Huntington Beach Homes and Condos
Building Huntington Beach Home Equity
A popular question from prospective Huntington Beach homebuyers relates to building home equity. Buyers like to estimate how much a home may increase in value based upon past appreciation. One of the many advantages of home ownership is that appreciation is based on the home’s market value rather than on the actual dollar amount invested or the down payment so that a $100,000.00 home that appreciates 5% is now worth $105,000.00, especially in Huntington Beach.
With a typical 30-year loan, most of your monthly payment goes toward interest payments with only small amounts going to the principle in the early years. Only half the principle is repaid in the first 23 years of the loan. You can build Huntington Beach home equity faster by choosing a 15-year loan instead of a 30-year loan.
Building Huntington Beach Home Equity
As a Huntington Beach homeowner you have the right to pay more towards the principle loan amount each month. Let’s say your monthly payment is $700.00 a month and $100.00 a month is being applied to the principle. If you choose to pay $900.00 instead of $700.00, the $200.00 overage will be applied entirely to the principle. Thus, instead of gaining $1,200.00 a year in Huntington Beach home equity, you gain $3,600.00.
The only factor being considered here is Home Equity. In individual cases it may be wiser to invest than to pre-pay your home loan. It also may be wiser to pay off high-interest, non-deductible loans before considering your Huntington Beach home equity building options. Your financial advisor is the one to consult for these matters. If you would like up-to-the-minute information about Huntington Beach home appreciation values in your area, please call or E-mail me today.
Buying a Huntington Beach Fixer-Upper
Finding the right Huntington Beach fixer upper often involves finding a seller who is in financial difficulty and wants to sell in order to protect their credit or to avoid foreclosure. Various government agencies such as VA, HUD, IRS and others offer homes in foreclosure for sale and these homes can make excellent fixer-uppers. Bank owned properties known as REOs, real estate owned, offer good opportunities since financial institutions want to eliminate their real estate holdings by selling foreclosures quickly.
Join my network of Huntington Beach buyers looking for specific types of properties. Call or Email me today.
Does Your Huntington Beach Have Curb Appeal?
Every prospective buyer who visits your Huntington Beach home is struck by a variety of impressions regardless of whether your landscaping is eye-catching or merely so-so. Plants that overrun the walkway, trees that badly need pruning and visible suggest to the prospective buyer that this home will take a lot of landscaping maintenance and yet if your yard is well-maintained, the prospective buyer is inclined to simply admire the fact and move on. If your Huntington Beach front porch or front door need paint, the prospective buyer is likely to notice the paint job inside and out and think about how much maintenance that will take on a yearly basis. The important message here is that things that look bad or run down call attention to all the work that needs to be done while things that are well maintained conjure up ideas of how pleasant it would be to live there.
Tips for Buying or Selling Huntington Beach
Most experienced real estate agents and brokers already have Websites that showcase their local MLS data so your Huntington Beach can show up online as soon as it is listed. On the other hand, if you are selling on your own it will take time or a considerable advertising budget to get your individual Huntington Beach property to show up on the major search engines where prospective buyers will find it. You could tap into one of the several For Sale by Owner Websites but that would limit your market of buyers.
Buying real estate in Huntington Beach is also much easier when you work with a real estate agent who knows the area and the market. While there is a great deal of information online about real estate asking prices, it is not always so easy to find out what a property actually sold for. And even then, specific terms of a sale often make a difference in how to interpret the sales price.
Huntington Beach BASICS
Location, location, location pretty much describes the basics of all real estate markets and the Huntington Beach market is no exception. A lovely estate home next door to a power plant or on a hill where major sliding has occurred is not as valuable as that same home in a quiet, tree-lined neighborhood. This is why most astute buyers tend to rely on real estate agents who are well versed in the community and know the area well.
