Indianapolis Real Estate Blog and Real Estate Investments Resource

As your local Zionsville Anson real estate expert, I wanted to share with you some updated photos of the development in Anson. 

First, take a look at this stunning new condo built by Ryland located right in the heart of the new Anson development.  6320 Central Blvd  We rented this out in about 2 weeks, and it cash flows from day one!

Some new photos of Anson Whitestown IN 

Good progress has been made on the new condo’s and upscale apartments that are currently leasing and selling.  Notice the nice landscaping going in throughout. Also, DC’s Pub has finally opened!  This is a hot PUD, every Friday and Saturday night the entire parking lot is packed full of cars.  El Rodeo has also opened up over the past few months.  This is a great place to buy a real estate investment to hold long term.  Royal Run would be the best bet on a development to start investing in, it will get you in lower in price then anywhere else near the Anson development.  I of course put my $$$ where my mouth is, and own and rent out a ranch in the Anson development and Royal Run. 

Wouldn’t You Agree That Knowledge Is Power?

In order to help you avoid costly mistakes that can add up to thousands of dollars lost because of misinformation or non-information; this special package was developed to spell out, in detail, the Indianapolis home-buying process here on the Central Coast.

Many Indianapolis homebuyers today buy a Indianapolis home without considering the ramifications of their decisions. In other words, there are many buyers who rush into purchasing a home…more on a whim or an emotional “high,” rather than making home ownership a planned, orderly and informed decision.

In order to protect you, my client, and to help you avoid Carmel home buying pitfalls I have created this special report. I expect it will grow in time as I find other materials and ideas that buyers should consider before purchasing…or have available once they have purchased. Your input, therefore, would be invaluable to me.

I hope, that as a future Carmel homeowner, this package will serve as a tool to help you become more informed, better educated as a Carmel home purchaser and that, after your purchase ( or each purchase), you will become a satisfied homeowner here and be willing to recommend my services with a written testimonial to be added to my testimonial page (see last page).

There Is More To Purchasing A Home

Than Finding A Piece Of Real Estate To Make An Offer On

There is a need among today’s purchasers (and homeowners) for straight talk and sound advice on buying and selling. Home ownership is a huge decision in most people’s lives. It’s not just a shelter or even another investment.

It’s the place we bring our dreams to life in flower gardens and family rooms, backyard barbecues and home-cooked Sunday dinners. It’s the place we raise our children, the nest we nudge them out of and welcome them back to again and again. For many of us, it’s become our place of business, thanks to computers and fax machines that have made the home office a reality.

So it’s easy to see why buying or selling a home is often an emotionally charged, potentially overwhelming process. And helping people through that process remains the single goal of all the services we provide.

That’s why considerable time and effort have been devoted to staying in touch with the needs and concerns of all clients and potential customers.

Naturally, a great deal has been learned from the hundreds of families who have been helped to move over the years. They have told us about their dreams and fears, their joys and frustrations, their impressions of the positives and negatives of our business.

This package is the result of extensive research to find out what today’s homebuyers expect from a realtor, and what kind of help they really want and need. It’s based upon the questions we hear most frequently - questions that come from people just like you, with concerns and desires much like yours.

And it offers you straight answers, with some inside tips and “plain English” explanations to help you feel more comfortable and confident about your Carmel home buying and selling decisions.

Let’s start by asking a few important questions…

What are the 10 most common buying mistakes Buyers make?

1. Not using a Realtor
2. Not using the right Realtor for you
3. Not being clear with your agent regarding your wants and needs
4. Not getting pre-approved with a Lender
5. Not being clear and up-front with you Lender
6. Not being in escrow with your current home before shopping for a new one
7. Judging a home only from the curb
8. Making an offer lower than the current price differential
9. Not purchasing a Home Inspection
10. Not purchasing a Home Warranty Program

Where do I begin the process of looking for a Carmel home?

The first thing you should do is to begin focusing on what you’re looking for in a home.

You can start by establishing priorities in the following three areas:

Location:

Are you relocating to a new town because of a new job, or to be closer to your current job? Are you coming here to vacation or to retire here permanently?

How will the location of schools, shops, and transportation and medical facilities affect your choice of neighborhood?

