City of Tacoma ~
Side Sewer Inspection Requirement Postponed Until October 1, 2010
The City of Tacoma passed an emergency ordinance last night that postpones the effective date of the new side sewer inspection requirement from July 1, 2010 to October 1, 2010. Beginning on October 1, 2010, Tacoma property owners are required to have a certified inspection of their private side sewers prior to the sale or transfer of a home or business, major remodel, or any construction over an existing side sewer. More information about the requirement is available on City of Tacoma’s website.
I’ll be interested to know how they expect things like this to be paid for in short sale and bank owned properties.
Here is a link to my “August Real Estate Update“:
This Newsletter is full of interesting and useful information that I think you will enjoy whether you are a buyer, seller, homeowner, or renter.
This month’s issue includes topics such as:
“Five Keys To Successful Negotiations”;
“How to Recognize a Sellers Market”;
“Most Neighbors Still Connect The Old Fashioned Way”;
“Making Your Home Appealing On A Budget”;
“Final Walk-Through Tips”;
Plus a roundup of July real estate activity as well as much more advice and information.
I hope you enjoy this monthly newsletter. If you have any comments, please e-mail them to me. Or, if you would like to see a certain topic covered in future months, let me know that too!
Found on Yahoo Real Estate pages online is this great article by Amy Fontinelle of www.Investopedia.com. For anyone who is considering purchasing a home for the first time, it’s worth the time to read.
I’d have to say that in addition to what she wrote here, it’s important for first time buyers to set realistic expectations for themselves. Today’s younger generations have grown up in much bigger homes than was common in generations past. The concept of a “starter home” is a little foreign to many.
The other big benefit of working with an agent is that it’s a great way to use their experience to get an overall view of the process and walking through it so you know what to expect in addition to a professional viewpoint of what’s going on in the market for housing and with pricing trends. Plus, there is the added advantage of them being a personal resource for referrals to lenders, inspectors, escrow and more as you go through the purchase process.
Recently we had a situation where a couple client of ours was going through a divorce. We’d been asked at one point to provide a Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) on a rental property (former personal residence) so that it’s value could be considered in part of the splitting of assets. Our analysis looking at current and recent sale data showed the home to be valued in the mid-$200’s. Some time went by and as the timeline for the end of the divorce proceeding loomed, we were asked to update our analysis to confirm the prior value and/or to see if the value had changed at all.
During that time we were still in the declining market for our area so the value stayed in the mid-$200’s. I was surprised to hear that one of the homeowners had been told by one of the attorneys that if a market analysis couldn’t be completed that they’d have to use the Zillow valuation for the home. Yikes! I took a look at it and the “Zestimate” was at $313,000 with a range of $278k - 332k. Not a realistic value for this property at all. Perhaps if the one owner was actually getting something out of the divorce this might be a good thing to hear, but the reality of the divorce was that it was a splitting of debt mostly. Having the value be higher meant she’d be shouldering more debt than would have been appropriate for her.
If you’re going through a divorce and splitting of assets includes real estate, be sure to look at all your options for valuation - including paying an appraiser or a real estate broker to put a market analysis together for you. We do these regularly for estates where the stepped up cost basis needs to be determined and it can be done for divorce cases as well.
The folks at Inman released the news that the House has approved an extension of the closing timeline for 1st time buyers and move-up buyers to get the tax credits offered for purchasing during the specified time limit. However, we’re still waiting for final news that the Senate has also approved it. Keep your eyes and ears peeled for it, but in the meantime all of the escrow offices I know are working full-tilt to get as many contracts closed today as they humanely can do.
Some of the frustrations that home buyers have experienced are that a large amount of the sales going on today involve either bank owned or short sale transactions - both of which aren’t always following the deadlines put to them in real estate contracts. With short sales taking, on average, around 6 months or more to close these types of transactions have really strangled the buyers who are trying to purchase them, if they were going for the tax credit.
At Team Reba we’ve seen the reality of the concerns that buyers have had with at least one listing having had a contract cancelled due to concerns that the buyer wouldn’t be able to close in time for the tax credit. Now it’s too bad that they did so since the extension is likely here. We also had another contract where we had to push hard on behalf of our buyer because the family was purchasing a bank owned home where the Trustee and the bank were slow to respond on every deadline and request for documentation, taking upwards of 3.5 months to close the deal. We just closed that transaction last week, much to the relief of our clients.
For the rest of you out there waiting to get your closing done today, you might cross your fingers, toes and legs and knock on wood - let’s hope the Senate gets moving on this bill.
The REALTOR.org site has links to stories that cover these items. For different types of Fannie Mae backed loans there are new underwriting guidelines to help mitigate risk on these loans which means that for the public they’ll be harder to get. Not impossible, but more documentation and stricter guidelines for qualify.
Specifically, Adjustable Rate Mortgage (ARM) loans are addressed with regard to qualifying standards (ie, customers must qualify at the adjusted rate, not the teaser/start rate) and interest only loans (yes, they still exist)now require a minimum 720 FICO credit mid-score.
Happy reading!
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Lots of good information comes to us agents via the NWMLS that we belong to and today’s update in their system has alerted us to a new requirement in the City of Tacoma that all of you who own property in Tacoma will want to know about. Read the notice below:
City of Tacoma – Side Sewer Inspection Requirement
Effective July 1, 2010, Tacoma property owners are required to have a certified inspection of their private side sewers prior to the sale or transfer of a home or business, major remodel, or any construction over an existing side sewer. More information about the requirement is available on City of Tacoma’s website. NWMLS has created Form 22 TSA (Tacoma Sewer Addendum) that should be used for the sale of property with a side sewer in the City of Tacoma.
