Montgomery County Features in CNN Money Magazine's Top 100 Places to Live

I've lived and worked in Montgomery County for over 25 years, mostly in the Gaithersburg and Germantown areas, and I have to agree with CNN Money Magazine--Gaithersburg and Germantown are great places to live!

In their yearly survey of the best places to live, five Maryland cities made the list of the top 100: Columbia, Ellicott City, Gaithersburg, Germantown, and Waldorf. Gaithersburg is #23, and Germantown is just behind it at #24. What a great time to be living in Montgomery County!

The rankings are based on things like job opportunities, quality school systems, low crime, health care, housing, and entertainment. If you live in this area, you know we've got all that and more. If you don't live here, wouldn't you like to?

FALL IS A GOOD TIME TO SELL - LESS COMPETITION

I prefer to celebrate the coming new year in September -- the month when everything really important happens. Fall is for the first day of school, fresh notebooks, new shoes, empty backpacks and chocolate milk. It's simply the season of change, and nature herself confirms it. Leaves start changing color, the air gets crisp, and all the hanging flower baskets around my house die because I forget to water them (so sorry!). Football kicks off, root vegetables begin showing up on the dinner table, and all the best TV shows are back in the prime-time lineup. September is also the month when folks who've had their home on the market during the summer question whether to cancel their listing. Conventional wisdom says the window of opportunity passes with the summer sun and only the homes of "desperate" sellers remain for sale after the first day of school. I hear it all the time from sellers, "We'll list our home until school starts." It's not a decision based on their needs or desires, but on the idea that buyers looking for a new home will be too busy to find one in the fall, or somehow sellers will fool buyers into thinking their home is a "new listing" in the spring. Tricky, tricky! Granted, summer is the time of the year where more homes are bought and sold. I get that. But, the market doesn't suddenly dry up and disappear in September! People who genuinely need to move are still going to buy a home. As for "hiding" days on market? Yeah, that really doesn't work. Like, ever. This autumn is a great time to have a house on the market, says Realtor.org: Inventory is down and so are the days on market. Sellers can over complicate the process. But when it comes right down to it, a sale is about motivation and money. Supply and demand. Simple, simple stuff. Like going back to school, freshly sharpened pencils and new haircuts, real estate is elementary. And always worth celebrating. Go September!

