Utah Real Estate & Mortgage Blog

A new flight simulator feature has been added to zoomUTAH.com allowing Buyers to get a birds eye view on any home listed for sale.

This interactive program enables Buyers to fly over a property of interest and use their keyboard to navigate around and check out the surrounding areas.

You can see a demo of this new feature by visiting: http://www.zoomutah.com/zoomflight/launch.php?mls=865608

We would love your feedback on this feature and would also like to learn how this feature can be more helpful!

As of Friday all listings now include Realtor comments!

For Example: UPDATED! VERY CLEAN RAMBLER W/ AWESOME LAYOUT! NEW PAINT & FLOORING! CENTRAL A/C, RV PARKING, HARDWOOD FLOORS, LARGE BACKYARD W/ PATIO, AUTO SPRINKLERS, TOUGH SHED! ALL APPLIANCES STAY! DON’T LET THIS ONE SLIP AWAY! READY TO MOVE IN – NOT A SHORT-SALE!!!

We are really excited about this upgrade and will continue to add more information on the site to help make zoomUTAH.com the best site out there for searching Utah Real Estate!

zoomUTAH.com has officially become a sponsor for the upcoming charity dodgeball event presented by Deron Williams and Kyle Korver of the Utah Jazz.

The event will benefit the Christmas Box House of Salt Lake City. The Salt Lake Christmas Box House provides temporary shelter and assessment services to children up to the age of eleven who have been removed from their homes due to abuse or neglect.

“It’s very important that all of us embrace the idea of giving back to our local community,” said Kristopher Bowen, Real Estate Professional with zoomUTAH.com. “We are happy to have the opportunity to support the cause and look forward to competing in the tournament.”

We invite everyone to come down and show your support.

Saturday September 12th, 2009
9:00 AM
Zions Bank Basketball Center
1414 S 500 W
Salt Lake City, UT 84115

For more information visit DeronWilliams.net

At the end of September zoomUTAH.com will be adding agent remarks to every listing. This information is very useful to potential buyers to learn more about a home of interest.  We will be sure to announce when this feature has been implemented.

Also the price watch feature we added a month or so ago has been a huge success! Thousands of visitors are using this feature to monitor a specific home and are automatically emailed when the price is adjusted. Sometimes prices go UP and not DOWN like you’d expect. This is typically related to short sales. When the bank has an offer on a home and informs the listing agent what price they will take, the listing agent updates the price to reflect this.

We hope you continue to enjoy the site!

You can now see a price history on all listings on zoomUTAH.com. When the listing agent drops the price on a home, it will display the entire price history on the listing details page.

In addition, you can now WATCH a listing and have our systems automatically email you when a specific listing drops in price. This is a great way for you to keep an eye on a listing that you are interested in or just want to keep tabs on your neighbors house that is for sale.

More features are always on the horizon and we hope you enjoy the changes. We would love to hear your thoughts on this feature.

Update: This grant is no longer available however there are city and county grants still available. Please call us at 801-999-8005 to learn more.

Most of you have heard about the $6,000 Utah Home Purchasing Grant that is available to most Buyers who purchases a never lived in home. The grant started out with 650+ grants and they are down to their last 115! I don’t anticipate this grant will be available in the coming weeks so if you are looking to buy a new home and want to take advantage of the $6,000 grant (can be used as your down payment), you better call us ASAP at 801-999-8005

What a busy month it has been. Buyers have decided to come off the fence and start taking advantage of this market. As you may already know, spring and summer is the busiest times of the year for real estate. I think that is only a small fraction why things have been so hectic lately. April just may be the best month I’ve ever had in the 7+ years I have been doing real estate.  Interest rates have stayed down to around 5% and with all of the free money out there, I’m just amazed at the deals I’m getting for my clients.

I think one of the biggest reason for the influx with Buyers is the $6,000 Utah housing grant for new construction homes. Buyers who don’t have a 3.5% down payment (required by FHA) can use this $6,000 as their down payment. For example, if you buy a home around the 190k range, you can get into the home with $0 out of pocket. I anticipate this grant to be gone in the coming 3-4 months as the state will run out of allocated funds.

Check out this scenario – A buyer is purchasing a new condo in Magna for $155k. He qualifies for the $8,000 (first time home buyer), $6,000 (new construction), and the $10,000 Magna city grant available. – $24,000 off of the already discounted price!!!!!! Get into a brand new condo for around $131k with NO out of pocket costs. There are grant restrictions, so contact us to find out what ones you do qualify for. Many cities have their own grant programs, this is just one example.

