Real Estate Information

The Nichols Arboretum at the University of Michigan’s North Campus in Ann Arbor will be the site for the 2011 Peony Festival, set to run from June 4th-12th. The Peony Festival will include guided tours through the botanical gardens and, of course, peony sales. The event will kick off with the Peonies rand Plant Sale on June 4th, which will feature live music and a guided lunchtime tour to view one of the biggest and most extravagant collections of heirloom peonies in all of North America. The peonies are beginning to bloom, so come view the natural beauty of these flowers at this year’s Festival!

Horticulturalist Carmen Leskoviansky will lend her expertise to the event and will share her vast knowledge of peonies with visitors June 6th-10th from 12 p.m.-12:30 p.m. These tours will give visitors a rare look at how these peonies are grown and developed. People keenly interested in horticulture will not want to miss these tours. You can also check out the visitor center to learn more about these blooming wonders, while taking a look at the peony cut flower display.

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City Living

Ann Arbor has a diverse selection of homes for sale all over the city, but downtown Ann Arbor is where many want to be and there’s no better way to get close to all the city’s biggest and best events than purchasing a condominium, high rise or loft in the heart of downtown. These modern homes tend to be sleek and sophisticated, and are literally footsteps away from some of the most in-demand downtown areas and restaurants. There are many styles to choose from, most of which have terraces and balconies that offer amazing views of the cityscape.

What You Get

City dwellers not only get the perk of being walking distance from everything they need, but loft and condo owners often enjoy the added amenities that the spaces provide themselves. Stainless steel appliances, cork or bamboo floors and granite countertops are often standard in these urban homes. It’s also common to find state of the art security systems, fitness centers and other amenities in lofts and condo buildings.

Luxury Meets Affordability

Luxury usually comes with a hefty price tag but that is not necessarily the case in downtown Ann Arbor.  Prices start at about $150,000 and often include plenty of amenities to accompany all the other standard perks that come with living downtown. Lofts and condos in downtown Ann Arbor are the perfect blend of comfort and convenience. Check one out today!

If you are thinking about buying or selling a Home or condo, give us a call at (734) 996-0000 or send us an email to explore your options and to find out when is the best time for you to make a move.

About the Market

Who doesn’t love fresh locally grown food? Sometimes it can be harder to get, but the volunteers who founded the Westside Farmers’ Market in 2005 made it easy for local residents. At 2501 Jackson Ave. every Thursday from June-September, locals get the chance to buy food from the people who grew it. It’s this connection that makes the Westside Farmers’ Market a success. What also makes the market special is that it is run entirely by volunteers, the people who are most passionate about getting the best products into the hands of local consumers.

Fresh Local Food

You can be sure to fill your refrigerator, but not empty your wallet at the Westside Farmers’ Market. With everything from fresh cuts of meat to baked goods, the market should have everything on your list. And of course there are fruit and vegetable vendors offering beautiful heirloom tomatoes, hand-picked berries and delicious beans and greens. There are also artisan cheeses, farm fresh eggs and organic herbs that will spruce up your kitchen and your family meals. Other produce commonly found at the Market includes whole melons, cherries, plums, asparagus, eggplant, apple cider and more depending on time of year.

Gearing up for 2011’s Market

In 2010 an average of 28 vendors served an average of 890 local consumers, but with more vendors signing up for the event, 2011 looks to be even bigger. This year the market will once again be open from 3pm- 7pm every Thursday, which allows for family outings when students are out of class and parents are off work. Check out www.westsidefarmersmarket.com for the latest news and to see what healthy fresh foods you will find!

On today’s market, every savvy seller wants to know what turns buyers off, so they can get their homes sold as quickly as possible, for as much as possible.  But buyers, take note – there is a minefield of seller turn-offs you can trigger that potentially could keep you from getting the Home you want at the best price and terms, or to unnecessarily complicate dealings with your home’s seller.

