In the Spring Texas real estate market, buyers and sellers alike are often confused about the differences between market value, appraised value, and tax appraised value. 

So let’s first start by tackling market value. The market value of a home is how much a ready, willing, and able buyer is willing to pay for the home.

The appraised value of a home is the value determined by an appraiser. If you are a buyer financing the purchase of a Spring Texas home, your lender may require the property to be appraised by an appraiser. The appraiser works for the lender and his job is to determine if the value of the home is equal to or greater than the amount that you are financing.

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Where’s the best place to start your Spring Texas home search?  If you are like 84% of the buyers, you start your search on the Internet. But where on the Internet?

There are a lot of real estate sites and they are all just alike. Right?  Because don’t they all have all the available listings?  Short answer - NO, they do not have ALL the same listings.

The sites you have probably heard of like Yahoo, Trulia, Zillow or even HGTV’s new site of Front Door DO NOT have all the available listings. They have worked out deals with some of the largest brokerages such as ReMax, Coldwell Banker, and Prudential to feed the brokers listings to their sites. Read More »

In negotiating price on Spring Texas homes, there are two things I can count on. First … buyers never want to overpay and Second … sellers want as much money possible for their home. Since this article is geared towards teaching buyers how to get the best deal on their home purchase, all you Spring Texas home sellers do not read any further. Instead read one of my many articles geared towards Spring Texas home sellers.

Okay buyers, now that the sellers have left, we can unveil the SECRETS to getting the best deal on your home purchase.

Be Pre-Approved for a Loan - A pre-approval letter informs the sellers that you are a qualified buyer who has the financial means to purchase their home. In many instances, the sellers will not even begin the negotiating process until they have received your pre-approval letter. Read More »

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When I get asked which I do frequently, “Is this a good neighborhood?”, I usually respond “It depends”. I am certain my response must come across as being evasive but to me the definition of a good neighborhood is truly one of personal opinion.

I may think a good Spring Texas neighborhood is close to shopping and major thoroughfares, has sidewalks, is well lit at night, has decent size yards, and where pride of ownership is evident in the look and the upkeep of the yards and the homes. You may agree or not agree with me on my definition and thus comes in its a matter of personal opinion.

Another reason I have to say it depends is because as a licensed Realtor I can not steer you as a home buyer away from a neighborhood or into a neighborhood.  It is against the National Association of Realtors code of ethics and if I were to steer you I could lose my real estate license.  Read More »

Retirement …. the first place that pops into my mind is Florida and the next would be Arizona. It would not be Spring Texas.  Why?  Maybe because over the years Florida and Arizona have received a lot of exposure from the press. And until lately I don’t think the reporters knew where Spring Texas was yet alone if it would be a good place to retire to. Well they must have discovered our area because lately I am receiving more calls from people living in Florida inquiring about life in Spring Texas.

What makes an area a good place to retire to anyway? Read More »

In other states, how much a home sold for is considered public information and is available through tax records. This is not the case in Texas. Texas is a non-disclosure state which means the price the home sold for is not recorded. The Deed of Trust is the recorded document but it only contains the borrowed amount and not the sales amount.

Since Texas is a non-disclosure state, Zillow.com is NOT a reliable source for sold information. Zillow.com relies on public county records as their primary data source for their Zestimates which creates challenges when sales data is not in the public county records.

So how do Spring Texas home buyers know how much to offer for a home? Read More »

Earnest Money is the money that accompanies the real estate contract and is meant to show that the buyers are serious about purchasing the home. These funds are NOT in addition to the sale price. 

The Earnest Money is an amount that is negotiated between the buyer and seller. There is no set minimum amount that is it has to be. The typical Earnest Money is 1% of the sales price. The higher the amount the more negotiating leverage it gives you with the seller because it shows the seller that you are serious about purchasing their Spring Texas home.

What do you do if you don’t have at least 1% of the sales price for Earnest Money?  You can put down less since its a negotiation item. Although, I do think you need to ask yourself ”Can I really afford this house?”. Read More »

The Fed controls the Fed Funds Rate. They DO NOT control the mortgage rate. Although what the Fed does can affect what happens to mortgage rates. Now what I just wrote may sound like a foreign language or even worse, a hard Algebra word problem, but try to stay with me as we delve into this a little further.

Mortgage rates are tied to mortgage bonds. As the price of mortgage bonds go up, rates in turn get lower. When the price goes down, rates go higher.

People basically have two options when investing their money. They can either put it in stocks or bonds. Stocks are risky than bonds and thus reward their investors with a higher yield. Bonds on the other hand are a safer investment and yield is lower. Read More »