Selling a Home During a Slumping Market
Selling a home during a slumping market can be a grueling process for owners. Going it alone can be especially tough — and now a smaller proportion of sellers does that.
For-sale-by-owner deals increased steadily for two decades into the late 1990s. They accounted for 18% of sales in 1997, but that has fallen to 12%, says the National Association of Realtors.
Many homeowners feel that in a difficult market a real estate agent can sell a property more quickly and fetch more money than can an owner alone, says NAR spokesman Walter Molony.
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Scammers Target Homeowners As Foreclosures Increase
As the number of foreclosures rises, homeowners unable to make their mortgage payments are facing another growing threat: "foreclosure rescue" scams.
State and federal authorities say they are investigating an increasing number of homeowner complaints about fraud and deception by companies that engage in lending to financially distressed borrowers seeking to avoid foreclosure. Several states have recently passed or are contemplating new laws to provide more protection against dishonest businesses trying to take advantage of already vulnerable homeowners.
The problem centers on foreclosure-rescue companies, which target homeowners behind on their mortgage payments through newspaper ads or fliers claiming services such as "fast cash," "equity funding" and "no credit check." According to some recent cases filed by consumers and regulators, the companies mislead borrowers into believing they can save their homes from foreclosure in exchange for a transfer of the title for a year or two. The companies promise borrowers they can stay in their homes by paying rent for that period, giving them time to catch up financially until they can buy back their property. Often unknown to the borrowers, however, the companies may have sold their homes to a third party, stripping out the home equity and leaving the borrowers on the verge of eviction.
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Energy-Saving Home Improvements and Taxes
Since 2006 was an election year, it's not surprising that lawmakers spent much of it creating and adjusting tax laws. Now, as taxpayers put these new measures into practical effect by filing their annual returns, many will find changes that produce some nice tax savings.
If you replaced your home's drafty windows last year with new, energy-efficient panes, make sure you file the long Form 1040, along with Form 5695, to get the corresponding tax credit. That's just one way to take advantage of the energy-efficient home improvement provisions included in the energy bill that took effect Jan. 1, 2006.
Simple upgrades, such as the new windows or added insulation, offer relatively small tax breaks. You can claim more generous credits if you added solar water, heat or power systems to your house. If you didn't get the improvements in by the Dec. 31 deadline to claim the credit this year, you get another chance by completing the work this year; a couple credits also carry over into 2008.
"What's great about the energy credits is that everybody can take them," says LeValley. "There are no income phaseouts. It's not about how much — too little, too much — you earn. It's about just making the right purchase."
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Tips for Selling Your Home in Winter
What makes selling a home more stressful? Selling it in the middle of winter.
The lawn is brown, the weather is usually bad and, unlike the longer days of summer, you have less time to show it off during daylight hours.
But not everyone has the luxury of waiting until the traditional spring or summer home buying season to plant that "for sale" sign, and while it's true that in most areas you'll probably have fewer buyers during the winter, you will have less competition from other sellers.
That makes staging — the concept of showing your house at its best — even more important. Be prepared to put a little effort into it. "It's more difficult to make something look really appealing this time of year," says Ron Phipps, broker with Phipps Realty in Warwick, R.I.
If you do it right, you can really make your house stand out.
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Condo Prices Reveal Housing Trends
In trying to get a read on how much real estate markets are slumping, some people may be looking at the wrong indicator.
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) tracks sales of both single-family homes and condos.
In the third quarter of 2005, NAR stats for single-family homes show that prices fell 1.2 percent from a year earlier, with 30 percent of markets showing declines.
Condo prices not only dropped more steeply, 2.1 percent, but 46 percent of markets showed declines. Which gives a truer picture?
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