Beloved Greenway Village in Cinco Ranch is one of the most popular sections of Katy’s grand master-planned community. This weekend, August 21 and 22, I will be hosting two open houses in Greenway Village. Please come by and tour these remarkable homes; if you can’t make it, just contact me for a private showing.
Saturday, August 21, 2 to 4 p.m. at 23211 Fallmist Court: Fantastic location in beloved Greenway Village. Lowest priced 4/3.5/3 in Cinco Ranch! Greenbelt culdesac location! Open back gate to 10 acres of contiguous play area including school playground, gazebo park, greenbelt! Walk to school, pool, park out front door OR back! Recent roof, double pane windows, covered back patio, garden deck area, wood laminate floors, study w/French doors & private access to master! All Cinco amenities, low tax rate, highly acclaimed exemplary Fielder El/Cinco HS! $244,000.
Sunday, August 22, 12:30 to 3:30 at 23203 Winding Knoll Drive: Charming traditional in tranquil parklike setting on quiet culdesac street in beloved Greenway Village Cinco Ranch. Walk to school/pool/park, nature trails, lakes! 2nd BR down option w/full bath, 20 inch porcelain tile floors all wet areas! H2O htr, roof, upstairs HVAC all replaced! New fence 06/10! Stunning 2 story brick FP & 18 ft ceiling in gorgeous den, usable 3-car detached gar! Peaceful private backyard w/small pond, flagstone, garden. Low tax rate & zoned to triple exemplary school track! $219,000.
Spoken by Julie Q. Fuelling |
Unique tax benefits apply only to homeownership; mortgage interest and property taxes are deductible. Moreover, for married couples, profits of up to $500,000 on the sale of a principal residence are exempt from capital gains taxes. For single taxpayers, $250,000 is excluded from tax on capital gains.
When buyers purchase a home, they receive the full benefit of homeownership via a cash down payment that is only a fraction of the total purchase price. This is called “leveraging”. It makes the rate of return on a home purchase greater than on other purchases with the same value, such as stocks, where the buyer must put up the entire money.
For most Americans, their home is a primary source of net worth; this is an important step in accumulating personal financial assets over the long term. Home equity represents the largest Read the rest of this entry »
Spoken by Julie Q. Fuelling |
Home ownership is an important and defining part of the Katy lifestyle. Now that the tax credits for first-time and repeat homebuyers have expired, many people are wondering if this is a good time to buy a Katy home. The answer is yes!
Even without the tax credits, there are many opportunitites in today’s Katy housing market including affordable prices and low mortgage rates. Market conditions may change and these opportunities may not be around for long, so homebuyers shouldn’t wait.
Plentiful Katy real estate inventory provides a great choice of homes in all prices, styles, locations and ages, including new construction. Many existing home owners who postponed trading up, downsizing or relocating due to market conditions are now ready to sell. Houses in Katy, both south and north of I-10, go on the market daily with many of these being more affordable than they were in the recent past. Foreclosures still exist, too.
Like Katy inventory and pricing, mortgage rates are at very favorable levels; some weeks Read the rest of this entry »
Spoken by Julie Q. Fuelling |
Closings of properties purchased through the federal homebuyer tax credit combined with the seasonal spring-summer uptick in consumer activity kept Houston-area single-family home sales in positive territory for a fourth straight month in June. However, expiration of the homebuyer tax credit slowed the brisk pace of sales volume that the market enjoyed in recent months.
Congress extended the time necessary to close on homes purchased with the tax credit by three months to September 30, provided the property was under contract by April 30. The May and June decline in pending sales—property listings that are expected to close within the next 30 to 60 days—was expected, as homebuyers rushed to take advantage of the tax credit and is considered an indicator that sales volume will slow in July.
According to the latest monthly data compiled by the Houston Association of Realtors® (HAR), June sales of single-family homes throughout the Houston market rose 2.9 percent compared to June 2009. That follows increases of 11.3 percent in March, 27.8 percent in April and 18.2 percent in May. Sales volume showed gains in all single-family home pricing segments except the $150,000 to $250,000 market. The largest increase took place among homes priced from $500,000 and above. Sales of all property types combined climbed 4.1 percent in June on a year-over-year basis.
The average price of a single-family home edged up 0.9 percent from June 2009 to $222,767, Read the rest of this entry »
Spoken by Julie Q. Fuelling |
By: G. M. Filisko, Guest Author
After finding a buyer, all you have to do to make it to closing is to avoid these five traps.
