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Do you know how much you can afford to spend on a home? When you’re looking to balance the budget on a home payment, you need to look at four things:

How much can you afford?

How much is a bank willing to lend monthly?

What does that translate to in sales price?

How much are you comfortable spending monthly?

Typically, banks will lend $6 to $7 a month for every thousand dollars you spend. On a $150,000 house, that translates to $800 to $900 a month, depending on the tax area you’re in and the monthly insurance premiums. How does the bank determine what your payment is? They’ll take your total income and divide it by the total debt that you have, like house payment, car payment, student loans, revolving debt like credit cards. On a $5,000 income, the banks would take approximately $2,000 a month in total monthly debt to be what they approve you for.

Just because a bank is willing to lend you $2,000 a month for you monthly payment doesn’t necessarily mean that’s what you need to spend. You need to do what’s right for your family. List out all the debts and outgoing payments you have like food, utilities, entertainment, and others, and write it down to see what your monthly income looks like, and how much you have left coming in.

If you have any other questions, please let us know via email or a phone call. We’d love to hear from you.

Today we’ve got a quick market update for you for January 2016. Last year, we eked out a .64% increase in sales compared to 2014. We did see a drop in sales at certain points throughout the year, but ended the year with an overall increase.

Many of the numbers we saw this January were very comparable to the numbers we saw last January. For example, we sold 196 homes in January of 2015, and sold 195 in January of 2016. 

Our average sales price has dropped a bit, and now sits at $216,000, but that’s likely due to the lower price ranges moving at a quicker pace than the rest of the market. We are also seeing an increase in new construction, and that shows in the year-over-year drop in the number of homes listed in Lafayette.

As for the amount of inventory we have on the market right now, it’s sitting at about an 8.5, 9-month supply, where most of our action is coming in the $300,000 and below range. 

If you have any questions for us about the market, or want to know what your home could sell for, give us a call or send us an email. We look forward to hearing from you!

Home inspections are crucial for buyers and sellers. We recommend that everyone get an inspection done on their home or their potential home. This is a proactive move that can eliminate issues down the road.

A home inspector is a trained professional that comes out to inspect the major systems in your home such as your electrical wiring, your furnace, and your plumbing. They will check for much more than this, and they’ll report potential problems to you. This way you can make the repairs or negotiate with the seller to have repairs made. An inspection can cost anywhere from $500 to $600, but it’s all well-worth the money. 

If you need a home inspector, we have a few that we like to refer to our clients. Don’t hesitate to ask us about this!

An easy way to grasp a buyer’s interest is through gorgeous home decor. This might be drapes, paintings, or other trinkets.

However, as a buyer, you need to be especially conscious of this. Stay focused on your needs. Keep an eye on room dimension, and don’t fall for the details. Avoid falling for the small details inside a home. 

There’s a flipside to this, though. As a seller, you’re going to want to tap into the buyer’s perspective. This presents an awesome opportunity. Set up an attractive offer with our stager and make your home pop to get the best results when selling! 

If you’re thinking about buying or selling a home in Lafayette, give me a call or send me an email today! I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Today I want to talk about the next step when it comes to home photography. Here at the Robbie Breaux Team, we are always looking to push the needle when it comes to technology. That is why we have invested in offering 3D Virtual Home Tours for our clients, and they are going to be great. 

Here is an example of a 3D Tour. With these tours, potential buyers have the ability to look in, around, above, and throughout the house. These tours offer many different ways to look at the home, including a dollhouse view, a blueprint view, and a first person virtual walk-through. By being able to do all of this virtually and remotely, you can increase the traffic your home gets without even having to open the door.

We’ve seen some great benefits already from using this technology. Most of our sellers are getting a higher number of qualified buyers looking at their home, instead of the looky-loos that are really just browsing with no intention to buy. 

If you’re interested in checking this out some more or want to see what a 3D tour could do for your home sale, give us a call or send us a quick email. We would be glad to help out!

