Napa Solano Yolo real estate blog

Bank of America finds they now own many homes and they want to try to help keep the market strong by keeping the flood of homes off the market if possible. They have come up with a plan to offer the homes for sale to local cities before placing them on the market.

I don't think that will help much in our area of California as the cities and counties have suffered a large loss of income due to property values dropping to almost 40% of original values recently....and with the state out of money and squeezing it out of the local cities and counties I don't know how much money will be left for buying below market value vacant houses that have not been properly maintained.

You should work with a buyer's agent in today's Solano county real estate market most properties either have many offers on them or they are about to have many offers on them.

Your agent can keep a close eye on the inventory and many keen agents go to their company and board of Realtors meetings and now what homes are coming up on the active market thru their own network of information they can become familiar with what you are looking for and get you in first to see homes that match your dream home in your desired area.

If you rely solely upon listings you find on the internet in this market you will lose out on a home that matched your needs just because it does take quite some time before the new listings hit the public websites, then you are seeing the information as other un-represented buyers are and competing for the bid on that home.

It is preferable to see only homes that match your needs and in the price range and neighborhood you feel comfortable in.

The only way to know what your target price range is will be to get an appointment with a reputable lender or bank and find out what you are qualified for and then what you want to pay in that range. Criteria for loans is changing weekly now and you may not be in the same range as what you originally thought. Rates, and credit scores, income and debt rations are ALL equally important in your qualifying for a loan on a certain priced home. There is no greater feeling of loss to find out that home was out of your price range and the one that was just purchased by another buyer.

Being pre-approved for a loan and working with an experienced agent who knows and understands what you are looking for is the key to success in finding just the right home to call your own.

YOUR BUYER'S agent is FREE to you! That agent will help YOU find the best lender, home and negotiate the sale for you against the bevy of other buyers out there.

There certainly is nothing wrong with doing your own research, asking questions, googling neighborhoods pricing etc, but get a professional in your corner who can get comparable SOLD data for you and get you connected to the resources you will need for a smooth move.

Having representation when approaching a new construction home builder is the wisest thing you can do in that the sales model hostess works for the BUILDER, not you, they will not negotiate on YOUR behalf and they WILL try their best to get you to use THEIR recomended lenders, this is not always in your best interests as you have the legal right to use any lender you wish to use! 

Your buyer agent cannot represent you with the builder unless they are with you on your first visit to that community, so take your agent with you. Your agent should be able to help work out added items such as window blinds and other things you may not have considered to ask the builder such as community assessments and association fees.

Take care and take your FREE agent, the sellers ALWAYS pay YOUR buyer's agent...In any case, I will be taking you out to lunch when you go on the free new  home buyer tour in Solano county with me. -Barbara Adams 

If you don't know what HVCC is, it is imperative that you understand that this is what will stand in the way, interuppt, cancel or otherwise upset your purchase of a home in today's real estate market.

It is a newly enabled law that creates a third party system for appraisal ordering.

Your lender, your Realtor, your investor, your bank, nobody will order the appraisal, the appraisal will be initiated by an automatic system which in itself will add about $175 cost to every appraisal for each home purchased or re-financed, it will also be in addition to your appraisal cost, and if the underwriter or investor decided toward the end of your escrow, yes, even if you have already signed loan documents and approved of the costs of your home purchase, the lender can again pull your credit ask for a review of the original appraisal (even if done last week) and the buyer will bear the cost of this appraisal process.

The appraisal will be randomly assigned to any appraiser in the system, regardless of their physical location, area of expertise or experience in the neighborhood in question, ie you may get an appraiser drive over from San Jose to appraise your home in Sacramento and nobody has any recourse as to any of it.

HVCC serves nobody in it's best interest, it will not make the appraisal process uniform and it will do nothing but cause the market rebound to be stifled.

Other appraisal law changes include that no sales older than the most previous 90 days of comparably sized homes in a one mile radius can be used for comparables, this will present quite a problem in many cases where the closest comparable home may be 1.1 mile away, therefore making your home get compared to a nearby home that is much older than your home or different type of area or neighborhood.

There will be more grief ensuing due to recently many underwriters refused to accept the appraised price of the home and cut the appraisal by 10-20percent, this causes sellers and short sellers and banks to balk and oftentimes the escrow is cancelled due to inability to settle on a price.

This is true even if as is the case in most recent sales...multiple offers, some go above asking price and the appraised price comes out to less than the original asking price for many reasons and where does this put the sale or the multiple offers?

We have a new situation in the local real estate market, which seems to change by the week. It has been complicated to keep blogging about it because it changes so often.

Currently our inventory levels of homes for sale in Vacaville, Fairfield and Dixon is very very low. Even homes in escrow that have offers, in escrow and backup offers are getting calls from buyers and agents on whether they'd have a chance at that one being a backup offer.

It really doesn't make sense to have backup offers beyond the number two position backup offer, it causes undue stress on that buyer waiting out that escrow and missing out on other homes.

Another new occurence is that on May 1, 2009, the entire appraisal process underwent new laws and procedures which has now created a huge problem for escrows already underway as well as it will affect all future escrows, even if they are not a party to the new process, the appraisal process is affected and it has slowed things to a crawl for everyone.

The secret to success in today's market is to be patient, be patient, be patient.

Do not make concrete plans to move. Close of escrow dates are a part of contracts, but since lenders have not yet become a part of California real estate purchase agreement contracts even yet, your lender is not obligated to keep within the time frames of the contract.

Most escrows are currently undergoing final loan reviews, appraisal reviews, re-appraisals and other time delaying and frustrating obstacles to a timely closing of escrows.

The loan underwriter, the loan investor are really checking out every aspect of your financial picture and they check to see if anything changes just before you close escrow.

Of course with the new appraisal process in place add to that the fact that homes are selling pretty quickly now and many are in escrow, short sale homes are actually CLOSING escrow these days and other sales are occurring very regularly, however do an appraisal at the beginning of an escrow and do a second one at the end of what is now getting to be 45-60 day escrows you will see that there are different comparables, new listings and newly closed properties.

Another problem is that what the properties go into escrow at and what they close at will vary greatly.

Now that there are multiple offers on almost all properties, this causes the asking price to be superseded in some cases and this is not always reflected in the pending sale price.

I notice that in comparable reports I prepared last fall vs the ones I do now, they show the closed sale price in many cases to be somewhat higher than the asking price, when in the past it was usually within 3% of the asking price.

Now that interest rates are quite low, buyers are buying and this makes for a lot of competition for all price points under $400,000.

Did you know the Solano county conforming loan rate went back up recently? Check with your lender to go over the details of interest rates and what constitutes a jumbo loan now.

"Fun, You can BANK on it"

The oldest agricultural fair in California kicks off it's 2009 season this Thursday thru Sunday Mother's Day at the Dixon May Fairgrounds. Friday is kid's day, under 11 get in free. 707-678-2650 for more information.

Cheap Trick appears on Thursday night, Jessica Simpson Friday night, and Saturday's show features singer/songwriter Chris Isaak.

Swine judging gets underway 8 am on Thursday morning along with a whole schedule of other livestock events, 4H competitions, shows, and exhibits, contests, music and other events.

Destruction Derby on Sunday afternoon May 10th at 6PM. I hear Mike Doyle of Dixon (2007 winner) is prepping a car to be driven by Jack Armstrong of Armstrong and Getty radio show, it ought to be an interesting one!

See you there!

DixonMayFair.com

548 Feather River Way Vacaville

4/3 in Laurelwood-

Bank approved price $330,000