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August 13, 2020August 17, 2020

Preparing Your Home for Sale During the Pandemic

By now, you’re probably getting pretty good at making adjustments in your everyday life to protect the health and safety of yourself and those around you. Along the same lines, there are steps you can take to show your home to potential buyers without risking your health or hurting your chances of a sale. Here are some tips to prepare your home for sale in the coronavirus era!

Get Help with Staging

According to The Mortgage Reports, staged homes sell an average of 73% faster than non-staged homes. Staging involves eliminating clutter, incorporating decorative elements, and adjusting the layout of your furniture to improve the flow of your home. The overall goal is to make your home appear bigger, brighter, and more inviting to potential buyers. Fortunately, some staging steps are easy to tackle on your own, such as cleaning, decluttering, and depersonalizing. These steps will help buyers picture themselves living in your home instead of feeling like intruders in someone else’s space.

When it comes to décor, however, it’s best to hire a professional. An interior designer can help you stage your home to effectively show off key aesthetic elements as well as the features that make your space functional. You can easily find freelance interior designers on job boards like Upwork. To keep yourself and your designer safe, make sure they have adopted special procedures to conform with CDC recommendations for COVID-19.

Don’t Neglect Your Curb Appeal

Don’t let your home preparations stop at your front door! Even if buyers aren’t visiting your home in person, they will still want to see your home exterior. In fact, a picture of your home exterior will likely serve as the bait that draws potential buyers to your online listing. Don’t neglect your curb appeal!

Tool Review Lab recommends several ways to boost your curb appeal—even if you’re on a tight budget. For example, you could power wash your front porch and siding, install a new mailbox, hang modern house numbers, and do some basic lawn maintenance.

When it comes to your front yard, make sure your lawn is lush, freshly mowed, and free of weeds and dead spots. Consider planting new flowers and remember to weed and mulch the beds to keep everything looking neat. You may even want to hire a professional to give the trees and shrubs around your yard a good trim.

Consider Safer Showing Alternatives

While it’s clear that hosting an open house is off the table, you may also want to limit in-person showings. Offer your buyers no-contact alternatives! Shoot a video walkthrough of your home and upload it to your online listing so buyers can tour your home virtually. You could even schedule live video-chat showings with interested buyers so they can ask questions about your home or request specific shots of rooms or features.

Since buyers will form a first impression of your home based on your listing, make sure it does your home justice. Write a strong listing title, include a detailed and exciting description, and post plenty of high-quality photos. A great real estate agent can help you craft your listing so that it properly showcases your home’s best features. Your real estate agent can also help you navigate virtual showings! Take the time to find a professional who is well-versed in using online tools to connect with buyers.

Selling a home in the age of the coronavirus is bound to be a bit of a challenge. Thankfully, the real estate industry has been quick to adopt virtual alternatives to open houses and buyers are happy to continue their housing hunt online. With some special attention to staging and a solid virtual presence, you’ll have no problem closing a sale during the pandemic!

Message me if your thinking about buying or selling a Fort Collins or Loveland home at m.me/EdPowersRealEstate

Ed Powers Real Estate 970-690-3113 ed@EdPowersRealEstate.com www.EdPowersRealEstate.com

August 9, 2020August 9, 2020

30 Year Mortgage Rates Push Lower Last Week

30 Year Mortgage Rates pushed lower last week reaching a new low of 2.88%, according to Freddie Mac, a government-sponsored agency that backs millions of American mortgages. Congressional gridlock over the next fiscal relief could drive rates even lower.

The limited supply of homes on the market continue to cause an obstacle to buyers looking to own a home. Credit tightening is also putting a squeeze on buyers to qualify for these record low rates.

Message me if your thinking about buying a Fort Collins or Loveland home at m.me/EdPowersRealEstate

Ed Powers Real Estate 970-690-3113 ed@EdPowersRealEstate.com www.EdPowersRealEstate.com

August 4, 2020August 4, 2020

Deferment of Mortgage Payments May Affect Borrowers in the Long Run

When Congress passed Section 4021 of the CARES Act in response to the effects of COVID-19, their intent was to help borrowers who were having problems making their mortgage payments. Little did Congress realize that they were potentially setting up borrowers for trouble in the future when it comes to credit worthiness as assessed by the lending community.

According to Mark Hanf, president of Pacific Private Money, “Section 4021 of the CARES Act contained a regulation that loan servicers “shall report the credit obligation or account for those participating in forbearance as current”. In other words, those participating in a forbearance program should not see their credit scores drop. However, there is a loophole that allows lenders to discover whether or not a borrower is actually making payments. It is the “comments” section of a credit report. The CARES Act does not mention the comments section of credit reports, and that’s where forbearance notations are going.” What borrowers are not being told is that any reference in a credit report to forbearance can be a Scarlet Letter for an applicant seeking a new mortgage, according to Kathleen Howley in an article she wrote in early May 2020.

