Archive for the 'Info' Category
Join us on our Lake Monticello Video Tour
February 2nd, 2010 categories: Communities, First Time Buyers, For Buyers, For Sellers, Info, Lake Monticello
We work with a lot of people who are interested in buying real estate in Lake Monticello. Many of those people have never been to Lake Monticello when they first contact us. That means that one of the first question they ask is, “What is Lake Monticello like?”
That is a tough question for us to answer because, until you’ve been here, it is tough to describe to someone. We love living here, and we love telling people all about it; but it is really tough to give people what an idea of what it is really like to live here. Sure, you can see pictures on the internet, but they really don’t give you a feel for how it all comes together into such a unique and wonderful community.
If you’re interested in Lake Monticello, our video tour can help!
We decided that an effective, convenient way for folks to become more familiar with the community would be to take them on a tour that they could watch right from the comfort of their own homes. That’s why we created our Lake Monticello Video Tour.
The video tour was shot, narrated, and created by us, and it will give you a more complete look at everything Lake Monticello has to offer. During the tour, we take you to all five of Lake Monticello’s beaches, the clubhouse, pool, marina, tennis courts, fishing lake, and the golf course. We’ll take you around Jefferson Drive and share some of the history of Lake Monticello and valuable information that will make you more familiar with Lake Monticello and all that it has to offer.
The tour lasts about 30 minutes, but if you are interested in real estate in Lake Monticello, then we think taking the tour is well worth your time. . .
Please share the video tour with your friends and family!
One of the things that we know very well, being that we all live at Lake Monticello, is that friends and family are always asking us what the community is like. If you live at Lake Monticello now, or are interested in moving here, you’ll probably get the same questions from your friends and family.
That’s one reason that we created the video– so that people who know how great Lake Monticello is can share it with folks who want to know what it is like. We would love it if you would bookmark and share the video with other people when they ask you about Lake Monticello. All you have to do click here.
That page is the permanent home of our Lake Monticello Video Tour. We encourage you to bookmark it and share it any time someone asks you about Lake Monticello. We know how hard it is to explain to people, so why don’t you let the video tour do the talking?
As always, if you have any questions about anything in the video, or anything at all about Lake Monticello, just let us know. We’re happy to help however we can!
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2009 Lake Monticello & Fluvanna Real Estate Market Year-in-Review
January 28th, 2010 categories: Albemarle County, Charlottesville, Communities, First Time Buyers, Fluvanna County, For Buyers, For Sellers, Info, Lake Monticello, Market Statistics and Information, News, Quarterly Reports, STR Market Info Blitz
As promised on Monday, today is the day we release our 2009 Lake Monticello & Fluvanna Real Estate Market Year-in-Review. This report is just the latest edition of our Quarterly Market Reports.
2009 was in interesting year for real estate in the Charlottesville area, and especially in Lake Monticello and Fluvanna County. The year began with historically low sales numbers, but ended on a high note, spurred by the first-time homebuyer tax credit. All of this is reflected in the statistics in the report.
The report contains pages of statistics and analysis about the Charlottesville area and Lake Monticello and Fluvanna real estate markets. Here’s just some of the most interesting questions we answer in the report:
- Two counties in the Charlottesville area had more sales in 2009 than in 2008. Which ones were they?
- How many sales were there in Fluvanna and Lake Monticello in 2009? Which months were the best?
- What was the median home price in Fluvanna and Lake Monticello in 2009?
- What was the impact of the First-time Homebuyer Tax Credit on the market?
- How was the Lake Monticello waterfront market impacted in 2009?
These and many other critical pieces of information are included. We’ve been hard at work compiling the stats and doing the analysis because we want our clients to be the most informed clients in the area about the real estate market. This information is critical for you to have and understand so that you can make good decisions and reach your real estate goals.
Once again, you can find the report here. From that page, you can download, print, or even share the report with others. If you have any problems viewing the page, and would like us to email you a PDF copy of the report, just send us an email, and we’ll get it out to you right away. If you want, you can also scroll down and view the report right here in this post, and you still have the option of downloading or sharing the report with anyone you think might benefit from it.
As always, if there is anything you need, or any questions we can answer, don’t hesitate to ask. We’re always here to help you however we can.
2009 Lake Monticello and Fluvanna County Real Estate Market Year-in-Review
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3 Things You Should Know About Buying a Short Sale in the Charlottesville Area
January 20th, 2010 categories: Financing, First Time Buyers, For Buyers, Helpful Tips, Info, STR Market Info Blitz
This post is part of the Strong Team REALTORS Market Info Blitz. We’re heating up the Winter market by giving you three-months worth of the information you need, November through January. Check out the latest posts in the blitz, here.
There are many short sales in the Charlottesville Area
Over the last year, there has been a surge in a type of sale that was previously unknown to most people who were interested in buying a home– the short sale.
