blog.TxFamily.com

2016年3月30日星期三

3208 Golden Springs Plano TX 75025

Gorgeous Home With Updates Galore and all of the amenities you would expect in this famous 183-acre master planned Community with community pools, Park, tennis court, award winning schools, sports fields & playground. ! Fabulous floor plan with Rich Hardwoods Thru-Out 1st Floor, NEW Granite counters, New stainless appliances, 2 Trane AC Units, NEW Designer's color, New upgraded Master suite and New bath, 4 inch Crown Molding & Basebrds, Wood Blinds,Travertine Tile In 3 Full Baths, Wrought Iron Staircase, Media Rm, Huge Master Suite With Sit-Area upgraded bath & 3 other Large Bdrms. OVER $39K IN UPGRADES AND UPDATES. Designer touches throughout. Most popular Plano West ISD.Sought after Skaggs Elem., Rice Middle, Jasper High and Plano West High. Walk To community Pool and Russell Creek Park. A rare opportunity to find this beautiful home with a phenomenal setting. Contact Wendy 972-365-7888 to book an inside tour!…

Wendy Huang, MBA,SRS, GRI, CRS, IRES, e-pro, ASP, ALHS, SFR, RFC, RE/MAX Premier Group, RE/MAX Hall of Fame,

RE/MAX Lifetime Achievement ; Over 20 years' experience!

Helping Over 1000 Families Meet Their Real Estate Needs !!!

Direct: 972-365-7888

Has your home value gone up in the past 6 months? Click here for a Free INSTANT Report ! '
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2016年3月28日星期一

More Money in Your Paycheck

A homeowner’s tax savings benefit is generally realized when they file their federal income tax return after the money has been spent for the interest and property taxes. Some people look forward to the refund as a means of forced savings but some people need to realize the savings during the year.

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It is possible to adjust the deductions being withheld from the homeowner’s salary so they realize the benefit of the savings prior to filing their tax returns in the form of more money in their pay checks. Employees can talk to their employers about increasing their deductions stated on their W-4 form.

By increasing the exemptions or deductions, less is taken out of the check and the employee will receive more each pay period. If a person over-estimates their exemptions and therefore, underpays their income tax, they might incur interest and would have additional tax to pay when they filed their tax return.

Buyers considering this strategy should seek tax advice and discuss it with their human relations department at work. Additional information is available on the Internal Revenue Service website about Completing Form w-4 and Worksheets.

Wendy Huang, MBA,SRS, GRI, CRS, IRES, e-pro, ASP, ALHS, SFR, RFC, RE/MAX Premier Group, RE/MAX Hall of Fame,

RE/MAX Lifetime Achievement ; Over 20 years' experience!

Helping Over 1000 Families Meet Their Real Estate Needs !!!

Direct: 972-365-7888

2016年3月25日星期五

Postponding a Purchase

You might be surprised how many people contact real estate offices because they want to buy a home but they don’t have the down payment or the credit to qualify. Occasionally, an agent will be working with someone who does have the down payment and credit but for whatever reason, decides to postpone the decision to purchase now for some point in the future.

It’s not uncommon that once they’re out of the market, the money starts burning a hole in their pocket and they end up buying a boat or a motorcycle or some other thing that cannot positively affect their lives and security the way a home does.

If the money had been put away somewhere safe like a certificate of deposit, it wouldn’t earn a lot but it would be there when they decided the time was right to buy a home. $8,750 would grow to $9,286 in three years in a 2% CD.

For the person who could tolerate a little more risk, they might consider investing in the stock market. If you found a mutual fund that would earn 7%, at the end of the same three year time frame, the $8,750 would have grown to $10,719.

Alternatively, if the would-be buyers used the same amount to purchase a $250,000 home that appreciated at only a modest one percent, the equity in the home at the end of the same three year period would be $29,597.

The dynamics of earning appreciation on the value of the home rather than just the down payment combined with the amortization of the mortgage makes the equity in the home almost three times greater than the mutual fund. If you used a 2% appreciation, the equity would be over $37,000 in the same period.

Obviously, there are legitimate reasons for postponing the purchase of a home. An important thing to remember is to safeguard the hard-earned down payment so it is ready when you are to buy in the future.

Wendy Huang, MBA,SRS, GRI, CRS, IRES, e-pro, ASP, ALHS, SFR, RFC, RE/MAX Premier Group, RE/MAX Hall of Fame,

RE/MAX Lifetime Achievement ; Over 20 years' experience!