Personal Taste:

How large a home do you need? What style of architecture do you prefer?

On what type of lot? Depending on where you want to live, you may have a choice of homes in dozens of styles, sizes, and settings.

Every family’s needs are different. It is helpful to examine what you like or don’t like about your current home or apartment. What don’t you like? What features are missing?

Do you have extra large furniture (i.e. king-size bed or large dining room suite) that you must accommodate? How important is the lot? Do you need a finished family room, garage, special needs room (i.e. office)?

Once you’ve examined all your wants & needs, make a list of the most important features that you absolutely cannot live without. Those go to the top of your list. Everything else is a compromise!

Budget:

How much home is it wise for you to own or how much do you want to spend on a monthly basis without eating popcorn for dinner every evening?

As you consider these things, do a little research of your own. Look through magazines for ideas about home styles and features. Drive through neighborhoods that appeal to you to see what’s available. Read the real estate listings in the newspaper to learn about the features that you are considering. The more knowledgeable you become, the better your final decision is likely to be.

This special report created by Crager-Bartels Real Estate at MyIndianapolisHome.com

A few months ago I was referred an individual that was wanting to sell her home. At that time, I didn’t know she was behind in her payments.  Two months into the listing contract, she told me she was 6 months behind in payments. 

We had to act quick.  Customer was going to be foreclosed on at any moment.  With the thousands of people on my real estate mailing list, I was able to find someone that not only purchased the home from her, but also caught up her six months of late payments. 

This is just another example of what I do for my clients.  I have the experience and knowledge of creative financing that gets the deals done in circumstances that other agents would be left scratching their heads.

For free Indianapolis foreclosure information, check out my website at MyIndianapolisHome.com

We work with many Indianapolis relocations looking to move to the Indianapolis area.  For more information, check out the Indianapolis relocation resource at http://MyIndianapolisHome.com

A new feature from the Crager-Bartels Real Estate team.

Search the entire MLS directly on our webpage.   Free email alerts, view homes view Google maps.

Search Zionsville Homes For Sale, Search Indianapolis Homes For Sale

By M. Anthony Carr January 27, 2006

With the cooling of the housing market, first-time buyers need to be assertive in elbowing their way up front of the home-buying line — now. The cooling, or normalizing, doesn’t mean the market is tanking. It means just what it says — it’s going to be more normal. Housing will continue to appreciate, sellers will continue to sell and buyers will continue to buy. The question is whether buyers will take advantage of this leveling off and get a good deal while the sellers are forced to give up a few things.

One of the items that was sidelined during the searing market the past few years, was the very commonsense financing offered through various government and private agencies to help first-time and cash-poor buyers get into the home market.

The National Association of Realtors released its annual Buyer Survey a couple weeks ago, revealing several interesting points. Namely, 40 percent of all buyers are first-timers, of those, 43 percent used no-money down financing. In addition, the use of the internet for all buyers has crept up to 77 percent and there’s no reason that trend will falter. Interestingly, an old fashioned tool for agents, the open house, was the second largest used tool by buyers to look at houses, standing at 71 percent of all buyers.

Search “first-time homebuyer” on the internet and you’ll have a mere 12.4 million web pages pop up. Let me narrow it down for you so you can find the financing of choice for home buying in today’s market.

* The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is a great first stop. The HUD programs are a lot more forgiving of credit issues than most of the conventional programs on the market. In addition, the site is loaded with plenty of information on how to get access to the financing the organization insures. Keep in mind, a HUD loan only means a mortgage program is “insured” by HUD, not funded by HUD.

* Both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are fabulous resources for first-time buyers. These two companies provide the largest source of funding for all mortgages across the country. I refer you to them, rather than an individual mortgage broker site, because they provide the most non-biased information about the programs they offer. Nevertheless, don’t overlook mortgage company sites who take the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac programs and may create hybrid loans out of these programs to make them even more favorable to the first-timer.

* The National Council of State Housing Agencies (NCSHA) is a nonprofit organization founded more than 30 years ago by the country’s state housing agencies to “coordinate and leverage their federal advocacy efforts for affordable housing,” according to the group’s site. The benefit to buyers on this site is its’ directory of state housing agencies across the country, including every state, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. The agencies monitor, lobby for and administer the disbursement of monies from federal programs that provide lower interest rates for consumers, along with several other benefits to first-time and low-income buyers. With a leveling off on the market, buyers should reacquaint themselves with these very stable programs.

