New Hampshire Mortgage What to Expect When Buying a Home in New Hampshire

Maybe you?re buying your first home in New Hampshire, or perhaps you?re relocating to New Hampshire from another state. Either way, it?s important that you educate yourself on New Hampshire home loans before shopping for a home and mortgage. This article explains what you?ll need to know before buying a home in New Hampshire:

The median price of a home in New Hampshire is $133,300. Recently, homes in New Hampshire have been appreciating at rates above to the national average. As a result, income levels in many parts of New Hampshire are too low to purchase a median-priced home with a conventional loan. In fact, homeowners in many New Hampshire cities pay more than the recommended 30% of their incomes toward housing.

Average interest rates in New Hampshire are below the national average, and job growth rates are also below the national average. However, New Hampshire has seen a spike in its population in the last few years. In fact, New Hampshire has had the highest population growth in all of New England.

In New Hampshire, lenders may charge fees and points for services rendered in conjunction with a first mortgage on a primary residence. However, the lender has to issue a written disclosure that states the amount and purpose of all fees and expenses.

Jessica Elliott recommends that you visit Mortgage Lenders Plus.com for more information about New Hampshire Mortgage Rates and Loans .

Patience in Real Estate a Virtue?

Our boys were grown and ready to leave the nest. My wife and I began to think about our next step and we found a new place. Now the pressure was on to sell our old place!

Should be easy right?

We lived in a good location, had an excellent floor plan, upgrades and priced right for the marketplace.

NOT!

Weeks of gazing prospects, who had nothing better to do on the weekend than evaluate our home as if they were appearing on a television show, plus real estate agents whose communication skills were almost non existent, really put a bad taste in our mouths. We were ready to pull the plug on the whole idea of selling our home.

Six months went by and then one evening someone drove by our house and saw the real estate sign in our window, knocked on our door & Bingo! we had a serious prospect who immediately followed up with a couple of property reviews, a written offer and ontract!

Moral to the story: Be patient! However, before you sign on the bottom line, do some homework, scrutinize your real estate agent?s track record, check references and don?t hesitate in asking questions about their marketing strategy!

Ralph Famiglietta, Jr.
www.findyournewplace.com

Buying a Home? Here Are 8 Important Steps to Follow

Learn eight important steps to take when purchasing a home.

1. Know your financial status When you decide to buy a home, check your credit report. You probably haven't seen it in the last few years and you don't really know how good (or bad) it is right now. It is very probable that you greatly overestimate (or Underestimate) your financial abilities. What's more, your credit report may contain mistakes you will have to correct (as this happens quite often) - and you'd better do it before you start shopping for a mortgage.

2. Choose your loan lender and the type of loan/mortgage When your credit report is accurate, then begin researching Mortgage Brokers and types of mortgages. When shopping for a loan, keep an eye on: 1) the interest rate and the term (the most important factors), 2) additional fees (they can spoil everything), 3) and your likelihood of getting the approved (they are different for different institutions). Generally, it is good to visit at least a few potential creditors and learn to use and understand a financial calculator before making the final decision.

3. Learn what you want and what you can get Only when you know what you can afford can you decide what exactly you want from your new house. How big should it be? How many rooms should it have? How much time/effort/money are you willing to put in the refurbishment/redecoration? Where exactly would you like to live? After you answer these questions, you will be able to narrow your search and make it much faster.

4. Understand who the agents work for Most people imply that the agents work only for them and they expect they will protect their best interest. The point is that's not entirely true, as the agents may work for a buyer, for a seller and for both of them. Learn where the agents loyalties lie before you start to rely on their opinions and confide personal information to them.

5. How to read offers As a rule of thumb, every offer seems to be better than it really is. In order to assess the offer properly, pay attention to such details as the neighborhood, acreage and furniture (if the house is sold with it). All these factors affect attractiveness of the offer just as much as the house itself.

6. Make an offer Only if everything seems to suit you just fine, should you make an offer. However, before the deal is sealed, there is one more thing you have to do: a home inspection.

7. Home Inspection: where to look When the offer seems to be good, make an appointment for another visit to the house in question. In some states you take your real estate agent with you. Now, everything depends on the results of the inspection. While you can do it yourself, the best option is to hire a professional home inspector. Then, you can expect a full report concerning the homes status. If there's anything wrong - from termites and mold to toxic paint on the walls or low quality of water, it will be found during a professional inspection.

8. Signing the contract Before you sign a contract, learn exactly what the fixtures are (i.e. what stays at home). Sometimes you will be given virtually everything, but sometimes you will learn that the previous owners have taken the swimming pool with them. Talk to the previous owners in order to learn what they want to take and what will stay and put it down into the contract!

When the contract is ready, the rest is relatively simple. Your agent or attorney will help you to make out all the payments, and assist with insurance and title transfer details you have to do in order to buy a home.

For more information on real estate buying, visit http://www.1st-real-estate.com

Miami: The Hollow City

A recent European immigrant I know expressed how happy he was in discovering a 9th floor, three-bedroom, 1.5 bath condo in Miami for $500,000.00. After my head stopped shaking and my eyes stopped blinking uncontrollably, I had to wonder if I had been living here too long. No matter how many times you say 500 thousand dollars, it still sounds like half-a-million dollars to me. Maybe where he's from, that's a good deal, but from where I come from, that's a whole lot of money for way too little-- no matter how great this town is. Thanks to the recent Miami Herald article The Price of Paradise, I'm reminded that property taxes on that much money will easily set you back $12,000.00 a year or $230 a week. Add that to your mortgage and insurance costs plus your car payment and it's insurance, and, suddenly, Miami is becoming a city where only the wealthy can afford to live. Like the article suggests, Miami may become a stratified community, where the rich live well, the poor get by, and the middle class get out.

Still, the downtown condos are selling. Downtown Miami is undergoing a building boom that rivals Beijing. I suspect, however, that many of the Miami condos have been bought on speculation with the hopes of making a quick profit on the investment. A small percentage may actually be retirement or second homes for the wealthy but most are beyond affordable for the middle class. Doctors, lawyers, and Indian Chiefs who own casinos might be able to live there, but where will everyone else live? In 2001, the average Miami home cost $158,000.00. Today, the median is $378,000.00. Yikes! No wonder it is nearly impossible to recruit new teachers. They can't find affordable housing in the county and, with the rising costs of gasoline, commuting from the next county is looking like a thing of the past.

With an estimated 40,000 condo units planned for downtown alone, I suspect Miami is becoming The Hollow City, nothing more than a pretty facade for movies with empty rooms overlooking one of the most beautiful places on earth.

D.C. Copeland is a writer and award-winning artist. When visiting Copeland's personal website and blog http://www.miamivisionblogarama.blogspot.com/, you will discover that Wayne Cochran is the Patron Saint and that many people consider it to be The Rodney Dangerfield of Blogs.