Now, if you are looking for a home in the Charlottesville area, it is a good bet that at least one of the homes that you want to consider is a short sale. A few years ago, this would not have been the case. The reality is that short sales are here to stay for the foreseeable future in the Charlottesville real estate market, so it is a good idea to know what to expect when you come across a short sale property.
If you want to buy a short sale property, then there are some things that you need to know so that you can give yourself the best chance for success.
What is a short sale?
Because of the downturn in the real estate market, and falling property values, some people owe more money on their mortgage than their house is currently worth. Sometimes, those people need to sell their homes now, and can’t wait for property values to rebound.
When a person needs to sell their home and the amount that they owe on the mortgage exceeds the value of the home, they are sometimes able to proceed with a short sale. When someone asks their mortgage bank to do a short sale, they are basically saying to the bank, “I can no longer afford to pay my mortgage. I need to sell the house, but I can’t afford the difference between the value of the house and my outstanding loan balance.”
If the homeowners are able to prove to the bank that they cannot afford to continue to pay the mortgage, and prove that the house is worth less than the remaining mortgage balance, the bank might approve a short sale.
So, what should you do when you are looking at homes, and you find out that the one you want to buy is a short sale? What should you expect? What should you know?
3 Things to know about buying a short sale
Navigating through the process of buying a short sale can sometimes be frustrating. There are 3 things that you need to know before you go into the process that can help you avoid some of the frustration that can occur and get you in the right frame of mind for successfully buying a short sale property.
1. Be very patient. The short sale process can take a LONG time. In a typical buying transaction, you would identify the house you want to buy, submit a contract to the owners, negotiate the contract, come to an agreement, and then go through the normal steps before closing. Usually, this might take 30-60 days. The short sale process adds another step that can significantly increase the amount of time it takes to successfully close on the house– the bank.
In a short sale, you will still submit the offer to the sellers, and you will still need to reach an agreement with them. Once that is done, however, the contract will still need to be approved by the bank (or banks) that hold a mortgage on the property. Banks are being flooding with short sale requests, and as of yet, they haven’t committed a lot of resources to processing these requests. That means that simply getting bank approval can sometimes take months, and this is after you have already agreed to a price with the sellers.
There is very little you, or the sellers, can do to speed up the process. Once the bank has all of the required paperwork, they will take however much time they want to either approve or deny the sale. If you are in a situation where you need to close on a house in 30-60 days, you are probably not going to be successful buying a short sale. Short sales routinely take twice that long, or longer. If you are in a short sale, then the best thing you can do for yourself is to remain patient. If it really is the house that you want, and you have the time to wait it out, then all you can do is wait.
2. Don’t expect the sellers to fix any home inspection items. If you are buying a short sale property, you already know that the seller cannot afford their mortgage payments any longer. Obviously, this indicates that the sellers are cash-strapped. If you are going to have a home inspection on the property, and you should, then you need to go into the home inspection assuming that you are going to be responsible for addressing any of the items that are found. Sure, you can ask the sellers to fix items, but don’t be surprised when they tell you that they don’t have the money to fix any of the items.
You should also keep in mind that you probably won’t receive any credits for home inspection items. Doing so is usually frowned upon by the banks involved, and getting approval for such credits merely serves to delay the process even further.
If you are going to have a home inspection on a short sale property, your best approach is to understand that you will be responsible for anything that is discovered, if you choose to go through with the purchase of the house.
3. You are negotiating with a bank, not a person. Sure, the sellers still own the house, and you submitted your offer to the sellers, and they are going to sign it. The reality, though, is that the bank is calling the shots. If the bank denies the short sale, the sellers can’t sell the house, and you can’t buy it from them.
All of this means that patience once again becomes paramount. Because the bank is the party that is really in control, there is going to be more paperwork involved. The bank may want you to sign agreements that wouldn’t be included in a normal purchase transaction.
Appeals to humanity probably won’t get you very far, either. Sometimes, you can endear yourself to a seller by telling your story, helping them get to know you so that they know where you are coming from in the process. The bank doesn’t care about you. For the bank, this is purely a financial transaction. It is purely a business decision that must go through the prescribed process. That is it.
Don’t get frustrated because you think the bank is ignoring you, or not considering your point of view. That might be true, but the bank really doesn’t care that you are frustrated. They just don’t.
Buying a short sale can be worth it
We’re not telling you these things to discourage you from buying a short sale property. We just want you to understand that buying a short sale property is different from going through the normal purchase transaction.
We have helped many buyers and sellers, from Lake Monticello to Albemarle, navigate the sometimes turbulent short sale waters. All of them felt that the process was worth the time and effort that it required. It might be worth it for you, too. It is just important to understand what you are going to be going through before it actually happens. That way, you are prepared for the success that you want achieve.
