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I recently met with a former client who asked me if they are better off renting their home out as an investment property or simply selling it. It really depends on your individual circumstances and goals, but there are advantages to each method.

If you’re looking to build wealth, you can use one investment property to get you to the point where you have four or five of these properties bringing in passive income each month. If this is your goal, it’s important that you meet with an agent who is looking out for your best interests.

Most people need to sell in order to buy.

However, most people need to sell their home in order to buy another property or they simply want to cash out on the equity they already have. In cases like these, selling makes much more sense. Renting is more of a long-term investment.

If you have any questions for us or need help selling your home, give us a call or send us an email. We look forward to hearing from you.

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It is hot, and we’re not just talking about the weather. The Houston real estate market is on fire. We had some wonderful gains these past few months. The highest gains took place among homes priced $750,000 and above where we saw 8,500 homes sell. This is an almost 10% increase from this time last year.

The average sales price increase 1.5% to just over $300,000. That is a hot market. Even the lease market has increased, with single family home leases up 17% and townhomes and condos up almost 21%.

We’ve seen some wonderful gains these past few months.

So, between strong employment numbers and a healthy housing inventory, we can expect a great end to the summer and a wonderful start to the fall season.

If you have any other questions or you’re looking to buy or sell a home, please give me a call. I’d be happy to help!

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If you want to buy a home inside the 610 loop during the spring and summer buying season, follow these four tips:

1. Drive around the area to really discover what works best for you: Since there are so many different neighborhoods within the loop, drive through to get an idea of them all. If you have pets like us and you want to live close to a dog park, for example, do your research to find dog parks and trails.

2. Get a home inspection: We recommend this for both resale and new construction homes. You’ll want to examine things like stucco, which was very popular after 2000. You also want to be sure the home’s flashing is done right so that there is no moisture behind the stucco.

3. Get a survey: This will establish the property lines. Sellers might actually have this done, but you want to get your own just in case. The current homeowner might have installed a fence off the property line or had a patio that wasn’t included.

4. Check out the new flood maps: They just changed as of January 2017, so check the updated flood map to be sure you have the right flood coverage.

Flood maps changed this year, so you need to know how it would affect your coverage.

We also wanted to quickly remind you that we’re having our vacation giveaway this year! If you buy or sell a home with us in 2017, you’ll be entered to win.

If you have any questions or you're ready to buy or sell a home, give us a call or send us an email soon. We look forward to helping you!

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It's an unfortunate fact that 50% of marriages end in divorce. If that happens, what happens to your home and mortgage? To help me explain, I'm joined by Candace Demary, a family law attorney of 15 years.

Once you've decided to file for divorce, the first decision should be whether one of the parties wants to keep the house and whether they can afford it. If neither party wants the house or can afford to keep it on their own, you can sell the house and divide the proceeds.

If one person wants to keep it, refinancing is an option. You'll need to have the house appraised and then negotiate a buyout of the equity of the house from the other spouse. Judges typically don't order a mortgage to be refinanced, but Candace says she often negotiates it as it's better to completely change the title over the to spouse keeping the house. It also frees up the other spouse to buy another house down the road.

If one person wants to keep the house, refinancing is an option.

If one spouse owned the home prior to the marriage, it would be considered their separate property. The other spouse doesn't have a claim to the house other than possible reimbursement for mortgage payments made during the marriage.

Of course, each situation is complex and merits its own set of questions. If you'd like to ask Candace any questions, you can call her at (713) 682-4210.

If you have any questions about the market or you're thinking of buying or selling a home, give us a call or send us an email soon. We're always here to help.

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Now is a great time to sell your home, so we have four tips to help you have a successful sale this spring and summer.

1. Price your home correctly. A lot of sellers think that they can price their home high and just negotiate with the buyer down the road. However, homes that are priced at market value get the most attention, the most showings, and the best offers.

2. Don’t overimprove your home. Some sellers put so much money into their home thinking they will get $10 back for every dollar they spend, only to end up getting 10 cents on the dollar. Don’t invest too much money in home improvements.

3. Don’t limit the showings. Showings can be hard to deal with, but it’s really important that you allow people to come in and actually look at your home. If you limit showings, you risk working with a smaller pool of buyers.

Make sure your home is available for showings.

4. Don’t sell your property by yourself. 85% of For Sale By Owner properties end up hiring a listing agent to get their home sold. After all, we know what we’re doing.

If you need any advice on selling your home, or if you are interested in a free copy of our book, "The Ultimate Guide to Selling Your House", give us a call or send us an email. Don’t forget, anyone who buys or sells a home with us this year will be entered to win a vacation in 2018.

We are always here to help. We look forward to speaking with you!

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Thank you for making 2016 such a great year! We appreciate your business and your referrals.

To fully express our appreciation, we will send one of you on vacation. In December of 2017, we will have a drawing and a lucky winner will get a free vacation.

All you have to do to enter is buy or sell a home with us before December 1, 2017.

Where will you go? It’s up to you—you might get to visit my hometown, Havana, or you might get to check out the Carribbean Islands. No matter where you go, it will be tropical, fun, and relaxing.

