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Finally Official! Columbus Home Buyers and Sellers can take advantage of Extended Tax Credit
November 6th, 2009 categories: Bexley, Clintonville, Columbus News, Condos & Lofts, Downtown, For Home Buyers, For Home Sellers, German Village, Grandview, Market Updates, Mortgage/Finance, Olde Towne East, Real Estate News, Short North, westgate
First time buyers could buy this 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath home in Old Towne East for around $250K
This afternoon President Obama signed the bill into law that will extend the $8,000 homebuyer tax credit to contracts signed by April 30 and closed by June 30.
I’m surprised that they left the two month window but I think it’s very smart. Still, even if it were this week, I would not try to buy a short sale property or a foreclosure that doesn’t have the deed in the bank’s name even with the 7.5 month leeway.
Here’s the best part–a tax credit for SELLERS. The bill creates a $6,500 credit for those who buy a home after living in their current house at least five years. That will apply to contracts signed by April 30 and closed by June 30. The current credit defines a first-time homebuyer as someone who has not owned a residence within the past three years.
The credit will be available only for the purchase of principal residences priced at $800,000 or less.
This is huge. If you have owned your Columbus area home for at least five years–and I believe you must have lived in the home for at least five of the last eight years–you too can receive a credit. I can’t envision a scenario where you could claim both sides of the tax credits unless it was something along the lines of you selling your home and then turning around and buying the next home in your new spouse or girl/boyfriend’s name who has not owned a home.
The bill will raise the adjusted gross income cap to $125,000 for single filers and $225,000 for joint filers. The amount of the credit currently begins to phase out for taxpayers whose adjusted gross income is more than $75,000, or $150,000 for joint filers.
This is important. It opens the tax credit up to a whole new set of first time buyers who were not previously eligible and who could, conceivably, purchase a home with a little higher price tag that this year’s crop of first time home buyers weren’t even looking at.
Authored by Joe Peffer | Discussion: No Comments »
Real Estate Market Updates for Your Favorite Columbus Neighborhood
October 8th, 2009 categories: Bexley, Clintonville, Condos & Lofts, For Home Buyers, For Home Sellers, German Village, Grandview, Market Updates, Olde Towne East, Short North
This is where you can find an update on what is happening in real estate in your favorite Columbus Neighborhood…
Greater Short North including Harrison West, Italian Village and Victorian Village
German Village and Brewery District
Schumacher Place and Merion Village
Grandview Hieghts and Marblecliff
Authored by Joe Peffer | Discussion: No Comments »
This Columbus Home has Instant Equity — Oh Really?
September 14th, 2009 categories: About Me?, Bexley, Clintonville, Downtown, For Home Buyers, For Home Sellers, German Village, Grandview, Market Updates, Olde Towne East, Real Estate News, Short North, westgate
I've always loved the stone pillars flanking this Bexley Home
Instant Equity. Two words anyone buying real estate in Clintonville, Bexley, Grandview, Downtown, Short North, Berwick, Westgate or anywhere else in Central Ohio love to hear.
The problem is, I’ve heard those two words too often lately. The problem is the context and the definition of instant equity. In my opinion, anyone buying a home that has instant equity is anyone buying a home at a substantial discount to the Market Value of the home. That range from selling price to market value equals instant equity (though the bank might not think so).
What I’ve heard a lot lately is something along these lines, “…and this Seller paid $338,500 for it just a few years ago and is selling it for only $299,900. That’s a lot of instant equity for your buyer!”
Hold on a minute Buster, who cares what the Seller paid for it! In today’s market, if the home the Seller paid $338,500 for in 2006 is only worth $290,000 then there is NO instant equity. It’s simply priced at or around market value. Market value simply means whatever the market (all you buyers out there in Columbus thinking of buying a home) is willing to pay for it.
Hold on though, because it works both ways…..I always tell Buyers that what the Seller paid for the home has no bearing on what the home is worth. That means if the Seller bought the Columbus home via foreclosure, at auction or even on the market with Instant Equity….ie-if the Seller got a deal…you can’t punish them when buying the house. They are the one who got the deal, they deserve to make a profit and the Buyer should anticipate paying market value for the home. Just because the Seller got a deal on the home doesn’t mean she has any obligation to pass that deal on to the Buyer.
