New Homes

David Weekley Homes is closing out several neighborhoods in the Fort Worth area. They have some good deals available. One home that's ready and waiting is a four bedroom two and a half bath in Keller ISD. The entry and living room floors are hardwood. Master bedroom has a sitting area, It backs to a farmhouse. The yard faces west and with the huge covered patio and tree line along the backside of the fence, it would be a very usable yard. 

Eagle Mountain Lake Waterfront Homes

Houses on the lake are still moving. 7 homes sold in June, 4 more so far in July, and there are 6 more pending. There are 51 active listings ranging from a condo for $119,000 to a fabulous home on almost 4 acres with a garage apartment, pool, outdoor kitchen, and incredible lake view for $3,500,000.

There's one that would make a great weekend home for $205,000. I still love the one in Oak Harbor for $684,000. It has a 4 car garage, granite counters, pool, boat dock, and great views. There's one in Lake Country for $435,000. It's been on the market a couple of weeks. I haven't seen it yet, but from the pictures, it looks like with a little updating it would be a great house.

Call me if you'd like a list of what's available or if you'd like to take a look at any of these.

Congress Bans Down Payment Assistance Programs

Congress passed a bill today to try to deal with the housing - mortgage problems facing the country. Among the many provisions of the bill designed to help home owners avoid foreclosure and shore up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is a provision to end the down payment assistance programs that have become popular with first time buyers over the last several years.

Seller funded down payment assistance programs popped up when someone figured out that the law allows a charity to provide the 3% down payment required when a buyer finances a home with an FHA mortgage. The seller donates the amount of the down payment to the charity along with an additional fee. The charity pays the down payment, and the buyer moves into the home without having to come up with any money out of their own pocket.

President Bush is expected to sign the bill next week and the down payment assistance ban is set to take affect October 1st, 2008. If you're planning on buying a home using one of these programs, there's still time, but you need to hurry!

Short Sales and Foreclosures, Are We Having Fun Yet?

Short sales and foreclosures can be good investments, but they can take a lot of time and patience. Last month I had a buyer ready to pay cash for a home in the $120,000 to $140,000 range. His lease was up on his apartment at the end of June, so we needed to close on something by about the third week of June. He first contacted me on May 24th, so we had plenty of time... you'd think.

On our first trip to look at homes, he and his fiance wanted to see homes with pools. We looked at about six homes. They loved the last one. It was a fantastic house with five bedrooms and a pool. It was a short sale, meaning the lender would need to approve the sale and agree to take less at closing than was owned on the home.

I called the agent and was told that she had submitted an offer to the bank over two months ago, in March. She was still trying to get the bank to set the price they would accept. She didn't know for sure if that buyer was still interested, but she didn't think so. We submitted an offer but continued to look at homes.

We found another home they really liked. It was a foreclosure. Big house with four bedrooms, a game room, and a media room. All the ceiling fans and doorknobs were missing, but it seemed to be in pretty good shape otherwise. We put in a full price offer. They received 8 offers and the agent informed me that another offer had been accepted. Darn!

We found another foreclosure in the same neighborhood as the short sale, with almost the same floor plan, but no pool. They had just lowered the list price from $159,900 to $120,900. We put in an offer for about $5000 over list price. The bank received 12 offers and chose another.

We were still communicating with the short sale agent and she was still trying to get an answer from the bank. We were into the middle of June by now and panic was setting in. On the 16th of June the agent for the foreclosure with the media room called me to say they were accepting our offer. Woo hoo! Never really found out what happened the week before when they said they had accepted someone else's offer.

Now all we had to do was get all the paperwork ready to close before the end of the month. We were shooting for about June 25th, but the resale certificate from the HOA wasn't received until the 26th, so we closed on Friday the 27th, leaving the buyer 3 days to replace ceiling fans and door knobs and move out of his apartment.

The agent for the short sale with the 5 bedrooms and fantastic pool called me this week to say the bank has said they are willing to accept $137,000 with no buyer concessions. The original buyer has moved on so... if you're interested in this home call me! It's located in the Eagle Mountain - Saginaw school district. This one should go really fast now that the lender is ready to move it.

Eagle Mountain Lake Real Estate Update

May was a busy month. Five waterfront homes closed and there are a dozen more sales pending. Some really nice ones went fast. A few that had been on the market for more than a year are now gone too. Luckily a couple of my favorites are still available though.
If you want a lake front home, the best way to see the good ones as soon as they come on the market is to let your agent set up an automatic search that will email you every morning if there is a new listing that meets your criteria.

Tarrant County Foreclosures

There are still an incredible amount of foreclosures. There were more than 1300 homes posted for sale at the Tarrant County court house for May. Many of them won't be sold and will be listed with an agent and available through the MLS system. Foreclosures can be a good deal, but you need to look them over carefully and have a qualified home inspector do a full inspection. Owners about to lose their house aren't known for stellar home maintenance. I guess on the bright side, many of them are almost new, so lax maintenance, hasn't had time to hurt them. More and more brand new homes are coming up as foreclosures as some builders get deeper into trouble and lose their homes.

Mortgage Rates

Rates for a 30 year fixed loan are at 6.06% this week, very little change from 6.03% last week. 15 year fixed rate mortgages are averaging 5.59%, down a little bit from 5.62% a week ago.

Eagle Mountain Waterfront

There's a new listing on the lake for someone looking for a small home or weekend lake house on the east side of the lake. It has about 1450 sq. ft. with 2 bedrooms and 2 baths. It looks like it needs some updating, but it has trees and a dock. It's listed at $299,900.

If you're looking for a more substantial home, there's a really nice home in Oak Harbour Estates. Granite kitchen, pool, fireplace in master bedroom, and very nice view of the lake. They're asking $694,000.

There's one available in Lake Country Estates for $424,900. It's not on open water, but it's a really nice house. It has a 2800 sq, ft., and a nice deck.

At this time there are 51 waterfront homes listed on the lake ranging from $79,500 for 1.25 acres with a gazebo and mobile home on a little bit of water to $2,500,000 for over 10,000 sq. ft., pool, 5 fireplaces, 7 bedrooms, 6 full and 2 half baths with a nice view of the lake.

New Listing

New listing in North Fort Worth, Keller school district. 5 bedroom, 3 living areas, 2 dining areas, great kitchen, big backyard and patio. Really pretty house.

Catching Up

Haven't posted in a long time. Went on a cruise in October, then the holidays, busy with real estate, time just flies!

Our office dropped the RE/MAX franchise. We're now Texas DFW Homes. Eagle Mountain Lake doesn't have too many really interesting listings right now. The best lake property I've shown recently is in Oak Harbor Estates. Has a big yard, pool, and good views of the lake. Priced at $694,000.