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Blog Weatherbee
23 February 2010
22 February 2010
Buy a house, get free money
I showed a house recently and was explaining the tax credit plan to the potential buyers when I realized that they had no idea that this plan even existed. Thru the power of social networking on the internet, I've made a couple of notes about it but I still don't think people really understand what this is all about. This is a great program for new homebuyers as well as previous homebuyers.
The hangup that I've noticed so far is the fact that this is a tax CREDIT and not a deduction. What does that mean? Keep in mind that I am a Realtor and not a CPA, so bear with me on this.
Let's say you make $50,000 and have $10,000 in taxes deducted from your paycheck by your employer. If you have a tax deduction, that comes off your taxable income. For example, if you had a deduction of $1000, your taxable income would be $49,000 and the amount of taxes you owe would decrease slightly.
However...and that's a BIG 'however'...The Federal Housing Tax Credit is not a deduction. It's a full tax credit from the amount of taxes you owe. In this situation, if you qualify as a new homebuyer you would get an $8000 tax CREDIT, meaning your tax liability goes from $10,000 to $2,000. That's really an incredible thing. Unless you did your W-4 incorrectly, you would probably get a bulk of that money back.
The tax credit isn't just for new homebuyers, though. If you have owned a house (and lived in it) for five of the last eight years, then you qualify for a $6,500 tax credit. Again, that comes off the amount of taxes you owe.
Don't believe me? Read it for yourself.
If you are looking at buying a new house, this is a great program to take advantage of, however it only lasts thru April 2010.
M
The hangup that I've noticed so far is the fact that this is a tax CREDIT and not a deduction. What does that mean? Keep in mind that I am a Realtor and not a CPA, so bear with me on this.
Let's say you make $50,000 and have $10,000 in taxes deducted from your paycheck by your employer. If you have a tax deduction, that comes off your taxable income. For example, if you had a deduction of $1000, your taxable income would be $49,000 and the amount of taxes you owe would decrease slightly.
However...and that's a BIG 'however'...The Federal Housing Tax Credit is not a deduction. It's a full tax credit from the amount of taxes you owe. In this situation, if you qualify as a new homebuyer you would get an $8000 tax CREDIT, meaning your tax liability goes from $10,000 to $2,000. That's really an incredible thing. Unless you did your W-4 incorrectly, you would probably get a bulk of that money back.
The tax credit isn't just for new homebuyers, though. If you have owned a house (and lived in it) for five of the last eight years, then you qualify for a $6,500 tax credit. Again, that comes off the amount of taxes you owe.
Don't believe me? Read it for yourself.
If you are looking at buying a new house, this is a great program to take advantage of, however it only lasts thru April 2010.
M
03 February 2010
Selling in the Rain
Don't get me wrong...I love the rain, especially after last year. We had an entire summer w/o rain and were praying for it in August, so the overabundance of rainfall over the last two months has been a bit of a nice change.
Rain tends to slow people down when they are looking for houses to buy or sell, though. For some reason the rain keeps people in the house or keeps them from being motivated to get out and see new houses. People who are looking to sell their houses are in the same boat because they will need a house to move into when they sell theirs, so they are buyers as well. Funny how that works...as agents we sometimes look past the fact that most home buyers are also sellers and vice-versa. That's potentially four different transactions for us to help our clients thru.
In about a month when the weather turns a bit warmer and the sun stays out longer, we'll see more people start to move around. They get "cabin fever" over the long, wet winter and are ready to be active outside. This is when we start seeing people have garage sales and trying to declutter their houses. That's the beginning of the process when our clients decide that their house is either too small (so they need something bigger) or they are just ready for a change.
In the meantime, we still have houses moving rapidly in the market and there are lots of buyers out there waiting for the right house to come available. Get the jump on things...houses still sell, even when it's raining. And most of all, it can't rain all the time.
M
Rain tends to slow people down when they are looking for houses to buy or sell, though. For some reason the rain keeps people in the house or keeps them from being motivated to get out and see new houses. People who are looking to sell their houses are in the same boat because they will need a house to move into when they sell theirs, so they are buyers as well. Funny how that works...as agents we sometimes look past the fact that most home buyers are also sellers and vice-versa. That's potentially four different transactions for us to help our clients thru.
In about a month when the weather turns a bit warmer and the sun stays out longer, we'll see more people start to move around. They get "cabin fever" over the long, wet winter and are ready to be active outside. This is when we start seeing people have garage sales and trying to declutter their houses. That's the beginning of the process when our clients decide that their house is either too small (so they need something bigger) or they are just ready for a change.
In the meantime, we still have houses moving rapidly in the market and there are lots of buyers out there waiting for the right house to come available. Get the jump on things...houses still sell, even when it's raining. And most of all, it can't rain all the time.
