Are you one of our clients with a Passport card and like to ski? Even though our recent From Your Friends discount BOGO lift ticket card expired at end of February, there are opportunities tonight and on the 14th for night skiing. If you’ve got a Passport or PRIME card, you’ll want to check this out.
There are also discount programs with other ski areas in Washington, like Summit at Snoqualmie.
Our friends over at Seattle Furnace are offering a mid-winter break furnace cleaning deal. We tell people who are selling their homes this time of year to make sure and have their furnace serviced since this often comes up on inspections to be done if there is no marker showing that it’s been done recently. This is definitely a savings since this usually costs (at most companies) anywhere between $120 to $150 for the service. They’re also able to do service work on heat pumps and radiant heating systems.
Contact: John Bonk, 425-398-8389, john@seattlefurnace.com or use the link.
Direct from Seattle Furnace here is the info you’ll see at the link.
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I’ve been following a lot of topics on Quora recently and providing replies for questions that fall under my field of work. Here is a recent posting:
Rebecca added an answer.
How can a 22-year old increase his chances of getting a mortgage?
By making sure you have all the pieces in place that lenders require of a borrower today. First of all, credit scores are one important element of the equation. If you have not begun building your FICO score, then you’ll need to spend time doing so. FHA loans are still allowing some low scores down to 620 (but preferably 640 and above). For what are called “conventional” loans, you’ll need credit scores above 720. The lenders will also be looking at your debt-to-income (DTI) ratios especially as new laws put into place on January 10, 2014 require what is called Ability-to-Repay (ATR) confirmation and Qualified Mortgage (QM) standards.
For building credit, if you have student loans (installment loan) and are paying on time, that is one good source of building credit. If you have a car loan, especially if paid off, this is also good. Credit cards (revolving credit) also help provide scoring into the FICO system, however, high balances may be counted as negative to your scoring if held for long periods. The FICO model gives best scoring to those you only use about 10% or less of their available credit limits for credit cards and showing actual usage and good management of credit. So, for all those folks out there that have had cards but who don’t use them – guess what, that now counts against you. Be sure to use your card a couple of times per year and let the balance carry over a month so that some show of credit use has occurred. Such as, buy a tank of gas, pay half of it off the first month of billing and the balance of it the next. The amount of time you have had good credit payment history also builds your score over time so don’t cancel out cards if you have them, just make sure to manage balances on the low end.
Starting saving is also important as you’ll need a down payment (DP) and money for closing costs (CC). How much you’ll need will depend on your market place and what type of property you’re interested in owning. You’ll not only need the funds for D/P and CC, but also for what are called “reserves”, the amount of money reserved in your bank account to cover if your income were to stop being available. Most banks now with the ATR and QM requirements range on this amount, but expect to have 1-6 months worth of additional savings to cover your current bills and your expected mortgage payment amount.
I’m obviously not a lender, but I work with buyers all the time and teach classes on the subject with many knowledgeable loan officers via the Washington State Housing Finance Commission. A great tool to watch interest rates, which are the biggest factor affecting your purchasing ability besides your own cash resources, can be found by following the Freddie Mac Mortgage Market Survey – a weekly listing of the average rates offered for a variety of loan types offered around the nation. You can Bing/Google it to get the link or you can go here: http://www.freddiemac.com/pmms/
After wondering if this would be an appropriate way to provide reviews to prospective clients about our services, we decided to bite the bullet and go ahead and claim a business page on Yelp. We’ve already been given a couple of 5 star reviews which match most of the testimonials we’ve received over the years. You can find reviews on Yelp, LinkedIn, Judy’s Book, Zillow and on our very own Team Reba website.
If you’ve been considering working with us, or perhaps you want to send along other reviewers comments with your own referral to our team, please feel free to use these links. If you’ve worked with us before and haven’t yet posted a review about us, please feel free to leave your comments on any of these sites.
According to a recent article reporting that Wells Fargo is looking to loosen their credit standards and accept down to a 600 FICO score, we have to wonder, “is this a good idea?” I’m personally torn on the subject because I know a lot of people who got caught up on the bad side of the recession and who saw their FICO scores plummet because of debts, short sales, foreclosures, bankruptcy and more.
