buy a home in Hawaii 
buy a home in Hawaii
There are currently 18 blog entries related to this category.
Rent vs Buy - it's not a fair comparison
Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011 at 11:52am. 971 Views, 4 Comments.
There are thousands of articles on the web comparing renting to buying, almost entirely focused on the monthly or annual cost of rents, mortgages, repairs, etc.
The problem is that it's not a fair comparison. No matter how cheap your rent is, after 30 years of renting, you still have nothing to show for it. Even if you had invested the money you saved by not buying, the long term tax benefits of owning a home, having a mortgage, and tax free capital gains, make owning a house a substantially better financial decision. It's forced savings.
All you have to do is own it a long time.
If you rent for 5 years, at an average Hawaii rent of $2500/month, you have paid $150,000 in rent. And you have - nothing to show for it.
If you put just 3.5% down…
Home Affordibility Is Peaking: Are You Ready To Buy? (Guest blogger Lisa Udy)
Friday, February 11th, 2011 at 4:36pm. 2108 Views, 1 Comments.
Two recent reports by CNBC have stated the mortgage market is facing some major changes. The Obama administration is set to announce next week overhauls to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac run programs and, according to many economic experts, mortgage interest rates are expected to go higher as the economy continues to strengthen.
These changes are going to affect home affordibility and buying a home will get harder as the government tries to roll back temporary housing fixes implemented during the recession. Here's what you need to know:
Calculating Higher Interest Rates
As rates rise, home ownership obviously becomes more expensive, but have you ever calculated the differences between just one percentage point? The numbers can be a little complicated…
Real Estate 101: What's a Spec Home?
Saturday, January 15th, 2011 at 2:11am. 7210 Views, 1 Comments.
Real Estate 101: What is a Spec Home?
When meeting with a real estate agent to search through your new home options, it is easy to get a bit confused by the terms that are used by real estate agents. While agents are not trying to confuse their clients, the reality is that certain terms are so common in the industry that it is easy for an agent to forget that everyone might not be familiar with that term.
One such term that could potentially cause some confusion is "spec home." In the simplest of terms, a spec home is a home that a builder constructs with the belief that someone will eventually come along and want to purchase the home.
In other words, the builder constructs the home based on speculation of what a buyer would look for. As such,…
Buy a house to save your life - seriously.
Friday, December 17th, 2010 at 11:21am. 669 Views, 3 Comments.
Did you ever think of your house as a financial safety net?
I read a post this morning on Gigi Hawaii's blog, in which she explained that owning a home is about to save her life, so to speak.
She writes, "We plan to apply for a reverse mortgage next month... If the reverse mortgage goes through, we will pay off our two mortgages and David’s car loan, thereby saving $3,000 per month. ... We have no choice but to do this. When he was demoted in July, David had a $23,000 pay cut. We have been struggling to meet our financial obligations ever since. With a reverse mortgage, we will be able to breathe a sigh of relief. Thank God, we own a house. Where would we be if we were renting?"
The answer to her question is probably - on…
Nobody buys a house in December do they?
Friday, December 17th, 2010 at 3:26am. 342 Views, 0 Comments.
It's the Christmas season, time to buy gifts, spread cheer, and mostly, focus on the birth of Jesus. With all the Christmas parties, recitals, and other events, you wouldn't expect people to be doing extremely time consuming and stressfull like - buying a house.
But the statistics show that hundreds of people buy a house on Oahu every December. Around the country, tens of thousands of people will buy a house around Christmas. And you may not have thought about it but - many sellers are most desperate in December.
Sellers on the market in December realize it's a bad month for sales. It's true that December is one of the slowest months of the year for new escrows. But some sellers are hoping to get their home sold before the new year. Some are…
Hawaii home sales up BIG in September
Thursday, October 7th, 2010 at 12:46am. 421 Views, 0 Comments.
In May of 2009, I called the bottom of the Hawaii real estate market, and in January through May of this year, I posted several times about the coming market rise. Well, the September sales numbers are out for Hawaii homes, and the numbers are pretty impressive.
Here are some highlights:
- There were 274 sales of single-family homes on Oahu in September, an 8 percent rise compared to last year.
- The Oahu median price of single family homes was $622,450, up 3 percent from $605,000 last year.
- The median condo sale price rose to $335,000, also an 8 percent increase from last year.
- The average home was on the market less than 30 days!
- Year-to-date, the number of sales is up by more than 20 percent!!!
My prediction for the Hawaii market going…
FHA to Revise Mortgage Insurance Premiums
Tuesday, August 10th, 2010 at 8:03pm. 653 Views, 0 Comments.
Congress just passed H.R. 5981, giving FHA (Federal Housing Administration) the authority to adjust its annual mortgage insurance premium. All FHA loan borrowers pay a monthly insurance premium on top of their mortgage payment, as a way to insure these low down payment loans. Currently an FHA loan allows you to buy a house with 3.5% down.
A recent bulletin issued by David H. Stevens, Assistant Secretary for Housing/Federal Housing Commissioner, said that FHA would lower its upfront mortgage insurance premium from 2.25% down to 1% AND increase the annual premium from .55% by an additional .85-.90%.
So while the up front cost is low, this is a HUGE INCREASE in monthly payment and severely decreases a borrowers purchasing power. Getting your FHA…
FHA loans will no longer allow 6% seller closing costs credits to buyer
Thursday, January 21st, 2010 at 12:56pm. 1249 Views, 5 Comments.
Well, HUD is at it again. It will go into effect sometime
in the summer, but FHA loans will be limited to 3% seller concessions
instead of the 6% currently allowed.
This won't mean much for higher priced homes but it will
cause people buying lower priced homes, which tend to be the people that
need the help the most, to have to come up with more money.
Basically this is another case of the government hurting people by trying to help them.
Rates are going up, just not today
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 at 2:17pm. 549 Views, 0 Comments.
Last week, the Federal Open Market Committee announced they were leaving rates unchanged. According to the statement released, in an effort to "provide support to mortgage lending and housing markets" they will "purchase a total of $1.25 trillion of agency mortgage-backed securities and up to $200 billion of agency debt."
However, what's important is that "they expect to gradually slow the pace of these purchases in order to promote a smooth transition."
That means that eventually rates are going up. We don't know when, as it depends on how fast the Fed decides to stop buying the MBS. Last year in an effort to stimulate housing, the Fed began purchasing the oversupply of debt. Without this help from the Fed, rates would have moved higher already.…
2 ways to buy Hawaii real estate with zero down
Thursday, September 10th, 2009 at 7:11pm. 1006 Views, 0 Comments.
While most people know that VA loans allow military buyers to get into Hawaii real estate with zero down, most don't know that there is a similar loan backed by the USDA (yes, the beef people) that also allows zero down purchases for regular civilians.
The USDA home loan will allow any buyers who make less than $109k/ year to buy a house with no money down. Similar to the VA loan, there is a funding fee of 2%, but other than that, it's quite simple.
If you have more than 5 people in your family, you can actually make a lot more money and still be eiligible. There is no loan amount limit as long as your debt ratios still qualify.
Just doing the math, a family of 4 with no other debt making $109,000 a year could buy a house of around $500k with zero…
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