in the Main Line Suburban Life Chris Polites this years chairman of the Easttown Board of Supervisors put a call out to citizens who live and work in Easttown to give advice on the township budget. During the process for this year there was outcry at the suggestion of an earned income tax being implemented. Hundreds tourned out to the board of supervisors meetings. Whilst this was avoided for the current year, by raising property taxes and implementing a new $52 business tax on anyone who works in the township the threat of state budget cuts creating further pain on the Easttown budget for the coming year cannot be avoided.

However, before jumping to conclusions Chris Polites called for local citizens and those who work in the township to contact him at cpolites@eattown.org who desire to serve on a citizens advisory budget group. The group will look at numbers but also at other options as well. Chris Polites expressed his belief that the township ran well but admitted there is always room for improvement.

I was at a seminar yesterday in Philadelphia where many of the agents were from the Main Line, Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery Counties as well as some from New Jersey where the speaker asked everyone present who knew someone who was behind on their mortgage payments to raise their hands. Wow! The whole room had their hands up. Seriously, I am not kidding, this roomfull of Realtors all knew someone who was behind on their mortgage payments. Last week I was talking with another realtor who knew several friends across the country who had not paid their mortgages for a year and yet had not been foreclosed on yet.

Earlier this week I listened to Austin Jaffe, economist for the Pennsylvania Association of Realtors give a presentation on the market ahead. He also commented on the shadow inventory out there, homes the banks have not foreclosed on where homeowners are behind on their mortgages and that this is going to impact the market in the next year or so causing prices to drop a further 10-15% possibly according to many economists. RealtyTrac reports that 1 in 45 homes are in foreclosure. If this is reality and there are even more homes behind on their payments what lies ahead. As can be seen from the Case Shiller graph prices have dropped, supposedly $5 trillion has been removed from the housing market. Whilst this is not good news it is reality.

The governement has indicated they will stop buying mortgage backed securities at the end of March, leading to rising mortgage interest rates. So if you are considering selling, now is the time to sell, get you home on the market, use a realtor to market it, qualify the buyers and get it sold as soon as you can before higher interest rates cause prices to dip further than they have.

If you seriously can wait three or even four years you may see prices begin to recover, but it will be longer before they return to the prices of the last few years but if you have time....otherwise act now and be realistic, be agressive, get ahead of the curve, don't chase your market down always following but always too late, price it right from the beginning and you will see your home sold.

As I was looking through all the local news last week the main thing that stood out was Delaware County townships raising taxes to balance budgets, Newtown, Marple, Edgemont, Millbourne and Rutledge to name a few. Whilst none of us like tax increases the decline in home prices and drop in sales activity of the last year has caused major problems for the townships and the state. Many of these townships had large parts of their budgets depending on Real Estate Transfer Taxes and the drop in prices and in number of sales over the last year has caused major problems for their budgets.

Leaving aside the question of if is wise for these township budgets to depend so heavily on Real Estate Transfer Taxes, the problem has been increased by many homeowners appealing their assesments with the drop in housing prices. Most of these appeals have been succesful, but this just causes the problems to be larger for the townships. As tax revenues plummetted the townships were left to either cut services, increase taxes rates or find new taxes. Many townships have been looking at implementing Earned Income Taxes where allowed, which is unpopular with many. I attended a meeting in Chester County at Easttown Township where local citizens made it very clear this was not what they wanted preferring a hike in the millage to any new taxes.

But we cannot have our cake and eat it as the saying goes. We cannot ask for increased or even the same level of services and also lower taxes. There is a point at which a certain tax level needs to be maintained. This does not mean that budgets can just be allowed to balloon uncontrolled or that services need not be competitively priced and put out for bid, but we must realize that we need to pay for a certain level of services. Whilst our assesments may be reduced, our overall tax burden may not be and that fact is coming home to many.

The challenge for townships, counties and for the state moving forward is to provide the best services they can for the least money, to not allow themselves to become over dependant on one tax, to make sure they are employing the correct people to provide the best services for the best price. To be run like a business and not just fall back on always being able to raise taxes to meet their commitments.

At the same time, I am not sure these townships have taken into account the remaining homeowners who should appeal their tax assesments and how this will affect their revenues. Many did last year, what happens this year if others do as well. Will we see more shortfalls?

There were 23 sales in Old Forge Crossing in 2009, 6 more than 2008, about the same as the 24 in 2007 but way off the high of 50 homes in 2006. The homes selling were a mixture of one and two bedroom units and several one bedrooms with dens along with one townhouse in the community.