Lest you think all of today’s sellers are under the gun and will just put up with whatever behavior buyers dish out, be aware that there are still many multiple offer situations in which buyers must compete with each other to get a home – buyers who trigger these turnoffs tend to lose in those scenarios.  Also, avoiding these seller turnoffs can create a transactional environment of cooperation and avoid things turning adversarial.  That, in turn, can empower you to land a better price, get extra items you want thrown into the deal, and even negotiate more flexibility around your escrow and move-in timelines – all perks that can make your life easier and your budget go further.

For sellers, these turnoffs have the potential of irritating you out of an otherwise good deal – maybe even the only deal you have!

Here’s a few of the most common buyer-perpetuated seller turnoffs, with tips for sellers on how to keep an emotional (and economic) even keel, even if your home’s buyer makes some of these waves:

1. Trash-talking. Trash-talkers are the home buyers who think they’re going to negotiate the list price down by slamming the house, telling the sellers how little it is really worth, how the house across the street sold for nothing, why the school on the corner should make them desperate to give the place away, etc. This strategy never works; in fact, when you attack a seller and their home, you only cause them to be defensive, and think up all the reasons that (a) their home is not what you say it is, and (b) they shouldn’t sell their home to you!  

Sometimes this happens with buyers who actually love a house and just walk around it fantasizing about all the ways they would customize it to their tastes while a seller is there.  Sellers: avoid being at home while your home is being shown.  Buyers: save your commentary for your agent; if you do encounter the seller in person keep your conversation respectful and avoid critiquing the house or the list price.

2. Being unqualified for mortgage financing. When a seller signs a buyer’s offer, most often the seller agrees to effectively pull the home off the market, forgoing other buyers who might be interested.  As such, the only thing worse than getting no offers on your home is getting an offer, getting into contract, then having the whole thing fall apart when the buyer’s loan falls through – especially if that could have been predicted or avoided up front. 

Sellers: Should work with us or your listing agent to vet your home’s buyers’ qualifications, including their loan approval, down payment and earnest money deposit – before you sign a contract.  It’s not overkill for your agent to call the buyers’ mortgage pro before you sign the contract and get a level of comfort for how robust their qualifications are.  Buyers:  Get pre-approved.  Seriously, this should be the first thing you do BEFORE looking at homes to better determine what price home you are pre-qualified for.  And make sure that you don’t buy a car, quit your job, deposit lottery winnings or do any other financial twitchery between the time you get loan approval and the time you close escrow on your home.

3. Making unjustified lowball offers. No one likes to feel like they are being taken advantage of.  And sellers generally know the general ballpark amount that their home is worth, as well as what they need to sell it for to get their mortgage paid off.  Yes – the price you pay for a home should be driven by its fair market value, rather than the seller’s financial needs, and deals are often available in a market like the current one, in which supply so vastly outpaces demand. But just throwing uber-lowball offers out at sellers hoping one will hit the spot is not generally a successful strategy, especially if you really, really want a given property. If you are going to be making a mortgage payment, it should be for a home that was at the top of your favorites list.

Sellers:  Don’t get overly emotional about receiving a lowball offer; counter at the price you decide makes sense based on the total circumstances, including your motivation level, recent comps and the interest/activity level your listing is receiving. Buyers:  Work through the similar, nearby homes that have recently sold (a/k/a comparables that we can prepare for you) before you make an offer to factor the home’s fair market value into your offer price – also factor in how much you want the place, too.  Don’t be amazed if you make an offer far below asking, and don’t get a response.

4. Renegotiating mid-stream. Sellers plan their finances, moves and  - to some extent – their lives around the purchase price a buyer agrees to pay for their home.  If you get into contract to buy a home, and find out during inspections that costly repairs need to be made, then propose a lower sale price, repair credit or even actual repairs to the seller, that’s sensible and fair.  But if you were aware that the property needed a lot of work before you made an offer on it, then you come back asking for a beaucoup bucks’ worth of credit or price reductions midstream, expect the seller to cry foul.  And holding the seller up two weeks into the transaction because you caught a case of buyer's remorse? Not cool, and not likely to foster the spirit of cooperation you may need to get your deal closed.  Buyers should remember too that no home is perfect and most will need common repairs or upgrades that you will assume or take responsibility for.  Your inspection is looking for expensive or surprising things that you hadn't counted on.  