Helping Over 1000 Families Meet Their Real Estate Needs !!!

Direct: 972-365-7888

2016年3月14日星期一

Worth the Effort

“Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible...” While Judge Learned Hand was talking about federal income taxes, it can be applied to property taxes as well. Cut taxes - 300.jpg

States have a process of assessing the value of a property based on a number of things that can include size, amenities, location and what the owner paid for the property. Most states make adjustments to that value annually. Once it has been published to the owner, there is a process available for those who disagree with the value.

Learn the assessment process and what the filing deadlines are to apply. Since different states have different requirements, it is important to know the process in your area.
Obtain your assessment records – they may be available online and you can find out how your value was determined. Check for mistakes in square footage, bedrooms, amount of land, etc. Then, verify if the comparable sales in the neighborhood support their position or not. Your real estate agent can be valuable in this area.
Proceed to make your case from the lowest to the highest level necessary. It isn’t necessary to hire someone to represent you. Sometimes, just talking to employees at the tax assessor’s office may be enough. If not, there is a process for a hearing where you present your evidence and so does a representative from the assessor’s office. If this still doesn’t give you the remedy you want, you may need to proceed to the courts.

Challenging your assessment really isn’t an adversarial position. Their job is to assess a fair value and your job is to pay the least amount of taxes. Whether it be an employed assessor or a voluntary board, they have a job and they appreciate being treated professionally and courteously.
Keep this last thing in mind: the people you’re presenting your case to have the ability to lower your taxes.

Wendy Huang, MBA,SRS, GRI, CRS, IRES, e-pro, ASP, ALHS, SFR, RFC, RE/MAX Premier Group, RE/MAX Hall of Fame,

RE/MAX Lifetime Achievement ; Over 20 years' experience!

Helping Over 1000 Families Meet Their Real Estate Needs !!!

Direct: 972-365-7888

2016年3月1日星期二

Digital Showings

Ask any real estate professional if they have sold a house without the buyer having physically seen it and they’ll most likely tell you they have. While it may have been an unconventional sale, it is more prevalent today than it was twenty or even ten years ago.

The digital world of the Internet has changed the process of buying a home. It is evolving as people have become more comfortable with the reliability of the information available.

Getting in a car and driving around all day looking at homes that may or may not fit your needs or wants is not productive for buyers or the agents.
The quality and the quantity of pictures has dramatically improved in the last twenty years. Buyers and agents alike can view a property online and get a fairly accurate idea of the condition and layout of home and whether it warrants a physical visit. Videos can “walk” you through the house to be able to assess if the floorplan will work for you.

The 2015 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers reports 89% of all buyers cited an online website as an information source with real estate agents being a close second at 87%. 42% of all buyers looked online for properties for sale as the first step taken during the home buying process.

Interestingly, 87% of buyers in 2015 purchased their home through a real estate agent or broker compared to only 68% in 2001. The agent services deemed most valuable to buyers were help finding the right home to purchase (53%) and help to negotiate the terms of sale (12%) and the price (11%).
A challenge for sellers is to understand that the digital showings are a critical part of today’s process. They save time and money for both buyers and are convenient because they can be done at any time of day and from anywhere. The difficulty is the seller’s feelings of inactivity when they believe their home is being shown frequently.

Agents can share statistics that show a variety of digital activity like number of unique visitors, length of time spent on the listing site as well as the other features that were accessed. 65% of all buyers walked through the home they purchased after they viewed it online.

Wendy Huang, MBA,SRS, GRI, CRS, IRES, e-pro, ASP, ALHS, SFR, RFC, RE/MAX Premier Group, RE/MAX Hall of Fame,

RE/MAX Lifetime Achievement ; Over 20 years' experience!

Helping Over 1000 Families Meet Their Real Estate Needs !!!

