Register Real Estate Advisors

If you are looking to purchase a home in The Woodlands or Spring area, go to RREA.tv to watch all of our neighborhood videos. We have created videos of most of The Woodlands and Spring communities and villages. You can see from the videos what amenities are available and how the homes look from the street. We usually add price ranges and information about the schools and surrounding areas in the videos. Choosing an area of town and narrowing down the right neighborhood for you and your family will depend greatly on your personal needs and wants. It is helpful if you make a list of your top criteria for a home so we can help you narrow down communities into a prioritized list. If you are not currently working with a Realtor, please call us at RREA. Our agents can help you with all of your buying and selling needs. We would like to help you choose your next community and find a great fit for your family. When it comes to real estate – we know our market!

Do you need to sell your home? Are you planning to purchase a home in the Houston area? Either way, now is a great time! Right now, interest rates remain low. Indictors predict they will be rising soon. So now might be the best time to purchase before rates go up. If you have good credit, stable income, and a down payment, it’s even a good time to qualify for a loan. In general, it’s usually more cost effective to buy rather than lease a home right now. On the other hand, if you are selling, it’s nice to know our Houston area home prices have not fluctuated a lot like the homes on a national level have gone down. According to the MLS, home prices are actually up now compared to last year at this time. The amount of inventory on the market has reduced, so there’s less competition on the market now. It’s a great time to consider buying or selling a home in the Houston area! Right now you can purchase more home for less money – so if you have been thinking about making a move – now could be the very best time! Call RREA today to find an agent that can meet all of your buying and selling needs.
There are a few things to consider when purchasing a home. You will need to consider factors like your finances, what areas of town you prefer to live in, proximity to your employment, and where you like to socialize. At RREA, our in house lender can pre-qualify you for your next home within twenty four hours. You can apply online anytime through our website.
Your lender will print off a list of your purchasing costs. Use that to compare lenders based on interest rates, fees, monthly expenses, and upfront costs. Our in house lender has a track record for saving our clients money on purchases. He works closely with our Realtors to find the best mortgage for your buying needs. It will take time to compile all of the necessary documents, so plan with your lender before the purchase. Lenders are asking for a lot of additional documentation these days.
The bottom line is that although now is a great time to buy or sell a home – you need someone on your side protecting your best interest. You need someone who understands the changes going on with new complicated laws, regulations, and a more conservative mortgage industry. The Realtors at RREA are very well educated on this changing market and can help protect you and maximize your savings when buying or selling a home.

Maybe they aren’t so much “design problems” as they are “staging issues.” If you are planning to sale your home this spring or summer, here are some ideas to help you. These are inexpensive ideas that can easily be implimented to help your home show and sell easier and faster for the maximum amount of money.

We all know that when you renevate a bathroom or kitchen you add value to a home. But what about just adding some decorative knobs to the cabinets or restaining the front of your current cabinets? You can replace laminate countertops with corian without spending the amount of money you would spend on granite. Some corian countertops even look like granite. Adding under the counter lighting and over the counter lighting can change the ambiance in the room, but using rope lights, it won’t cost you that much. They will be hidden, so who cares what they look like! New faucets are always nice. Did you know that some name brand faucets offer lifetime warranties? So if yours has simply rusted out or is leaking, you may be able to get a free one from the manufacturer and just pay for the labor to install it.

Outside it’s much easier to repaint the garage door instead of replacing it. Same goes for restaining the front door. Planting some inexpensive annuals can really increase the curb appeal and spruce up the landscaping. Fresh mulch is another that helps sparse flower beds.

Inside the home it doesn’t cost anything for you to declutter. If you know you will be moving, why not start packing and make the home mmore appealing to buyers? You can add inexpensive shelving to the laundry room for easy buyer appeal. Everyone wants more space for stacking laundry, storing the iron, and containing that laundry detergent. The Container Store offers many organizational items that help the home to function better and appear more organized and less cluttered.

If your home needs more space, consider building out some of the attic space, instead of adding on to the home. This can be much more cost effective.

Our RREA blog offers lots of tips to both buyers and sellers. We hope you will join us each week for our “White Board Monday” that gives you consumer real estate tips in the form of a video. As always, if our agents can help you with your buying or selling needs, please contact us at 281.288.3500.

I liked this article below about renters paying more money a year on housing than homeowners.  I encourage everyone I know to buy a house instead of renting.  Why pay someone else’s taxes, insurance, and mortgage?  I even have a rent vs. buy calculator.  Call me today and I can tell you how much money you could be saving by buying a home instead of renting.  Call me today at 281.288.3500 and we can discuss your options for purchasing a home.