All you have to do is buy or sell a house with us before December!

Buy or sell a house with us in 2017 and you and your loved one will get a chance to win a free vacation. If you have any other questions about how this giveaway works or if you want to get started with the home buying or selling process, give us a call. We would be happy to help you!

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The end of 2016 brought on a lot of uncertainty in the real estate market. There are some positive things that happened in our area, like home sales being up 3%, the luxury market starting to surge, and inventory starting to rise.

However, 2017 is going to be the year of the millennial generation, as millennials will make up 35% of all home buyers. Many millennials who might have been waiting to jump into the market see that interest rates are on the rise. It’s possible interest rates will get up to 4.75% by the end of the year, so first-time home buyers will act fast before that happens. Because of this, there will be some great options for financing for first-time home buyers, so keep an eye out for those.

2017 is the year of the millennial generation.

We will also see quite a bit of growth in 2017, and we are sure it will be an exciting year for our market.

If you have any questions, please give us a call or send us an email. We would be happy to help!

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Today I’m joined by Brenda Boral, the owner of Boral Branders, an online marketing firm specializing in social media and search engine optimization. The reason I brought Brenda in today is that a lot of people, including our friends, family, and some past clients, are asking us if social media advertising is working for our real estate team. They’re noticing our ads on Facebook and YouTube and wondering how they can do the same thing with their own businesses.

Brenda is here to help answer that question by offering four tips about how to grow your business via social media:

Get on Facebook. Why should you be on Facebook? Because everybody else is. This includes both your competitors and clients. Facebook isn’t going anywhere, and people are putting their entire lives on it. That’s a lot of information to take advantage of.

Analyze your competitors before implementing any strategies or campaigns on social media. See what they’re posting. How many times are they posting it? Why are they posting it? If whatever content they’re using is working, model your own strategy after it. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel.

Know your target market. Analyze your target market by looking at your own client database. Who do you work with? What are their demographics? What are their interests? This information is crucial to understanding your clients and being able to reach out to them.

Know your target market.

Know the difference between boosting a post and creating an ad. When you boost a post, you’re helping other businesses that already have tons of likes. If you want to grow your own business, you must create and ad that involves a call to action for your target market. The great thing about an ad is that you can send it only to your target audience.  These ads can cost as little as $5 a day.

If you need any more expert advice from Brenda on social media marketing strategies, she would love to give you a free consultation and offer some tips. Just give her a call at (832) 215-9471 or send her an email at [email protected]

If you have any more questions for me, feel free to give me a call or shoot me an email as well. I look forward to hearing from you!

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Today I’m joined by Joe Mahlow of ASAP Credit Repair to answer some common questions we get from first-time home buyers about maintaining a good credit score and how credit impacts their ability to buy a home.

What can you do to make sure your credit is in good shape? A good idea would be to pull your credit report three to four times a year. This way, you can see what types of things are on your credit report and a credit repair company like Joe’s can evaluate it and let you know what they can do for you.

What can negatively affect a credit score? A High credit card balance is one thing that can always affect your credit score. Joe always recommends keeping your balance at 30% or less than your limit. He also recommends not having too much credit. Typically, having three to five open installments or revolving accounts is great, but anything more than that can also hurt your credit.

Always keep your balance at 30% or less than your limit.

Do first-time home buyers have enough credit to buy a home? If you have limited credit, Joe recommends that you open a secure credit card and keep the balance at 30% or less than the limit. If you have credit established, a lot of lenders look for a 620 middle score. Every loan program is different, though, so it’s always good to get your score up as high as you possibly can and not have too many accounts open at one time.

If you have any questions for Joe, you can reach him by phone at (281) 545-5001, or you can email him at [email protected].

As always, if you have any questions for me, please feel free to give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to helping you!

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Sometimes it pays to go against the crowd. That sentiment is very true if you are looking at selling your home in the fall. When most people think about selling, they think about the springtime, which is usually when they put their homes on the market. Summer is actually the season where the most homes sell, but there are some very powerful reasons as to why fall is a better time to sell than spring or summer.

By fall, the properties that were listed on the market in the spring and summer are no longer there. Most of them have either been sold, expired, or taken off the market altogether. When your home comes on the market during the fall, it stands out a lot more. It’s a new listing, has fewer days on market, and pops up high on a lot of different home searches.

Another reason to sell during the fall is because of the buyers in the market. The buyers looking during this time of year are serious. They may have been looking for months in some cases, and they want to get a deal done. When you put those two things together, you see that homes sold during the fall not only sell quicker, but for more money as well.

Homes stand out more in the fall.

If you are thinking about selling your home this fall, there are a few things you should do differently when preparing your home. First, make sure your HVAC system is working right and the filters have been changed. You also want the house to be inviting, warm, and fresh-smelling.

Finally, make sure you price your home so that it will sell quickly. A market analysis will help you uncover what your home is worth. Once your home’s value is determined, we can figure out where to price it. In a shorter season like this, you may not have time to adjust the price, so you want to make sure that the home is priced aggressively to sell from the start.

If you have any questions for us or are thinking about selling in the fall, give us a call or send us an email. We would love to hear from you.