Prices like everywhere have suffered from the financial crisis we have been enduring and days on market have been very mixed with many homes being on more than 100 days but with a few selling quickly giving average days on market of 53/54 days. There has been one bank owned property, a two bedroom unit that took 21 days to go under contract even though it was aggressively priced and sold for the lowest priced two bedroom unit for a long time.

There have also been seller concessions offered to buyers either as seller assists or concessions for repairs for older units.

Over the years many units that have come on the market sold regardless of being updated or not. Today's buyer is more demanding and requires homes to be updated with newer bathrooms and kitchens; many prefer not to even have to paint. Those homes that have been updated are tending to sell more quickly and closer to asking price.

As the return on investment you get for updates is not usually what you pay I would recommend if you are thinking of selling next year or so, it is worth updating your bath or kitchen now and getting an enjoyment return on it before you sell rather than doing all the work when you are ready to sell.

If you are looking for a home in Old Forge Crossing or are considering selling we will be happy to help you. See full statistics for this year below.

There were 23 sales in Old Forge Crossing in 2009, 6 more than 2008, about the same as the 24 in 2007 but way off the high of 50 homes in 2006. The homes selling were a mixture of one and two bedroom units and several one bedrooms with dens along with one townhouse in the community.

 Prices like everywhere have suffered from the financial crisis we have been enduring and days on market have been very mixed with many homes being on more than 100 days but with a few selling quickly giving average days on market of 53/54 days. There has been one bank owned property, a two bedroom unit that took 21 days to go under contract even though it was aggressively priced and sold for the lowest priced two bedroom unit for a long time.

There have also been seller concessions offered to buyers either as seller assists or concessions for repairs for older units.

 Over the years many units that have come on the market sold regardless of being updated or not. Today's buyer is more demanding and requires homes to be updated with newer bathrooms and kitchens; many prefer not to even have to paint. Those homes that have been updated are tending to sell more quickly and closer to asking price.

As the return on investment you get for updates is not usually what you pay I would recommend if you are thinking of selling next year or so, it is worth updating your bath or kitchen now and getting an enjoyment return on it before you sell rather than doing all the work when you are ready to sell.

 If you are looking for a home in Old Forge Crossing or are considering selling we will be happy to help you. See full statistics for this year below.

As we are visiting family in Apeldoorn, in Holland and having a wonderful time I thought I would post some information on property values.

On our way to the market we saw this new home:

This is a new home, 4 bedrooms and 1 1/2 bathrooms, priced at 600,000 Euros approximately $900,000, this price includes the kitchen and bathroom which usually are not included in new construction, you pay extra for them to be finished, note there is no garage, and the lot is pretty small. However, this particular house has a lot premium as the view across the street is through some trees of a local park.

If you cycle along the street visible on the photo above to the park you can find this house for sale:

This house is priced at 965,000 Euros which is about $1.5 million with taxes. Here are some other photos, of the view and the house.

This is the view across the street, pretty good.

You can see full details on this house on the realtors website, this house had 4 bedrooms and a mixture of bathrooms, one bathroom without toilet, a powder room upstairs, a full bathroom, and another powder room downstairs. No real basements here because of the water level, although this house has a cellar. Most of Holland is barely above sea level. South facing yard and a balcony as well, granite counters in the kitchen and new bathrooms. House was built in the 1930's.

So the Dutch real estate market like ours is also depressed, but location will bring a price. This house also is not on a large lot compared to America but the location in Apeldoorn on the park is very desirable. It has also been recently updated.

After a successful Holiday Tree Lighting ceremony this First Friday in December The Berwyn Devon Business & Professional Association First Friday planning committee, consisting of Nick Vandekar, Gina Galli of Beadeologie and Susan Holmes of Allegiance Bank met to begin plans for the 2010 program for First Fridays in Berwyn, PA.

Nick Vandekar, a local Realtor and President of the Business and Professional Association said he hopes that in 2010 we will see local retail businesses and restaurants work together to market Berwyn as a place to shop and dine and to benefit from the First Friday program that was launched at the beginning of 2009. Berwyn is a place filled with opportunities for local residents with a theater, art and antiques shops, restaurants, cafes, bakeries, craft stores, sports equipment, auto dealers, hairdressers for men and women with attached spa treatments, etc., with plenty to do and see around this historic village.

Plans for 2010 hope to include a series of three summer concerts in Berwyn that will bring customers to our local merchants. Any local business looking for a way to market itself may want to consider sponsoring these concerts.

To stay in touch with events go the Association Website.