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Happy Valentines Day, the stimulus package may help North Georgia Lake Sales.

By
Real Estate Appraiser with Lanier Appraisal Service CR004373

"Congress voted on a $790 billion economic stimulus bill that includes a modest expansion of a first-time homebuyer tax credit and restores to $729,750 the upper loan limit in high-cost areas for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and FHA loan guarantee programs." http://www.inman.com/. The prior limit was $417,000.

This may help those on our North Georgia Lakes, including Lake Lanier, Sinclair, Oconee, Chatuge, Nottely and others to sell and buy these homes.

Of course we need to see an increase in JOBS in order for people to be able to afford these higher priced lake homes. My concern: The jobs that are being created do not appear to be the higher paying jobs that people will need to afford high priced housing. But there are always those who will qualify for these loans and now that this loan limit has been almost doubled, it could shake lose those buyers that have always wanted a lake home and can now get the loan which was so elusive in the past.

Happy Valentines Day to everyone out there.

If you need someone to appraise a Lake Lanier Home you are thinking of selling or buying, you need a Lake Lanier expert appraiser and you have found her right here: http://www.marytappraisals.com/

Mary Thompson

 

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Brent Johnson
Chase International South Tahoe Realty - South Lake Tahoe, CA

It is too bad that the $15,000 tax credit did not make it!

Feb 14, 2009 01:12 AM
Edward & Celia Maddox
The Celtic Connection Realty - Queen Creek, AZ
EXPERIENCE & INTEGRITY - WE TAKE THE HIGH ROAD

While this Pork Barrel Spending package may have a modest effect on real estate, the balance of it is primarily political payback and won't help the economy in the short term.  A good example is the $4 Billion dollars of our hard earned money to Acorn (a democratic political arm, being investigated for voter fraud).

 

Feb 14, 2009 01:18 AM
Mary Thompson
Lanier Appraisal Service - Flowery Branch, GA
Lake Lanier Appraiser in North Georgia

Edward &  Brent: I hear you big time and that wonderful $13.00 a week we middle class folks get now THAT is really going to change things....What a joke!

Feb 14, 2009 01:29 AM
Joan Whitebook
BHG The Masiello Group - Nashua, NH
Consumer Focused Real Estate Services

Happy Valentine's day to you.  Hope that more good days are ahead!

Feb 14, 2009 01:32 AM
John Walters
Frank Rubi Real Estate - Slidell, LA
Licensed in Louisiana

I don't think this bill will have the impact many people think it will.

Feb 14, 2009 02:02 AM
Gary Ward
Advantage Chatuge - Hayesville, NC

I have to agree with Edward. This will not help any of us in North Georgia and especially our lakefront property. You can't hardly find a house  for $729,750    and if you do it's a scrapper. All this does is set us up for more home foreclosures in the future when these "tax credit " the new home owners get comes due and they yet again default on their loans.

 What should have been in there was a 10% tax savings across the board for ALL homebuyers. If that had happened then we all would be out selling real estate instead of sitting here trying to forget about what a disaster has just happened to our country!!!!

Feb 15, 2009 12:49 AM
Anonymous
Mary Thompson

Gary: With the values declining as they have here on Lake Lanier anyway, you can actually get a pretty decent home WITH WATER in the $700,000 range.

Unfortunately the sellers have to get realistic about their home's worth under the guidance of Realtors and Appraisers. If they do get realistic you would be selling real estate. Anything will sell if priced according to what the market will bear.

If they cannot afford to sell at that price, it is an unfortunate situation for sure and will lead to foreclosure if they cannot afford the payments and upkeep on their lake homes.

Everyone has to make some really tough choices.  The way I see it if there is anything that helps make tough times better like the increased loan guarantees, then these issues should be highlighted and used to sell homes.

At the very least this news gives Realtors the opportunity to call all of their potential buyers to fill them in on this news and strike up a conversation about looking at property again.....Couldn't hurt!

