First Time Home Buyers

Sep
22

$8000 Tax Credit :: Expires in 70 Days!

Posted In: First Time Home Buyers, For Buyers, General Real Estate News, Mortgage & Finance, Taxes
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Are you taking full advantage of the Goverment Stimulus Programs for Homeowners?  Did you know that the $8000 tax credit will expire in 70 days?  When you consider that the average transaction takes between 25 and 30 days that means you only have roughly 45 days to locate and get into contract on your house. Did you know that rates [...]
Apr
03

Oakland under $100k

Posted In: First Time Home Buyers, For Buyers, Investing, Local Market Statistics, Oakland
In the past couple of days there has been lots of discussion with clients regarding a recent blog post of mine about multiple offers, as well as the article in the paper from last Sunday’s Chron (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/29/MN3K16M9RT.DTL) .  It appears that if people aren’t running, they are confused. These discussions have prompted me to delve into Oakland’s inventory under $100k.  [...]
Feb
18

Details from the Stim Plan

Posted In: First Time Home Buyers, General Real Estate News, Mortgage & Finance, Taxes
Just signed into effect…thanks go out to Chet Gohd, RPM Mortgage in Berkeley, for helping to navigate through the details.  Here is what matters to you: “There’s a nice windfall for some homebuyers in the economic stimulus bill awaiting President Obama’s signature on Tuesday. First-time buyers can claim a credit worth $8,000 – or 10% of the home’s value, whichever [...]
Feb
13

First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit Update

Posted In: First Time Home Buyers, For Buyers, Taxes
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As part of the new stimulous package the President is set to sign off on a first time home buyer tax credit on Monday.  Here is what is currently approved: The tax credit amount for first time homebuyers will be $8,000 for homes bought by August. (No longer the $15,000 tax credit for all primary residences as was originally proposed.) This is [...]
Jan
16

Alameda & Contra Costa County Statistics, Oct. 2007 – Dec. 2008

Posted In: Economy, First Time Home Buyers, Foreclosures & Short Sales, General Real Estate News, Investing, Local Market Statistics
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The first graph is for single family homes in Alameda County, the second graph is Contra Costa County.  The blue bar shows “sold,” the green bar shows “for sale,” and the triangles show “pending.” First of all, let’s look at the obvious.  Both graphs show a similar pattern with January being the lowest in inventory.  In February inventory goes up, peaks in [...]