If you are renting and are on the fence about buying a home in 2014, continue reading!

If you are considering purchasing a home in North County San Diego, call The Lawhead Team if you want a professional and extremely knowledgeable team on your side!

Here are some benefits to owning rather than renting a home:

Forced Savings – When paying your mortgage, homeowners are putting money away into their house which they own, instead of paying for someone else’s mortgage if they were to rent.  If you sell your home and your home is worth more than when you bought it, there is a good chance you will walk away cash in your pocket from equity of the home.

Second Line Of Income – If you have a separate entrance, extra driveway space, etc, you can rent that area out.  In some areas, homeowners even rent out small patches of grass for people who want to grow vegetables.

Energy Efficiency – There are many ways you can make low cost improvements within your home to save on monthly utility bills when you buy.  You can add solar panels, install an energy efficient roof or upgrade your air conditioning unit to save overall in utility bills.

Customize Your Area – No need to get approval from your landlord to knock down a wall and make a larger master bedroom.  When owning your home, you have the freedom to do whatever you’d like to change and improve your home.

No Landlord – Sometimes when renting the landlord may be forced to evict you should he sell the home, rent to someone else or otherwise end the lease.  If you have a fixed income, in particular, homeownership is the way to go, especially if you plan to stick around for a while in that area.

Ready to buy your new home?  Contact The Lawhead Team to get started!

Wondering if buying or renting is better? This is a GREAT Infograph from the California Association of Realtors on buying vs. renting that you must check out. Share this with a friend, the information is valuable!

The Lawhead Team would like to share some tips for buying a home at a lower price. When it comes to buying a home, you don’t have to buy the newest most updated home and break the bank while doing it. Check out our tips:

Buy a home that is not brand new. Not all pre-owned homes or old properties are a bad purchase. They are usually at a lower price compared to a newly constructed one. One of the big benefits is that you can get a more spacious house within your budget than you would be able to with a brand new home. Get to know where the bargains are. If you know of a seller in need of money wanting to sell the home as soon as possible, you are more likely to get a bargain on the quoted price.

Go a little outside of the city limits. A property on the outskirts of the city will usually cost less than a property within city limits. Look outside of your city limits if you have to stay under a certain budget when buying a home.

Don’t fall in love just because it’s pretty. The “pretty” home on the street doesn’t always necessarily mean the best house. Not to mention buying a pretty home usually comes with an expensive price tag. Remember, if there is a home that has outdated carpet and wallpaper, this can all be changed once you move in at a relatively low cost.

Don’t get attached right away. Remember, If you can’t put together a deal on the first property you like, don’t worry. There will be a lot more homes for sale and it is very common that you’ll end up finding a home a week later that you like even more than the first. Not taking that first home might end up being a blessing in disguise.

Are you interesting in buying a home? Please call The Lawhead Team for all your buying and selling needs!

When buying a home it is difficult not to let your emotions get in the way of your big buying decision.  The Lawhead Team would like to share some tips to consider before buying a home.

• Find out if there is an association in the neighborhood. Also find out if there is a community newspaper and if they plan get togethers and block parties.  If the community plans events together that is usually a good indication they have shared interest in the look and well being of the neighborhood.

• Check out the seller’s previous tax bills when buying a home.Don’t just ask what the seller’s most recent tax bill was; ask what several recent tax bills have been. In some areas, houses are re-appraised – and taxed at higher rates – frequently. That great deal and good investment may not seem quite so grand if the property taxes skyrocket year after year. Again, look at newspaper archives or talk to your Realtor about the way taxes are used in this area. In some cities, schools are substantially funded through property taxes – which means you can count on yours increasing regularly.

If you are looking into buying a home but don’t think you can afford it on your own, investing with a friend or friends may be the right choice for you.

When seeking mortgage finance with others, it’s also important to ensure that everyone involved has a good credit rating. If they don’t when buying a home, your ability to secure a suitable mortgage may be affected – despite your combined income and borrowing power, lenders are likely to see you as a greater risk.

Keeping Costs Down – By opting for co-ownership of a home, you are reducing your own initial financial outlay. Costs such as stamp duty and legal fees – not to mention household bills – can be hugely expensive for one person to manage on their own. Through buying with friends, these costs are spread out, thus reducing the burden on everyone involved.