TO BUY OR NOT TO BUY

In life, and in real estate, there are decisions that, if we had them to do over again, we might do x, y or z differently. But all in all, we are not too upset about how things turned out. "C'est la vie," as they say. Then there are the decisions and actions we actively regret, worrying over their long-term consequences, wishing we could have a cosmic do-over, stewing and ruminating over what we did wrong. (In truth, it's a sign of emotional maturity to see every experience as an education, and to be free from ruminating over even the worst of our regrets. But I digress). Contrary to popular belief, my experience shows that the vast majority of home buyers commit what they see as the first type of mistakes, but not those deep, dark regrets. However, those that do have serious regrets can lose many hours of sleep and many thousands of dollars trying to remedy them. Their only gain? Experience and gray hairs. Here are the top 5 true, deep regrets of home buyers and some insights for how to prevent them from taking over your own life: 1. Premature buying. This is not at all about timing the market or making sure you get in at the "just-right" moment. There's not much you can or should do about that. But buying before your life or your finances are ready for home ownership is a transgression that ends up causing serious, long-term regrets for those who end up doing it. Premature buying takes several forms, the most common of which includes jumping the gun and buying before you've saved as much as you really need, or before you've paid your debt down to the level you really needed to. Another pervasive form of premature buying is to buy before you've truly, deeply, seriously run all your own personal financial numbers, which puts you in the position of forced reliance on what the bank, lender or someone else thinks is affordable, which is often wrong. Similarly, buying because you feel pressure to get in while the market is keeping prices and interest rates low, rather than because you want and can afford a home, is a surefire path to real estate regret. 2. Buying too small of a house. People who buy too large of a home often realize, several years in, that they simply aren't using all of their rooms and many either sell and downsize or find ways to put the extra space they have to better use. People who buy too small of a home, on the other hand, are acutely aware of it from the moment their children start fighting, they find themselves and their energy levels deactivated by clutter or they end up realizing that there is no room at the inn for the family members or friends they'd like to house, short or long term. Buying too large of a home is potentially wasteful of the money spent maintaining, heating and cooling the place; buying too small a home is uncomfortable and frustrating, sometimes intensely so, on a constant basis -- hence, the regret it can create. Avoid this regret by starting your house hunt with a visioning exercise: What do you want your home life to look like in 10 years? Who will live with you? Do you entertain or have overnight guests? What activities do you want or need to be able to do there? Do you want to practice yoga, crafts, have kid-sized homework spaces, work at home, collect classic cars or move your parents in? If so, seek to buy a home that can comfortably fit all these people and their activities, even though they might not all exist -- yet. 3. Buying a home you can't truly afford. You might think that one of the top 5 regrets of homebuyers would be buying at the top of the market. But that's not the case -- I know plenty of buyers who bought at the top, paid top dollar and are still upside down on their homes, yet are still happy with their homes because they can well afford the payment and bought homes that will serve their families very well for the very long term (which will allow their home's value to recover). It is much more problematic to simply overextend yourself on a home -- no matter what the market dynamics are at the time you buy. People who both bought at the top of the market AND overextended themselves made up the large majority of folks who lost homes, as the mortgage gyrations they went through (i.e., taking short-term, interest-only, adjustable-rate mortgages) in order to qualify for the home in the first place also caused them to be utterly unable to sustain the mortgage once the market declined and their mortgages weren't able to be refinanced. If you can't foresee being able to make the mortgage payment on your home 10 years in the future without refinancing it, that's a sign you might be approaching the unaffordability danger zone. 4. Incompletely resolving co-buyer conflicts. Many co-buyers are couples, but I've also seen parents buy homes with their children, siblings buy homes together and even good friends team up to co-buy a home. Any time there is more than one buyer, there is a chance that the co-buyers will have one or more disconnects in their wants, needs and priorities. Often these are resolved almost effortlessly by the realities of the homes that are on the market (e.g., neither party's dream home turns out to actually exist, or pricing realities require everyone to compromise); other times, people simply work things out like mature individuals, seeking first to understand their co-buyer's position, then working out a compromise that works for everyone involved. But in still other cases, the conflict is never truly, deeply resolved; even on closing day, one side feels completely misunderstood, or caves in for the sake of avoiding conflict, or someone simply throws a tantrum, insisting that they get their way. In these cases, it's common for the party who feels undermined and trampled on to ruminate on it as they live in the property every single day, ending up with great resentment and anger over the years. 5. Taking on fixing beyond their skill, patience and resource level. It can be heartbreaking to tour one of the many homes on the market that was clearly the subject of a previous owner's fixer-upper dream but was abandoned in the middle of a remodel. Often, these abandonments happen because the owner simply underestimated what the project would take and ran out of time, energy or, most commonly, money to get the remodeling completed. But it's even sadder to tour the home of a frustrated fixer whose owner and family still lives in a half-done, very dysfunctional property, and who are getting more and more disgruntled with their situation every time they make a mortgage payment.