What a fun time it is! I truly love being in real estate and helping families buy and sell their homes. If you already have a Realtor, make sure they research the federal, state, city, county, and Veteran grants that may be available to you. If not, contact your Zoom Real Estate professional today at 801-999-8005.

Thinking of buying your first home? First-time buyers can claim a credit worth $8,000 on their 2008 or 2009 taxes.

• The tax credit is for first-time home buyers only. For the tax credit program, the IRS defines a first-time home buyer as someone who has not owned a principal residence during the three-year period prior to the purchase.
• The tax credit does not have to be repaid. (unlike the previous $7,500 credit)
• The tax credit is equal to 10 percent of the home’s purchase price up to a maximum of $8,000.
• The credit is available for homes purchased on or after January 1, 2009 and before December 1, 2009.
  Single taxpayers with incomes up to $75,000 and married couples with incomes up to $150,000 qualify for the full tax credit.

I’m not sure if anything could get any better for home buyers. With rates hovering around 5%, incredible house values and all of the tax credits and grants available, it’s never been a better time to buy. Call us today to talk about how you can take full advantage of all of the great reasons to buy a home in Utah at 801-999-8005.

The Obama administration yesterday released its long-awaited plan to stem foreclosures. It’s organized into three categories:

1.) Help for home owners making their payments but at risk of default and foreclosure.

Home owners with a Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac loan would be eligible to refinance as long as their mortgage doesn’t exceed 105 percent of the home’s current market value. Currently owners need to have at least 20 percent equity. Potential impact: 4-5 million households.

2.) Help for home owners already in default and in need of loan modification.

For lenders that voluntarily agree to lower a borrower’s payment so that it makes up no more than 38 percent of the borrower’s income, the government would share the cost of lowering the mortgage burden to 31 percent of income. Incentives to lenders to participate include a $1,000 payment.

Borrowers can receive up to $1,000 as an incentive to stay current on their new mortgage. Still in the works is a proposed provision that would allow bankruptcy judges to require loan modification (known as a cramdown) as part of a household’s restructuring. That provision requires legislation by Congress. Estimated potential impact: 3-4 million households.

3.) Doubled resources to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

To encourage investors to buy the secondary market companies’ mortgage-backed securities, the government explicitly backstops them to up to $400 billion, twice the current amount.

The plan does not provide help to investors or to home owners who are in trouble with a second home, nor does it apply to homeowners whose mortgage is part of a private-label mortgage security that is not backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.

“The administration’s proposed plan, combined with provisions like the $8,000 first-time home buyer tax credit in the just-enacted American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, will help minimize foreclosures, shrink housing inventory, stabilize home values, and move the country closer to an economic recovery,” says NAR President Charles McMillan.

Source: REALTOR® Magazine Online

The Senate today passed the bill to help stimulate the economy. I have my own opinions on the bill as I’m sure you do, but nonetheless I’m here to pull out how this will impact real estate in Utah. The bill is heading to President Obama on Monday and there is no doubt he is going to sign it. So how does this bill affect real estate in Utah?

1) The existing $7,500 tax credit will be raised to $8,000 with NO payback (a true credit). Under the new Economic Recovery Plan, if you’re a first time home buyer and purchase a house on or after Jan 1st, 2009 and before Dec 1st, 2009, you can get a tax credit of up to eight thousand dollars. How much you get, depends on the cost of the home (10 percent of a home’s sales price, or $8,000, whichever is less).

2) Interest rates have come down 125-150 basis points which may spur lower rates to buyers and people looking to refinance. We are noticing although rates should be lower based on our indicators, lenders are so inundated with loans that they are unwilling to lower rates to spur business they can’t handle.

3) $50 billion for foreclosure mitigation, with Geitners Treasury plan signaling that the second half of TARP and TALF will be used to mitigate foreclosures through a government guarantee, drive down interest rates by buying another $200-300 billion of mortgage paper from the GSES’s thereby freeing them up to do the same with new mortgages, and Fannie has just agreed to lift the cap of 4 investment properties eligible for loans and raise it to 10.

In addition, we preserved what we have – mortgage interest deductability, real estate tax deductability, and the $250,000/$500,000 cap gains exclusion.

You may have heard about the $15,000 credit, but that was negotiated down to the $8,000 credit. We would have loved to have gotten that or the Homebuilders $22,000 credit idea as well as their 5 year loss carryback deal, but they were considered too rich for this program and didn’t make the final cut.