The Home Buyer Tax-Credit is getting more popular as we approach the Tax-Credit Deadline.  As that deadline draws near, many home buyers are wondering who qualifies to get the tax credit.  One common misunderstanding is that you have to be a first time home buyer…truth is, you don’t have to be a first time home buyer!

I’ve put together a simple list of basic home buyer requirements:

Home Buyer Tax-Credit Requirements

$6500 Tax Credit For ‘Repeat Buyers’:

• Must have owned and resided in your current home for 5 of the last 8 years.
• Income limits for single taxpayers is $125,000;  limit is $225,000 for married taxpayers filing a joint return.
• Any Home less than $800k that will be used as a principal residence qualifies.
• Must be under contract to purchase by April 30th, 2010 and closed by June 30th, 2010.

$8000 Tax Credit For ‘First Time Home Buyers’

• All First time home buyers purchasing a new or re-sale home are eligible.
• Income limit for single taxpayers is $125,000; the limit is $225,000 for married taxpayers filing a joint return.
• Tax credit is equal to 10% of the purchase of price of the home, up to $8000 of credit.
• Any Home less than $800k that will be used as a principal residence qualifies.
• Must be under contract to purchase by April 30th, 2010 and closed by June 30th, 2010.

For more Frequently Asked Questions, check out this site!

Looking to Buy? Find your home now!

Still don’t know if you qualify? Give me a call and I’ll walk you through it!

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When you’re looking at homes for sale in Boise, Meridian, Eagle etc., you often times can get a flyer off of the sign in the flyer box.

BUT

Today you can text a code number thats listed on the sign and get a text message sent to your phone with pictures, details and even a virtual tour!

POLL QUESTION: Which would you prefer: A color flyer or an INSTANT interactive Text Message?

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How to Negotiate a Short Sale

Lots of questions come up about how to negotiate with the bank on a short sale and with 30% of the Homes for sale in Boise, Meridian and Kuna etc. listed as short sales ,  I thought I’d address the issue here as a reference for you!

One quality of a good buyers agent is the ability to negotiate.

The problem however is that most people don’t really understand what negotiation really means…especially buyers.  And, with the tax credit deadline looming, you might not want to get caught up in a short sale transaction at all!

3 elements of negotiation

The 3 elements of negotiation are:  Process, behavior, and substance.  They don’t really exist in a short sale.
Process: You have no access to the actual negotiators at the bank other than your offer/HUD 1 Statement.

Behavior: You have no access to directly persuade the investors at the bank.

Substance: The property itself is an asset, performing or not, that has a concrete value attached to it by the investors. If you don’t like their price or terms, there is very little you can do beyond submitting counter offer after counter offer to see where they finally say no.

Basically, there is little persuasion that can be done in a short sale. I’d focus more on finding the agent who can facilitate and work a short sale process ( like me ) more than I would focus on who can negotiate.

Lastly, when it comes to real estate negotiation, there is little room for negotiating on irrationality or principal. Most negotiating is done based on facts. Concrete market data just might rob you of any “smoking deals” that you or any other buyers may feel entitled to.

At best, in real estate, good negotiations will result in both parties either making a sacrifice OR both parties making a gain. Rarely does one (with good representation) get taken complete advantage of by result of ‘good’ persuasion.

The MLS is the real estate industry’s favorite acronym.   For those of you that know what the MLS means, congrats, but for those that don’t know what the MLS means, this article is for you!  For example, if you’ve used my Boise MLS Home Search feature, then you know what I am talking about.  By the way, I’ll sometimes call it the “Multiple” for short!

What is the MLS?

The MLS stands for Multiple Listing Service. In Idaho, the MLS is a collection of almost all of the homes listed by Realtors. In order to directly access the MLS Database, you have to be a licensed Realtor in good standing with your local MLS Board…in my case, the Intermountain MLS. Almost every home for sale, is in the MLS and when I work with a buyer, I use the Multiple listing service to locate those homes that meet their criteria.

The multiple listing service is accessed online by Realtors, but today, some websites have their own version of the  MLS. These websites make it possible for buyers to indirectly access the multiple with limited search capabilities. In the past, the general public had no way of getting those listings without the help of a Realtor. The Internet Data Exchange is the protocol that transfers certain limited data from the multiple to an agents home search tool. Whenever you search for homes on a website, you’re accessing the IDX feed, not the MLS so the information is limited.

Whats better, a Realtors website or the MLS?

Hands down, the MLS is better.  As previously mentioned, when you search for a home on a Realtors website, you can only search based on limited information. For instance, you might be able to search based on quantity of bedrooms, baths and square feet, but you won’t be able to search based on school district or other specialized important information.

Today, I get a lot of requests from buyers trying to beat the tax credit deadline to find homes that AREN’T short sales (they can take months to successfully accomplish). To date, there are very few, if any Realtor websites that can search for all homes EXCLUDING short sales.

In addition to exclusive searching, I can access tax data, parcel information, listing history, and a number of other things that most buyers just can’t find on a Realtors website…including mine.

Probably the most concerning issue is that not all homes listed with the MLS show up on Realtor websites–even the big ones like Trulia and Realtor.com!!!

This doesn’t mean that a Boise Real Estate Agent’s website is unhelpful, it just means that buyers without the help of a Realtor are not accessing the entire market.

Why Bother Searching on My Agents Site?

Searching on your agents site isn’t a total waste. If you have the option of signing up and creating an account, do! This will allow your agent to get a good idea of what types of homes you like and what it is that you’re really looking for. In addition, you can set up email notifications that will get you in front of the best listings first!

If you are using a Real Estate company’s site to search, you’re not doing yourself any favors if you aren’t registering and working with an aggressive agent who knows the market. Recently, I’ve been doing a lot of work in South Boise and Southeast Boise, so I have an edge on agents who haven’t been working there recently. It makes for a valuable service to new buyers when their agent already knows of the great deals without having to look on the multiple. On the other hand, I have access to the ENTIRE Multiple Listing Service and can search any area and find deals within moments!

What MLS Tools do I provide my buyers?

I provide my buyers with 3 Boise Home Search capabilities:

• Boiserealestatesoup.com — This a  free site where you can do an IDX style search.  In addition, you can create an account where you can save favorite listings and search criteria and also be notified of new homes on the market as they become available.
• Listingbook — This a step up from my sites IDX.  You can not only search homes, but you can schedule showings, leave feedback, make notes and create a profile that we use to communicate online about the market.  A very, very powerful tool!  All of my clients love it!
• Intermountain MLS — Each buyer I work with gets a one on one consultation with me where I go through the Multiple Listing Service for them.  I gather all the information from you about what’s important in a home, community or whatever criteria is important to you.  I then build a profile for you and anytime a home comes onto the market, gets a price change or is modified in any way, I am the first to know about it.  There are many times where we go through the Multiple together and you can see what I see!

Start your homesearch NOW!!!

What is Appreciation?

Appreciation is an increase in the value of an asset, in this case real estate,  over time.  Driving factors that may cause the increase are:  increased demand or weakening supply, or as a result of changes in inflation or interest rates.  This is the opposite of depreciation, which is a decrease over time.  Obviously the Boise Real Estate market has seen some pretty serious decline in appreciation due to a multitude of factors.

Here is Idaho’s Chart on Appreciation from 1991 to 2009 Quarter 3

Click for larger view