Realities in Real Estate

Credit scoring is becoming more important to mortgage pricing so now would be a terrific time to brush up on your credit education.If you understand how the system works, after all, you can make it work to your advantage. One terrific place to start your research is at myFICO.com.

Published by credit scoring powerhouse Equifax, myFICO.com give you information right from the source. There are tens of pages of tips and tricks from which everybody can learn.

Here are some basic pointers to get you started:

Use It Or Lose It: If you don’t use credit, the credit agencies can’t assign you a credit score. Spend $10 monthly on your credit cards and then pay it in full to “get on the grid” and get yourself a score.

30 Is The Magic Number: Holding your credit card balances below 30 percent of their respective limits shows an ability to manage credit responsibly. Before consolidating multiple credit cards onto one credit line, consider that card’s credit limit. Overload it and the consolidation could hurt your credit score.

The Trend Is Your Friend: A track record of paying accounts on-time means that you’re likely to continue paying on-time. Credit bureaus like on-time payments. If you’ve been late, catch up immediately. At 35 percent, this is the largest component of your credit score.

History Is The Best Teacher: Don’t close unused credit cards. Having a credit “history” accounts for 10 percent of your score.

There are more helpful hints available at the Web site so with additional credit score adjustments to mortgage rates expected later this year, the best way to protect yourself is to be proactive.

Identify potential issues in your credit profile and work to improve them.

Credit scoring is not always intuitive so if you’re not getting the personal information you need from general Web sites, ask your loan officer for an in-depth analysis. The mortgage rate you save may be your own.

Steve Schafler

Guarateed Rate - 480-556-5335

steve.schafler@guaranteedrate.com

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We have come to an era where there’s a major shift in the paradigm about how we interact with the global environment.  We have been here before but this time it’s vastly different for these reasons; 1) The technology to improve our quality of life while vastly improving the quality of much of our environment, is now cost effective. 2)  There are continued reports about significant physical evidence that the earth is actually warning. These two factors will be driving the market for some time, and the Green Consumer will become a very sought after group.

You only need to see where hybrid car sales have gone over the last three years, and where the auto industry expects it to go,  to see that this is a trend, not a fad. A few years ago many experts said that the car buyer will not pay more for a hybrid just to get 20 miles more to the gallon. Well the Toyota Prius is one of the hottest selling cars, and Ford and GM are racing to catch up with many new hybrid models. What these experts did not see is that many car buyers who would be buying a luxury car today for $50,000 plus are now opting for the $25,000 Prius.

Moving forward, this trend will affect every consumer product or service.  How will it influence the home buying market? Initially, most homebuyers are just looking for their next home to be “conveniently environmentally responsible”.  Factors such as the amount of insulation, the seer rating of the AC/heating unit, the energy ratings of their appliances, drought tolerant landscaping, will no longer be taken for granted. However, a growing number will be looking for LEED certified homes, with solar electric panels, solar hot water heaters, artificial grass, water reclamation systems,and more. They will also look for neighborhoods where dining or shopping are within walking distance or a short drive an electric golf cart (their second car).

In just a few years, the Green Consumer will demand; a) that their landscaper use electric weed eaters and leaf blowers instead of the current one with noisy, polluting two-cycle gas engines, b) that the fuel cell that powers their car also powers their house (Don’t laugh, Honda is rolling out their fuel cell car in 3 cities in California this year, and claim their fuel cell station will power the home as well), c) that their new custom home uses no electricity or natural gas, d) that their realtor is certified as a Green Realtor. MoveUP AZ is taking immediate action. We recommend that our Sellers make every attempt to make their home greener (see our video at www.youtube.com/MoveupAZ , for two examples). We council our Buyers that they need to look at homes with these “Green” factors. We work with builders that have been building Green homes for years. We are doing our homework, taking classes and will soon be certified as eco-brokers.