Finally, here are some tips for the first-time buyer as you look to find financing for your home.

* While all the above websites can be very helpful in educating yourself, find a mortgage professional you can meet face to face. When you step into the process, it’s best to have an experienced professional who you can call and meet with at any time. Get a referral from friends, family, co-workers or your agent as they all probably know someone who can get you through the process.

* Act sooner than later on applying for your loan. As of today, the interest rates are lingering around 6 percent. All the mortgage rate watchers (i.e., economists) are predicting a rise in the mortgage rate upwards to 6.75 or 7 percent by the end of this year. Delay much longer and you may lose buying power just by waiting. Your monthly payment will stay the same, but your house price may drop because of an increase in the interest rate.

* Look at hybrid loans to help keep your monthly costs down. A hybrid is a program that combines two or more programs to eliminate mortgage insurance premiums — which can be very expensive each month and cut into your buying power. Ask your mortgage professional about this product.

* Look around for help with the down payment. Some agencies have down payment mortgage. You could get help from family. Don’t forget you could even sell some items in your house that could give you more money for the down payment. Could you sell the car (the one with the payment) and buy one with cash? That debt relief alone could get you into your home a lot easier than any other move.

* Finally, research, research, research, but don’t get frozen into inaction. At some point you need to dive in and see if the home-buying water is fine for your. Best of luck.

Would you like to know the value of your home for free? Just go to http://ZionsvilleHomesOnline.com and click on “FREE CMA” at the top of the page. You will receive a free CMA via email, no obligation to you!

Technorati Tags: real, homes, houses, agent, buying

1. Find foreclosures

If you have enough cash you can buy homes at the foreclosure auction. Most areas require you to pay cash the day of the auction. The problem with this strategy is that you might run into title problems and many times you cannot see the inside of the home prior to the auction.

My personal favorite is to find people in foreclosure and work a deal with them prior to the auction. This does not require you to pay cash and many times you can buy the home with seller financing.

This situation can be beneficial to both parties. You are helping someone keep a foreclosure off their record and also buying a home at a discount.

2. Pay retail and hold for the long haul.

Paying retail for real estate has worked very well lately. The Sarasota, Florida real estate market, like many areas of the country, has been booming. You could have purchased pretty much anything within the last few years and made money.

There has been alot of talk lately about a real estate bubble. It wil be interesting to see if recent home buyers will keep their price gains. I believe prices to stabilize in areas that are forecasted to have large population growth, like Sarasota, Florida.

In my area almost every property has a negative cash flow if you purchase using a mortgage. I cannot find one property in my area that produces a positive cash flow with any kind of financing.

You have to focus on the time value of money when looking at the long term benefits of real estate. Let’s say you buy a $200,000 house today and the home appreciates at a modest 5% a year. After 20 years that home will be worth more than $530,000! At a 10% appreciation rate for 20 years the home will be worth over $1,345,000! Let’s be negative and say that real estate will only appreciate at 3% a year for the next 20 years. At this slow appreciation rate the home you paid $200,000 for would still be worth $361,222 at the end of 20 years. Keep in mind that at the same time you or your tenants are also paying down the mortgage. Can you imagine if you had 10-20 good long term rentals? After 20 years there is a good chance you would be a multi-millionaire.

3. Buy in depressed areas

Find areas that are depressed but have some redeeming quality such as proximity to the beach or waterfront, a thriving downtown or some other desireable place. Many depressed neighborhoods need a pioneer. Someone to come into the neighborhood, pay retail, either tear down and build or rehab the old homes. This kind of activity will eventually attract other investors or home owners with money. Once the money starts rolling into the neighborhood it changes and starts to become a more desireable place, which ultimately attracts more money.

I purchased a home in a depressed neighborhood on the water in Bradenton, Florida. A developer is buying my house and other depressed homes in the neighborhood to build high rise condos. The redeeming quality of the house I purchased is that it was on a river, with a gorgeous view and was convenient to a changing downtown.