M
27 January 2010
Real Estate in the Country -- or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Competition
I had an interesting conversation with someone today in our beautiful town. I was at an unnamed restaurant waiting for one of the four best sandwiches you can get in town (I'll let you make your own assumptions on the locale). The person in question said that he knew someone who was selling their house, and that he thinks that he is listing it with one of my fellow agents in town.
Note - This conversation happens DAILY for us. There are something like one hundred real estate licenses in Young County, although only 1/3 of those people who hold licenses are actually active. Chances are in such a small community that we are all going to know someone who lists their house with someone else. I digress and continue...
This person, (let's call him "Yim" for ease of use), tells me that he was sorry and that he didn't know why his friend picked this particular real estate professional to help him sell his house other than the fact that he bought the house from this agent and felt "guilty". With a shrug of his shoulders, Yim gave me a sideways headbob like he was giving me sympathy for a dead relative.
One of the first lessons I've learned in this town since I moved here four years ago is this: Things move very slowly here, and if you try to speed things up you'll just end up wasting your time and waiting on other people who refuse to speed up. I think that's partly true...if you move to a new town (or a new industry, new club, whatever) and you immediately try to change the ways of procedure or how they do things, you are going to either fail or die trying. Selling real estate here is no different...people buy from people, and in a community where we know so many different people and our relationship lines tend to blur from agent to agent, it is really easy to do what everyone else in town is doing in order to not rock the boat.
But there's nothing that says that we can't do what everyone else does in addition to a few good practices of our own. Good business practices that are "closest to the dollar" activities and things that move each transaction to a close as quickly as possible. At Weatherbee Real Estate, we are doing that. We are working together to add new activities to our daily lives to increase exposure to new potential buyers, spending time investigating new technology in order to find a bigger audience of home buyers, and taking the time to reach out to our community proactively to invite homeowners to our office to talk to one of us about their future plans, their economic goals (as it pertains to their home investment), and where they would like to see themselves in 20 years.
Back to Yim...
It's hard sometimes to hear that there's a place on the lake where fish are biting, but that there's already a fisherman with his line in the water. I assured Yim that the agent in question was a very solid professional that represented our industry well, and that I wished his friend the best and that if, by some odd chance, things aren't a good fit in the relationship with the other agent to give us a call and see if we might be a better fit.
If we keep this sort of mentality, it will help all of us. Maybe if we're lucky, these new inventive ideas for how we go about our business might catch on and in five years someone new to the market and/or industry can write a blog about some new idea on how to make things better. Either way, we're all in this together and it's best when we can work together.
M
Note - This conversation happens DAILY for us. There are something like one hundred real estate licenses in Young County, although only 1/3 of those people who hold licenses are actually active. Chances are in such a small community that we are all going to know someone who lists their house with someone else. I digress and continue...
This person, (let's call him "Yim" for ease of use), tells me that he was sorry and that he didn't know why his friend picked this particular real estate professional to help him sell his house other than the fact that he bought the house from this agent and felt "guilty". With a shrug of his shoulders, Yim gave me a sideways headbob like he was giving me sympathy for a dead relative.
One of the first lessons I've learned in this town since I moved here four years ago is this: Things move very slowly here, and if you try to speed things up you'll just end up wasting your time and waiting on other people who refuse to speed up. I think that's partly true...if you move to a new town (or a new industry, new club, whatever) and you immediately try to change the ways of procedure or how they do things, you are going to either fail or die trying. Selling real estate here is no different...people buy from people, and in a community where we know so many different people and our relationship lines tend to blur from agent to agent, it is really easy to do what everyone else in town is doing in order to not rock the boat.
But there's nothing that says that we can't do what everyone else does in addition to a few good practices of our own. Good business practices that are "closest to the dollar" activities and things that move each transaction to a close as quickly as possible. At Weatherbee Real Estate, we are doing that. We are working together to add new activities to our daily lives to increase exposure to new potential buyers, spending time investigating new technology in order to find a bigger audience of home buyers, and taking the time to reach out to our community proactively to invite homeowners to our office to talk to one of us about their future plans, their economic goals (as it pertains to their home investment), and where they would like to see themselves in 20 years.
Back to Yim...
It's hard sometimes to hear that there's a place on the lake where fish are biting, but that there's already a fisherman with his line in the water. I assured Yim that the agent in question was a very solid professional that represented our industry well, and that I wished his friend the best and that if, by some odd chance, things aren't a good fit in the relationship with the other agent to give us a call and see if we might be a better fit.
If we keep this sort of mentality, it will help all of us. Maybe if we're lucky, these new inventive ideas for how we go about our business might catch on and in five years someone new to the market and/or industry can write a blog about some new idea on how to make things better. Either way, we're all in this together and it's best when we can work together.
M
21 February 2009
Real Estate in Graham, Texas
Please click on our website link to the right to view our listings. We can show any property in Graham, even if we do not have it listed.
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