Buy a House Fast

Lost in the Crowd?

When buying a home, you will likely become acquainted with a whole slew of real estate professionals.  From the realtor who helps you select a home to the listing agent who shows you some promising inventory, the experience can be difficult (and extremely frustrating) when any of these pivotal characters fail to meet your expectations.  One of the most controversial areas today is the whole appraisal process.

Help for the Weary

The folks over at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are doing their best to ensure that no one plays fast and loose with the appraisal process.  To that end, they’ve created a new code that holds appraisers to a higher standard of quality and professionalism. Sounds great, right? Well, it has already gotten serious backlash from people in the real estate business who believe stricter rules can only hurt an already struggling housing market.

As a result, Fannie and Freddie have tried to clarify what the new code means for homebuyers like you.  One major change outlined in the clarification document is the need for mortgage lenders to accept appraisals only from professionals with experience in the region in question.  Think about it: wouldn’t you want the appraisal coming from someone who knows the area your future home is in?

While communication between and real estate agents is permitted in the process (after all, realtors can be an excellent source of information), they cannot have a hand in selecting the appraiser.  The concern here is that a realtor eager to close a deal will select an appraiser they enjoy a mutually beneficial relationship, one willing to provide the estimate necessary for the transaction to be completed as quickly as possible.  Similar arrangements can often exist between appraisers and lenders, who have been known on occasion to lean on appraisers to overstate property values. While that may help a seller sell his house fast, it certainly won’t help when the buyer faces this dilemma: “I wanted to buy my house fast, but it didn’t meet appraisal. Now what do I do?”

Appraisal Delay or Consumer Protection?  You Decide which is Best.

Basically, Fannie and Freddie’s goal in creating a new code is to protect the homebuyer, and restore purity to the appraisal process.  Whatever delay these new measures may cause will be more than made up for by the increased confidence buyers will have in the accuracy and integrity of the professionals they turn to for an estimate.

According to the National Association of Realtors, the pace of home sales has continued to rise steadily and shows no signs of dipping; June’s numbers reflected an increase for the third month in a row, raising the rare of sales 3.6% and bringing the projected year-end numbers to 4.86 million. When July’s come out, we will feature them here.

Here’s a Flash: BUY NOW!

If you’re thinking about making a move on some property and are wondering whether now is the right time to pull the trigger, your peers are buying, and they’re buying fast.  At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it’s a buyer’s market out there, and houses are priced to sell at considerably less than they would normally be going for.

Incentives Have Never Been Better

You’ve heard all about the tax incentives and credits available to first-time homebuyers, who are often people looking for reasonably priced, relatively modest “starter homes.”  Thanks to the measures aimed at encouraging this demographic to get in the game, houses in the $250,000 range are going fast (at this rate, the supply at this price point is expected to be cleared within 6 months) while higher-end homes continue to sit on the market without attracting much interest (the inventory of houses priced around $1,000,000 will take 20 months to unload at current rates).

We’ll Help if You Want

You know who we are, and you know what we sell.  If you’re looking to make your dream of owning a home a reality, get in touch with us here at Express Realty Services and see for yourself why people like you are buying fast! And, why we are the #1 Keller Williams agency in Virginia and the fastest seller of homes in the DC Metro area.