August 7, 2010

Monthly payments on FHA loans increase on October 4th

Earlier this year, the FHA increased the upfront mortgage insurance premium from 1.75% of the loan value to 2.25%. Now the FHA has decided to reduce the upfront mortgage insurance premium from 2.25% to 1% and increase the annual premium from 0.55% to 0.9% on loan to value (LTV) ratios greater than 95%. What does […]

July 26, 2010

My House, My Rules

I remember my parents saying “My House, My Rules” a lot when I was a kid. It was their common response to my questions of “why can’t I eat in the living room?” and “why can’t I put my feet on the coffee table?” and “why do I have to take off my boots by the back door?” The other day when […]

July 24, 2010

Do you know if your house is for sale?

About 10 years ago it was easy to know if your house was for sale. And if you weren’t 100% sure all you had to do was take a quick look oute the window. If you saw a real estate “for sale” sign in your yard, your house was for sale. But fast forward to today and it’s […]

July 21, 2010

Spring Texas on Money Magazine’s most affordable places to live

Listed at #5 on CNN’s Money Magazine’s list of most affordable places to live is our very own Spring Texas. The fact that our little city of Spring Texas made it on Money Magazine’s list of Top 25 most affordable places to live came as no real surprise to me. As I have known for some time […]

July 17, 2010

Spring Texas Real Estate: Market Report June 2010

What’s going on with the Spring Texas Real Estate Market? It can be summed up with one word “SLOW”. The usually busy summer selling season is anything but that with year over year pending sales being down 30%. Sales for the month were down a much smaller percentage than pending sales due to the lingering effect of the federal […]

July 12, 2010

Where’s the best Pizza?

There are numerous criteria in which you can judge pizza including its … crust, style (NY, Chicago, deep dish, brick oven), toppings (variety, quality, quantity, distribution, proportion), value, and the atmosphere its served in. Where’s the best pizza in the Spring Texas area? In my opinion, the best all around pizza is served at Grotto’s. Grotto’s pizza is baked in a […]

July 10, 2010

Home size declines; buyers demand for 1 story homes increase

The National Association of Home Builders announced that builders are listening to buyers preferences and constructing smaller homes. After nearly 30 years of increases, the size of new single-family homes built experiences its first decrease. The nationwide average of 2,438 sqft for homes built in 2009 is about a 100 feet smaller than the homes built in 2007. […]

July 7, 2010

Are people moving in or out of Spring Texas?

In 2008, over 10 million people moved from one county to another. Movement into a city creates demand for housing driving real estate prices up. Dramatic movement out of a city can cripple real estate markets causing housing prices to free fall which is what happened to the Detroit MI real estate market. The interactive mapping tool from Forbes shows people movement […]

July 5, 2010

Communication

When I sit down with prospective sellers, one of the things I want to find out about are their prior home selling experiences. Were their experiences good or bad and what made them good or bad? Sometimes the sellers have had great experiences and were very satisfied with their listing agent’s performance. Other times the seller’s listing agent failed […]

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