Santa Letters are back! We had such a great response from our favorite little fans last year. We're excited to announce we're doing it again this year.

It's simple! Fill out the form in the body of this email. Write a letter to your son, daughter, niece, nephew, or grandkids. They will get a personalized letter on Santa's stationary straight from the North Pole!

The kids love it. Fill everything out by December 15th, so your loved one will get the letter in time for the holidays. We had a bunch last year, and we want to make sure we get everybody's out there.

Thanks for participating in Santa Letters! As always, if you have any questions, give us a call or send us an email. We would be happy to help you!

Please download the Request Form (see link below) and send it back to us at [email protected] OR call us at (337) 267-4099..

Download the Request Form here >>

Today we're here with a quick market update on the third quarter in 2015.

Overall, September's numbers look pretty good. There was a little dip in the number of closed units from 2014 to 2015. Last year we had 289 closed units, and this year we had 266 closed units, which is about an 8% decrease.

On the other hand, the number of pending transactions is up 12% from October of 2014. Last year we had 277 pending transactions, and this October saw 308 pending transactions. This is a good barometer of what our market will look like for the rest of the year.

Listings are also up from 300 new listings in 2014 to 413 new listings this year, which means there are a lot of good options out there for buyers to look at right now.

Overall, our market is very strong. We have 4.2 months of inventory on the market for buyers to look at, and interest rates are still strong at around 4%. Some lenders are even able to get a 3.8% rate on 30 year fixed loans, FHA, VA, and rural development loans. Our preferred partners are very aggressive on getting low interest rates and low closing costs.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to give us a call or send us an email. We would be happy to help you!

One of the most important things that you can do is to keep all lines of communication open with your agent and the lender. This will speed up the time of your transaction and make it much less stressful. The quicker you can get documents to your lender, the quicker you can close the transaction.

At a minimum, we speak with our lenders at least once per week, and sometimes we contact them two or more times. We think the determination between a bad lender and a good lender is the way they communicate with us and our clients.

If you would like to hear about some of our preferred lenders, please don't hesitate to contact us. We look forward to speaking with you!

We have been seeing some great signs in the Lafayette real estate market lately. Today we are going to run through the statistics for July and give you an update on those.

July's market statistics look really good. We have seen a 7.5% increase in units, a 13.5% increase in dollar volume, and a huge increase in new construction.

Another thing that's on the rise is our average sale price. It has gone up 5.5% and now sits at $268,500. Overall, our listing inventory is up 5% and new construction is down a little bit.

Right now, we are looking at a 4.5 month supply of inventory on homes listed under a million. The most activity in our market, however, is seen in the $150,000- $300,000 price range, where there is about 3-4 months of inventory.

Interest rates are still doing fantastic. A 30-year fixed rate can be had for 4% and 15-year fixed loans are even lower at about 3.375%.

Overall, the market looks really strong and there is a lot of movement. If you have any questions for us, we would love for you to give us a call or send us an email. We would be happy to help out!

Today, I share a full Lafayette market update for the first half of 2015. 

We've already had a little over 1,600 sales since January, which is up from the mid 1,500's in the same time frame last year. In total number of units sold, sales are up about 4% - while in dollar volume, sales are up 11%! This is likely due to a jump in average sales price, which went from $217,000 last year to $231,000 this year.

Despite all of these fantastic market trends, interest rates remain near record lows! The best way to get an idea of where our market is going to head moving forward is to look at pending sales. Currently, we had 340 homes that went under contract in Lafayette Parish in comparison to only 301 at this time last year. This is a difference of about 11%, and year-to-date we're a little over 4%. 

What does all of this mean for you? Well, it doesn't look like our market is going to slow down anytime soon. Inventory levels are healthy, and the market is active, making now a wonderful time to consider making your move.

If you have any questions about our market, don't hesitate to reach out to us. We're always here to help with your real estate needs.