Posted By susanne On October 25, 2011 @ 3:59 pm In Consumer News and Advice,Home Owner News,Real Estate News,Real Estate Trends,Today’s Marketplace

The Spring is when most sellers want to put their houses on the market and most buyers want to start looking for a home.  However, April is also Tax Season.  Tax Transcripts are important for lenders representing buyers.  If you are buying a home and have not filed your taxes, your closing could be significantly delayed.  If you are a seller, be sure to ask your agent to ask the buyer’s lender if the buyers have filed their taxes so that you won’t have to worry about it close to the closing date.  The reason this has become such a big issue for buyers is due to the amount of fraud from buyers who provided false tax returns showing they qualified for the loan, but they had turned in a different return to the IRS.  So now all returns have to be verified and we see a lot of closings held up due this issue, or the buyer finds their dream home and cannot make an offer until their tax returns are filed.  So I recommend that buyers take care of all tax filing issues before they get pre-approved to purchase a home in the Spring.

Here are some general guidelines, but check with your particular lender to see if you need to file your tax returns before you close on your home purchase.

1. If the borrower is a W-2 employee & has no self employment or commission income then most lenders won’t require the tax return for 2011 until after April 15^th  when it is due.
2. If the borrower is earning commission or is self employed, & their income for 2009 & 2010 is sufficient, most lenders will just require a profit loss statement for 2011 showing they are in line with previous years in addition to tax returns for 2009 and 2010.
3.  If the borrower is commission based or self employed  & the lender needs 2011 income to justify their earnings, then a lot of lenders will need the tax return for 2011 and the Tax Transcript pulled directly form the IRS.
4. It can take the IRS about 4-6 weeks to make the transcripts available after the return is filed (longer if it is mailed in rather then sent electronically). And if the borrower OWES taxes, they actually put those returns aside and they take longer to get transcripts back to the lenders.  This is what can drag out your closing!
5. If the tax return shows the borrower owes taxes, then most lenders have to show the taxes as paid or show a payment agreement with the IRS that will be include in the debt ratios

Did you know that nearly half of all the jobs since 2009 were created in Texas?  I feel blessed to live and work in the great state of Texas.  The annual economic output of Texas exceeds one trillion dollars and that number seems to be growing even in this economy.  Texas is a huge state.  Did you know that if the entire seven billion people in the world move to Texas there would be more than 1,100 square feet for every person on the planet.  According to the 2010 Census, Texas had over 25 million residents.  By 2030 Texas is stimated that it will grow to 40 million residents.  It seems like everyone wants to move to Texas and join us!  That can be compared to unloading four jumbo jets in Texas every day for the next 19 years.  To learn more about Texas current market facts you can view the new Texaplex Video on our blog that will post tomorrow!

Are you interested in buying a home on Lake Conroe?  If so, our Realtors can help.  Call us at 281.288.3500 to find out everything you need to know about relocating to the Lake Conroe area.  Lake Conroe is just seven miles west of Conroe.  It’s a man made lake that was created in 1973.  Currently, water levels are low, which has reduced housing prices on the lake.  That coupled with low interest rates makes it a great time to buy lakefront property!  There are marinas around the lake and places to rent boats and watercraft and picnic.  There are a variety of housing on the lake and in nearby communities.  Some of the communities on the West Side of the lake are April Sound, Bentwater, and Walden Lake.  Each offers a country club and other amenities whether you are a full time resident or just come up to visit your second home on the lake.

SAN ANTONIO (San Antonio Business Journal) – Only two U.S. metro areas have had increases in home values since the peak of the housing market in 2007, and they’re both in Texas: Houston and San Antonio.

According to Oxford, Miss.-based FNC Inc., Houston reported a 4.8 percent rise in home values, while San Antonio reported a 2.7 percent increase.

Nationally, home prices were down 3.5 percent at the end of 2011 compared with prices reported in December 2010.

Register Real Estate Advisors is pleased to announce that Sheryl Hunter was awarded the 2011 “Top Selling Agent” for the company at our recent awards ceremony.  As a Realtor, Sheryl is professional and has a solid understanding of the real estate industry.  She has gained extensive experience from listing and selling properties in and around the Houston area.  Among her specialties, Sheryl has acquired her Accredited Buyers Representative Designation and she is a Certified Distressed Property Expert.  She understands the current market challenges for sellers and the difficulties with qualifying for a mortgage.  Congrats Sheryl!  If you or someone you know is looking to buy or sale a property in 2012 – contact Sheryl at 281.288.3500.

In Spring, Texas the housing market seems to be picking up as we move into fall.  We have improving employment conditions as ExxonMobil makes it’s way to our area.  Homes in the area have always been affordable compared to the rest of the country, but now they are even more affordable due to extremely low interest rates that won’t last forever.  It’s a great time for first time home owners to jump into the market.  If you are a renter, it could be the best time to buy.  The Houston MLS showed strong economic trends in the last quarter of 2011.  While mortgage lending is still somewhat of a challenge, throughout the real estate industry we are hoping that banks and lenders will relax regulations to allow for a more rapid recovery.  According to the MLS, the inventory of homes on the market actually dropped in the last quarter of 2011, leaving buyers with less to choose from.  As housing inventory continues to decline, we will see that it will slowly move from a buyer’s market to a more stable, seller’s market.  This is the path to a strong recovery.  With the elections ahead of us, no one can foresee what will happen in the real estate market, but this Spring is really looking good so far.