 

 

Feb 15, 2009 01:44 AM
#7
Gary Ward
Advantage Chatuge - Hayesville, NC

True couldn't hurt but in our market the prices have not drop much and they are not going to. We are mostly a second home market and those who have invested here can afford to hold on for the duration... that is if the whole economy does not collapse by this blunder of congress... we can not spend our way out of this mess but that is exactly what they are trying to do.

 Honestly I don't know how much weight we can put behind a FHA loan guarantee anymore. It is just yet another bill tax payers will have to pay.  The definition of FHA Loan Guarantee is when FHA guarantees your loan, which means that they guarantee the lender that if you go into default, or they are forced to foreclose on the property, most of the lenders investment will be protected. Yes this may increase real estate sales in some areas but it's a dead end road. All it guarantees is that we the tax payer will be bailing out yet more banks.

If someone can not afford the loan they can not afford the loan. We need to look at the big picture here. If you still want to be in real estate in four years, this is not necessarily a good thing.

Mary You said: Unfortunately the sellers have to get realistic about their home's worth under the guidance of Realtors and Appraisers.

This is true to an extent, prices were inflated, however the adjustment again effects whole areas not just once piece of property. Foreclosures can ruin neighborhoods as appraisers use them as comps for similar properties. Is that fair? Because one person invested in a piece of property they could not afford, should someone next door who is financially stable but may need to sell say for a job location change, should they have to take a loss in their investment because of the poor choices of their neighbor? Personally I do not think foreclosures should be used as comps. This country as a whole would fair better to slow the decline in property values by not making bad loans in the first place. The real estate market will stabilize on its own if allowed. This tampering will only make things worse.

Feb 15, 2009 11:53 PM
Evelyn Johnston
Friends & Neighbors Real Estate - Elkhart, IN
The People You Know, Like and Trust!

It's to bad they didn't give ALL homeowners a $8000 credit, no matter when they purchased.  Now that would stimulate the economy!

Feb 16, 2009 02:09 AM
Mary Thompson
Lanier Appraisal Service - Flowery Branch, GA
Lake Lanier Appraiser in North Georgia

Evelyn: I hear you!

Gary: You bring up  a very important point about appraisals that I want to clear up! We do NOT use foreclosures for comps UNLESS they have truly defined the market where the subject property is located. So if we have enough arms-length transactions in the neighborhood and it has not been flooded with foreclosures, then we will absolutely use these sales over foreclosure sales.

I agree with you why should a neighbor's foreclosure affect your home, which you have worked hard to maintain and keep current in mortgage payments, etc.

So if you find that foreclosures are being used by appraisers, you need to protest this unless as I said the market is defined by the foreclosures in the area. These foreclosures are what the property would compete against in this case, so they have to be used in an appraisal report.

Mary

Feb 16, 2009 04:00 AM
Gary Ward
Advantage Chatuge - Hayesville, NC

Mary that is good to know. But it does happen in a lot of places. Here are problem is we don't have comps close by that actually match in like property. Being rural and no zoning you can have a trailer next to a mansion so just getting like property in a five mile radius is near impossible.

 We sure could use experienced appraisers like you in our area.

Feb 16, 2009 10:26 AM
Mary Thompson
Lanier Appraisal Service - Flowery Branch, GA
Lake Lanier Appraiser in North Georgia

Gary: Thanks! We have this issue all the time on Lake Lanier. When I appraise Lake Property, I define the entire Lake as one neighborhood, so I may have comps that are 10 miles away. I just make sure to explain in the report in great detail why I am defining the entire lake as one neighborhood and that all sales on the lake can be considered as comps as long as I make the correct adjustments for location, site value, improvement variances etc. Of course we try to find the most comparable lake properties out there, but you may not have many to work with, so you have to work with what you have!

Lenders have too many requirements that do not fit the properties and we just have to educate them on this premise when we are dealing with non-typical properties.

Mary

Feb 17, 2009 03:53 AM
Gary Ward
Advantage Chatuge - Hayesville, NC

Mary perhaps you could come up this way and train a few folks! They sure need it!

Feb 17, 2009 11:00 PM
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