NE Wisconsin BLACK FRIDAY Real Estate Sale is ON!

Five questions to ask before hiring a real estate agent

Want to sell your property quickly? Looking for your dream house? Are you hoping to get the best deal possible during the complex process of buying or selling a home? With so much money – and often, emotion – at stake, going it alone is generally not the best way to reach your goals. The secret for getting exactly what you want: Work with a savvy real estate agent.

A qualified real estate agent will streamline the process, help you save money and serve as a liaison with your best interests in mind. But how do you find the right real estate agent? Hundreds or even thousands of real estate professionals may work in your area, but finding the best one for your unique situation doesn’t have to be time-consuming.

Remember, you’re hiring this individual for his or her expertise and services. Your agent will get a designated percentage of the sale of the house. Depending on negotiations, this cost may be covered by the seller, buyer or split by both. You want someone who will work hard for you, but also someone you are comfortable with because you may be spending a lot of time together.

To find the best real estate agent for you, ask these five critical questions:

1. How many buyers or sellers have you helped in the last year in the area?

An active agent is more likely to be up-to-date on the market, and local and state laws. Furthermore, active agents with experience in your neighborhood, or the neighborhood where you’d like to move, are better positioned to help you because they can provide unique insight that other less-knowledgeable agents cannot.

2. Do you have advanced training?

Any licensed real estate agent can help you buy or sell a home. But an agent who has advanced specialty training is better qualified to assist you. For example, an agent who is an Accredited Buyer’s Representative (ABR), has enhanced training focusing specifically on buyers. An agent who is a Certified Distressed Property Expert (CDPE) has special training to deal with short sales and foreclosures. RE/MAX agents on average have more certifications and extra training to better serve buyers and sellers.

3. What services do you offer?

While the majority of people shop for homes online first, having someone on your side through the search and sale process can save time and money. A buyer’s agent should help you schedule showings, assist with negotiating the price of the new home, guide you through the paperwork, be there at the closing table, and provide insight through any contingencies during the process.

For sellers, an agent should help set the price of the home, based on a competitive market analysis (CMA). Ask the agent how he or she will market your home (websites, videos, direct mail). Also inquire about assistance with staging and hosting open houses. Then, when the offers come in, the agent can help you with the decision on which one to accept.

4. Who else will be working with me?

The person you hire should do most of the work, but you may work with a support team, too. Additional team members may include mortgage brokers, home inspectors or contractors. If you’d like more information about what it’s like to work with an agent, don’t be shy about asking for references. You’ll get real insight into what it’s like to work with that particular professional.

5. How often will I hear from you?

No matter if you’re selling or buying, ask how often you’ll hear from the agent and make sure that this aligns with your expectations. For buyers: Do you just want to hear when there’s a new home that may interest you? Do you want regular check-in calls too? For sellers: Do you want to hear from your agent only after a buyer has toured your home, or do you want to be kept in the loop on a weekly basis?

Buying or selling a home is a complex process most people do only a few times in their lives. Hiring the right real estate agent from a reputable company like RE/MAX can give you an edge so you get the best deal possible while meeting all your goals.

You can learn more about the home buying and selling process and find an experienced agent in your neighborhood by visiting www.homewardboundpro.com

Rate on 30-Year Mortgage Drops to Record Low

Housing sales have been picking up, and the lowest mortgage rates in decades are a key reason why. The average rate on a 30-year mortgage stands at 3.51 percent. That's close to the record of 3.31 percent set last November. "It's the rising prices that is the game changer," Patrick Newport, an economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Mass., told Bloomberg News. "Housing is going to be the key driver that will get economy on a higher growth path," he said. The ultra-low rates have also encouraged many people to refinance. That often leads to lower monthly payments and more spending money.

7 Real Estate Risks: Are They Over- or Under-Estimated?

We tend to speak of the risks of various courses of action in black and white, as risky or not. But the truth is, everything in life has risks - even doing nothing! Behavioral experts, economists and my dear old Dad agree: we’re most likely to make decisions we later regret when we under- or overestimate the risks of the outcomes we hope to avoid. So, outside of extremely high-risk endeavors like base jumping and going on blind dates, the real challenge in life is not to avoid risk entirely, but to assess it accurately and manage it accordingly.

This need to assess and act on risks appropriately, neither overblowing them or blowing them off entirely, is particularly critical when it comes to real estate risks. It’s easy to let your personality determine how you view and manage real estate risks. But that’s a costly approach: if you let your personal tendency to be risk averse stop you from ever owning a home, you will also miss out on the personal and financial advantages of home ownership, and the opposite is true. If you take a devil-may-care attitude toward your real estate and mortgage matters, you’re highly likely to make some highly regrettable decisions along the way.

So, instead of going on risk assessment autopilot, let’s take a quick, yet deep, dive into seven of the real estate-related risks that come up the most often in the minds of smart buyers, sellers and owners like you and how you can manage each of these risks wisely.

Risk #1: The Risk of Foreclosure. The risk of losing a home has only recently moved to the front of our collective national consciousness. Foreclosure was once a very, very rare event, seen as an unlikely worst-case scenario. But it became a vivid nightmare come true for an all-time high number of home owners during the recession. The risk and fear of foreclosure is largely due to this increase in foreclosure rate over the past few years, and to the vivid, catastrophic nature of the event. Also, almost everyone knows someone who either lost a home or had serious mortgage distress, so it seems like a very common occurrence.

When we take a look at the facts behind this risk, we realize that the risk of foreclosure appears to be much higher than it truly is. There are roughly 76 million owner-occupied homes in the U.S., according to the Census Bureau. Earlier this year, real estate data firm CoreLogic revealed that there had been 3.4 million foreclosures since 2008. That would mean only about 6 percent of homes in America had been through a foreclosure - and this, through the very worst recession of most of our lives.

The more probable risk is the risk of ending up underwater, which more than 25 percent of American homes were at some point during this past 5 years.

The fact that home values rise and fall cyclically is not a risk or a probability - it’s a fact of the real estate market, and one that you can’t do anything about. Your aim should be to manage and minimize the risk of serious mortgage distress (i.e., struggling to make the payment) or foreclosure. And you have the power to manage these risks by:

• Making smart mortgage choices. Buying at a price well within what you can afford, selecting a mortgage that your household finances can sustain over time, and not overleveraging by borrowing cash against your home equity for things like cars, clothes or ready cash.
• Making smart financial moves over time, including building a cash savings cushion you can turn to if a job loss or disability interrupts your income.
• Buying a home in as desirable a location as you can afford - and in an area with strong prospects for economic and population growth.
• Making small, extra payments to bring down the principal balance on your loan, if and when you can afford to.

Risk #2: The Risk of Overextending Yourself. This is a very real risk - more real, even than the risk of actually losing a home. Home buyers can overextend themselves when they take loans that give them falsely low upfront payments;. This was common in the subprime era that many believe led to the recession, but is less likely with today’s tighter lending guidelines and narrow loan programs...
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