Home Buying Tips for Veterans

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A question I receive all the time, especially from new agents, is what type of loan programs are out there for veterans?

Having just spent July 4th thinking about all of our veterans and current members of the military, I thought that this would be a great time to answer that question. To help, I brought in Jeff Miller from Sunmark FCU to explain the benefits of a VA loan and how to qualify for it.

To be eligible for a VA loan, you just need to be honorably discharged from the military and have a DD-214 form. The main benefit to a VA loan is that it offers 100% financing, so there is no down payment required and there is no private mortgage insurance involved. You can even roll in the closing costs with seller’s concessions. If you’re a veteran, all you have to do is find out if the lender you’re working with offers VA loans. Most federal credit unions (including Sunmark) will.

If you’re looking to buy or sell a house here in the Capital District, or want to take advantage of a VA loan, please give me a call or visit my website.

To contact Jeff, be sure to visit https://www.sunmarkfcu.org/.

How Do You Prepare Your Capital District Home for Sale?

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There are many ways that you can prepare yourself for a home sale. However, I'd like to speak about four specific things that you should be doing right now if you want to sell your home this fall.

1. Declutter: I walk into listing appointments all the time and the homes look disorganized and cluttered. This not only makes the home feel smaller, it also makes the buyer think that the home is not well taken care of. Less is more when you're cleaning your home before a sale.

2. Curb appeal: You need to draw buyers into your home, and you have to improve your exterior look to do that. Trim your hedges, cut your bushes, do whatever it takes to make your home look organized and inviting from the outside. Buyers will want to look inside if they enjoy the outside.

3. Keeping the home clean: This sounds really simple, but I cannot stress this enough, especially in your kitchen and bathrooms. Make sure that your floors are either replaced or professionally cleaned before you sell. Buyers simply don't purchase dirty homes.

4. Staging the home: I would start off by examining the lighting in the home to make sure that it's complementary to the way you've arranged your home. Open the windows and install new light bulbs because the brighter a home is, the easier it is to sell. Again, focus on the kitchen and the bathroom when you stage a home.

Hopefully these tips will be helpful in your home sale. They're designed specifically to please a potential home buyer, and if you follow them closely you should expect a quick and painless home selling process.

Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions about Capital District Real Estate!

What's Happening with Real Estate in the Capital District?

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Today I want to give you a brief real estate market update for the Capital District. Whether you're buying or selling, this information should be useful to you.

As we come out of the summer months, we're moving into a seller's market. This is happening because inventory has decreased by 8.7% from 2014. We're also seeing the days on market decreasing, and homes are now sitting on the market for only 63 days compared to 73 days last year. Pending sales are also starting to increase, so that gives us a really good, healthy market.

Median sale prices are increasing, and we currently sit at $220,000. Property values are also rising, so it's a great time to enter the market if you'd like to ride a wave of appreciation.

I can pinpoint three different reasons why the market is performing well right now.

1. Lending institutions are freeing up a lot of requirements for getting a mortgage.

2. Oil prices remain low.

3. Higher wages and lower unemployment rates.

Unfortunately, I do expect interest rates to creep back up, but this will not happen until the end of the year, and even then the change will be very gradual. It's not like rates will jump from 3% to 5% overnight.

If you have any questions about this or if you need assistance buying or selling a home in the Capital District, please don't hesitate to contact me!