Selling your home over the holidays

Simple Christmas decorating ideas that add a festive touch to light and bright home interiors work well for creating elegant and beautiful Christmas home decor with a few details and staging homes for sale in winter. You can use more Christmas decorations for home staging empty rooms and vacant houses to give living spaces that homey feel, but avoiding excessive Christmas decorating with a large Christmas tree and ornaments or lots of Christmas lights. 

There are people looking for a property to buy before spring comes. Prospective buyers are shopping for a deal in winter, especially in December and before Christmas, assuming that house owners absolutely have to sell their property if the house is on the market before holidays.

The idea to buy a property around Christmas is not only practical, but romantic also. Moving into a new house and starting a new life after Christmas sounds great.

Some people need to move to different places and hope for a quick house sale. If a property price is reduced already, home buyers are glad to buy the house. Also many prospective buyers do not celebrate the holidays and keep looking for a perfect house to buy in winter.

Avoid over decorating - this can make your home feel smaller - and too many outdoor decorations can deter clients from coming into your home.

Is Winter the Best Time to Sell Your Home?

According to Refin it is.

Redfin says that anytime between December and May is an ideal time to list your home -- and February is the hands-down the best month. The company's analysis of nationwide listings from 2014 showed that 74 percent of homes listed in February sold within 90 days, and 13 percent of them sold for more than the list price. 

I guess the thought here is that winter buyers are more motivated and "have" to move. This winter in particular may be a good time because we are anticipating a rise in mortgage rates.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac back mortgages

Housing finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on Monday detailed plans to once again back mortgages with down payments as low as 3%, saying the move to make home ownership more accessible contains safeguards to protect against abuses that led to the subprime housing market crash.

The loans would be allowed only for fixed-rate mortgages on single-family homes that would be the borrower's primary residence and would require full documentation of the ability to repay the mortgage, said officials from the two firms and their regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

“Our goal is to help additional qualified borrowers gain access to mortgages,” said Andrew Bon Salle, executive vice president for single family underwriting, pricing and capital markets at Fannie Mae.

U.S. to ease repurchase demands on bad mortgages

E. Scott Reckard, John Glionna, Tim Logan

“We are confident that these loans can be good business for lenders, safe and sound for Fannie Mae and an affordable, responsible option for qualified borrowers," he said.

Officials said the program was designed to help credit-worthy borrowers, particularly those with low or moderate incomes, who can demonstrate the ability to repay a mortgage but lack the money needed for at least a 5% down payment.

The two firms will offer somewhat different programs.

Freddie Mac’s program, called Home Possible Advantage, is open to anyone who meets certain requirements, but first-time home buyers must participate in a home ownership education and counseling program. All participants will have to pay for private mortgage insurance.

reprinted from http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-fannie-mae-freddie-mac-mortgage-downpayment-20141208-story.html

St Louis has 3 of the wealthiest areas

Great article in the Riverfront times about St. Louis, stating 3 of the wealthiest areas in the nation are here.  They are Town & Country, Ladue and Frontenac.

In order to build its list of the wealthiest suburbs, Business Insider ranked the suburbs by median household income per the 2008-2012 U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey Estimates.

Only St. Louis and Dallas landed three suburbs in the list of the 25 wealthiest. 

Click here to go to the article