Rehoboth Beach Real Estate Blog - Bill Mann

A Look into Rehoboth Beach Condos and Future Value

Condominiums in Rehoboth Beach continue to offer unique attractions for all kinds of homebuyers -- not least because of their often ultra-competitive price points. Nationally, condos continue to be real bargains -- statistics show them to continue to underperform the rest of the housing market, which translates into a tempting value proposition to home hunters with economy on their minds.

That local condos for sale may still offer top-notch value is, historically speaking, not a surprise. Often, condos are the first part of the market to register price drops (and slower than other segments to recover). The NAR confirms the national trend, with existing single-family home prices rising 10.2% from a year earlier, while existing condos’ and co-ops’ rose a…

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Simple Explanation Of The Federal Reserve Statement (December 12 , 2012)

The Federal Open Market Committee voted to leave the Fed Funds Rate unchanged within its current target range of 0.000-0.250 percent Wednesday.
For the tenth consecutive meeting, the FOMC vote was nearly unanimous. Richmond Federal Reserve President Jeffrey Lacker was the lone dissenter in the 9-1 vote.
The Fed Funds Rate has been near zero percent since December 2008.
In its press release, the Federal Reserve noted that, since its last meeting in late-October, the U.S. economy has expanded "at a moderate pace" despite "weather-related disruptions". It also acknowledged that "strains in global financial markets" remain a threat to U.S. economic growth.
This comment is in direct reference to the Eurozone, its sovereign debt concerns, and its nation's…

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The Federal Reserve Begins A 2-Day Meeting Today

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) begins a 2-day meeting today, its last of 8 scheduled meetings this year.

The Federal Open Market Committee is a 12-person subcommittee within the Federal Reserve. It's the group which votes upon U.S. monetary policy.

The monetary policy action for which the FOMC is most well-known is its setting of the Fed Funds Funds. The Fed Funds Rate is the interest rate at which banks borrow money from each other overnight. Since late-2008, the Fed Funds Rate has been near zero percent.

Prime Rate, a business and consumer interest rate used in lines of credit and credit card rates, is based on the Fed Funds Rate. Prime Rate has been similarly unchanged since 2008.
One rate which the Federal Reserve does not set is the 30-year…

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What's Ahead For Mortgage Rates This Week : December 10, 2012

Mortgage bonds worsened last week as Fiscal Cliff talks moved closer to resolution and as the U.S. economy showed continued signs of growth.

Conforming mortgage rates in Delaware rose slightly, edging off the all-time lows late in November.

According to Freddie Mac's weekly mortgage rate survey, the average 30-year fixed rate conforming mortgage rate was 3.34% last week for home buyers and refinancing households willing to pay 0.7 discount points at closing plus a full set of closing costs.

Freddie Mac also showed the 15-year fixed rate mortgage averaging 2.67% with an accompanying 0.7 discount points plus closing costs.

1 discount point is equal to 1 percent of your loan size.

The two big stories that moved rates worse last week were the Fiscal…

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In the Wake of Coastal Sussex Home Foreclosures

Back in the day when home foreclosures in Rehoboth Beach were truly rare, people who had just gone through one had little knowledge of what the ultimate repercussions would be. Although home foreclosures are still to be avoided if at all possible, the circumstances that created many recent ones are often understandable. Just about everyone in and out of the banking and real estate industries has seen otherwise responsible individuals fall victim to outside economic conditions.

Understandable though individual home foreclosures may be, future lenders will still follow hard and fast guidelines. If home foreclosures -- in Rehoboth Beach or elsewhere -- are in your recent past, putting yourself back on the right track to home ownership will take close…

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Profit from Early Decisions When Selling a House

According to a recent survey, nine out of ten REALTORS® believe that clients who make improvements before selling a house are more likely to secure a successful sale. Why, you may wonder, would anyone take the trouble to run a survey to discover anything that obvious? Possibly because of a follow-up question Realty Times came up with: 65.9% of real estate agents – virtually two out of three – agree that a common mistake among homeowners is not making "the right" home improvements for the local market.

Uh-oh! Remodeling in the wrong direction can cost you twice! If it’s such a common mistake, it’s safe to say it might be best to consult an agent before rolling up your sleeves (or opening your checkbook). Active Rehoboth Beach agents are constantly noting…

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Right Answers for Avoiding Wrong Contractors

Lately, as national home values have continued to rise, area homeowners have had reason to feel a lot more comfortable with the part of their portfolio that Lewes home values represent. You didn’t have to be thinking of buying or selling to welcome the turnaround.

Of course, homeowners don’t need to feel like helpless prisoners of overall trends when it comes to their own home values. Home improvement projects can significantly raise those values. Yet the opposite is possible -- although it rarely happens, in the worst cases, projects gone wrong can actually damage underlying home values!

Here are some important areas to bear in mind when you are evaluating potential contractors. If you make them a part of your interviewing process, the candidates…

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Remembering Rehoboth Beach Homes’ Long-Term Value

When you search through the latest listings of Rehoboth Beach homes, you first find those that fit your top-line needs. Then you winnow down that list. Some of the candidates will seem more appealing than others; and some will seem to be over- or underpriced.

Before making a final judgment on which homes bear a closer look, the most successful homebuyers also factor in qualities that may not be at the top of their own personal priorities list, yet which make a difference to the majority of homebuyers. In other words, they keep in mind the most important qualities that add value in market terms – that add investment value to homes that are principally your personal residential choice. Some of the more important ones:

• Location has a huge impact on a…

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Rehoboth Beach Real Estate Future Relates to Big Picture

The recent annual National Association of Realtors® get-together opened with a grand gathering to hear what some economics heavyweights would say about coming conditions in the country.

You could hear a pin drop through most of it – despite the huge size of the auditorium. Our Rehoboth Beach real estate market is never in total lockstep with the national picture – but it certainly is affected by it. Economists are forced to play a guessing game, but the best are pretty good at it.

Wells Fargo’s senior economist Mark Vintner had good news and bad news. For those who have Rehoboth Beach real estate already in their ‘owned’ portfolio, despite the downturn of recent years, he thinks they own one of the few top-notch inflation-proof investments. “Real…

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Breaking the Bankers’ Code: REO Terms

Rehoboth Beach REO (Real Estate Owned by a lender) houses have been a substantial part of the real estate conversation for some time.  Whether or not we ever need to delve into an REO transaction ourselves, well-informed local homeowners are familiar with some of the basic terms that come up when REOs are discussed:

• Arrears: a home that is delinquent on payments – being there is red flags a possible future foreclosure.
• Decree (short for decree of foreclosure): the ruling that declares a property should be sold to pay its mortgage.
• Default property: a home behind in payments to a mortgager. May describe a property in (or close to going into) actual foreclosure proceedings.
• Power of Sale: a legal decree giving the mortgager or lien holder the…

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