Rate are going down!

Currently the mortgage rate environment is in the midst of quite a rally. Over the last week rates have plummeted following the Fed's announcement that it will buy debt and mortgage backed securities from mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This news has caused rates to drop over 1/2 percent in the last week. For current rates check out www.bankrate.com.

This is good news for buyers, sellers, and even current owners. Buyers can afford more house for their money and may now have the confidence to buy. Sellers may see more buyers out in the market and loan approval may be higher for buyers. And, current owners may be able to refinance saving hundreds of dollars a month in payments. In a recent discussion with a mortgage lender, she mentioned a no points, no closing cost refinance where the bank pays the fees. With no additional out of pocket costs and a savings of hundreds a month, it's a no brainer!

If you would like more info give me a call and I will put you in contact with a great lender to help you out.

Really, really bad real estate photos

For anyone thinking of selling, this is what some agents think will help you sell your home. I thought this was hysterical. Especially the comments!
http://www.visualtour.com/applets/flashviewer/viewer.asp?t=830679&sk=46&dm=teamfisher.com

Interest Rates Down! (But only for a few hours?!)

I received an email today from a mortgage lender I work with saying rates may come down to a 52 week low of 5.875%. That is a great rate especially combined with the low prices already out there. However, rates can change with the blink of an eye so you really need to be on top of things and have a great lender who is even more on top of things. A lower interest rate can mean more buying power. I always tell my buyers, look at your monthly payments rather then the actual purchase price. Don't get hung up on a price especially with the rates jumping around like they are. On a $300,000 purchase, the difference in one percentage point can be as much $200/month. Would you rather spend that $200 on a nicer house or just hand it over to the mortgage company? Personally I would take the nicer house.

I'm not having fun anymore"

This is a direct quote from my one of my current buyers. She is buying a bank owned property, which thanks to the media, seems like the best thing since sliced bread. However, it can be extremely stressful and there is so much that goes into it that buyers don't know ahead of time. I like to think that buying your first home should be one of the happiest and most exciting times of your life, but as she said, it's not fun anymore.

There is no denying it, you can get a great deal on a bank owned home. My buyer is getting a house in a very nice town, at just a tiny bit over what the land alone is valued at. However this house is not without it's share of problems. It needs all new windows, the kitchen looks like it has never been updated, every appliance will have to be replaced, and since we have not done the inspection yet, we don't know what else we are going to find. But, for the price, it is a great deal!

Now the flip side. The owner of the house is the bank. While banks these days have a ton of property that they are trying to sell, overall they are not in the real estate business and can be very hard to deal with, let alone even get a response from. For this property we negotiated on the price for over a week, waited to get the initial paperwork for almost a week, and now are waiting to get the signed paperwork for almost a week. In addition there are costs that a buyer could have to pay that they may not pay for a regular purchase. For this particular property, there are back taxes and back water bills that that seller did not pay totalling over $2500 as well as the cost to dewinterize the property which is around $400. Sometimes these things can be negotiated and sometimes they can't.

Luckily this buyer understands that bank owned property is not as glamorous as it sounds, but a lot of other buyers don't. Think about this, if someone were taking away your home would you keep it looking all pretty and nice so that bank can have an easy time selling it? No way! You would probably trash it which is what many people do. And, if you couldn't afford your mortgage do you think you could afford to maintain your house. Probably not. From my experience, the best deals out there seem to be motivated sellers who just want to sell in this market. Most of them time the homes are well maintained, the process is much less stressfull, and the buyer still gets a great deal.

First time homebuyers share their experiences.

Congrats to Ron and Jenn who closed on their first home last week. They were kind enough to share their experiences with other newlyweds who are starting out their home search.

Ron and Jenn

Married May 2008, Cohasset MA

First Home Purchased October 2008, Stoughton, MA

How long did you search for your new home?

About 3 months.

What was the hardest part of your search/process?

Spending a day or weekend looking at multiple houses and walking away unsatisfied.

What was the best part of your search/process?

We learned something new every time we went out to see houses. It was also very helpful having such a friendly, patient, and informative buyer's agent with us.

What do you love about your new home?

Absolutely everything, especially the open floor plan, the fireplaces (because my wife gets cold), and the 2 decks.

Please give some advice for any other newlyweds looking to buy their first home together.

Call Jaime and make an appointment. Take the time to understand exactly what you are looking for. Be patient with one another because it can sometimes be stressful. You may have to see lots of houses before you find the right one, but be patient, because it will be worth it. Make sure that both of you discuss at length what each of you want out of your potential home so that it will make the search easier.

Anything else you would like to share.

In all seriousness, Jaime was absolutely amazing to work with and we now have a new friend. What could have been an extremely stressful experience became a fun learning process that ended with our perfect first home. We will miss our Wed. evenings house hunting with our adorable prego agent. We would also like to add that since you will be spending a lot of time with your buyers agent during this potentially long and stressful process, make sure that he/she is a good fit for you. It made all the difference for us.

Thank you so much Ron and Jenn. I had a blast working with you guys as well. Good luck in your new home!

Buy or sell now? What are you crazy???!!!

It seems like the financial world is collapsing and I'm here thinking about real estate. Well yes, that is my job, but it also my passion and what I believe will bring people large amounts of wealth over time. And isn't that what we all really want? We all want to be comfortable in life both in our home and financially.

I can't help but think about the housing market like the stock market. It is going to have ups and downs (like we just saw last week) but over time both have shown to make people money. On Friday when the stock market was at it's lowest, our friend Graham called us up and said to start investing in the market. While he is not a stock broker, we consider him to know a good amount about investing and trust his opinion. Well, of course we waited and now are kicking ourselves because we could have made a lot of money fast by buying low and selling high.

