Selling my Lansing Home and Moving to Munster

Question:  We own a 3 bedroom, 2 bath home in the south suburbs. Our taxes are really high and that bothers us. We heard that NW Indiana has lower taxes. With our current savings and estimated home equity, we would have 20% as a down payment on our next home. Our current monthly payment including taxes is $1200. How would my monthly payment change if we bought a similar home in NW Indiana?

Answer:   We are asked that question many times by homeowners. Knowing you have a 20% down payment makes the calculation easier. Let’s say Munster, for example, works for you because of its proximity to the border.

3 bedroom 2 bath quad levels range from approximately $200,000 and currently go as high as $340,000, with the average being $240,000. This variation of price is due to the homes age, size, condition & location.

Using average taxes for the particular price ranges in Munster and your 20% down payment, the $200,000 home would yield a monthly payment of approximately $1,130. The $240,000 home would have a monthly payment of about $1,311. With the $340,000 home, your monthly payment would be around $1,760. I used a 5% interest rate and a 30 year mortgage term. So you have a range of $1,130-$1,760 as monthly payments for principal, interest and taxes.

You would need to look at homes only in the price range that you qualify for and yields the best monthly payment for YOU.  By viewing these homes, you will see what you get for the money. Don’t forget to look at the whole picture; there are other considerations besides real estate taxes. Do your homework with the help of a knowledgeable Realtor team (like us!) and you are likely to make a decision with a happy ending.

World's Most Expensive Homes Episodes 3 and 4

St Thomas, Click the Norton Safe Links Below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RoStjH7Aqo&feature=c4-overview-vl&list=PL0620A637A8C57478

 

Napa Valley

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1x-M3NNMGmc&list=PL0620A637A8C57478&feature=c4-overview-vl

Don't Forget you Have a Sump Pump!

Just a friendly reminder... If your sump pump is old or if you have been thinking of replacing it, better do it before the "thaw" comes. Sump pumps will be working overtime which increases the chance of failure, especially on the older pumps. Pumps could be in short supply at the stores once the demand increases. 

Remember, important mechanicals tend to fail at the worst possible times!

Questions and Answer about Real estate Stuff

Question: We just recently closed on a home and upon moving in, we discovered a horrible cat urine smell in the master bedroom closet. While trying to resolve the problem, we noticed some stains on the carpet.

I am curious to know if the previous owner and their broker are obligated to disclose pet damage to the area. They were the only owners of the home and up to this point have denied the existence of a cat. Based on the smell and the stains, it appears otherwise. Do we have any recourse?

Answer: When you buy real estate owners have an obligation to disclose material defects -- and buyers have an obligation to protect their interests.

Did you make the sale contingent on a home inspection satisfactory to you?  Was the closet somehow off limits? Were the stains purposely hidden? If the odor is now so pronounced, why did you not notice it during the pre-closing walk through or when you originally looked at the home?

The owners, if they had a cat, could say with some justice that the property reflects normal wear and tear and that you were not promised real estate perfection.

 

Question:  I have just put up a new privacy fence -- and paid for the whole thing.  And now a friend tells me that my neighbors may have been responsible for some of the cost. Is this true?

Answer:  You put up the fence on your property. You selected the height and style.                                      Your neighbors, if they like fences, are the beneficiary of your kind gesture.                                                                          Someone we know told us before putting up a fence on their property they went to the neighbors and asked them to chip-in.  And they did.

Salting around your Home to Melt Ice... Interesting Facts

Interesting General fact:
The rock salt used on roads is the same salt that is used on your dinner table. The larger salt pieces are typically ground down to finer crystals before being placed on your supermarket shelves. Salt is collected by underground salt mines and then processed, packaged and distributed. The largest salt mining company in the United States, American Rock Salt, produces 10,000 to 18,000 tons of salt each day.

Watch how you use it around your Home:
First, you should shovel the area and remove as much of the snow and ice as you can yourself. When you apply the salt, only use it on ice and not on snow. This will require less salt to be introduced to the environment. You can also use 30 percent less salt if you add it to some water before applying it to icy areas. It's also important to keep salt away from your plants to avoid damaging them. The sodium chloride that makes up most salt is toxic to many forms of vegetation, choking out necessary nutrients they need to survive.

How it Works:
Salting roads works by altering the freezing point of water.
Water with a higher salt content has a lower freezing point than water with less salinity.
This accounts for the difference in Celsius and Fahrenheit temperature scales;
0 degrees C is the freezing point of fresh water, while 0 degrees F is the freezing point of brine solution that Daniel Fahrenheit mixed.
Salting icy roads and walkways lowers the freezing point of the water that forms ice which leads to melting and prevents falling snow or rain from being able to freeze.

Sorry, I guess that's still the Chemist in me.

Question about paying for a Buyers Closing Costs

Question:   My neighbor said he just sold his home but he had to pay the buyers closing costs. No one ever paid for my closing costs. If I didn’t have the money, I didn’t buy it. Why is this allowed?

Answer:    First off, your neighbor did not have to pay for his buyers closing costs. He chose to as part of the negotiations. Your neighbor was satisfied with his bottom line, which is simply the net sales price of the home.  There is no difference whether he paid for his buyers closing costs or simply reduced the sales price by the same amount. The closing costs were taken out of your neighbors proceeds at closing. No money was given to the buyer upfront.  This transaction must be viewed as only a business deal. Keep your emotions out of it.

Times are different now.  Paying a buyer’s closing costs has advantages to the seller and buyer. For sellers, it presents an option in negotiations to help them sell their home.  For buyers, it allows them to either ‘buy down’ their mortgage interest rate or to have extra cash to update the home or make other improvements that may be needed.

A successful business transaction takes place when both parties are satisfied with the deal.  Apparently your neighbor was satisfied or he wouldn’t have accepted the offer.    

Renter thinks renting is better than Buying....We Say No Way!

Question: In this poor housing market, why are people still buying homes? I am renting in an apartment complex and I don't have to worry about any real estate mess.

Answer:  Although real estate moves in cycles, sometimes up, sometimes down, over the years, real estate prices have consistently appreciated. There are bad cycles in every investment. Nothing is great ALL the time. 

One of the greatest benefits of owning your own home is the freedom it can give you. If you live in an apartment, you have to deal with thin walls and noisy neighbors, and the task of keeping your own household relatively noise free. Your landlord may come and go, and there are many rules that limit everything from whether you can have pets to the color of your walls. If you own your home, you can do whatever you want with it. You can hang pictures or paint the walls as you please.

Owning a home provides more control over the children than in an apartment complex. In a neighborhood, kids usually play in the yards or go to friend's house a few doors away. My clients have told me that in an apartment complex they never knew where the kids were. They could be in any of dozens of apartments, doing who knows what. In a house you get to know the neighbors and watch out for each other's kids.

When you first purchase your home, your down payment is your only stake, as you pay down your mortgage, you own more of what may be an increasingly valuable property. This is called equity. Unlike renting where your rent can go up yearly, fixed mortgage payments will stay the same even as the market fluctuates.

Since the days of our country's Founding Fathers, pride of ownership has been a reflection of the value Americans place on freedom and self-reliance. Ensuring the growth of homeownership has always been a major objective of American national policy, dating back to the Homestead Act signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1862, which provided ways for settlers to claim public property as their own.  We are happy that you are content in your apartment, but homeownership continues to be the American Dream.