What expenses can homebuyers expect once they’re under contract? Let’s find out. Want to sell your home? Find out what your home is worth.   Want to buy a home? Search all homes for sale. What are your costs once you’re under contract? This is a common question, so I’ll be going over the answer, today. First and foremost, you’ll have two checks to write when your offer is accepted. The first check will be the earnest money check, which is 1% of the sales price, and the second check will be your option check, which buys you an option period. The option period can range from three to 10 days and the amount you’ll write the check for can range from $100 to $500. Each of these checks will be dropped off with the title company within two days of going under contract. After that, you’ll have another check to write. This time, it will be for the inspection. The price of an inspection ranges between $300 to $450 depending on the home’s age and location. Addition inspections, such as HVAC or termite inspections, will be an additional cost. All of the costs you’ll have once under contract will vary depending on your specific circumstances. The fourth check you’ll need to write is for the appraisal, which is done once the option period is up. The appraisal will range in cost from $475 to $650. Once all of these early costs are taken care of, you’ll have some expenses related to getting your loan in order, such as lender fees, title fees, taxes, and insurance. Like other costs, the price of homeowners insurance will vary depending on the age of your home. You should anticipate this expense to amount to anywhere from $75 to $150 per month. Obviously, the expenses associated with your specific transaction will highly depend on your individual circumstances, but I hope this has given you a basic idea of what to expect. If you have any other questions or would like more information, feel free to give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Today we’ll give you a couple quick predictions about the 2018 market to come, as well as a great tip that can save you money on your tax bill. Want to sell your home? Find out what your home is worth.   Want to buy a home? Search all homes for sale. We hope your 2018 is off to a good start! Here at the Lancashire Group, we have a very positive outlook for what’s to come this year. Today, we’re going to give you a quick rundown of our predictions for the 2018 market, as well as a good tip for how you can save money on your property taxes. Based on what we’ve seen so far, demand remains incredibly strong this year. Interest rates remain at historic lows, although we have been told that they will be going up as we get closer to the springtime. Given the demand, it’s a great time to sell your home, and because of the rates right now, it’s also a great time to buy. Take advantage of the low interest rates before they begin to rise. Those that qualify for the homestead tax exemption can save up to 20% on their tax bill. If you were lucky enough to have purchased your home last year, we have a great little tip for you. The following are the links to print and fill out a homestead tax exemption form, which you can then mail to the address listed at the top of the form: Travis County, Williamson County, Hays County and Bastrop County. As a reminder, those that qualify for the homestead tax exemption can save lots of money—up to 20%—on their tax bill. If you have any more questions about the homestead tax exemption form, buying, or selling in the Greater Austin area, feel free to reach out to us. We’d love to be your real estate choice this year.

Do you know how capital gains exemptions work? If not, don’t worry because we’re explaining them today. Want to sell your home? Find out what your home is worth.   Want to buy a home? Search all homes for sale. We’ve been having a lot of conversations lately about capital gains tax exemptions for homeowners. Here are two of the most common scenarios we run into. In one scenario, a homeowner tells us they are considering selling their home, but wanted to know more about how they can save some money on the proceeds of their sale. If they have owned the home for at least two years and if it has been their primary residence for those two years, then the homeowner is eligible for a capital gains tax exemption when the time comes to sell the home. If they’re single, the exemption covers up to $250,000. For married couples, that number doubles to $500,000. Capital gains exemptions are a great tool for homeowners looking to build wealth. In another scenario, a homeowner wants to sell and take advantage of the exemption but isn’t quite sure if they qualify because they haven’t lived in the home the entire time. If they have lived in the home for at least two of the last five years as a primary residence, then they qualify. If you have any questions for us about capital gains tax exemptions, we’d be glad to answer them. Give us a call or send us an email today. We look forward to hearing from you.

We’re excited to introduce you to the newest member of our team today. Want to sell your home? Find out what your home is worth.   Want to buy a home? Search all homes for sale. We have an exciting announcement to make today. Let us introduce you to Brandon Foskey, the newest member of our team. Brandon originally moved here from the east coast to attend St. Edward's University on a basketball scholarship. From there, he began a career in the mortgage industry, which led him to work as a financial planner and finally, as a full-time real estate agent. Welcome to the team, Brandon! Brandon has been a full-time agent for about seven years now. He has sold over 600 homes so far and looks forward to selling a lot more with our team. We’re very excited to have him. If you have any questions for Brandon or need his help buying or selling a home, give him a call at (512) 632-9794 or you can email him at [email protected]. If you have any other questions, don’t hesitate to give us a call or send us an email. We look forward to hearing from you soon.