Perhaps most importantly, your money is not simply going towards rent, but to ownership of the property. It is a much-touted cliche that “rent money is dead money”, but there is an element of truth in the statement.

Invest Wisely – When considering buying a property, it’s important to view it in terms of an investment rather than a home, with your friend/s as a business partner in an investment company.This applies to buying a home with one or more of your friends, even if the arrangement is less formal.

While you may be good friends with the person involved, it is unlikely that you will both live out your years and grow old together. It is unwise to assume that you will be living there for the next 20-30 years, as might occur with a more traditional ‘family home’. Life circumstances could change for either of you, and it is likely that the house will eventually be sold – maybe to you, to one of the other business partners, or to a completely new buyer.

With this in mind, when home buying it is best to look for a property that will appreciate value at a relatively fast rate, enabling the parties involved to recoup their costs.

Buyer Beware – Before investing in a property with any friend, make sure you have a reasonable idea of their financial habits and personality. Living with a friend is a very different experience to seeing them in purely social situations.

Make sure arrangements such as household expenses – e.g. bills, maintenance, and food – are discussed before entering into a financial agreement. This agreement doesn’t need to be a written one, but it is worthwhile having a formal understanding between all the parties involved. Doing so will help avoid conflict further down the line, which might otherwise hinder the friendship and business transaction.

Although people will generally go into such agreements with the best of intentions, things can turn nasty if money is involved – particularly large sums of money.  For this reason, it’s best to make sure that your co-ownership agreement has very specific terms. It should cover significant details, such as what will happen if one party defaults on their mortgage payments or if one person wants to sell their share of the house.

Additionally, your agreement should also detail what will occur if one of the parties dies during the term of co-ownership. It is important to specify that you and your friend/s are ‘tenants-in-common’. If you do not, ownership could potentially pass to your co-owners if you die. While this is fine for husband and wife situations, it is not typically appropriate for co-investors.

Buying a house with friends may not be ideal for everyone, but it’s an option worth considering for those who feel that they are currently priced out of the housing market. As long as everyone’s interests are secured in the best ways possible, it can be a viable option for those looking to buy.

There is a lot of focus lately regarding the fact that it is less expensive to buy your home rather than rent in San Diego county.

In San Diego Country it now makes more sense to buy your home than rent one for monetary reasons.  We’d like to share this article from the Business Insider:

Southern California Housing Market

In the areas around San Diego, the all-in cost of renting a house is more expensive than buying a house.North County Times (via Calculated Risk):Monthly payments on a house are now cheaper than monthly rents on a similar house in most of North San Diego and Southwest Riverside counties, according to an analysis of county-supplied and Realtor data by the North County Times….”I don’t think this has ever happened before,” said G.U. Krueger, a principal economist for HousingEcon.com. “It’s a function of the huge housing price collapse which has left a lot of people in the lurch.”Or, as Carlsbad real estate agent Tyson Lund put it: “This is crazy.”

This inversion of the costs of renting and buying a house is something that’s garnered a fair amount of buzz over the last several months.

Warren Buffett has called buying distressed properties, and renting them out his #1 business idea.

In a recent interview, Paul McCulley said he was intrigued by Southern California real estate, in part because it’s so out of favor..

One think to think about, however, is that if a homebuyer assumes that the value of said home will continue to fall after purchase (a reasonable assumption, given that the direction of housing still appears to be going down) then it makes perfect sense that rent would be more expensive, since the homedweller is not risking a monthly loss of equity.

Meanwhile, other measures of housing affordability, such as the NAR’s index that compares the price of a home to income is surging off the charts.

Of course, a major impediment to a housing rebound is credit and mortgage availability.

A lot of people who are renters can’t make the jump to homeownership since they can’t get a mortgage.

As this recent chart from Nomura showed, inability to get a mortgage is a growing reason why realtors are seeing deals fall through.

Nomura

But as the jobs market starts to creep back — something that is happening the fastest in these ex-bubble areas — this impediment should begin to dissipate.

It is a crazy scenario – it is less expensive to buy a home than rent.