Now, how much is too much? The Fed doesn’t seem to ever get that right so a justified amount of fear is probably prudent. However, the Fed out competing to buy US debt means that there is more competition for US Mortgage Debt so interest rates are going to WIN BIG in this environment so get ready to BUY or REFINANCE with 30 years rates close or at 4.0%! That’s right, 4.0% or darn close to it is a possibility! You need to be ready to LOCK THOSE RATES so give us a call today and we’ll get your mortgage application started!

Helping our client’s get the best rate on their mortgage, or refinance without adding a bunch of unnecessary fees to your existing loan balance is how we add value to our clients and keep them for life. We’ll help you design the best mortgage program for you and give you all the options so you can choose what’s best for you, not what’s best for your mortgage broker. Check out our mortgage page today and start your loan application online if you want!

The total number of homes for sale in the Denver metro area actually decreased a total of 1.1% to 22,880 which doesn seem like a lot but if you compare to the numbers in July, we’re down a total of 570 units or 2.5% so any steady decrease in the number of available homes this summer can definetly be seen as progress towards some stabilization of recent declines. As we continue into fall, we’ll have to start comparing numbers from 2009 & 2010 to see how we’re hold up so to get started, here’s the comparisons for Sept 10 & Sept 09.

Mortgage rates continue to crash as the President can’t seem to get any positive employment or economic numbers ahead of the November elections. I’d expect the Fed to come under continued pressure to do somthing to stimulate the economy and that might include a futher commitment to support the bond market by printing phony money and buying US treasuries. If that happens, you can expect rates to hit 100 year lows. That’s right…and if you want to refinance, we’re going to be running some incredible deals so go to our mortgage page and give us a call today!

If you’re thinking of selling your home this summer, you really need a knowledgeable and aggressive agent more than ever before as it’s likely that we could see a real estate slow down in the near future. If you want to keep track of what’s selling in your neighborhood, you can signup for our free Market Snapshot Report that will allow you to keep track of your local market and see the detail of all the homes currently for sale or that have sold in the last 3 months. Check it out…it’s an extremely valuable resource.

If you’re thinking of selling your home this summer, you really need a knowledgeable and aggressive agent more than ever before as buyers are getting aggressive in their offers and you need someone to protect your equity! If you want to keep track of what’s selling in your neighborhood, you can signup for our free Market Snapshot Report that will allow you to keep track of your local market and see the detail of all the homes currently for sale or that have sold in the last 3 months. Check it out…it’s an extremely valuable resource.

Look for mortgage rates to continue to drop but also be ready for any strong economic news that will cause those rates to become volitle.

Leveraging Your Money
One of the huge advantages of owning real estate as an investment is that you can leverage your money to create greater returns. If you want to buy $100,000 of Microsoft stock, you generally need to fork over $100,000 of cash and so you don’t have any financial leverage in your investment. In real estate you can leverage your investment because you only have to fork over as much of a down payment as your lender requires and you can finance the rest which creates financial leverage. Let’s say you put 20% down on your real estate purchase, that’s only $20,000 of your cash to purchase that same $100,000 investment. Now, if the value of your Microsoft stock increases to $150,000 what’s your rate of return? In simple terms, it’s $50,000 on a $100,000 investment so your return is 50%. If your real estate investment increases that same $50,000 but your cash investment is only $20,000, then your return is 250%. Which is better for you? That’s the power of leverage and it’s used all the time by companies and investment firms to turbo charge their results. So what does this have to do with your IRA?

Buying Real Estate in an IRA
It is absolutely legal and relatively easy to purchase real estate in your IRA, however, there are some rules. On of the main rules is that you can’t have any self dealing with your IRA funds otherwise you can lose the tax advantage of the IRA. For example, you can’t personally guarantee a loan for your IRA so if you wanted to buy a piece of real estate for $100,000 but only had $50,000 in your IRA, you were stuck. The solution in the past was to use a non-recourse loan in which the lender didn’t require any personal guarantee. The problem was that in the real estate market the last few years, no one trusted the real estate investment so non-recourse loans were hard to come by and very expensive.

Cheaper non-recourse loan are back!
Now, with the real estate market improving, lenders who specialize in non-recourse loans are back in the market and looking for those IRA dollars for lending opportunities. North American Savings Bank in Leawood Kansas has recently announced that they are decreasing rates and loan origination fees for non-recourse loans used to purchase real estate inside of IRA’s. According to Jason Zook of North American Savings Bank, they have lowered loan origination fees back to 1% and have 30 year non-recourse loan as low as 5.875%. These rates and fees have not been seen since December 2008.

We’re here to help!
If you’re interested in learning more about buying and financing real estate using your retirement funds, please call Craig Becker at 303-770-2409 and we’ll show you how diversifying your retirement savings into real estate and leveraging the funds in your IRA can mean lots of extra retirement dollars when it’s time to retire.

Craig Becker is the managing broker for Stix & Stones Fine Colorado Properties, a Certified Public Account and expert in real estate investing.

What does this mean to the average home buyer? The total amount of interest that you would pay on a $225,000 loan at 6.0% is $260,636 but that very same loan at 4.25% would only have total interest charged of $173,469. That’s a whopping $87,167 less in interest which is equivalent to not making over 5 years of payments on the loan at 6.0%. For those of you that didn’t take advantage of the $8,000 federal tax credit, don’t worry. The savings on your interest rate is equivalent to receiving the $8,000 tax credit more than 10 times over the next 30 years.

Finally, realize that because of the expiration of the $8,000 tax credit, buyers are in control of the market today like never before which means it’s possible to get a really good deal on a home and pay hundreds of dollars less per month for that same home than you would have a year ago.

Don’t let this opportunity pass you by! It is really a once in a lifetime opportunity. You can attend a free Home Buyer Workshop class in August or September to learn more but don’t delay because these super low rates could go away at any moment. If there was ever a time to get off your rear and check out the housing market, NOW IS THE TIME. For registration check out www.HBWDenver.com.

Just what effect those tax credit had on the market the 1st half of the year will not be known until July because most closings that were recorded in June could have been impacted by the tax credit’s stimulating effect. July should be more representative of the non-credit market as it represents a larger percentage of properties that went under contract in May, which was after the credits expired. In talking to my fellow real estate agents and looking at our business it seems like we might me in for a slow summer but we’ll just have to wait and see.

Now to the market stats themselves. Total listings of homes and condos in the metro area increased a modest 761 units to 23,450 or about 3.4%. Total listings under contract was virtually unchanged at 3,885. The total number of sold properties decreased in the month to 4,046, a decreased of 319 units from May and the total days on market for the Denver Metro Area increased from 76 days to 82 days which is representative of the increase in total inventory of listings.

If you’re thinking of selling your home this summer, you really need a knowledgeable and aggressive agent more than ever before as it’s likely that we could see a real estate slow down in the near future. If you want to keep track of what’s selling in your neighborhood, you can signup for our free Market Snapshot Report that will allow you to keep track of your local market and see the detail of all the homes currently for sale or that have sold in the last 3 months. Check it out…it’s an extremely valuable resource.

Keep those fingers crossed….it may get a little rocky this summer! Look for mortgage rates to continue to drop however so there is hope out there.

If you know of someone who might be interested in this program, they can go to www.DownPaymentRegistry.com for more information.

Call Lance Becker anytime at 303-770-2409 for more info or simply to ask a question. We’ve been self managing our portfolio for over 30 years so we probably help with ideas and suggestions.