In real estate terms the same idea applies. In some areas, houses are down %15 or more from what they were at their highest. That is a $75,000 savings for a $500,000 house. Now take that savings in addition to the still low ( but fluctuating by the day) interest rates and you can save yourself a ton of money over time. Say you wait a year and the interest rate goes up by 2% and prices go up by 5%. Are you going to kick yourselves because you waited? I probably would!

So all this is easy if you are a first time home buyer, right? Well, I do consider you the best off in this current situation. But what if you have to sell your home first? It can still workout, but you have to look at the big picture. Let's take TJ and I for example. We bought our first condo in 2005 and sold it a couple of months ago for $13,000 less then what we bought it for. We made it look picture perfect and made sure it was priced right in the current market and it sold in just 2 weeks. The house we wound up buying we got for $135,000 under what it originally listed for and $50,000 under what the sellers were asking at the time of the offer. Now I would take that savings any day over the money that we lost on our condo. To be honest, I don't really consider it a loss either. We got the tax deductions and didn't pay rent for 3 years. Not to mention all the friends we made. I think it almost evened out.

The lesson is to take advantage of the market we are in. It will prove to build your wealth in the long run.

How to meet new people in your neighborhood. Get one of these!

I can't say that TJ or I would be classified as shy. We're those kind of people that other people feel the need to talk to in line at the grocery store. We've both always enjoyed talking to random people about really anything. However it wasn't until we got Bailey (actually my first dog ever) that I realized how easy it was to meet people.

If I were a guy, Bailey would be the ultimate chick magnet. Sometimes I worry about TJ and Bailey hanging out in the park without me. TJ and I used to live in a 126 unit condo building. We got to know a lot of people just from being there but also because we sold a number of the units there. Once we got Bailey it got to the point where we couldn't walk out the door without seeing a new friend. Often times people didn't even know our names but knew us as Bailey's mom or Bailey's dad. Now that we have moved out we still have some of our former neighbors and their dogs over to our new house. I can pretty much guarantee that we would not be nearly as good friends if it weren't for our four legged friend Bailey.

Now that we live in Marshfield, we're starting all over again meeting people. We live right by the beach and many days take Bailey out there to run free and get all his energy out. I can't believe how many people we have met already. We honestly can't make it past a single person without them stopping to talk to us. Really it has been a wonderful thing and made us feel like we have lived here forever.

I highly recommend a dog. I hear babies are the next best thing to meet people. Since I am 6 months pregnant that will be coming soon. Now, I'm not telling everyone to go out and get pregnant. (I don't want to be blamed for a population increase.) I just want to help more people get out there and meet some new friends.

Nothing beats a nice testimonial!

Many, many thanks to Matt Gosselin for saying such nice words about me. It was such a pleasure to work with him and Nicole on the sale of their condo. http://mattgosselin.wordpress.com/2008/05/07/going-through-3-agents-in-2-weeks/. While you are checking out the article make sure to read some of his other blogs as well. They are always so interesting and informative.

We've moved!

We are very excited to annouce that we have moved! In anticipation of our new baby due to arrive in January, GSGH has moved to the South Shore. Our new company is William Raveis Real Estate in Norwell. The company is amazing and completely dominates this area. We realize that many newlyweds aren't quite ready for the burbs yet so we still intend to work in the greater Boston area just as before.

Also the website has been updated to show more bridal shows for the end of 2008 and beginning of 2009. If you are looking for some good shows with lots of vendors take a look at www.greatspousegreathouse.com/bshows.htm.

Great Home for a Great Couple

Congrats to Ron and Jenn on putting a house under agreement in Stoughton! It is an adorable house and I know they will be very happy in it for a long time!!

Our Story. Who are those folks at GreatSpouseGreatHouse.com?

Welcome all to the very first post for Great Spouse Great House!!!


For those of you who don't know about us...let me tell you. I am a full time real estate agent with Prudential Unlimited Realty in Brookline and specializing in the greater Boston area. My husband TJ is a part time agent working with me while building his own business Lighthouse Financial Services, Inc. In August we got married and were introduced to the wild world of wedding planning. Enticed by elaborate venues, picture perfect photographers, and florists who decorated with the most exotic species available, my husband and I decided not to have the big, elaborate wedding like many of our friends. Instead we had a small gathering of 50 of our closest friends and family. While we planned our wedding on a budget, it was still quite beautiful and really the perfect day.


I feel that everyone is entitled to have the wedding of their dreams, whatever that may be. Big or small, local or destination, day or night. However, I don't understand people who go into debt of $10,000, $20,000, or more just for one day. (We all know those people!) It boggles my mind when I meet people who desperately want to buy a home but can't get a loan because they have too much debt from their wedding.


Now we were already homeowners before we got married. However, the 1 bedroom condo that seemed so fitting for the two of us and our cat Cali three years ago, is now way to small for our growing family. (we have added another cat Sasha and a dog Bailey). Knowing that we would have to buy another home in the near future really kept us on budget with our wedding.



With our own dreams of the perfect home out there, we kept thinking how many other couples were in the same boat. Other young couples like us, starting off their new lives together hoping to have that happy ending with a beautiful colonial behind the white picket fence. (Ok now it's the trendy loft in the city! Different strokes for different folks.)


I know in my own experience, I personally like to work with people who are similar to myself. I don't really relate to the 65 year old, divorced real estate agent who doesn't even know how to text and asks me what a blog is. With that thought, TJ and I decided to focus our attention on working with people we could really relate to like engaged couples and newlyweds. Who better to understand what they are going through then people who just went through it themselves.


And that my friend is how http://www.greatspousegreathouse.com/ was born.