Knoxville Tennessee Real Estate Blog

This beautiful northwest Knoxville home is priced at only $162,900

If you’re looking to buy a house this year the $8,000 federal tax credit expires at the end of November this year. That means the transaction has to be closed and your name on the deed before the close of business on November 30th.

With loans taking 45 to 60 days to process now you will need to have your house under contract not later than October 15th of 2009 to take advantage of one of the greatest home buying perks in recent years.

Most buyers qualify for this tax credit so if you’re a potential buyer you need to know about how this works and see if you qualify.

First of all it’s a tax CREDIT instead of a tax DEDUCTION. Here’s the difference. With a deduction you can deduct (subtract) a percentage of that amount from your taxable income to reduce it. With a tax credit you get to subtract all of it ($8,000 in this case) from your tax liability so a credit is a far better deal than a deduction.

Here's a great west Knoxville 3 BR home complete with rocking chair front porch

Most single buyers with an adjusted gross income (AGI) of $75,000 or less will qualify and married buyers with an AGI of $150,000 or less will also qualify. The credit phases out as your income rises above these limits but a typical buyer will still qualify for some or all of the $8,000.

Some lenders will actually loan you up to $8,000 up front to use for your closing costs or down payment. FHA down payment requirements are only 3.5% of the purchase price so $8,000 will go a long way toward paying them for you.

Take a look at all of Knoxville’s Realtor listings for sale including foreclosures, short sales, handy man specials, and move in ready homes and condos at www.KnoxvilleHomeCenter.com. Call or email me to see any of them or with any questions.

Bargain priced Knoxville area 3 bedroom home listed at $212,000

Related articles by Zemanta

• What Are Refundable Tax Credits vs. Non-Refundable Tax Credits? (bargaineering.com)
• Fthb Tax Credit09 (slideshare.net)
• 8-Point Overview of the $8,000 First-Time Homebuyer Credit (realtyresolve.com)
• Nearly Half of Home Buyers Unaware of Tax Credit (usnews.com)

The real estate market in Knox County, as in most of the rest of the country, continues to remain far below past sales. Here’s the results for the past week’s property transfers in Knox County as recorded in the Knox County Register of Deeds office.

Knox County real estate tranfers - total units

I count a total of 149 transfers for the week, about the same as previous weeks for the year.

I continue to hear antecdotal stories from my fellow Realtors about how they think the market is picking up and how busy they’re getting but so far very few of those stories have made it onto the closed sales scoreboard and that’s pretty much all that counts.

If anyone is thinking of buying this year and using the $8,000 tax credit you should know it expires on November 30th of this year.

And with all the new rules and guidelines making mortgages harder and lengthier to process you’re typically looking at 45 days processing time.

So unless you have a new house selected and under contract by around October 15th, which is only 2 1/2 months away, you could lose out on one of the best deals for first time time (and some repeat) buyers in a long time.

Visit www.KnoxvilleHomeCenter.com and see all of the Knoxville area listings for sale and then let’s get going picking one out for you.

Please call or email me with any questions or to schedule a time to look at some great Knoxville area homes.

Related articles by Zemanta

• U.S. pending homes sales rise for fourth straight month (financialpost.com)
• Housing evangelist back to Scary Gary (lansner.freedomblogging.com)
• U.S. pending homes sales rise for fourth straight month (financialpost.com)

I was recently interviewed for a real estate website and asked to give some home selling advice in 90 seconds of less.

So for the really, really busy homeowner that’s thinking of selling or in the process of selling now, here are some things to consider that will help, including a piece of advice at the end you’ve probably never heard before.

You can find lots more home selling tips at www.KnoxvilleHomeCenter.com and get a free copy of my 52 page eBook titled: “450 ideas to help your home sell faster!” by simply sending an email to: [email protected]

No charge, no obligation, and you don’t get put on any mailing lists. I’ll only contact you if ask me to.

