Why Do You Need a Real Estate Professional?

 I’m here to break down five reasons you should always hire a professional to represent your real estate needs.

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Whether you are looking to buy or sell a home, you don’t want to try to tackle the market alone. I’ve put together a list of five reasons why hiring a real estate professional is always better than trying to go it alone.
1. Paperwork. There is much more paperwork that goes into buying or selling a home than there used to be. A transaction of this size requires more than a single sheet of paper. There is a lot of information contained in the paperwork that you should be aware of, and a real estate professional will help you navigate that.

2. Experience. Having someone who is educated and highly experienced is key.

3. Negotiations. Having someone help you negotiate who isn’t swayed by emotion will make sure you get the best deal whether you are buying or selling.

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Having someone who is educated and highly experienced is key.

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4. Pricing. Pricing is an art. There are a lot of tools that can help you determine pricing. However, to make sure your home is priced correctly and in order to sell in a brief amount of time, you need to make sure a professional is pricing your home.

5. Understanding of current market conditions. We shift in and out of buyer’s and seller’s markets, and hiring someone who understands those shifts will provide you with a solid foundation to either look for a home on the market or sell a home on the market.

If you have any questions please feel free to give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to hearing from you!

Things for Millennial Home Buyers to Consider

 More and more home buyers are entering our market each day. Many of these buyers are part of the newest and strongest segments of buyers—millennials.

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There is one specific segment of buyers that is making our market extra exciting. These buyers are part of the millennial generation (ages 18-34) and they are an integral part of our market. They will continue to be an integral part for the foreseeable future.

As you can see in the video above, the age groups with the highest percentage of people who associate homeownership with the American Dream are those in the 65+ generation and millennials. Business Insider, who did this study, also did a study that examined when these buyers plan to purchase. Over the next five years, over 60% of millennials plan to enter the market. They are going to continue fueling our market going forward.
We don’t see a slowdown coming at all. If you are looking for a larger home or to get out of your rental situation, now is a smart time to do that. We expect significant appreciation to continue for the next few years.
As for first-time home buyers, many are misinformed about how much it actually costs to buy a home. In fact, 73% of millennials are unaware of the fact that there are many down payment assistance programs available that will allow them to get into a house for just 3% to 5% down. That number can be even lower by taking advantage of certain grant programs that are available.

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More and more millennials are choosing to buy.

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Buying a home can be very cost-effective in the long term, and millennials are realizing this.

If you’re looking to buy and want to begin the process, a study by the National Association of Realtors showed that 89% of millennial real estate participants used a Realtor. As a buyer, it costs you nothing for competent, professional representation in a real estate transaction.
If you are thinking about buying or selling, give us a call or send us an email. We would love to speak to you about your specific situation and answer any questions you may have. We look forward to hearing from you soon!

We Owe All Our Success to You

 Thanks for helping us make 2016 one of the best years ever in the Portland real estate market!

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We wanted to take a moment to reflect back on 2016 and how you helped us make it great.

We really appreciate all of our new and repeat clients that helped our business this year. I also want to thank everyone who sent us referrals—I can't even begin to tell you how important they are to us!

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Thanks for helping us make this year a great one. 

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This year was an amazing one for the Portland real estate market. We saw some of the most extensive price appreciation that our country has seen in some time. In fact, we led the nation for most of the year in percentage-based appreciation. We expect 2017 to be a very similar year, even though I think the appreciation rate will slow a little bit.

If you or anyone you know is interested in buying or selling a home in the Portland area as we head into 2017, send them our way and we'll treat them well. We appreciate you thinking of us.

Happy Holidays!

Why Are Transaction Timelines Longer in the Portland Area?

The average business day turn times for different counties here in Portland are varying to a strange degree. This is because there just aren’t enough appraisers for all the people moving into Portland. 

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Our office recently had a transaction that was supposed to close at the end of September but got postponed by half of a month purely because the appraisal took so long to come in. Why?

Today we’ve invited Peter Wease, our preferred lender from Fairway Independent Mortgage, to talk about turn times for appraisals in the Portland area and how they’re affecting transaction timelines. According to Peter, this type of delay isn’t uncommon. His company has been tracking this type of occurrence for the past year, and they see weekly updates based on different counties.

As you can see in the video above, on September 18th, Clackamas County’s average business day turn time was almost 21 days. On October 3rd, it increased to 23 days. This is in contrast, however, to Washington County, whose average business day turn time dropped from 28 days on September 18th to 16.5 days on October 23rd.

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The appraisers need help.

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The primary factor in this kind of drastic variance from county to county is the fact that roughly 111 people are moving to Portland every single day, and there just aren’t enough appraisers to keep up. The best way to change this turn time, then, is to get more help to the appraisers.

Another consequence of this situation is that appraisal fees have soared. Appraisers are getting inundated by other appraisal management companies, so they’re demanding higher fees and being more selective in which appraisals they choose to undertake. Who pays for that increase? The customer. It’s unfortunate, but it’s the truth.

The moral of the story is that, for the time being, it’s going to be hard to close a transaction in just 30 days in the Portland area. You’d be well-advised to prepare for it to take as long as 45 or even 50 days. In addition, let your clients know about what’s going on with these turn times so they can prepare as well.

If you have any other questions for Pete about current mortgage rates, you can call him at 503-267-6391.

As always, if there’s anything else you’d like us to address relative to the mortgage finance aspect of real estate transactions, give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to talking with you soon!

Don’t Miss these Expert Portland Home Finance Tips

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Today I have Peter Wease with me and he will be helping us to discuss some changes that have happened with mortgage financing in Portland. Some of my viewers from last episode were concerned that Portland real estate may be entering a bubble, but I think those concerns are unfounded.

What has changed with mortgage financing in Portland is the creation of the CFPB, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. This is supposed to promote fairness and transparency for the consumer. TRID (TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure) was also designed to give the consumer time to look at the numbers during the closing process in a real estate transaction. It simply gives the consumer more time during the closing of a sale. Basically, everything in the transaction must be disclosed in paper. 

This prevents erroneous fees and charges from being issued to the consumer. Furthermore, this prevents bad loans from being made, and this will ultimately prevent another bubble from forming. People borrowing money today are much more protected now than they were in the past.

If you have any questions about these changes, please don’t hesitate to contact me!

What Changes Are Coming to the CFPB?

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Welcome back, everyone. Today we are excited to be joined by Peter Weiss, from our preferred mortgage lender, Fareway Independent Mortgage. Today we are going to talk about the CFPB, or Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and what changes are coming to it that could affect your next real estate transaction.

The CFPB is a governmental agency that was created out of the mortgage crisis in 2007-2008. The idea of the CFPB is to create a protection for the consumer, and they are making changes soon that will affect both buyers and sellers. 

The idea behind the current change is to condense some of the disclosures that are currently sent out to the consumer. Instead of having to fill out all kinds of different disclosure forms, they are pulling all the disclosures together into one form. 

With this new disclosure, once we get final approval, we send the disclosure out to the customer well before the closing date, so they have time to review it. We want to hit every closing right on time.

Additional changes are coming that could impact the timeline of a real estate transaction. These changes are coming October 3rd, so mark your calendars. 

If you have any questions about the mortgage or finance world, let us know. We would love to answer them with Peter in an upcoming video. We look forward to hearing from you!