Home Buyer Education: Online

As we enter into the busier spring time home buying season, I begin to get calls from clients and Realtors who ask about Home Buyer Education.  Community, County and State Grant programs vary in amount of money offered, but many require home buyer education BEFORE the Grant can be offered to the home buyer. 

Listing your home and avoiding criticism

When you begin the process of listing your home for sale, it's best to look down the road a bit and visualize WHO will be looking at your home and WHAT their perceptions of your home will be?

The goal of any home listing is to minimize any "negative talk" in the minds of those touring your home and how that can be done is by eliminating at least 4 major stumbling blocks that need a home listing's attention:



4 Ways to Hater-Proof Your Home, Before You List It
By Tara-Nicholle Nelson | Broker in San Francisco, CA

In my experience, there’s one fundamental truth about haters:  you can never fully escape them. The only way to live a 100% hater-free life is to never stick your neck out, and never do anything because, as the saying goes, you simply cannot please all of the people all of the time.

And this is particularly true with real estate and putting your home on the market - because homes, locations, aesthetics and such are so much a matter of personal preference, some people will find something to criticize about even the most perfectly staged, priciest properties on the market.

What is the correlation between credit scores and mortgage rates?

If it's low, do anything you can to make it better!

Does a low credit score really cause my mortgage rate to increase? And by how much?  The data is pulled by myFICO, a division of the Fair Isaac Corporation, with interest rates as of November 13, 2012.

FICO Score Mortgage Interest Rate
760-850       2.926 percent
700-759       3.148 percent
680-699       3.325 percent
660-679       3.539 percent
640-659       3.969 percent
620-639       4.515 percent

As you can see, a good credit score can definitely work in your favor. Raising your credit score is a trick and there is a way to do it most effectively and quickly.  I can help with guidance and suggestions on how to do it.


Here is an excellent place to begin repairing your credit: 
I recommend credit monitoring 

Utah Housing can help more home buyers

Utah Housing offers a "Score Loan" for Utah home buyers with middle credit scores between 620 and 660.

Data out today from Equifax shows the number of consumers with sub-prime credit scores is shrinking across the country and more home buyers can now be helped with home financing!

Nationally, the total number of consumers with Equifax credit scores below 620 fell 2.1 percent, or by about 1 million consumers, in the third quarter of 2012 versus the third quarter of 2011.

Why I love what I do!

Home ownership has a significant impact on net worth, educational achievement, civic participation, health, and overall quality of life. And, home ownership helps create jobs—lots of them—right here at home.

• For every two homes sold, one job is created in the U.S.

• Each purchase generates as much as $60,000 in economic activity over time.

Selling your home? Why is tile and hardwood all the rage?

1. Think like a buyer, to understand why carpet is falling out of fashion. Today's buyers are seeking low-maintenance, high-performance home finishes that allow maximum versatility and healthfulness for their families. And wall-to-wall carpet triggers many of those concerns:

• Maintenance: By and large, buyers see carpet as something that requires regular, professional cleaning -- or labor-intensive self-cleaning -- at a couple hundred bucks a pop.
• Performance: There are certainly high-end carpets that wear well over time, but many of the carpets that are installed by sellers just prior to putting a home on the market do not qualify. These light-colored, inexpensive carpets often look old and worn relatively early in their lives, and buyers know this.
• Versatility: A buyer of a home with carpeting everywhere is somewhat limited in their decor and design choices by the preferences of the seller before them. By contrast, hard flooring finishes allow the buyer a near-infinite range of decor palette choices.
• Healthfulness: Buyers see traditional carpeting as something that off-gases toxic fumes and traps dirt and allergens that may exacerbate family members' allergies or other respiratory issues. Many see hardwood and other hard flooring finishes as more healthful and sustainable for their families -- and for the planet. To boot, buyers who have pets and children know that these little wild family members can be very hard on carpet.