Washington DC housing market surge

http://www.housingwire.com/content/washington-housing-resurgence

Important tips for buying a home

Buying a home is an important decision and that step should not be taken without doing your research. An educated buyer is in the best position to make the right decision about this major purchase. If you are knowledgeable about the housing market and procedures your transaction will go much smoother. The best advice for prospective home buyers is to hire a real estate broker. Again, research the brokers in your area. Talk to several and go with one you feel has a grasp of what you are really looking for in a home. Three items to look for are; an understanding of the market, knowing their client’s needs and finding properties that are great investments. A good broker will take the guesswork out of purchasing a home. Value The value of a home is different for each buyer based on how they are planning to use it. Herman states that lifestyle, transportation needs and schools. This value will be different for a family with children or a family with no children. The value in their eyes will be different. Cost Herman states that many sellers believe the cost of the house is what they paid for it plus improvements and renovations made during their tenure. By improving the home they are increasing the value of the home even though the cost of the home may remain the same. Herman emphasizes, “Cost and value are not what the price of the home should be or shouldn’t be.” Price/Fair Market Value The fair market value price is what the property is worth at today’s financial level. Fair market value may be determined by looking at other properties similar sold in the last six months. She goes on to warn that Comparative Market Analysis will not tell you everything you need to know. There are a few things that CMA will not be able to help you in some areas. A house built in the same neighborhood, by the same builder and at the same time will look totally different from one another in ten years. Looks and market value will depend on the condition of the property inside and out and such things as cleanliness and general upkeep. Another item that can affect the value of the property is the view. If the view is a beautiful lake, mountain, or stunning forest people will pay a premium for the view. School districts can also determine the fair market value of a property. A buyer needs to do some online research will tell you what the schools are like, crime statistics and other important information about the location. Neighbors might also be a consideration when looking at the fair market value of the home. If the house you are looking at is immaculate and well maintained, neighbors who are not tending to their lawn and the upkeep on their home may decrease the value of the property you are looking at. Once you have all the information, ask your broker to give you all the information on the homes you have selected to look at as a possible new home. Nothing takes the place of actually looking at the property. Appraising a house is an estimate and Herman states, “there is no exact science to pricing.”

Making sure you have everything in writing in your Real Estate contract

One reason sellers prepare and stage their homes for sale is so buyers can imagine themselves living there. It can be difficult for buyers who are emotionally involved with the home to picture what the place will look like after the sellers move out. To avoid after-closing problems, make sure that your purchase contract is clear about what stays with the house and what does not. Real estate law and custom vary from one area to the next. Ask your agent for help if you have any question about what's included in the sale and what is not. The multiple listing service can provide some information. For instance, if there are washer and dryer hookups only, then the washer and dryer are not included in the sale unless otherwise specified in writing in the purchase agreement. To be enforceable, real estate contracts must be in writing. Verbal agreements to sell real estate aren't binding. The MLS is the REALTORS®' listings of homes for sale and an offer to cooperate with other agents in finding a buyer. It is not a contract between the buyers and seller. So, even if the MLS information on a listing says the washer and dryer are included, you should write this into the contract so there's not confusion when the sellers move out. HOUSE HUNTING TIP: Typically, items that are permanently attached to the property, such as built-in appliances, tacked-down floor coverings, window coverings, light fixtures and bookcases, are included in the sale unless they are specifically excluded in writing by the sellers. For example, the dining room chandelier might have been in the sellers' family for years. It has sentimental value. The best approach would be for the sellers to remove and replace the fixture before the home goes on the market. Otherwise, ask the sellers to replace the fixture before they leave so that you're not left without light if this is the only source of light in the room. Satellite dishes and wall mounts for flat-screen TVs can create ambiguity. In some contracts, they are included. If you don't want them to be included, ask the sellers in writing to remove the wall mount and satellite dish and to make necessary repairs before they leave. If the sellers are taking these items with them, be sure to require in writing that they make necessary repairs. Special attention should be paid to the roof covering where a satellite dish is removed to avoid leakage into the home. Buyers are often taken by items of personal property that belongs to the sellers. They are a perfect fit for the house, like a fountain in the front courtyard, outdoor furniture or potted plants that enhance the garden, or a table that fits the breakfast nook perfectly. These items, unless permanently attached, are usually not included in the sale. Just because the sellers haven't offered to include a piece of personal property you covet doesn't mean you can't ask for them. Again, to ensure that they are included, write it into the contract, or an addendum to the contract. When should you ask for personal property that's not included in the sale? If you're in competition, postpone the request until the sellers accept your offer. When you remove contingencies might be a good time to bring up the subject. If the sellers can't part with the item you want, ask where they bought it. Even if the sellers have specifically said they are not leaving items like the washer and dryer, they might be willing to do so if your offer is good enough.

Has the housing market hit bottom?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303644004577520414196790098.html