Buying & Selling Homes with The Collura Team

Fla.’s housing market: Rising median prices in Oct. ORLANDO, Fla. – Nov. 23, 2015 –Florida's housing market reported higher median prices, fewer days on market and a constrained inventory of homes for sale in October, according to the latest housing data released by Florida Realtors®. Statewide closed sales of existing single-family homes rose last month with a total of 22,147, an increase of 1.2 percent over October 2014. "October marked the 47 th consecutive month that statewide median sales prices increased year-over-year for both single-family homes and townhouse-condo properties," said 2015 Florida Realtors President Andrew Barbar, a broker with Keller Williams Realty Services in Boca Raton. "Sellers received a higher percentage of their original list price, with single-family homes getting on average 94.3 percent and townhome-condos getting 93.3 percent. It also took less time for homes to sell in October: a median of 46 days for single-fa

Equity Matters A LOT… Just Ask Freddie Mac There are many reasons, both financial and non-financial, that homeownership remains an important part of the American Dream. One of the biggest reasons is the fact that it helps build family wealth. Recently, Freddie Mac wrote about the power of home equity. They explained: “In the simplest terms, equity is the difference between how much your home is worth and how much you owe on your mortgage. You build equity by paying down your mortgage over time and through your home's appreciation. In a nutshell, your money is working for you and contributing toward your financial future.” They went on to show an example where a person bought a home for $150,000 with a down payment of 10% ($15K), resulting in a loan amount of $135,000. The buyer secured a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage at 4.5% with a monthly mortgage payment of $684.03 (not including taxes and insurance). The chart below demonstrates the home equity built aft

How to Get the Most Money from the Sale of Your House Every homeowner wants to make sure they maximize the financial reward when selling their home. But, how do you guarantee that you receive maximum value for your house? Here are two keys to insuring you get the highest price possible. 1. Price it a LITTLE LOW This may seem counterintuitive. However, let’s look at this concept for a moment. Many homeowners think that pricing their home a little OVER market value will leave them room for negotiation. In actuality, this just dramatically lessens the demand for your house. (see chart) Instead of the seller trying to ‘win’ the negotiation with one buyer, they should price it so demand for the home is maximized. In that way, the seller will not be fighting with a buyer over the price but instead will have multiple buyers fighting with each other over the house. In a recent article on realtor.com , they gave this advice: “Aim to price your property at or j