Authored by Joe Peffer | Discussion: No Comments »
The Death of the American Dining Room
July 28th, 2009 categories: Bexley, Clintonville, For Home Buyers, For Home Sellers, German Village, Grandview, Olde Towne East, Short North, westgate
The kids have 2 sport practices and a music lesson tonight. Are you eating round the table?
This is a post I’ve been thinking about for a long time. Over the last few years, Buyers have fallen on both sides of the dining room fence.
The bottom line-Dining Rooms are like Fireplaces, everybody wants one but few use one. Americans love the idea of a dining room but how many families do you know that eat dinner together every night gathered around the dining room table? I do maybe 3 nights a week and I think that’s high. I also don’t have a formal dining room, rather a spot to fit a formal dining room table between the kitchen and living room, all of it open space.
When staging a home to sell, the dining room better look like a dining room. If it exists, show it off.
If you live in Bexley or Upper Arlington or parts of Worthington and have a 4 bedroom house then buyers are looking for dining rooms and you’d better have one. If you have an $850,000 contemporary home in Upper Arlington though, it’s OK to NOT have a dining room but instead have a large open space.
Grandview buyers like traditional floor plans and, obviously, so do Olde Towne East buyers – but those homes are so large that there’s plenty of space for everything. Clintonville buyers are always looking to maxamize space and I’ve seen many homes that live without a dining room but always “re-install” it when it’s time to sell.
Eating space is important in German Village and so is historical accuracy. Space, however, is often at a premium and a dining room just isn’t as important as it used to be. When those same German Village couples start their families and move to Bexley, though, it becomes more important, at least in theory.
Dining rooms are a hold over to pre-television, pre computers, pre-this-family-has-3-practices-and-a-music-lesson-tonight households. They just aren’t as important as they used to be. Eating dinner together as a family is a romantic notion that isn’t always feasible to follow-through on.
Authored by Joe Peffer | Discussion: No Comments »
HUD Secretary says Columbus area Home Buyers don’t have to wait for the Eight Grand tax credit
May 12th, 2009 categories: Bexley, Clintonville, Columbus News, Condos & Lofts, Downtown, For Home Buyers, For Home Sellers, German Village, Grandview, Mortgage/Finance, Olde Towne East, Real Estate News, Short North
Wait a minute. All I have to do is pick a house and HUD will give me an $8,000 down payment?
Although nobody called me for the panel of distinguished guests at the mid-year meeting of the National Association of Realtors today in Washington D.C., I have found out that Shaun Donovan, secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, decreed today that the Federal Housing Administration is going to permit its lenders to allow homeowners to use the $8,000 tax credit as a downpayment.
Secretary Donovan went on to say, “We all want to enable FHA consumers to access the home buyer tax credit funds when they close on their home loans so that the cash can be used as a downpayment,” According to Donovan, the FHA’s approved lenders will be permitted to “monetize” the tax credit through short-term bridge loans. This will allow eligible home buyers to access the funds immediately at the closing table.
Is this great for Columbus area first time home buyers? You bet! You can read more about it here.
On the flip side, It seems to me that this is typical of the American ‘gotta-have-it-now’ mindset and all too reminiscent of the sort of ‘lend to anyone with a home buying twinkle in their eye’ mentality that got us into this mess. Don’t have enough money for a down payment? No problem, here’s $8,000.
And, since you’re wondering anyway, that means that you could purchase about a $228,000 Columbus area home with no out of pocket down payment if you’re going with an FHA loan product and their 3.5% minimum down.
Authored by Joe Peffer | Discussion: 2 Comments »
Don’t overlook the homes with just 1 bath–1/2 baths can be squeezed in!
April 25th, 2009 categories: Clintonville, For Home Buyers, German Village, Grandview, Short North
You like the prices of the three bedroom homes in Clintonville and Grandview, Schumacher Place and Harrison West, but you REALLY, REALLY want at least a bath and a half. And you don’t want the half to be some crazy old basement throne that hasn’t been used in 25 years. Well Columbus Home Buyers, there is hope.