Sellers: avoid mid-stream price renegotiations by having a full set of inspection reports and repair bids at hand when you list your home. Buyers: try to avoid renegotiating the entire deal unless you get some major surprises at your inspections or inflating small repairs to try to justify a major price cut.

5. Misleading or setting the seller up.  Remember when we talked about buyer turn-offs?  Being misled by listing photos or very fluffy property descriptions was high on the list.  The same goes for sellers. Offering way over asking with the plan to hammer the seller for a reduction when the house doesn’t appraise at the purchase price?  #LAME  Making an as-is offer planning the whole time to come back and ask for every penny ante repair called out by the inspectors?  Lame squared.

Sellers:  If you get multiple offers and are tempted to take a sky-high one or one that claims to be all cash, consider requesting proof that the buyer has sufficient funds to make up the difference between what you think the home will appraise for and the actual sale price, and statements showing the cash truly exists.  Buyers: Don’t be lame. I’m not saying you have to tell the seller exactly what your top dollar is, but making offers with terms designed to intentionally mislead is really, really bad form – and can result in losing the home entirely if and when your bluff gets called.  Of course we can help you through every step of the way, so no worries.  You can get started by clicking here to view all available Ann Arbor Real Estate listings for sale.  

In a mortgage market that changes as quickly as this one, today’s fact is tomorrow’s fiction.  For buyers, misinformation can be the difference between qualifying for a Home loan or not. Sellers and owners, knowledge is foreclosure-preventing, smart decision-making power! Without further ado, let’s correct some common mortgage misconceptions.

1.       Myth: Buyers with bad credit can’t qualify for home loans. Obviously, mortgage guidelines have tightened up, big time, since the housing bubble burst, and they seem likely to tighten even further over the long-term. But just this moment, they have relaxed a bit.  In the last couple of weeks, two of the nation’s largest lenders of FHA loans announced that they’ve dropped the minimum FICO score guideline from 620 (which allows for some credit imperfections) to 580, which is actually a fairly low score. 

At a FICO score of 620, buyers can qualify for FHA loans at many lenders with only 3.5 percent down. With a score of 580, the lenders are looking for more like 5 to 10 percent down – they want to see you put more of your own skin in the game, and the higher down payment lowers the risk that you’ll default.  However, if your credit has taken a recessionary hit, like that of so many Americans, this might create a glimmer of hope that you’ll be able to take advantage of low prices and interest rates without needing years of credit repair.

2.     Myth: The Mortgage Interest Deduction isn’t long for this world.  Homeowners saved over $85 billion in 2008 by deducting their mortgage interest on their income tax returns. A few months ago, the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform caused a massive wave of fear to ripple throughout the world of real estate consumers and professionals when they recommended Mortgage Interest Deduction (MID) reform, which would dramatically reduce the size of the deduction.

Fact is, the Commission made a sweeping set of deficit-busting recommendations to Congress, a few of which are likely to be adopted.  Fortunately for buyers and sellers, MID reform is not one of them.  Very powerful industry groups and economists have been working with Congress to plead the case that MID reform any time in the near future would only handicap the housing recovery.  Congress-folk aren’t interested in stopping the stabilization of the real estate market.  As such, the MID is nearly universally thought of as safe – even by those who disagree that it should be.

3.       Myth:  It’s just a matter of time before loan guidelines loosen up.  The US Treasury Department recently recommended the elimination of mortgage industry giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I won’t get into the eye-glazing details of it here, but the long and the short is that (a) this is highly likely to happen, and (b) it will make mortgage loans much harder and costlier to get, for both buyers and homeowners.   It’s possible that loans are as easy to get as they’re going to get.  So don’t expect that if you hold out, zero-down mortgages will come back into vogue anytime soon. Fortunately, Fannie and Freddie aren't likely to disappear for another 5-7 years, so you have a little time to pull your down payment and credit together. If you want to get into the market, the time to get yourself ready is now!