According to Hanf, within a week of Howley’s article, his company received a loan request from a home buyer who was denied credit from a major bank for just this very situation. Although the bank sees the existing mortgage as “current” the forbearance has let the world know via the comment section that this borrower has requested a deferment. The major bank involved would most likely not deny the loan on its face due to the deferment, as this would violate the law; however, banks are notorious for coming up with a myriad of reasons for denying a loan and still stay within the guidelines set out for them.

Conventional lenders desire to have plain vanilla borrowers who pay back loans in a timely manner. When a borrower changes terms of the loan by requesting principal forgiveness or other aspects of the

loan, the lenders generally do not usually extend credit again to these borrowers and can negatively affect the borrower’s ability to borrow again from unrelated lenders. Such is the case back during the Great Recession wherein some borrowers took advantage of the economic climate by asking their lender to reduce the principal of their loan [total forgiveness rather than just a deferment]. The borrowers may have gotten a reprieve, but the long-term effects may have been more drastic. Similarly, to when a borrower files bankruptcy. The borrower may get out of paying creditors, but their ability to borrow in the future is usually severely hampered.

In one case, back in 2009, during the heart of the Greta Recession, one banker tells a story of how a wealthy borrower first asked for a principal loan reduction of $500,000 because his collateralized real estate had decreased and his request was granted. But, when this borrower was faced with the prospects of having this reduction reported on his credit report or the fact that he would have to inform any new lender that he requested a principal reduction [as this question is usually on bank applications], he voluntarily requested that the $500,000 abatement be reinstated. He decided his ability to borrow in the future was worth more than the $500,000 principal reduction.

Borrowers will have to decide if requesting deferments is worth the risk of potential future lending restrictions based upon the lender desire to lend to borrowers who choose to defer mortgage payments when the opportunity arises. Whoever said, “there’s no free lunch” must have been talking about these very situations.

Message me if your thinking about buying or selling a Fort Collins or Loveland home at m.me/EdPowersRealEstate

Ed Powers Real Estate 970-690-3113 ed@EdPowersRealEstate.com www.EdPowersRealEstate.com

August 2, 2020October 15, 2020

Ed Powers Real Estate August 2020 Newsletter

Get the latest news in the August 2020 Ed Powers Newsletter Real Estate Update

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It’s All About The ’Burbs: In A Time Of Pandemic, More Young Families Are Fleeing The City For The Country

Scoffers label it, ‘panic-moving.’ Others call it common sense. Wherever you stand, there is little doubt that, as the pandemic continues to surge, the flight of families from city to suburbs is picking up steam across the nation.
“Young New York couples typically put off a move to the suburbs until after the birth of their second child,” said Elizabeth Nunan, president of Houlihan Lawrence, a leading New York residential brokerage. “It gives them time to save some money and enjoy the perks of city living until the need for space and the cost of childcare make the family-friendly suburbs a better choice.”
But circumstances

have flipped the concept on its ear.
“Living in the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic left most New Yorkers justifiably fearful,” Nunan said. CONTINUED >>>

Preparing Your Home for Sale During the Pandemic

Despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the real estate market must go on. Homeowners still need to sell, house-hunters still need to buy, and real estate agents still need to make a living. But the typical home selling process involves frequent contact with strangers—which is not recommended during this time of social distancing.
By now, you’re probably getting pretty good at making adjustments in your everyday life to protect the health and safety of yourself and those around you. Along the same lines, there are steps you can take to show your home to potential buyers without risking your health or hurting your chances of a sale. Here are some tips to prepare your home for sale in the coronavirus CONTINUED >>>

Thinking of a Remodel? Here Are Your Financing Options

Should You Refinance From An FHA Loan To A Conventional Loan?

For many first-time buyers, a Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loan is the prudent—and often the only—choice for a mortgage. With the flexible credit and low down payment requirements, an FHA loan makes it easier to qualify than almost any loan out there.
      However, the ongoing private mortgage insurance (PMI) you have to pay when you have an FHA loan makes your monthly payments more expensive. And, unlike a conventional loan, which allows you to remove your PMI at a certain point, you can never get rid of it with an FHA loan—even when you have tons of equity in your home. So, with rates at historic lows, should you refi out of your FHA loan to a conventional loan? We’re looking at the pros and cons.
Pro: You can get rid of private mortgage insurance (PMI) “FHA loans require certain provisions which sometimes place a heavy burden on a homeowner’s budget, often in the form of premiums paid for mortgage insurance,” said PennyMac.
      That mortgage insurance on an FHA loan ranges from .45–1.05% of your home loan amount every year. On a
CONTINUED >>>

Daily News and Advice

Read about the events shaping the Real Estate market today, find current interest rates, or browse the extensive library of advice and how-to articles written by some of the top experts in Real Estate. Updated each weekday.

