Hugh's Worthless Blog

Believe it or not, our home for the past 13 years which we put on the market at the beginning of the month may soon belong to a new owner in early April (as long as nothing kills the offered deal before then.) Since we did not allow anyone to even see the house until Feb 8th (the first Open House) that means it sold in less than 3 weeks since the initial showing. Many people would say we sold too low, but guess what? Our sales price is still 47% higher than what we paid in 1996 which amounts to a 3% annual increase. The sky high prices of the 2003 to 2006 time period are still clouding the minds of people to house prices. Sure, we put in quite a bit more money over the years into the house in maintenance and improvements, but we also received 13 years of enjoyable living in the house as well. We are lucky we never had a huge loan on the house and we did not refinance when home values were high to a 100% LTV loan. And once we receive the proceeds from the sale, much of it will go to...

There sure are a lot of misconceptions about the new HASP plan to fight foreclosures that Obama introduced last week, so I thought I would try to spell it out (as I understand it) using, that's right, a handy, dandy online calculator ! Many people seem to think that any random person who bought way more house than they could afford are going to be able to keep it and the government is footing the bill. The plan is nothing like that at all. It will only apply for people who earn adequate income, and are working with their lender to renegotiate their loan to a point where the borrower still pays the vast majority of the payment. The federal government is subsidizing the lender somewhat, since the banks now must steal less money from the borrower, but most of the "loss" is only a paper loss to the lender. For instance, here is an example you can find at the US Treasury site. If the loan originally was a $207,000 fixed loan at 6.50% on a house worth $260,000 in 2006, then t...

It appears the $15,000 tax credit for any home buyer will not be making it into the stimulus package, but instead they are just slightly improving the first time buyers credit from last year. The credit increases from $7,500 to $8,000 and the requirement to repay the credit disappears. The same income limits are in place and it is still available only to people who have not owned a home for the past three years. So it is slightly better for those who could have already qualified for the 2008 credit anyway, but does not help any more people (other home buyers who are not first time buyers, or sellers of homes too expensive for first timers to consider.) Anyway, now that it is finalized, I am hoping the first time home buyers will realize things are settled and will go buy a house since it is now a free $8,000 for them that does not need to be repaid. So now anyone in the St. Louis area can come and buy my house on Weatherby Drive in the Pattonville School District (63146 zip code). I ...

Okay, nobody gave us an offer for our house after our open house yesterday, so I wrote up a lovely Buy My House calculator showing folks how they can buy my house with help from the federal tax credit and also the state of Missouri. It appears that the $15,000 housing tax credit will remain in the stimulus package regardless how else it changes (since both parties want to help out the housing market), so it is just a matter of time before that credit becomes law. The tax credit should help people with good credit be able to afford the down payment on a home, especially now when most lenders require a 5% minimum downpayment (no more no cash down loans for anybody!) The listing at realtor.com actually looks nicer than the Coldwell Banker Gundaker listing , or the one at Zillow.com . The listing at Trulia is not too bad either. All these different search sites sure makes it easy to find homes for sale. Now all we need is a buyer!

Hey, you want an easy $15,000? Just buy my house which is currently for sale , and you will be eligible for a $15,000 tax credit as approved by the Senate if the House and President Obama approve the stimulus bill as it stands. This replaces the $7,500 tax credit from 2008 that was for first time buyers and had to be repaid. Now anybody purchasing a home in 2009 is eligible for up to $15,000 (or 10% of the house price, whichever is lower) and the credit does not need to be repaid. And, no, I will not consider selling our house for under $150,000 so you would receive the maximum $15,000 for buying our house. Note that this is a tax credit which comes out of your federal income taxes, so you would typically not see the money upfront, it would just reduce your federal tax bill by $7,500 for the next two years. Note, however, that Missouri did pass a bill that would give you a $6,750 check upfront to cover the $7,500 first time buyer credit, so I would hope they would do the same for thi...

Well, we have our house on the market, and its listing just showed up on the Gundaker site that covers all of the St Louis area. Our first open house is scheduled for this Sunday, Feb 8 (1-3pm) and the pictures should be showing up soon. I even made a quick GooglePages site for the house sale. One thing I noticed is that many of the realtor based MARIS MLS search sites now want you to give them an e-mail address and a phone number before you can start searching. Two that do not are the main CBGundaker search site and also the associated Coldwell Banker Premier site. Some like realtor.com make you go through a few pages to start searching (first region, then school district, then add more criteria). Back when we were buying we were able to use a really cool site called the Home Buyer's Scouting Report , which saved your search criteria and sent you updates on specific properties. Unfortunately we do not have access to that anymore to track listing activity in our area. The Cold...