Athens Real Estate Podcast with Justin Woodall

As we enter 2017, I foresee interest rates continuing to rise and inventory staying low. However, as you’ll see, it isn’t all bad news.

If you want to buy a home without putting any money down, you might have to get creative with your financing options. These are some of the options you can choose from. Looking to sell a home in Athens, Georgia? Click here for a Home Price  EvaluationLooking to buy a home in Athens, Georgia? Click here to perform a full home searchAre there options to buy a home with 100% financing? Are there funding opportunities for these properties and rehab costs? If you're considering buying a house as your primary residence to live in, there are definitely options to get 100% financing or very close to it. If you're thinking about buying a house to flip or own as an investment property, it's more difficult to get 100% financing. It's possible, but not easy. A hard money lender may loan you up to 65% or 75% of a home's value after repair. This means you'd need to buy the home for significantly less than what it's worth, then, have an appraisal done to show the hard money lender that it's really worth more than what you paid.  There are plenty of options for 100% home financing. For example, if the value of a house is $100,000 after repair but needs $25,000 worth of rehab, and the hard money lender is loaning you $65,000, you would have to be able to buy that house for $40,000. As you can see, it's tough to buy a house at a priced that low with no money down. Additionally, hard money loans are much more expensive in terms of interest rate and fees. If you have 20% to put down on a home, a lot of local banks will fund the purchase and the rehab cost since that 20% is a significant amount of skin in the game for you. Finally, there is the option of finding a partner. If you can find a partner to provide the cash on the condition that you do the legwork, it could be a win-win. Hopefully, that clears things up for you about 100% financing options for buying a home and some alternatives to it. If you have any questions about this topic or about Athens real estate in general, give us a call or send us an email. We're here to help!

If you want to buy a home without putting any money down, you might have to get creative with your financing options. These are some of the options you can choose from.

What does it mean when you see a house listed for sale with tenants' rights? If the home changes ownership, the lease must be honored. Looking to sell a home in Athens, Georgia? Click here for a Home Price  EvaluationLooking to buy a home in Athens, Georgia? Click here to perform a full home search We always love answering your questions, so this week, I wanted to address a question from a viewer who asked about homes that are advertised with tenants' rights. They wanted to know what specifically the landlord owes the tenant and what the obligation is for the buyer. So what does this mean? If you're looking online, you'll often see listings with tenants' rights. When you see this, it means there is a tenant renting the house. Most of the time it's under a lease, but occasionally it may be on a month-to-month term without an actual lease. Regardless, it means that there is a tenant currently in the home. When you buy a house that has a tenant, the lease stays with the house. If you buy a house that has a tenant, the lease stays with the house. If their lease runs until December and you buy the home in September, you assume that lease. In this case, the tenant would start making their payments to you through the end of December. If you're buying as an investor, it's a great thing because you're buying a house that is already providing income. If you're buying the house with the intention to move into it, however, you have to wait until after December when the tenants' lease ends unless you're able to work out a mutual agreement for them to terminate their lease or leave early. Simply put, tenants' rights mean that you have to abide by the terms of the current lease when you buy a tenant-occupied home. If the tenant is on a month-to-month basis, Georgia law says that the landlord must give the tenant 60 days notice to vacate. This is really important information to keep in mind if you're buying an investment property or you're just buying a house with a tenant in it. If you have any more questions about this topic or you have any questions at all about real estate, give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to hearing from you!

What does it mean when you see a house listed for sale with tenants’ rights? If the home changes ownership, the lease must be honored.

Why are the estimates on Zillow and Trulia inaccurate? How do you know what your home is actually worth in the current market? We’ll go over everything today. Looking to sell a home in Athens, Georgia? Click here for a Home Price  EvaluationLooking to buy a home in Athens, Georgia? Click here to perform a full home search Recently, we asked you to send in your questions, and today I would like to answer one that we got from Diane. Diane asks, “I would like to know why the estimates on Zillow and Trulia are so low. How can you get a real sense of what your house is currently worth?” Zillow, Trulia, and other online home valuation tools use an algorithm to estimate your home’s value. The algorithm relies on other homes that have sold in your area, the age of your house, and the size of your house. The computer then takes all of that information and spits out a value. Your local real estate agent or appraiser can help you figure out what your home is worth. Keep in mind that because those values are computer-generated, there are many variables that those estimates do not take into account. Location is an important factor, too. For instance, a house on a busy street might not be worth as much as a house on a quiet cul de sac. A lot of those nuances are things that your local agent will be able to take into account. Even if you look on Zillow’s website, you will see that they say the Zestimate is accurate within 7% of your home’s value about 50% of the time. That means that the other half of the time, the Zestimate is off by more than 7%. If your home is worth $200,000, that means Zillow is probably off by at least $14,000. So, how do you know what your home is currently worth? As real estate agents, we can compare your home to similar properties in your neighborhood and give you a rough idea of your home’s value. We will look at the condition of your home, the upgrades and updates you have made, and figure out what your home is worth. Another way to find your home’s value is to order an appraisal, which costs about $400. The appraiser will do a very scientific breakdown of the homes near yours that are similar in age and size. They will find the property most similar to yours and compare the two. For instance, if you have an extra bathroom or bigger lot, your value will be a little higher. On the flip side, if the other house is in better condition than yours, your value will be a little lower. The reality is that your house is worth a combination of what you are willing to sell it for and what a buyer is willing to pay for it in the current market. If you have any questions about what your home is worth, just give us a call or send us an email. We would be happy to help you!

