by rtdosen | Oct 28, 2014 | Ryan Dosen Real Estate Articles
FHFA Director to Roll the Dice on Lending Standards By Ryan Dosen Mel Watt, the acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), delivered a strong message early this week indicating that he is going to continue his crusade to help loosen lending standards and open the door for more would-be homebuyers to qualify for mortgages. Delivering his speech from the Mortgage Bankers Association annual convention in Las Vegas, one can’t help but notice the irony that Watt is more than ready to take a gamble on less credible buyers for the sake of supporting our housing market. The Federal Housing Finance Agency The FHFA describes itself on its website as an independent regulatory agency that oversees “vital components of the secondary mortgage market including Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks.” The mission of the FHFA, they say, is to “ensure that the housing government sponsored enterprises operate in a safe and sound manner so that they serve as a reliable source of liquidity and funding for housing finance and community investment.” Simply put, the FHFA regulates Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac decide what types of loans will be deemed “conforming” loans. “Conforming” loans do not have to be kept “on the books” by a bank and can be packaged and sold off. The advantage to banks of selling off their loans is that if they didn’t package and sell off their loans, the banks would be limited in their lending abilities by the amount they held on deposit. The ability to package and sell their loans keeps...
by rtdosen | Oct 17, 2014 | Ryan Dosen Real Estate Articles
See Green and Boost Your Home’s Value with Landscaping By Ryan Dosen The commonly held belief is that good landscaping can increase the value of your home by up to 15 percent. That’s no small chunk of change. TREND, our local MLS provider, reports that the year-to-date median sales price for a Chester County home in 2014 has been $320,000. 15 percent of $320,000 is $48,000. So, how exactly is cutting your grass, pruning your hedges, and planting a few pretty flowers going to increase the value of your home by $48,000? The short answer is that it won’t. There’s much more to landscaping than trimming your trees and planting a ficus…. Landscaping Study and Survey Results This week the website for the National Association of Realtors featured a Virginia Tech Department of Horticulture study by researcher Alex X. Niemiera about the benefits of quality landscaping. The study found that improving a home’s landscape from “average” to “excellent” can raise the home’s overall value by 10 to 12 percent. The study reported that consumers’ “preferred landscape included a sophisticated design with large deciduous, evergreen, and annual color plants and a colored hardscape.” Hardscape refers to the inanimate elements of landscaping, including masonry work, woodwork, patios, paths, decks, fountains, etc. The Virginia Tech survey results “showed that relatively large landscape expenditures significantly increase perceived home value and will result in a higher selling price than homes with a minimal landscape.” The survey also revealed that “design sophistication and plant size were the landscape factors that most affected value.” Therefore, the study concluded that “investing in the services of a...
by rtdosen | Oct 10, 2014 | Ryan Dosen Real Estate Articles
The Magical 15-Year Wealth Building Home Loan By Ryan Dosen The traditional fixed-rate 30-year mortgage is what most people first think of when they consider how they are going to finance the purchase of their home. It’s the most common form of financing, probably because it often makes your guaranteed payment the lowest. Adjustable rate mortgages can currently give you a less costly upfront payment, but those payments can jump significantly a few years down the road when the rates are recalculated. With today’s historically low rates, many have understandably been chomping at the bit to lock in their 30-year rates at the lowest possible level so that they can enjoy the ride once the Fed allows rates to climb higher. But is the lowest possible payment your best option? It may be your best option if your sole goal is to get yourself into the most expensive and nicest home possible. However, what if you could take a little less house now in exchange for owning your home in half the time? Or, what if paying a little more each month meant being able to apply the majority of your monthly payments to principal right from the start? Maybe it’s time to reevaluate our home ownership priorities. The Wealth Building Home Loan For the first half of a 30-year mortgage, the lion’s share of your mortgage payment is paying interest. It’s not really until you hit the second half of this traditional loan that you’re really doing significant damage to the principal. The problem with this model is that you are really building very little equity...
by rtdosen | Oct 3, 2014 | Ryan Dosen Real Estate Articles
Top 5 Fall Home Care Tips By Ryan Dosen Summer has gone the way of the ghost, and now enters what I believe to be the most beautiful of all our seasons. Welcome are the cooler temperatures and the beautiful, colorful transformations of our landscape; but there is much to be done in addition to stimulating our senses. Fall is a pleasant prelude to the often disagreeable doings of the winter months. A little preparation now can save a lot of headaches in the future. So, let’s take a quick look at some of the things that should be on your fall to-do list. Repair Cracks We live in an area in which we can see several freezes and thaws during the winter months. These repeated freezes and thaws can destroy a driveway or walkway. Water and moisture seeps into a driveway’s small cracks when it rains or when snow and slush thaws. If the temp drops below freezing while those cracks are filled with water, the water will expand when it turns to ice. This expansion applies pressure and further damages your driveway. This fall, be sure that you clean out and repair any cracks with driveway filler and then coat the driveway with a commercial sealer. Clean Your Gutters and Downspouts After they fall, some of those beautifully-colored leaves can wind up clogging your home’s gutters and downspouts. Left unchecked, those clogged gutters can lead to damaged exterior surfaces, water in your basement, and super-sized ice dams. Ice dams are ridges of ice that build up along the edge of your roof, preventing melting ice...
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