Humboldt County MLS Listings: Low Mortgage Rates and Price Make Humboldt a Good Buy

Looking for a home using Humboldt County MLS Listings search tools is a great way to start the home buying process.  Especially right now when mortgage rates are lower then they've ever been and home prices have really come down a lot in the last several years.  This combo makes Humboldt a very good buy right now. 

We may have not hit bottom yet, but we're probably close.  So doing your preliminary home search on the public Humboldt County MLS Listings sites is a good first move, because it gives you a chance to see what you can get for say $300,000 to $350,000.  You usually will find homes of all shapes and sizes, conditions and of course some are located in areas you would choose to live in and some are not. 

But looking at Humboldt County MLS Listings online will only get you so far when it comes to figuring out what kind of home you are looking for and what neighborhoods you would want to live in.  If you currently own a home or rent in Humboldt County CA then the best way to figure out where you want to buy your first or next home is to get in your car and start driving around. 

Here are a few tips to really get comfortable with what's selling in our Humboldt County Real Estate market today and what to think about if your planning on buying a home in Humboldt County in the next few months:

1) Drive or Bike around the cities and neighborhoods that you think you would like to live in and rank them.  Then map those neighborhoods out.  This way you will stay focused when actually going out to actively search for your next home.

2) Once your ready to buy find a Realtor who is actively keeping up with the market.  One who previews(sees a home without a buyer) new listings and tracks home prices in the micromarkets within our Humboldt County Real Estate market.  For example, Arcata CA Homes on average will sell for $30,000 to $50,000 more than the same home in Eureka CA or even in Fortuna CA.

3)Find a lender you can trust.  Interview 3 lenders and ask your Realtor for names.  Your Humboldt County Realtor has built a relationship with certain lenders who have proven themselves over time by providing their past clients loans that successfully went through during past real estate transactions.  You need to know what you can afford.  If you can only afford to buy a $330,000 home and the homes you are looking at are for sale for $400,000 you cannot afford that home.  So stick within or slightly above your price range and ask your Realtor for past home sales to see if similar homes sold in your price range to determine if the home you are interested in is grossly overpriced.

4) Be realistic.  If your ideal home is 1500 square feet with 4 bedrooms, 2 baths on an wooded acre lot for $330,000 and the homes that have sold in the past 6 months or even a year in our Humboldt County Real Estate market sold for $400,000 or more than you need to readjust your home searching criteria when searching Humboldt County MLS Listings on the web.  You may only be able to afford a 1500 square foot 3 bedroom/2 bath home in a neighborhood on a standard lot where you'll have to create landscaping to give you a little bit more privacy that you would have gotten on that 1 acre wooded lot.

Because of our unique situation: Low morrtgage interest rates, First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit Incentives and fairly low prices, compared to 3 to 5 years ago, makes this a good time to get into your first home, move up into your next home or downsize.  Will the Humboldt County Real Estate market continue to drop?  It might, most buyers who are buying right now know that even if they're current home price drops even another 5 to 10% that buying a home is a long term investment and you'll have a few bumps in this journey.  But in the long run, home markets go up and go down, right now we are down, but eventually we will start to creep back up.

To see what's currently available visit Humboldt County MLS Listings and you will be able to search for what homes are for sale in your price range. 

To Learn More about the buying process read some of these blog posts below:

First Time Home Buyers FHA Loan Info

Updating your Preapproval Loan Letter

Copyright 2009 Jessica Bigger.  All Rights Reserved.  *Humboldt County MLS Listings: Low Mortgage Rates and Price Make Humboldt a Good Buy*