A few years ago, short sales were everywhere. You couldn’t mention real estate without talking about short sales. Now, short sales are scarce. What happened?  Looking to sell a home in Athens, Georgia? Click here for a Home Price  EvaluationLooking to buy a home in Athens, Georgia? Click here to perform a full home search If you remember, just a few years ago, short sales were everywhere. These days, you don’t hear about short sales very often. What happened? Where did all of the short sales go? In short, the market has changed. Home values have risen, the market has improved, and sellers are no longer being forced into short sale situations.  A short sale is when the owner of the home owes more money than what the home will sell for in the current market. Since the market has improved and home values have risen, those sellers are no longer underwater. They’ve become solvent, so if they need to sell their house, they are able to sell it for more than what they owe rather than being forced to sell for less than what they owe. Now is the best time to sell a home since 2007. What does that mean for buyers? Since values are rising, you could’ve gotten a better deal last year than you will this year. However, you could’ve gotten a better deal in 2014 than you could’ve in 2015. The good news is that if this trend continues, you will get a better deal this year than you would if you wait until next year to buy a home. As a seller, if you tried to sell your house a few years ago but were unsuccessful, it’s very likely that your home value has gone up. You can sell today for more than what you owe. It’s also very possible that you can sell for more than what you were asking a few years ago because the market has improved so much. If you have been renting that house out and waiting to sell it, now may be the time to put it on the market. In fact, now is the best time to sell since 2007. We don’t know what the future holds; we’re hearing that some markets are slowing down, but the market here in Athens is still wide open. I will keep you updated on the latest market trends as we move forward. If you have any questions in the meantime, just give me a call or send me an email. I would be happy to help you!

A recent headline on Consumer Reports' August edition really caught my eye: "I Kind of Ruined My Life Going to College." What are they talking about? Well, 42 million people owe a total of $1.3 trillion in student debt. What’s even more scary is that 45% of the people with student loan debt said college was not worth the cost. Additionally, 47% of these people said given the chance, they'd go to a lower cost school if they could do it over. This bears the question: What is your plan to send your kids to college?  If you can begin planning now, you want to start saving. Savings accounts don't have great interest rates now, so you have to save a lot. You could invest in stocks, but who knows what the market is going to do? What if you used residential real estate as college funding for your kids? If you purchase a property that you can rent out when your kids are young, it can be paid for in 15 to 20 years, giving you options when the time comes for them to go to college.  "What is your plan to fund your kids' college?" You can sell the home and use that equity to fund their college. You could also continue leasing the home and use the monthly cash flow to pay for college. A third option would be buying a house here in Athens if your kids are going to UGA, for example. You could rent the house to them to eliminate room and board costs, and charge their roommates rent to pay for college expenses.  Remember, this strategy is not for everyone, but it's an option that I wanted you to be aware of. I think it's tragic for students to leave college with so much debt. It's hindering them from buying their first homes and saving for retirement, among other things.  If you have any questions about buying a rental or income-producing property, I'd love to help you out. Give me a call or send me an email and let's talk about whether this is a good option for you and for your kids' future. 

Looking to sell a home in Athens, Georgia? Click here for a Home Price  EvaluationLooking to buy a home in Athens, Georgia? Click here to perform a full home search We have an exciting announcement to share with you. The Justin Woodall Team at Keller Williams is now Woodall Realty Group. We have brought our entire team over to our brand new independent brokerage, but what does that mean for our current or potential clients? Basically, nothing is going to change. We will continue to run our business in the same way we did at Keller Williams, but we will now have more resources and more autonomy to be able to serve our clients and customers at a higher level. We are not looking to fill our office with as many agents as possible. Our business model will remain the same. We are a team of rockstars. Every agent on our team is expected to know their stuff and be experts in the business. If they can’t do that, they won’t stay on the team. "Our business model will remain the same." We will continue to have buyer specialists, listing specialists, and transaction managers. Each person will be able to do what they are really good at, which will make us more productive as a team. Most brokers in town just have a bunch of different agents running around trying to do all the tasks in a real estate transaction. Some do well, but a lot don’t. On our team, we have individuals doing what they’re really good at, so all of our clients get the highest level of service. I believe it’s the best model in the industry. When people specialize, they can do a much better job than one person trying to be a generalist and wear 100 hats. We are located on Atlanta Highway near Regis Bank, Panera, and the new Walmart Market Store. Stop in and say hello sometime! If you have any questions for us or if you’re looking to buy or sell, give us a call or send us an email. We are excited to hear from you.

Looking to sell a home in Athens, Georgia? Click here for a Home Price  EvaluationLooking to buy a home in Athens, Georgia? Click here to perform a full home search I wanted to give you a heads up on a scam that's going on throughout town. Luckily, it hasn't affected any of our clients, and I want to make sure you can be prepared, so it doesn't affect you.  If you're nearing a real estate closing or any situation where you may need to wire funds to a closing attorney, you cannot afford to miss this alert.  Basically, a fraudulent third party crook is posing as the attorney's office, sending emails to buyers as they near their closing date. They will send an email saying that the buyer needs to wire a certain amount of money for their down payment or a certain amount of money if they're making a cash payment in order to be ready to close on the right day. Somehow, they're gaining access to this information, and sending out these emails just a few days before close. These emails have the name of someone from the attorney's office and look like they came from the attorney's office. They look very legitimate from what I'm told. I heard a story that a buyer mistakenly sent $77,000 to the wrong person as a result of one of these scams, and that money is likely going offshore or overseas somewhere. It's a big scam, and it needs to be stopped. I wanted to let you know so that you can protect and guard yourself against this scam. We're also telling our clients who do need to wire money to call the recipient first, to make sure you have the correct instructions and that any emails did come from them, and not a crook who is impersonating them. As always, if there's anything I can do for you, a friend, family member, or coworkers, please feel free to give me a call.