4.       Myth: If you don’t have equity, you can’t refi. Much ado is being made about how stuck so many people are in their bad loans, because they don’t have the equity to refinance their way out of them.  If you’re severely upside down (meaning you own much, much more than your home is worth), stuck may be the situation. But there are actually a couple of ways homeowners can refi their underwater home loans.  If your loan is held by Fannie or Freddie (which you can find out, here), they will actually refinance it up to 125% of its current value, assuming you otherwise qualify for the loan.  That means, if your home is worth $100,000, you could refinance a loan up to $125,000, despite the fact that your home can’t secure the full amount of the loan.

If your loan is not owned by Fannie or Freddie, you might be a candidate for the FHA “Short Refi” program. While most mortgage workout plans are only available to people who are behind on their loans, the Short Refi program is only available to homeowners who are current on their mortgages and need to refinance up to 115 percent of their homes’ value.  So, if you owe $250,000 on your home, you can refinance via an FHA Short Refi even if your home’s value is as low as $217,000. If you think you’re a good candidate for a short refi, contact your mortgage broker, stat – there are some in Congress who think that this program is so underutilized (only 245 applications have been submitted since it rolled out in September – no typo!) that its funding should be diverted to other needy programs.

5.       Myth:  If you’ve lost your job and can’t make your mortgage payment, you might as well mail your keys in.  Until recently, this was essentially true – virtually every loan modification and refinancing opportunity required that your economic hardship be over before you could qualify. And documenting income has always been high on the requirements checklist. But there are some new funds available in the states with the hardest hit housing and job markets, which have been designated specifically for out-of-work homeowners.

The US Treasury Department’s Hardest Hit Fund allocated $7.6 billion to the states listed below – all of which are now using some portion of these funds to offer up to $3,000 per month for up to 36 months in mortgage payment assistance to help unemployed homeowners avoid foreclosure.  Contact the state agency listed below if you need this sort of help:

• Alabama: http://www.hardesthitalabama.com/
• Arizona: https://www.savemyhomeaz.gov/
• California: https://www.keepyourhomecalifornia.org/
• Florida: https://www.flhardesthithelp.org/
• Georgia: http://www.dca.state.ga.us/housing/homeownership/programs/hardesthitfund.asp
• Illinois:http://www.ihda.org/
• Indiana: http://www.877gethope.org/
• Kentucky: http://www.kyhousing.org/
• Michigan: http://www.michigan.gov/mshda/buyers/save_the_dream/helping+hardest+hit+homeowners+-+contact+your+mortgage+servicer+for+assistance
• Mississippi: http://www.mshomecorp.com/firstpage.htm
• Nevada: http://www.nahac.org/
• New Jersey: http://www.state.nj.us/dca/hmfa/home/foreclosure/homekeepers.html
• North Carolina: http://www.ncforeclosureprevention.gov/
• Ohio: http://www.savethedream.ohio.gov/
• Oregon: http://www.oregonhomeownerhelp.org/
• Rhode Island: http://www.hhfri.org/
• South Carolina: http://www.scmortgagehelp.com/
• Tennessee: http://www.thda.org/
• Washington D.C.: http://www.dchfa.org/

New data from RealtyTrac shows that foreclosure filings nationwide dropped 14 percent between January and February, as overall activity last month sunk to its lowest level since February of 2008.

RealtyTrac says total foreclosure filings – including default notices, scheduled auctions, and bank repossessions – were reported on 225,101 properties in February, a 27 percent decrease from a year earlier and the biggest year-over-year decline since the company began issuing its report in 2005.

One in every 577 U.S. housing units received a foreclosure filing last month, as default notices, auction announcements, and new REOs all hit their lowest readings in more than a year and a half in RealtyTrac’s study.