If you are a buyer in our Austin area, you may be interested to hear the details of a statistic we heard recently about today’s market. Want to sell your home? Find out what your home is worth.   Want to buy a home? Search all homes for sale. Jed and I came across an interesting fact that we wanted to share with all of you, especially our buyer clients. According to the MLS, 553 home listings in Austin have had a price reduction in the last seven days. When we look at this in the context of the last month, that's an 11.3% increase in homes with a price reduction. This is a pretty large jump, especially for having happened so quickly. As we move toward the end of the summer season, sellers appear to be getting anxious. More and more, sellers seem to be increasingly willing to drop prices to get their homes sold before summer’s over. Now could be the perfect time to buy. This means some great things for buyers. Opportunities are really opening up, and Jed and I both have important information we’d love to share with you about which areas specifically will be the best path for your success. There are still multiple offer situations and homes are still moving quickly, but great deals are certainly out there. Now could be the perfect time to buy. If you have any other questions or would like more information, feel free to give us a call or send us an email. We look forward to hearing from you soon.

We are in a seller’s market, but there are a few reasons why you should still list your home at market value. Want to sell your home? Find out what your home is worth.   Want to buy a home? Search all homes for sale. Right now, Austin is in a strong seller’s market. There is a lot of demand and NOT a lot of supply. However, we are still seeing some negative effects for sellers who are too aggressive with their asking price.  When you price your home too high, it’s going to spend more days on the market. As the days on market go up, two questions will pop into buyers’ minds: What’s wrong with the house? Why doesn’t anyone else buy it?  When a buyer goes into your home with those two questions, you will never get a positive return on your home sale. If a buyer has doubts about your home, you will not sell above market value. Once your home has been on the market for four or five weeks, you may need to consider a price reduction, which is not a good position to be in. After all, most homes in our market are selling quickly—and for over asking price.  If a buyer sees that your home has been on the market and that you’ve gone through a price reduction, that may discourage them from making a strong offer on your home. So, how do you accurately price your home in this market?  Even in a seller’s market, the market value of a home is defined as what a willing buyer will pay for that home, and what a willing seller will sell it for. It’s not what you think a buyer will pay for your home, plus an additional 20%.  It’s really important to price your home at market value. As your agent, we’ll go over the comparable properties and determine the market value of your home. Pricing your home at market value creates major demand. That is how you get multiple offers, which usually results in selling for more than the market value.  It’s very important to start with the market value of your home when you create your list price if you want to sell for above market value later.  If you have any questions about accurately pricing your home, just give us a call or send us an email. We would be happy to help you!

If you’re looking to buy a home in our market, you’ll need to be prepared. We’ll go over the steps to help you get ready today. Want to sell your home? Find out what your home is worth.   Want to buy a home? Search all homes for sale. Two things come to mind when setting the groundwork for our buyers to win multiple offer situations.  The first thing is having a very detailed consultation before we even start looking at properties. That way, we can understand what your needs are and what you’re looking for in a home to make sure we are only looking at properties that suit you and your needs.  The second thing is meeting with a lender to get a full approval before submitting any offers. We want to take a complete look at your debt, income, and what payments you can afford to get you set up to submit an offer. That way, when you find a home you like, we can write an offer quickly. During our consultation, we will give you a few fantastic lenders to choose from that will take great care of you.  We can take the financing contingency period from three weeks down to 10 to 15 days. Once the groundwork is laid and we’ve found a property you want, there are a few things we can do to ensure your offer stands out.  First, make the option period short. Sellers love short option periods. One thing we do is shorten that period from seven to three or four days by working with a great home inspector.  Next, it’s a good idea to offer more earnest money. Earnest money goes toward your down payment at closing. Sellers love to see a greater amount of earnest money because it gives them a sense of security concerning your finances.  Third, lower the amount of time it takes to get fully approved by going through the approval process before submitting the offer. We can take the financing contingency period from three weeks down to 10 to 15 days.  One other tip that we find is super successful in winning multiple offer situations other than well laid groundwork and a tight offer is to write a letter directly to the seller. Sellers do really care about who is buying their property, so writing them a letter that tells them why you love the home and how you can see your family growing there can really go a long way.  Really quickly we want to thank everyone for coming out to our crawfish boil. It was a huge success and we were able to raise over $2,000 for Keep Austin Fed, so thank you for coming out! We’re having another happy hour event this month so keep an eye out for your invitation.  If you have any questions about winning a multiple offer situation or any other real estate questions, please feel free to give us a call or send us an email. We look forward to hearing from you. 