If you have any questions about buying a short sale or what to expect during the process, just let us know. We’re always happy to help people and prepare them for success.
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thetruthabout/ / CC BY-SA 2.0
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10 Things to Know About the Charlottesville Area Real Estate Market in 2010
January 4th, 2010 categories: Albemarle County, Charlottesville, Communities, Financing, First Time Buyers, Fluvanna County, For Buyers, For Sellers, Helpful Tips, Info, Lake Monticello, News, STR Market Info Blitz, Uncategorized
This post is part of the Strong Team REALTORS Market Info Blitz. We’re heating up the Winter market by giving you three-months worth of the information you need, November through January. Check out the latest posts in the blitz, here.
10 Things to Know About the Charlottesville Area Real Estate Market in 2010
We recently came across a very interesting article published a few weeks ago by U.S. News & World Report that was all about the national real estate market. The article was called, “10 Things to Know About Real Estate in 2010.” The article is well done, and definitely worth reading.
We thought that the predictions in the article were spot-on. All 10 of them, in fact. We realized, however, that the article focused on the national real estate market. Since you aren’t buying or selling all over the country, but rather buying or selling real estate right here in the Charlottesville area, we though it might be a good idea to adapt the 10 things from the article to the Charlottesville areal real estate market.
In fact, the article itself mentioned the need for local real estate analysis:
“. . .anyone interested in buying real estate next year can’t just read the national headlines. Instead, find a good blog that covers the local housing market and consider speaking with a real estate agent with experience in the area. “
We’d like to think that we fit squarely into that category. 
So, let’s get started. . .
10 Things to Know About the Charlottesville area Real Estate Market in 2010
1. Prices to bottom: We think this will be true in the Charlottesville area. In a few days, we will be releasing our 2009 Real Estate Year-in-Review Market Report. The data in that report should give us a good idea as to how prices will react in 2010. Given the trends that we saw in the 4th quarter of the year, it appears that prices have stabilized. It is important to note that reaching a bottom is very different from climbing. While we expect prices to stabilize, we certainly don’t expect to see a tremendous appreciation of prices. As we’ve been saying for a long time now, the days of 10% appreciation per year are over for the foreseeable future.
2. Mortgage delinquencies up: This is unfortunate, by probably true. We expect to see more foreclosures and short sales in the market this year than we saw in 2009. The state of the economy is a major factor in the rise in delinquencies, as is the fact that many homeowners owe more than what the home is worth. Those two factors inevitably lead to a rise in delinquencies. That being said, the Charlottesville area has fared much better than many parts of the country. While their may be increased foreclosures and short sales here in 2010, it will be much less than other areas, even in our own region.
3. Foreclosures move upstream: This is a rather interesting prediction that is made in the article. Basically, economists are predicting that foreclosures will increase among “prime” borrowers, and homes in higher price ranges. Remember how everyone was saying that the chief cause behind the mortgage meltdown was the “subprime” borrowers? Well, many of those borrowers are already in foreclosure, or have been through foreclosure. There are a lot of “prime” borrowers out there who might now be in danger. Most economists think this is due in large part to the number of Adjustable Rate Mortgages that are set to have interest rate resets in 2010. It is difficult to predict whether or not this will be true in the Charlottesville area. It stands to reason, however, that if there a high number of ARMs in the area, we might see increased foreclosure numbers in higher price ranges.
4. Mortgage rates to rise: Since mortgage rates are not geographically dependent, any national prediction about mortgage rates will be just as true here in the Charlottesville area. Mortgage rates have remained at historic lows, thanks primarily to programs put in place by the Federal Reserve. As those programs expire throughout the course of the year. Expect rates to rise. Their is a very good chance that rates could be at or near 6% for 30-year mortgages by the end of 2010.
5. Buyer’s market remains: With prices at the bottom, and mortgage rates at historic lows, this is obviously a buyer’s market. That most certainly will continue throughout 2010. As previously mentioned, however, mortgage rates are sure to rise, and prices probably won’t continue to fall in the Charlottesville area. This means that the leverage buyers currently have will probably decrease as the year goes on. One factor that will play a big part in the market shift will be inventory. If inventory numbers remain high, buyers will have continued leverage just because they will have a greater selection, and more competition among sellers. If inventory numbers start to fall, that will erode that leverage more quickly. By the end of 2010, the market should still favor buyers, but things will be much more even than they are now.
6. Modification plan could be modified: The Federal loan modification program is a mess. It simply hasn’t done what it was intended to do– keep borrowers in their homes. The program doesn’t address two of the key factors that lead to loan delinquencies– negative equity, and job loss. While job loss hasn’t been as big a problem in the Charlottesville area as it has in other regions, negative equity is certainly a concern. Only a relative handful of people have been helped by the program. If the government really wants to do something, the program is going to have to be modified. If that does happen, it could stem the tide of foreclosures and delinquencies predicted by numbers 2 & 3.