However, Wells Fargo has almost always been known during my 11-year real estate career to be the most stringent of all the lenders when considering lending credit. Since the loans they’re considering are required to meet FHA insuring standards, it may be a good bet because as we come out of the recession and there are people who, after a 2-3 years, have gotten back on their feet as the employment market strengthens, it would be good to give them a chance to rebuild their lives to the standards they’ve had in the past.
I’m curious what other people’s stances are on the topic, and I’m definitely going to be keeping my eyes and ears open to see if this, indeed, does happen.
REALTOR.com did a survey of 1000 people to get an idea on how Men vs. Women have crushes on real estate. Not surprisingly, men tend to flirt around with their crushes and women tend to also have a dream crush – perhaps that one that is unattainable. Check out the full article here and below I’m posting the graphic they devised from the study results.
Home crushes – comparing men to women
Not sure what MDRA stands for? Well, if you aren’t potentially at risk of losing your home, you probably don’t care, but for those folks who are going through either a foreclosure or short sale starting Jan 1, 2014 and beyond, you do care, as this is the legislation that ran from 2007 to the end of 2013 that allowed taxes to be waived on forgiven mortgage debt released in either a foreclosure or short sale action. It stands for the Mortgage Debt Relief Act.
The folks at DS News Digital have brought us another article you can read here that covers a bit more detail. Suffice it to say, that until we are much further out of this recession and housing problem, we need this extension for those who are still working their way out of the financial trenches.
The Industry-supported bill addressing the fallout from the Landis Court Decision has been voted out of committee in the Senate – Needs your support to be brought to the Senate Floor for a full vote
Rent Control Coming to Washington State?
RHA Members,
Yesterday afternoon RHA and its industry partners were successful in lobbying the Landis Bill (SB 6143) out of the Senate Law & Justice Committee.
SB 6143 now resides in the Senate Rules Committee, where it is eligible to be brought to the Senate Floor for a full vote to move the legislation over to the House of Representatives.
RHA asks that you contact all Senators listed on the Senate Rules Comittee to voice your support of SB 6143. To email the full committee list click here.
Without passage of SB 6143 your tenants are able to terminate their tenancy due to a perceived defect at the property without giving you prior notification or opportunity to fix the defect, and without having any further obligation to the terms of the lease.
Thank you,
Sean Martin
Director of External Affairs, RHA
Email
206-905-0609
Only offered 1x per year, we are hosting our annual Team Reba No Fluff Savvy Home Seller Class this Saturday:
Hello, clients and friends of Team Reba!
With the New Year in full gear now, we wanted to make sure you knew about our upcoming 2-hour class for sellers on Saturday, January 18, 2014 from 10am-Noon.
Even if you aren’t considering selling your own home, you may know someone who is thinking about doing this in the coming weeks, months, or year and this is a GREAT primer to set up a seller for success. We’d appreciate it if you’d consider attending or forwarding this program to anyone you may know who you think could benefit from it. We will be covering the sales process, inspections (what to expect), title/escrow for sellers and current market conditions in the Puget Sound region.
RSVPs can be sent to Classes@TeamReba.com so the presenters can bring the appropriate amount of material for attendees. Or you can find our Facebook page for the event and RSVP there as well.
Location: 2312 Eastlake Ave E, Seattle WA 98102
Thanks to everyone for all of your continued support of our real estate business here at Team Reba, it is greatly appreciated!!!!
Best wishes to all for a wonderful and prosperous New Year!!!!
Reba Haas & Robin Tomazic
Today, as I was perusing some very low priced listings for a client of mine, I came across this wonderfully fantastic, very real description of a listing:
“Old-Dingy-Cheap Fixer on nice lot with mountain views. Contract terms available, power in, water on, close to schools, shopping, and recreational areas. Great neighborhood. This one bedroom traditional may be structurally sound but it all ends there. This is a fixer upper that makes all other fixers look like a palace. Don’t take our word for it, call and see what a mess $39,950. will get you.”
Classic…. And the pictures they posted along with the listing backed it up.