Advantages of a local lender, vs an online or out-of-the-area lender.
If you are considering purchasing a home, it will be to your advantage to work with a local lender. There are several reasons for choosing a local lender:
- a local lender knows the local market, local conditions, requirements, and limitations better,
- the process is going to be faster, in particular for the appraisal. Most likely, it will be a local appraiser who will be hired. An out of the area lender is going to hire their "contacts" in the area, which could be quite a ways away. A local appraiser will know better the neighborhoods and the sales activity, which will result statistically in a more appropriate appraisal,
- very importantly, a local lender will be available to answer questions and concerns about the offer and the buyer, at the time the sellers and the listing agent are reviewing the offer. This factor alone is of paramount importance, and will make or break a decision in your favor,
- it is usually easier to reach someone who is local and whom your agent knows, and doing business "in person" is still the best for these important steps in your life,
- in any environment, competitive or not, it will be in your favor if the listing agent knows the lender too, and their track record.
BTW, do you know that most people surveyed think that you need a 20% down payment to purchase a home, but that in fact the average down payment is 13% in the US, according to the National Association of Realtors?
If you are thinking of a purchase I can give you names of proven local lenders. This is definitely the first step in your journey and I can help with it.
Thank you for reading,
Francis
My
Home Valuation tool
Detailed, local trends etc...
Current
mortgage rates (pretty stable, and low.. )
Among the people who lost their home, 35% bought another home since then, and 65% did not...
This, plus the fact that more of them in this age group carry a loan, and for a larger percentage of their home value, is a "troubling trend" according to the authors of this study.
Finally, counting renters as well as home owners, the report finds that "the number of households age 65 and over with housing cost burdens continues to climb". Nearly a third spent more than 30% of their incomes for housing, and about 1/2 were severely burdened, paying at least half of their incomes for housing.
In particular, 56% of Millenials are determined to own a home, and about 75% of them are pretty confident that they will have the ability to afford a home in the future. About the same number think it is the best long-term investment.
I believe there would be a large demand for small homes like these, located on small lots. The cost surely would be more accessible than the normal price of a small house on the traditional 5000 sq.ft piece of land, in our crowded local cities and counties. A lot of the value is in the land in the Bay Area, and with this type of arrangement you can envision a subdivision of many smaller lots, costing a fraction of the current prices.