On the surface, all good news for an industry trying to get a handle on delinquencies and property repossessions, but RealtyTrac says the sharp decline is likely the result of processing delays following last fall’s robo-signing problems.

“Foreclosure activity dropped to a 36-month low in February as allegations of improper foreclosure processing continued to dog the mortgage servicing industry and disrupt court dockets,” said James Saccacio, RealtyTrac’s CEO. “[T]he bottom line is that the industry is in the midst of a major overhaul that has severely restricted its capacity to process foreclosures.”

Saccacio added, “We expect to see the numbers bounce back, but…monthly volume may never return to its peak in March 2010 of more than 367,000 properties receiving foreclosure filings.”

A total of 63,165 U.S. properties received default notices (NOD, LIS) for the first time in February. Foreclosure auctions (NTS, NFS) were scheduled for the first time on 97,293 homes last month, while lenders completed foreclosure on 64,643 properties.

Nevada posted the highest state foreclosure rate for the 50th straight month with one in every 119 homes there receiving a foreclosure filing during the month, despite a 22 percent decrease in the state’s overall activity.

Arizona claimed the nation’s second highest foreclosure rate at one in every 178 housing units with a foreclosure filing. California took the No. 3 spot with a foreclosure rate of one in every 239 homes.

One in every 273 Utah housing units had a foreclosure filing in February, the nation’s fourth highest foreclosure rate. Idaho had one in every 298 of its homes receive a filing, giving it the nation’s fifth highest rate.

Other states with foreclosure rates ranking among the top 10 in February were Georgia, Michigan, Florida, Colorado, and Hawaii.

Drilling down to the metro level, RealtyTrac says for the second month in a row, no Florida cities posted foreclosure rates in the top 20. That’s in stark contrast to 2010, when the state accounted for nine of the top 20 metro foreclosure rates.

Nevada, California, and Arizona cities, on the other hand, continued to dominate RealtyTrac’s metro list, accounting for all top 10 metro foreclosure rates and 15 of the top 20 metro foreclosure rates in February.

More Ann Arbor foreclosure and Short Sale Listings can be found here.

3818 Century Ct, Ypsilanti, MI  48197

Pittsfield Township Taxes, Ann Arbor Schools.  

2600 square foot 4 Bedroom Home with 2.5 Baths.  This home backs to a common area in Palisades Subdivision.  Features include Granite kitchen counters, hardwood floors in master bedroom, family room and foyer leads to a stylishly updated powder room.  Located on a quiet cul du sac and close to shopping, parks and Freeway access making it a popular commuter area.

RECOMMEND VIEWING FULL SCREEN BY CLICKING THE FOUR ARROWS BOTTOM RIGHT CORNER. 720P HD RESOLUTION

2600' 4B$/2.5B home with plenty of hardwood floorS, granite counters along with an updated powder room. Located on quiet cul du sac and backs to subdivision common area for plenty of setback from the neighbors and space for the kids to play.

Call Listing agent Tom Stachler for more information at (734) 996-0000 or visit his website at www.TheRealtyTour.com

CLICK HERE FOR MORE HOME ON 3818 CENTURY COURT, PITTSFIELD TOWNSHIP, MI  48197

Gandy Dancer Restaurant

401 Depot Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
(734) 769-0592

Built in 1886, this former train station is located next to a newer Amtrak train station.  This stone structure offers up a special atmosphere and menu sure to please.  Specializing in seafood and fine service and situated not far from the University of Michigan Hospital on Ann Arbors north side. Truely one of Ann Arbors best restaurants.

Take in the trains, stopping and traveling between Detroit and Chicago or relax within this well run establishment sporting old world charm.  You won't be disappointed.  Watch the video to learn about the Gandy Dancer Trains and Ann Arbor dining

Contact us if you are intersted in real estate in nearby Kerrytown market area or perhaps Downtown Ann Arbor real estate.