Custom Real Estate Blog

Riding these Waves of Demand!   Like boats that rise with the waves, home values are being lifted by various waves of buyer demand during COVID.  Every price range is being affected differently, and each county around us as well!  Dive into the deep end with me and find out what is happening in your local market.   Collin County Insights The yellowish column is the latest 10-day segment, so you can see the number of homes being put under contract is going up or at least maintaining it’s momentum of growth.   Most notably, the number of homes in the 450-500k price range more than doubled!   That means that either sidelined buyers in this price range decided now was the time to take advantage of low rates or that more sellers chose to put their homes on the market (and make them available to buyers).   See available home data next. The line is the number of homes available for sale over the past 12 months.   Fewer homes for sale make the ones that ARE for sale more valuable.

Do the Numbers Work? When an investor looks at a property to determine if it's a good deal, they are really applying some of their own formulas to rate each home.  That's the best way to make a very complicated process easy and enjoyable .  So read along to learn how to create your own formulas for buying a great rental property. Your Formula Starts With You What is your goal?  This isn't meant to be a tough question, but like most people that are considering real estate as an investment vehicle, you want to make passive income and retire someday.   That's a fine place to start, but let's make it an official goal by deciding on some specifics.  How much revenue do you want to make in a given time period?  To keep things moving, let's say that you want to make 100k on each property you acquire, every 5 years. Acquisition Formula Every home has a "sale value" and a "rental value".  If a home is for sale for 100k and rents for 500 dollars per m

Buyer Demand?  You Mean People are Buying Homes Now? Looking at the number of homes being put “under contract”, buyer demand has been consistently rising over the past 30 days.    Each column below is a segment of 10 days, with this chart data showing the past 30 days of buyer activity.   For the time being, the demand for good homes WILL INCREASE in value due to scarcity.    It’s a GREAT time to be a seller, that is for sure.   Ok, But I Heard It’s Tougher for Buyers to Get a Home Loan Now… This is true.   I interviewed Jackson Cussons, a lender for more than 35 years, about recent changes to the home loan industry.   It became very clear in our conversation that the home loan world has been affected by the pandemic just as much as the real estate industry. Me: What have been the changes to lending qualification criteria since COVID started?”  Jackson:   Credit scores with FHA/VA system are favoring at least a 660 middle credit score.  Debt to In