Free book to make your Knoxville TN home sell faster and for more money

By the way; if you are thinking of selling, your home would look great as a “Featured Home” on my website and be seen by hundreds of buyers every day.

Here’s my latest listing, a 2,400+ square foot, 4 bedroom, 3 bath home in Gulf Park Subdivision and located at 9709 Panama Drive, 37923. It’s zoned for the new Hardin Valley Academy and Cedar Bluff schools.

This home is delightful through and through

This beauty has been extensively updated from top to bottom and is in ‘move in’ condition.

Convenient to recreation, shopping, and schools.

One of my favorite features of this great home is the world class screened deck overlooking the back yard.

Another feature is glowing hardwood flooring in several rooms. I love the look and feel of natural hardwoods.

Hardwood floors create an elegant feeling in this beautiful home.

Picture yourself enjoying a summer breeze while relaxing with family or friends.

Visit KnoxvilleHomeCenter.com to see a virtual tour of this home; it’s my newest “Featured Home”.

Looks like it’s back to the status quo for Knox County real estate transfers this week. After a record breaking 234 transfers recorded last week, this week’s recording dropped back to 156, about what the averge has been for the past few months.

Knox County real estate transfers for the week of July 19th

And as in previous weeks the mid to lower end price ranges still dominate the market. The $50,000 to $200,000 price point has been where the action is for most all of 2009 and shows no signs of changing.

I believe this market is primarlily being driven by first time buyers attracted by the huge selection of homes, stories of great prices, the lowest interest rates in history, AND the $8,000 federal tax credit most of them will qualify for.

With the stars aligned like that where you can actually buy a new home with cheaper payments than rent, it’s no surprise that many new buyers taking advantage.

The tax credit runs out on November 30th of this year so I’m curious to see what happens to sales if Congress doesn’t vote to extend it.

Right now the National Association of Realtors is lobbying Congress to not only extend the tax credit but increase it to $15,000 and let it apply to all home buyers. Personally I think this is a great idea. It’s not terribly inflationary, especially if you compare it to the trillions of dollars flying out of Washington this year, and real estate has historically driven all the County’s economic recoveries.

If you’re a first time or perspective home buyer now would be a great time for you too if you have a fairly secure job and good credit. Most sellers are willing to pay some or all of your closing costs and lenders have plans to let your $8,000 tax credit be used for some or all of your down payment.

With an FHA insured loan you only need 3.5% for a down payment, that’s about $7,000 on a $200,000 home, so you could probably buy a new home with no cash out of your pocket.

Here’s a beautiful new listing that just came on the market. This move in ready home has a world class screened deck.

See a virtual tour here

This Cedar Bluff area 4 bedroom, 3 bath home is in the Cedar Bluff Road area, just listed and priced at only $224,500 for over 2,400 square feet!

Give me a call or email if you’re interested and let’s find out how you would look in one of them.

You can start your looking by finding all of the Knoxville area Realtors listings on my website, www.KnoxvilleHomeCenter.com

Related articles by Zemanta

• New Appraisal System (HVCC) Impacts Consumers (appraisalnewsonline.typepad.com)
• Home-buy help: FHA OKs loans on $8,000 tax credit (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Realtors association asks for delay of appraisal rules (timesunion.com)
• Tax credit can be bridge to new home (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Get your $8,000 HUD tax credit now (money.cnn.com)
• FHA To Soon Allow 8000 Tax Credit To Be Used As Downpayment? (phoenixarizonarealestatehomes.com)
• Pending home sales rebounding (money.cnn.com)

The Second Quarter of 2009 real estate sales figures are out now along with the numbers from this past June; let’s take a look.

Here’s what this past June looked like in numbers of closed sales in the greater Knoxville area.

June 2009 closed real estate sales for the greater Knoxville, TN area

Not too much difference here compared to this past May except the dramatic upturn in sales in past months of June seemed to start earlier.

Now let’s take a look at the 2nd quarter numbers. Here’s the 2nd quarter of 2009 compared to past 2nd quarters.