What is with all the hating on carpeting? | Inman News

Digital Media Usage Among Home Shoppers

NAR Research: NAR and Google Study of Digital Media Usage Among Home Shoppers | realtor.org

Report Highlights

- 90 percent of home buyers searched online during their home buying process
- Real estate related searches on Google.com grew 253 percent over the past four years.
- Buyers use specific online tools during different phases of the home search process
- How important "local" search terms and websites are for buyers
- How mobile technology cements online to offline home buying — including the reading of online reviews
- How video and YouTube satisfy buyers' research needs
- The role of age and gender in driving real estate decision making in the market by being the top demographics who searched online and took the next steps offline
- Top states for searches around first-time home buyer tips and specific housing segments like senior housing and foreclosures

Home values continue to climb (Very nicely in the Mountain Region!)!)

The Federal Housing Finance Agency's (FHFA's) Purchase-Only Home Price Index rose 0.6 percent between October and November, 2012, and has climbed 5.6% in a year.

Prices appear to have bottomed in October 2011, and have since returned to June 2010 levels.


The 5.60% average of increase in home values nationally is made up of regional averages.  The Mountain region leads the increases in home values.  Here is a sampling of the annual Home Price Index data from the FHFA's 9 U.S. regions (Oct-Nov 2012) :

• Pacific : +11.1% (Hawaii, Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California)
• Mountain : +14.8% (Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona)
• Middle Atlantic : +0.5% (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania)
• East North Central : +2.3% (Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio)
• South Atlantic : 7.0% (Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida)

Nationwide, home values remain roughly 15% below the April 2007 peak.

6 Unexpected Advantages of Having the Right Agent

By Tara-Nicholle Nelson | Broker in San Francisco, CA


I once worked with a buyer who had to fly to the other end of the world within a couple of days after we placed her offer. Needless to say, she was agitated and anxious about the prospect of being so far away during inspections and contingency removals, especially since I’d earlier stressed how important it was for her to be present.

Rolling with the punches and poor timing, we sat down just before she left and talked through the timeline, including which events would take place on every day of her absence - including some harmless glitches that commonly arise along the way.

I never will forget her laughter when the occasional glitch of this sort did, in fact, come up. She would say: “I would have been stressed out by that. But since I knew to expect it, I’m not!”

The list of pleasant surprises in real estate matters is really, really short. Normally, we all want things to tick along precisely according to plan, and almost anything unexpected causes us inconvenience or plain old stress. But there is one relatively common set of real estate surprises that is actually quite delightful: the unexpected perks of working with the right real estate pro.

Most sellers come to their real estate agent relationships expecting help selling their home on a particular time frame, and marketing the place to make that happen.  Buyers are most often seeking an agent’s help finding the right home and negotiating to buy it.

But both buyers and sellers are often pleasantly surprised at the other resources, strategic counsel and expertise their agents ultimately provide.  Here are some of the biggest benefits that catch them off-guard:

Read on for the 6 Unexpected Advantages of Having the Right Agent

Preventing freezing pipes

On track to be one of the coldest January's on record, by taking preventive measures as cold weather has arrived (it's never too late to prevent a impending disaster!), you can prevent freezing pipes and the costly damage that goes with them.
Where the trouble lies

"Some pipes are more prone to freezing than others because of their location in the home," explains Paul Abrams, spokesman for Roto-Rooter.

Pipes most at risk for freezing include:

• Exposed pipes in unheated areas of the home.

• Pipes located in exterior walls.

• Any plumbing on the exterior of the home.

Read further for more Preventative measures 

Interest cost down 31% vs. 2 years ago

It's a Refi Boom. Mortgage rates have been on decline for more than 2 years. Conforming mortgage rates, FHA mortgage rates, VA mortgage rates and jumbos -- they're all at all-time lows.
Meanwhile, so is the value of the mortgage interest tax deduction. As mortgage rates remain below 4 percent, today's homeowner is paying less mortgage interest to the bank each year.
As compared to two years ago, homeowners paying 31% less mortgage interest.