Direct: 972-365-7888

2016年2月22日星期一

Pay Yourself First

The principle to pay yourself first has been referred to as the Golden Rule of Personal Finance.
The concept is that one of the first checks you write each month is for your own savings. The rationale is that if there is no money left after a person pays their bills, there is nothing to contribute to savings or investments that month. pay yourself first - check -300.png

By establishing a priority to save, a person realizes that the balance of their monthly income must cover living expenses and other discretionary spending. This is a much different strategy than saving what is left over from monthly expenses and other spending.
Many financial experts have likened an amortizing mortgage to a forced savings account because a portion of each payment is applied to the reduction of the principal amount owed. Some homeowners have taken that concept further with a shorter term mortgage to build equity faster.
In the example below, a $250,000 mortgage at 4% interest is compared with two different terms. The 30 year mortgage would have payments of $1,193.54 each month with the first payment having $360.20 being applied to the principal. Each payment would have an increasingly larger amount applied to the principal.
The 15 year mortgage would have payments of $1,849.22 each month with the first payment having $1,015.89 being applied to the principal. The $665.68 difference in payments goes toward reducing the loan amount and acts like a forced savings.
A homeowner might opt for the longer term and intend to put the difference in the two payments in a bank savings account each month or make an additional principal contribution to pay the mortgage down. However, as any person responsible for paying household bills knows, there will always be something that comes up that could hijack your intentions.
By committing to the shorter term mortgage, a borrower is committing to make the higher payment each month and the benefit is that it will reduce your principal balance faster.

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Wendy Huang, MBA,SRS, GRI, CRS, IRES, e-pro, ASP, ALHS, SFR, RFC, RE/MAX Premier Group, RE/MAX Hall of Fame,

RE/MAX Lifetime Achievement ; Over 20 years' experience!

Helping Over 1000 Families Meet Their Real Estate Needs !!!

Direct: 972-365-7888

2016年2月1日星期一

Is Understanding Costing You Money?

People tend to fear what they don’t understand. Homeowners understand fixed rate mortgages and remember the horror stories of people who lost their homes because they could no longer afford them when their adjustable rate mortgages went up.

Interest rates on fixed-rate mortgages have be so low for enough years, that borrowers haven’t even given much consideration to an adjustable rate mortgage. Changes in the way adjustable rate mortgages are now made make them much safer for borrowers who understand not only how they work but know they’ll only be in the home for a limited period of time.
Adjustable rate mortgages can go up or down according to an index that the lender has no control. The amount that can be adjusted is limited by caps for each period and for the life of the loan. While there are different periods for ARMs, the most popular lock the first period for five to seven years and then, can adjust annually after that.
One quick and easy way to determine whether an adjustable may be a viable alternative to a fixed would be to determine the maximum payment adjustments possible to find out when the savings from the early years are exhausted which would be the breakeven point. If the borrower is certain they’ll move prior to that date, the ARM will definitely provide a lower cost of housing.
The breakeven point for a $250,000 mortgage would be 8 years 3 months comparing a 2.9% 5/1 adjustable-rate with 1 and 5 caps to a 3.8% fixed-rate mortgage. In the initial five-year period, the payments on the ARM would be $124.32 lower and the unpaid balance would be $3,522 less than the fixed-rate to make a total savings of $10,981.
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Whether you’re buying or refinancing, get some good advice from a trusted lending professional about the adjustable-rate alternative. If you’re only going to be in the home a short time after the mortgage is made and your tolerance for risk allows you to feel comfortable, the ARM may be the best choice for you. Check out this ARM Comparison to use your own numbers.
Wendy Huang, MBA,SRS, GRI, CRS, IRES, e-pro, ASP, ALHS, SFR, RFC, RE/MAX Premier Group, RE/MAX Hall of Fame,

RE/MAX Lifetime Achievement ; Over 20 years' experience!

Helping Over 1000 Families Meet Their Real Estate Needs !!!

Direct: 972-365-7888

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blog.TxFamily.com

2016年3月30日星期三

3208 Golden Springs Plano TX 75025

2016年3月28日星期一

More Money in Your Paycheck

2016年3月25日星期五

Postponding a Purchase

2016年3月14日星期一

Worth the Effort

2016年3月1日星期二

Digital Showings

2016年2月22日星期一

Pay Yourself First

2016年2月1日星期一

Is Understanding Costing You Money?

關於我自己

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2016年3月30日 星期三

2016年3月28日 星期一

2016年3月25日 星期五

2016年3月14日 星期一

2016年3月1日 星期二

2016年2月22日 星期一

2016年2月1日 星期一

2016年3月30日星期三

2016年3月28日星期一

2016年3月25日星期五

2016年3月14日星期一

2016年3月1日星期二

2016年2月22日星期一

2016年2月1日星期一