Finding a buyer for your home is just the first step on the home selling path. Tread carefully in the weeks ahead because if you make one of these common seller mistakes, your deal may not close.
Mistake #1: Ignore contingencies
If your contract requires you to do something before the sale, do it. If the buyers make the sale contingent on certain repairs, don’t do cheap patch-jobs and expect the buyers not to notice the fixes weren’t done properly.
Mistake #2: Don’t bother to fix things that break
The last thing any seller needs is for the buyers to notice on the pre-closing walk-through that the home isn’t in the same condition as when they made their offer. When things fall apart in a home about to be purchased, sellers must make the repairs. If the furnace fails, get a professional to fix it, and inform the buyers that the work was done. When you fail to maintain Read the rest of this entry »
Spoken by Julie Q. Fuelling |
If you think Firethorne’s tennis coach is just an ace on the tennis court, you couldn’t be more wrong. Resident athlete/sports coach Chris Dante didn’t even take up the sport until he was 30, after excelling in baseball, (in 1988 he made it as far as the Olympic Trials), basketball, (City University of New York team captain), and football, as well as boxing and Taekwondo, (he has a black belt)!
“But after one too many broken noses, I turned to something less brutal — tennis,” said Dante, who helped launch Firethorne’s premiere tennis program this spring. With the new Women’s Tennis League and beginner tennis clinics now in full swing, Firethorne continues to demonstrate the Katy/Fulshear community’s commitment to fitness and competitive sports, through its hike and bike trails, swimming and running, regulation lacrosse fields and personal training at the on-site exercise facility.
During the summer, Coach Dante offers two morning clinics for resident children, (9 and 10 a.m.), and one 6 p.m. clinic for adult beginners. He also teaches private Read the rest of this entry »
Spoken by Julie Q. Fuelling |
It”s nearly impossible for the average citizen to keep track of all events directly impacting housing and mortgage markets. Professional mortgage lenders monitor the live trading of Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS). Government and conventional mortgage rates are directly based upon MBS. So…what exactly is a MBS?
Compliments of Wikipedia
A mortgage-backed security (MBS) is an asset-backed security or debt obligation that represents a claim on the cash flows from mortgage loans, most commonly on residential property.
First, mortgage loans are purchased from banks, mortgage companies, and other originators. Then, these loans are assembled into pools. This is done by government agencies, government-sponsored enterprises, and private entities, which may offer features to mitigate the risk of default associated with these mortgages.
Mortgage-backed securities represent claims on the principal and payments on the loans in the pool, through a process known as “securitization”. These securities are usually sold as bonds, but financial innovation has created a variety of securities that Read the rest of this entry »
Spoken by Julie Q. Fuelling |
In 2010 Firethorne broke all first-quarter new home sales records in its five-year history, highlighted by a 284 percent increase over its first quarter new home sales in 2009. This figure represents the greatest percentage increase in sales — double that of the next highest sales increase of 140 percent — of any of the top 14 Houston-area master-designed/master-planned communities researched by Metrostudy, the leading provider of primary and secondary market information to the housing and related industries nationwide.
Firethorne, a 1,400-acre master-designed community is located in Katy/Fulshear, 15 miles west of the Energy Corridor.
“We are extremely pleased with the results of our Firethorne sales and marketing teams and appreciate the tremendous support of the local Realtor® community,” said Firethorne Marketing Director Janet Burkett. Realtors® generate 75 percent of all new home sales.
While she suggests the federal tax credits for first-time homebuyers may have planted a seed in people’s minds, she attributes the strong new home sales in the Firethorne community to the continued growth in the Katy and Fulshear areas and for being part of one of the best school Read the rest of this entry »
Spoken by Julie Q. Fuelling |
I’ve had the busiest spring of my 21-year real estate career!s As the April 30th deadline to qualify for the tax credits, $8,000 for first-time home buyers and $6,500 for existing home owners, loomed, home sales got really crazy.
It was not unusual for brand new listings to have multiple offers. Bidding wars ensued. Here in Katy, particularly on the southside of I-10, it was impossible to believe that a real estate recession exists.
Nationwide, the tax credit bills created a strong upswing in home sales. To read the rest of this story, see OnlyKaty.com.
Spoken by Julie Q. Fuelling |
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