We've got a lot of good news for you today. The market's hot, we've got a sneak peek at two great listings, and our free crawfish boil is coming up! Want to sell your home? Find out what your home is worth.   Want to buy a home? Search all homes for sale. What's going on in the Austin market? For today's update, we're comparing the important figures currently to how they stacked up at this time last year. We’ve got some more good news to share as well. The good news about our market as a whole is that everything is up. Real estate contracts are up 16% and total listings are up 15%. The number of sold units is up 4% and the market's overall sold volume is up 9%.  We expect that to keep increasing as the spring and summer roll on. Additionally, we've got a new listing hitting the market that we wanted to share with you. You can check it out here. If it seems like a home that would be a good fit for you, don't wait to reach out to us! We expect the market to stay hot through the spring and summer. Finally, we're excited to invite you to our crawfish boil on Saturday, April 29th at 1 p.m. off West 5th St. We'll have free crawfish, gumbo, drinks, and live music. Keep an eye out for personal invites soon! In the meantime, let us know of any questions you have about our market or the upcoming listings we mentioned. We look forward to hearing from you!

You are personally invited to an upcoming event we’re co-hosting with Tops Kitchen & Bath Remodeling. Want to sell your home? Find out what your home is worth.   Want to buy a home? Search all homes for sale. We have a very special invite we’d like to extend to you today. On Thursday, March 30th, we’re teaming up with Tops Kitchen & Bath Remodeling to host an interactive event detailing the latest trends happening across the Austin market in terms of upgrading your kitchen and bathrooms so that your home sells quickly once it’s time to list it for sale. This event will be held at the storefront of Tops Kitchen & Bath Remodeling at 704 N Lamar Blvd from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Our whole team will be there along with the owners of Tops Kitchen & Bath Remodeling to answer all of your questions. Mark your calendar for March 30th! We plan on keeping it loose and fun by playing some music and providing free drinks and snacks. We’d love to see you there to hang out with us and check out the all the latest kitchen trends. To learn more about Tops Kitchen & Bath Remodeling, you can visit their website at www.topskb.com. If you have any questions about this event, please feel free to reach out to us. We hope to see you there!

We have a new website that we would love to show you. Our communication process has been streamlined and we’ve upgraded our information database.  Want to sell your home? Find out what your home is worth.   Want to buy a home? Search all homes for sale. Today we wanted to introduce you to our phenomenal new website that we just launched called www.findaustinareahouses.com. In response to some feedback we’ve received from users of our old website, we’ve streamlined communication and made some important upgrades in both the amount information we supply about listed houses and the surrounding areas and how we provide that information. To streamline our communication, we’ve enabled a live chat within the website. If you’re online and you’re looking at something you like, you can just shoot us a quick chat and say “Hey, I want to see this property,” or “I like this about this property, send me more information about it.” The feature is no different than using Facebook messenger or Gchat. We’ve also teamed up with two amazing lenders who you can directly communicate with as well and ask other questions we may not be able to answer. Our new website will improve communication and provide more information. As far as upgrading our information database, from now on, when you’re looking at a specific listing, you’ll see links from Yelp about nearby restaurants, convenience stores, gas stations, etc., detailed information on surrounding school districts, and a scorecard to talk about the pros and cons of the home that you can keep in your profile for later when you reference the property. Lastly, we have a new and improved seller suite. This feature simply allows you to enter all pertinent information about the home you plan on selling so we can give you a comprehensive market analysis. Nobody likes to just sit around waiting for information. Technology has advanced to the point that people expect things right away, and we’ve taken measures to accommodate this. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us or visit the website. We look forward to hearing from you!