7. FHA lending standards may increase: This one is pretty much guaranteed. Loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration have been very popular. Unfortunately, that popularity has meant that FHA loans have also been hit hard by foreclosures. This has lead the FHA to push for increased standards. Increase the standards might have the effect of eliminating potential buyers from the marketplace. While such an increase should help stabilize the market in the long-term, it could have a short-term chilling effect.
8. Tax credit available through June: We’ve talked about what extending and expanding the tax credit might mean for the Charlottesville area before. November certainly saw an increase in closings due to the originally proposed expiration date for the tax credit. It is difficult to determine if the extension and expansion will have the same effect of bringing more buyers into the marketplace. Overall, we feel that the impact made by extending and expanding the tax credit program will have only a slight positive effect on the Charlottesville area real estate market.
9. Markets will vary a great deal by region: This is true every time, all the time. It is true on a macro level, and also on a micro level right here in the Charlottesville area. The different localities have been effected differently by the market changes. Albemarle has been effective differently than real estate in Lake Monticello or Fluvanna. Even different neighborhoods have been effected differently. As the article suggests, it is extremely important to find an agent who is knowledgeable about the market conditions in the area and/or neighborhoods in which you are interested.
10. Mobile maps can help: This one was a bit of a stretch by the author of the article, but it is still applicable in the Charlottesville area. Both Trulia and Zillow have iPhone apps that will allow you to search for homes by your current location. It is a neat feature, to be sure. We have found that our clients appreciate the visual feedback that map-based searching can provide, which is why our Charlottesville area real estate search engine has a map-based element to it. Since all three of us are dedicated iPhone users, never hesitate to ask when you have questions about mobile real estate applications. Between the thee of us, we’ve tried just about all of them.
Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23727257@N00/ / CC BY 2.0
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Lake Monticello Waterfront Homes 2009 Year in Review
January 3rd, 2010 categories: Communities, For Buyers, For Sellers, Info, Lake Monticello, Market Statistics and Information, STR Market Info Blitz, Waterfront Updates
This post is part of the Strong Team REALTORS Market Info Blitz. We’re heating up the Winter market by giving you three-months worth of the information you need, November through January. Check out the latest posts in the blitz, here.
2009 Market Statistics are Coming. . .
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be taking a look at the 2009 market statistics for various areas all around Charlottesville. Since the year is winding down and wrapping-up, it is a good time to see how the market fared in 2009.
The first market that we’ll review is the Lake Monticello waterfront market. 2009 isn’t quite over yet, but there are currently no waterfront homes under contract at Lake Monticello, and with only a few days left in the year, we feel pretty confident that the stats today will be the same when flip the calendar over to 2010.
All of the statistics in our Lake Monticello Waterfront Homes 2009 Year in Review come from the Charlottesville Area Association of REALTORS MLS. The statistics in this review are believed to be accurate, but are not guaranteed.
Now that the disclaimer is out of the way, lets take a look at the Lake Monticello waterfront homes market in 2009. . .
Lake Monticello Waterfront Homes Sold in 2009
Lake Monticello experienced 12 waterfront home sales in 2009. Here are some of the key stats about the sold waterfront homes sold in 2009:
- The lowest price was $210,000
- The highest price was $750,000 (this was a 3500+ sq. ft. home on over 1 acre).
- The median price was $435,000.
- The average price was $467,442
- The average price per square foot was $160.88
The current Lake Monticello Waterfront Market in 2009
There are 15 waterfront homes on the market in Lake Monticello (one of the homes is on Tufton Pond (the Fishing Lake). Here are the key stats about the waterfront homes currently on the market:
- The lowest price is $349,900
- The highest price is $945,000
- The median price is $459,900
- The average price is $497,933
- The average price per square foot is $186.97
What does all this mean?
These statistics give you a more complete picture of where the Lake Monticello waterfront market has been in 2009, and where it is right now, as we get ready for 2010. We’ll be doing more analysis of the 2009 Lake Monticello waterfront market in the coming weeks, especially as we compare things to where they were in 2008. We’ll also take a look at the average days on market for the waterfront homes. That is one particular statistic that requires more in-depth analysis.
Looking for more information?
If you would like to take a look at all the Lake Monticello waterfront homes currently on the market, we have a special link that you can use to do just that. Simply click here.
We’ve also created a special email club for folks who want be kept up-to-date on all the latest trends and information that affect the Lake Monticello waterfront market. If that sounds like you, then you are definitely going to want to join our Lake Monticello Waterfront Email Club. Joining the club is really easy, and only takes a minute. Just click here.
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