LAS VEGAS HOMEOWNERS WATCH AS US MORTGAGE RATES DROP AGAIN
This is sort of fun: Mortgage rates, Las Vegas home loan applicants and soon-to-be-applicants should be delighted to hear, went down again last week. The national average quoted in the Washington Post notched down to 3.61% on a 30-year fixed loan, down from blah blah blah… You will probably not be surprised by the presence of the multiple blahs. By now, everyone in Las Vegas has simply heard this so often and for so long that it has practically lost all meaning. But it’s sort of fun to realize that we were already celebrating the decline in mortgage rates to 3.8% a year ago, although it was pointed out even back then that we’d been hearing it for so often and so long… Despite the repetition, in the real world of our Las Vegas—where low mortgage rates translate into very real payment dollars saved every month—this is the kind of news that impacts a family’s future disposable income more than any other. The difference between last year’s average mortgage interest rate and that average last week means savings of more than $13,000 over the span of a $350K loan. And that was just the improvement since last year. The savings over historical average mortgage rates (7.49%) amounts to a gasp-inducing $306,000 for the same loan…a difference that surely deserves banner headlines. That didn’t happen. Even the most financially sophisticated journals seemed to have all but succumbed to the numbness-producing sameness of the news, partly because the Fed’s announced plan to raise their Fed Funds rate seems to be fizzling out. The Economist described the moves by the Federal Reserve variously as “lackluster” and “dovish.” “If any other lift-off were so sluggish,” they yawned in the print edition, “you would not want to be aboard the rocket.” There was little more excitement evident at The Wall Street Journal, who focused on guessing what mortgage rate changes might be in store. They found that the mix of good and bad economic numbers meant that the Federal Reserve “may opt to simply wait”—rather than rocking the boat and raising in June, as had been expected. “Mortgage Rates: Trending Down Going Into Homebuying Season” was the most excitement Forbes’ headline writers could muster; possibly because the news that followed was anything but new. Forbes quoted Freddie Mac’s chief economist with his less than stirring pronouncement: “Since the start of February, mortgage rates have varied within a narrow range.” Forbes’ deduction? “For now, home loans are really cheap.” Does this mean that Las Vegas home buyers can relax for a while longer, content to rely on an extended period of this kind of bargain-basement financing? Perhaps. But although those historical averages are reassuring when compared to current mortgage rates, they also stand as a sobering reminder of what the new normal couldbecome. In other words, if striking while the iron is hot is still common sense, giving me a call sooner rather than later could be a prudent move!
BEFORE STAGING YOUR LAS VEGAS HOME DO SOME PRESTAGING
There is a useful new way to approach preparing your home for sale—one that few Las Vegas homeowners would have found practical just a few years ago. To start with, the rate at which consumer technology is changing can be maddening— even if most of the changes improve how things work. At this point, most Las Vegas residents accept the fact that every new laptop or smartphone upgrade will mean that, sooner or later, we’ll have to sit down and learn how the new features work (or how the old ones don’t). Some of the devices we now use regularly have changed how we approach many everyday tasks. One device that does that in spades is the smartphone—which has changed much about how people communicate. It also changed a large part of how events are recorded. Slowly but surely, the phones began to include not just cameras, but superior ones. Digital photographs are now so much easier to use and distribute than the 20th-century version that our Las Vegas neighbors are texting and posting and emailing photos without giving it a second thought. Of course, the phenomenon has a large and often-noted (here, at least) impact on Las Vegas real estate, most obviously on the efficiency by which we Realtors® can stay in touch with clients, prospective buyers, our office, etc. For homeowners who are in the opening stages of getting a Las Vegas property ready for sale, the ease with which smartphone snapshots can be taken means that everyone has access to a terrific new tool. One of the most significant early jobs involves performing an assessment of what needs to be done to prepare a home for listing. Which areas are needing repair or replacement? Which will benefit most from a décor makeover? In practice, it’s hard for anyone to do a good job prioritizing improvements for their own home because they tend not to see things the way outsiders do. That’s where the smartphones can come in handy: call it “pre-staging.” Instead of just walking through the house, scribbling notes about what needs to be done, it’s now easy to record a series of photos of your walk-through, and then sit down and make those judgments based on how the rooms look through a lens. For the most part, because those will be snapshots rather than professionally lit glamor shots, the details will look less than gorgeous. But that’s actually useful, because it makes it easier to spot real decorating weak points. It also emphasizes to any eye the importance of the tried-and-true staging verities—such as the necessity for clearing clutter and letting in as much light as possible. Smartphones can be a truly useful new tool, allowing pre-staging visualization to channel early efforts into the right Las Vegas. This can be the first pass at preparing your Las Vegas home for listing…along with that early first call to my office!
TAKING A STAB AT THE BEST TIME TO SELL A HOUSE IN LAS VEGAS
The Huffington Post (“Huffpo” to its friends) has an entire section devoted to real estate doings. Although the vast majority of those dispatches are tidbits about awesomely expensive celebrity condos in Manhattan, sometimes the Huffpo editors’ attention wanders momentarily to other matters. Last month they uncovered a study which delved into a topic of interest to any Las Vegas homeowner who’s been thinking about when to enter the Las Vegas listings. The best time to sell a house, according to the study, is, specifically, RIGHT NOW!!!! That is, between May 1 and May 15! Or maybe not. The picture for Las Vegas was a little less definite than the Big Picture claim that “homes that sold in the first half of May…sold, on average, around 1.5 days faster than homes that weren’t listed in that timeframe.” It turns out that the study, which was put together by Zillow, was wishy-washy when it came to specifying individual Las Vegas areas. The “on average” part of the claim makes the conclusion less conclusive. Because the sales statistics that were analyzed were collected from all over the country—differences in seasonality was given as the reason why any individual region might not line up with the average. Seasonality was what we think of as weather. And since weather is not the same everywhere… In other words, the best time to sell a house in our Las Vegas might not expire at the end of this week, after all. There’s no need to panic if you plan to list your own property but haven’t quite put the place in show condition. The window isn’t going to slam shut on Sunday. The reason for the uncertainty about the best time to sell your house specifically here in Las Vegas (in addition to seasonality) has to do with data smoothing and suppression. The study went into how data experts apply those to raw numbers before reaching a conclusion—but since they weren’t going to be able to zero in on the best time to sell a house in Las Vegas, let’s skip those details. It was noted that the entire month of May is a good time to sell your house, in most Las Vegas areas. That’s something everyone can agree with. In fact, the whole spring selling season is universally recognized in those terms—the Huffington Post included. Meantime, we here will be doing our best to continue to make right now a very good time to sell your Las Vegas home. That will begin to happen as soon as you give me a call!
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