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Mortgage Rates

U.S. averages as of August 2020: 30 Year Mortgage Rates Push Lower

30 yr. fixed: 2.99%
15 yr. fixed: 2.51%
5/1 yr. adj: 2.94%

Message me if your thinking about buying or selling a Fort Collins or Loveland home at m.me/EdPowersRealEstate

Ed Powers Real Estate 970-690-3113 ed@EdPowersRealEstate.com www.EdPowersRealEstate.com

July 31, 2020July 31, 2020

Cost-Saving Tips For Your Bathroom Renovation

Bathrooms are one of the most popular renovation spots under normal circumstances. With everyone spending so much time at home, updating and upgrading their space, adding value, and also making it more conducive for quarantining, it’s more popular than ever.

But, it can be extremely expensive. According to HomeAdvisor, “The average bathroom remodel costs $10,528. Most homeowners spend between $6,016 and $15,044. On a large or master bath, you could spend $25,000 or more.”

But you can do it on a budget. Here’s how.

Watch your footprint

You may be envisioning a large, lavish bathroom, but do you have as large, lavish budget? You can keep costs down by going with a smaller footprint. Less square footage means less materials to purchase means less money going out the door. A larger bathroom will likely need a larger vanity, which can be pricier. Additional boxed of flooring, tile, and any other materials you need will also cost you more. Keeping it small may also mean you can find leftover materials at a steep discount.

Buy what’s on sale

When you’re trying to do your bathroom on a budget, an open mind is your best tool. The Carrera marble you have your heart set on might be a huge budget-buster, but you can approximate the look with the Carrera-look porcelain tile that’s on sale.

Or, maybe, you end up with something else altogether because you didn’t anticipate that great subway tile on clearance. Material costs can cause your bottom line to swell, but you can keep your budget in line by making smart purchases.

Keep your plumbing where it is

If you can renovate your bathroom without moving the toilet, shower/bath, or sink, you’ll save a lot of mony—and hassle. “The cost to move a toilet or sinks can be $2,500-$3,500 per fixture,” said Torrance, CA-based Bay Cities Construction. “Plumbing can be a significant cost factor in a remodel when a bathroom floor plan is altered. The toilet is the most expensive to move. Connecting the toilet to the existing sewer line can be a bit tricky for your plumber. The sewer-line depends on a slope. The sewer line pipes keep a specific slope to drain well. Another layer of complexity exists if the house is built on a concrete slab versus a raised foundation. Houses with a concrete slab foundation require concrete cutting to relocate new pipes. This can be more time consuming than a house with a raised foundation.”

Go prefab

If you need a custom vanity, your costs can climb into the thousands. But with so many prefab options available, you may not need to consider that type of expense.

Check the big box stores

Holiday sales several times a year can mean tremendous savings on everything from vanities to bathtubs to faucets.

Don’t be afraid to DIY

When it comes to bathroom vanities, one of the best deals you’ll find will likely be on unfinished products. We found this unfinished, 60-inch double, shaker-style vanity for under $300. A similar white-painted vanity was more than $500 from the same company, so painting it yourself is a good way to save some cash.

Be on the lookout in your neighborhood

There have been workmen at the house around the corner that just sold. And there’s a trash bin in the driveway of the one across the street. That might mean people around you are renovating. And it’s also possible that they’re getting rid of some stuff you’d be happy to have in your home. You know what they say about one man’s trash…

Check Amazon

Yes, the same place you buy your underwear and your light bulbs may also be a great source for bathroom items. We found this Delta tub and faucet marked down from $124 to $48 and this Westinghouse brushed nickel, three-light fixture on sale from $78 to $53.

Think outside of the box

That antique dresser that’s collecting dust in the garage or attic might make a gorgeous vanity, and it may even be something you can do yourself.

Craigslist

Go ahead and enter “vanity” or “clawfoot tub” into the search field of your local Craigslist. You may find nothing, or you may find all manner of cool stuff. Just be sure to abide by some Craigslist best practices to keep yourself, and your money, safe.

Check surplus stores

If you don’t know where one is, Google is your friend. These warehouses have some great bulk deals as well as small-scale bargains you won’t find elsewhere.