Heather's Bucks County Real Estate Blog: July 2010

If you're searching for a home in Bucks County, PA, you may have your "must have," "desirable," and "would be nice but not necessary" lists all typed out.

 Here's my advice - chuck 'em.

Oh, we've all heard about making your lists.  We start our journey armed with a mental picture of our dream house, and then blaze through home search websites, ignoring the 3 bedroom homes, or those without a fireplace, or without a 2 car garage.  

One of my favorite Soulful Sisters Susan Haughton wrote a great blog, entitled, If Buyers are Liars, then I'm the Biggest One of All.    Spawning a surge of posts by like-minded (and awesome) REALTORS like Kim Brown and Jennifer Allan, we've all decided to nod our heads and agree with each other wisely.  

You may think you know, but you have no idea.

Have you ever had a mental picture of exactly what you wanted?  Maybe it was an outfit, or a piece of furniture, or even your new home in Bucks County?  The subsequent shopping trip is usually a lesson in futility, because you can hardly ever find what you've envisioned in your mind. 

Once you start looking at homes in Bucks County, you'll find that those lists you've made are pretty worthless.  You buy a home, not a house, and that's more than the number of bedrooms, fireplaces, and acreage.  When you walk into a home that works for you, it's an emotional connection, a feeling of "This home is GREAT!"  I've recently compared it to this:  You've always had a thing for blonds, however, you haven't been connecting with any of the blonds you've been meeting lately.  Then, WHAMO!  You meet this smoking-hot, charming brunette,  It's love, baby!

So, how do I suggest Buyers search for homes in Bucks County?

• Get a list of every home on the market in your price range / area.
• Take a Sunday drive past every single one and cross out all of them that immediately give you an "I don't like it." feeling.
• Tour the rest.  If it ain't working for you, move on.  Give it a fair shot, but you won't talk yourself into liking a home the longer you stay in it.  You either like it or you don't.  
• Realize that "I don't like it" is an complete answer.  Sometimes, there is no "because."
• As you continue to tour, figure out what you like and don't like.  Haven't found a new development you like after looking at 5 or 6?  Then you can probably eliminate them from your search from now on.  They just don't do it for you.

Tanner Brothers Dairy in Richboro PA offers local homeowners a great place to shop for milk, produce, and most importantly...ICE CREAM.

If you like what you see, there are a few home developments within walking distance of Tanner's.  Visit my website if you'd like to find a home for sale in Richboro.  

Located at the intersection of Almshouse and Hatboro Roads in Northampton Township, near Richboro, PA,  Tanner's has been offering locals families farm fresh milk for over 100 years. 

Our family does a "Tanner's Run" at least once a week.  What do I like about Tanner Brothers?

• The Sweet Corn on the Cob
• The Half and Half
• The Chocolate Milk
• The Butter
• The Snacks

Karen and I had this discussion on Facebook one day, too.  (insert rioutously funny MLS descriptions)

I'll never forget the first time my husband and I pulled up to a "fixer-upper."  It was the first house we had ever gone to see.  My husband, who NEVER curses, sat in the car with a look of shock on his face, and said, "Oh my God...this place is a...is a...is a...shithole!"

We'll never see that in the comment section of the MLS!

We continue to see stable pricing for homes for sale in Bucks County, PA, as indicated by both the median price and average price for homes in Bucks County year - over - year, June 2010.

Below are the home price statistics for Bucks County, PA:

Median Price is UP 3.4% to $299,900

Average Price is UP 1% to $339,820

Council Rock School District home prices also remained stable:

Median Price is UP 1.4% to $388,000

Average Price is UP 0.5% to $433,595

***FYI, I know that it's nearly impossible to read these charts. That's why you should definitely shoot me an email and let me send you pretty, full-sized .pdf ones.  I can run these reports any way you want, but I usually recommend township & zip or school district.  If you go with a more narrow search, the samples become too small and the results skewed.

Give me a call or email!  Let me run your numbers!

I just won $50,000 today!  (‘Kay, not really, but I did SAVE myself $50,000 over the next 15 years)

15 year mortgage rates are at 4% today. 

I was shocked at how low they were and decided to do a little investigating “just to see” if I could manage converting my 30 year loan to a 15 year one.  If you’ve been in your loan for 5-7 years, and are at an interest rate of 6-7% you should run your numbers and see if a 15 year mortgage can save you a boatload of interest and knock significant years off your loan.  Bet you it can!

Check out the tables below:

For a loan amount of $250,000

Now, lets take a look at these numbers if you’ve had your mortgage for 5 years…

By remortgaging the remaining balance, you’ll have a monthly payment of $1720, save $134,000 in interest, and pay off the original loan in 20  years as opposed to 30 years.

HUH?

I seriously expected you to follow all that?

Let’s do it again for a loan amount of $150,000:

 If you’ve had your mortgage for 5 years…

By remortgaging the remaining balance, you’ll have a monthly payment of $1035, save $73,000 in interest, and pay off the original loan in 20 years as opposed to 30 years.

If you really study these numbers, the difference in the monthly payment really isn’t too enormous when compared to the amount of interest you’ll be saving, as well as the years you’ll knock off your loan. 

If you’d like me to run some numbers for you, feel free to shoot me an email, call me out on Facebook, or hit the mortgage calculator yourself! 

Our in-house Mortgage Rep, Tom Fullen, hooked me up today, and always does a great job.  I used Tom even before I started to work for Prudential and he always gets me a great rate, and gets the loans done.