You’d be Suprised where you can put a 1/2 bath from joe peffer on Vimeo.
Authored by Joe Peffer | Discussion: 1 Comment »
Historic Columbus Homes, Old Windows and New Ideas
March 24th, 2009 categories: Bexley, Clintonville, For Home Buyers, For Home Sellers, German Village, Grandview, Olde Towne East
I ran across a post today that made an impression on me. I show a lot of homes in the downtown neighborhoods where the homes can be as old they can be in Columbus–oldest maybe 140 years or so.
Many buyers fall in love with the homes themselves but not the idea of the upkeep and renovation that my be involved. Original Windows, in particular, are a double edged sword—They’re obviously historically accurate and add character to the home but if they are beat up and inoperable or sometimes just old, buyers consider an astronomical price to replace them with like-kind and move on to the next house.
Why replace them at all? Because most people feel original windows can’t be energy efficient and no one wants to waste money. Plus, keeping the old windows is now cool because preservation is a defacto green lifestyle. Well, Mark Alan Hewitt wrote the following in this post. He’s an architect & preservationist:
“…. It turns out that when considered holistically, older structures often make sense as examples of environmental conservation even if they haven’t been modernized.”
” One bugaboo, however, has existed since I began restoring houses 30 years ago–the question of what to do about “leaky” single glazed windows. Conventional wisdom was to throw them away in favor of double glazed sashes that would seal the house and keep heat and cold inside in hostile climates.”
“Finally the tide has changed and preservationists have started to look at windows as pieces of the treasured fabric of older buildings that don’t need to be sacrificed to the altar of sustainability. It turns out, according to recent research, that a well-made wooden double-hung or casement, equipped with tight-fitting wood storm sash, can perform almost as well as a double-glazed unit in terms of thermal resistance and infiltration. Moreover, the cost of replacing beautifully-crafted wooden sash continues to rise, increasing their potential “embodied energy.” There is really no compelling reason to remove character-defining wood windows from any historic structure, if storm/screen units can be installed outside.”
read all about it, here: Preservationists Don’t Do Windows
Authored by Joe Peffer | Discussion: 1 Comment »
Will a New Huntington Ballpark Add Value to Columbus Homes?
March 11th, 2009 categories: About Me?, Columbus News, Condos & Lofts, Downtown, For Home Buyers, For Home Sellers, Grandview, Olde Towne East, Short North
Yesterday I parked over at the new Ball Park and walked around it. I love it. I am baseball fan and an Indians fan and the idea that this new Park is about 2 miles from my house makes very excited. I have tickets to the second game in the new stadium, a Sunday Afternoon game for our whole family.
But will it increase the value of surrounding homes in the Arena District, the Short North, Downtown and near Downtown neighborhoods? I believe it will help homes in the immediate vicinity retain their already solid value and become a calling card for homes like mine that can tout a “twelve minute bike ride to Huntington Park”. They aren’t making any more land near the Arena District, as they saying goes, so homes within a couple miles, ie walking distance for the not-too-lazy, should see at least a continued extra added value that may sway a home buyer to their home.
If you live at Buggyworks or the North Bank or Burnham Square, life outside your front door just got a lot more active – and congestion filled 365 days of the year with Hockey and Baseball schedules. Of course you walk to most of what you need and the lots aroud Nationwide Arena tend to empty out relatively smoothly.
Authored by Joe Peffer | Discussion: No Comments »
Feeling Stimulated to Purchase a Columbus area Home?
February 20th, 2009 categories: Bexley, Clintonville, Condos & Lofts, Downtown, For Home Buyers, German Village, Grandview, Market Updates, Mortgage/Finance, Olde Towne East, Real Estate News, Short North
Two Quick Takeaways: It’s only for first time buyers — If you buy before the tax deadline this year, you can qualify for the $8000 NOW
Here is a quick re-cap on the Stimulus Plan and how it relates to Central Ohio home buyers in comparison to last Summer’s Plan:
Authored by Joe Peffer | Discussion: No Comments »