No real surprises here, these numbers looked pretty much as I expected.

These graphs represent numbers of real homes sold and the numbers still look pretty sad compared to past years. Sales volume today is basically back where it was in 2002.

2nd quarter 2009 compared to past 2nd quarters

Here’s a graph showing days on the market or time to sell a house. Not surprisingly that number is up.

Greater Knoxville area average time to sell a home

So what is the solution to Knoxville’s housing crisis?

Unfortunately most of the solution depends on the way the federal government manages the current financial crisis brought about by loosening of lending standards to let marginal and in some cases, unqualified buyers, buy homes with high leveraged loans they couldn’t afford.

Now lender and the fed has over corrected making it more difficult for well qualified buyers to qualify for loans they can easily afford. Most every Realtor I talk with, both locally and across the country, has stories of qualified buyers that want to buy a house they can well afford to make the payments on but either get turned down or have to jump through numerous lending hoops before they can buy.

All of this has combined to create a crisis of confidence in our financial system, driving down the stock market, causing job losses, and huge numbers of foreclosures as the weak buyers that probably should not have been able to buy in the first place, struggle or can’t make their mortgage payments.

The current federal tax credit to enable buyers that enables buyers making under $150,000 ($75,000 for single buyers) is what’s driving a big portion of our market right now. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) has petitioned Congress to continue this credit which expires in November of this year, through 2010, increase it to $15,000, and let it apply to all homebuyers, not just those who have not owned a home in the past 3 years. We’ll see how that goes.

Another solution would be to loosen up the guidelines for qualified buyers and not penalize them. Home purchases not only create lots of jobs for people involved in those transactions, each one also drives many thousands of dollars in retail sales as new homeowners purchase goods and services for their new homes.

Please feel free to make comments or ask any questions you may have.

All of Knoxville’s Realtors listings are available for you to see at www.KnoxvilleHomeCenter.com

Join me on Facebook

Follow me on Twitter

Related articles by Zemanta

• Nearly Half of Home Buyers Unaware of Tax Credit (usnews.com)
• The jumbo mortgage is back. Only low-risk borrowers need apply. (queercents.com)
• Home Sales Perk Up, but Expensive Houses Languish (time.com)
• Home Sales Rise but Less Than Expected (abcnews.go.com)

Almost halfway through July and real estate is heating up a bit along with the temperature. This past week’s real estate transactions reported in the Knoxville New-Sentinel hit a high for the year at 234!

Knox County real estate transfers recorded for the week of July 12th

Before we get too excited over that number however, June, July, and August are historically the months with the highest numbers of real estate activity.

A more valid number should be available in the next few days and that would be the 2nd quarter of 2009 sales report from the Knoxville Area Association of Realtors (KAAR) compared to other 2nd quarters. I’ll post those numbers as soon as they become available.

The most recently available KAAR monthly data is for May which showed a total of 928 closed transactions for Knox and the the other counties KAAR serves.

Here’s how that looks compared to previous months of May.

May of 2009 compared to past months of May

As you can see from the graph, sales are still below even levels from 10 years ago.

That means it’s still a very, very strong buyer’s market in Knoxville as well as most of the rest of the United States.

The $8,000 tax credit expires at the end of November 2009 which is less than 5 months away.

New lending regulations kick in at the end of July which will increase processing time for a new home mortgage. My favorite mortgage banker, Shawna Parsley is telling me to now write offers with a 45 day closing period instead of a 30 like we used to be able to do.

If you’re considering buying a new home in 2009, NOW is  the time to get started. www.KnoxvilleHomeCenter.com will let you see all the Knoxville area Realtors listings with no registration required.

Do you have a question about real estate in the greater Knoxville area? If so, please ask it here or email me and I’ll either give you an answer on the spot or find it for you.

So far I’ve had a 100% success rate answering questions but I also have a huge database of other experienced mortgage bankers, title officers, home inspectors, and other real estate professional to draw from.