4. Fix up houses

As a Realtor I have worked with hundreds of buyers over the years. There are people who just won’t buy homes that need work. They either don’t have the time, patience, knowledge or desire to buy an outdated home and fix it up. This is where the handyman or contractor can make some good money.

I have made money in the past by fixing up and flipping tired homes. However, I have always purchased them at a discount from normal market values. Make sure you either get the house at a good price or have a way of adding some value to the house. Usually, the investors who get their hands dirty make money doing this. I see many wanna-be investors get into this game by purchasing homes at retail or slightly below, contracting out all of the fix up work and then trying to sell above what the market will bare. These are the investors who tend to make little or no money in relation to the time and risk associated with the project. Would you want to lay out $30,000 for a downpayment and $40,000 in fix up costs over the course of 6 months to rehab a house only to make $10,000?

Marc Rasmussen a Realtor/investor selling Longboat Key real estate.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Marc_Rasmussen

This Article is Courtesy of http://www.modern-real-estate.com.You may freely reprint this article on your website or in your newsletter provided this courtesy notice and the author name and URL remain intact.

Technorati Tags: real, estate, homes, houses, condos, buying, selling

Nothing can be more exciting & terrifying at the same time than buying your 1st home. Everyone talks about all the advantages of buying real estate such as the tax benefits, appreciation etc. But there are some risks involved and the more knowledge you have before you start the process the less vulnerable you will be to those risks. Now that you have decided to take the plunge there are some things you can go to make the experience exciting and pleasurable.

One of the 1st things you should do is interview 3 Mortgage Specialists. This accomplishes 3 things, 1st you know in advance how much home you can afford. The worst feeling is to go out looking, find your dream home and then realize you cannot afford it. After that it will be really frustrating trying to find another home. Knowing what your price range is before you start looking assures that when you do find a home you will be able to afford it. 2nd, once you decide to put in an offer, being ?Pre-Approved? puts you in a stronger bargaining position, especially it you happen to be in a multiple offer situation. 3nd you will have a relationship established with a mortgage broker. This will move things along much more efficiently once you have found your home.

Now that you have been ?Pre- Approved? it is time to start the Search for your dream Home. 95% of people turn to the Internet to start that search. There are many options but realtor.com is probably the most popular. This tool can help you get to know the real estate market in the area you want to live. Check out the average home prices for the size of home you are looking to purchase in any given area. Real Estate prices can really fluctuate greatly even in the same city.

Once you have found a few homes that interest you, it is time to call a real estate agent. Having a buyer?s agent costs you nothing, the seller pays all the fees. So take advantage of all the benefits they have to offer. Here is a sample:

? Evaluate the specific needs and wants of the buyer and locate properties that fit those specifications.

? Assist the buyer in determining the amount that they can afford (pre-qualify) and show properties in that price range and locale the consumer has determined.

? Assist in viewing properties and either accompany the client on the showings or preview the properties on behalf of the client to insure that the identified specifications are met.

? Research the selected properties to identify any problems or issues to help the consumer in making an informed decision prior to making an appropriate offer on the property.

? Advise the client on structuring an appropriate offer to purchase the selected property.

? Present the offer to the sellers agent and seller on the clients behalf.

? Negotiate on behalf of the buyer client to help obtain the identified property. Keep in mind that the buyer agent will be doing so with their clients best interests in mind.

? Review and explain all legal documents to their buyer client.

? Recommendations and assistance in securing appropriate financing for the selected property.

? Provide a list of potential qualified vendors e.g. movers, attorneys, carpenters if these services are needed by the consumer.

Now that you are ready to buy, you will begin the negotiating process. The seller wants the most money and the buyer wants to pay the least amount. This is where the expertise of your real estate agent comes in. Usually the seller gives a little and the buyer gives a little.

Knowledge is power when it comes to purchasing real estate, so educate yourself and the whole process will be exciting & pleasurable!

Christine began her real estate career proving herself a top producer on a new high rise development. This experience gave her valuable knowledge of construction as well as the buying process and resulted in 4-million dollars in sales during her first year. http://www.getanewhome.net/

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Christine_Hancock

This Article is Courtesy of http://www.modern-real-estate.com.You may freely reprint this article on your website or in your newsletter provided this courtesy notice and the author name and URL remain intact.