Record Low Mortgage Rates for Buyers

Low mortgage rates help propel U.S. home sales and the refinance market. Mortgage rates in the United States have fallen to the lowest level ever on the heels of concerns stemming from the coronavirus outbreak.

As mortgage rates remain near three-year lows, those who are considering refinancing shouldn’t wait on the sidelines. Many lenders have hit their capacity in terms of how many loans they can process. Banks are currently inundated with small business loans.  This is a response to COVID-19 and the government stimulus, but are still processing mortgage loans. 

Rise in Mortgage Applications

Mortgage application data has shown that a growing number of Americans have been applying for loans to finance the purchase of a new home. Most consider this a positive sign for the spring home-buying season. 

Low Inventory

“In order to take advantage of low mortgage rates, buyers will need homes to buy,” said Danielle Hale, chief economist at Realtor.com. According to Market Watch, the inventory of homes for sale has an hit all-time low amid the high demand from buyers. The low inventory is largely the result of depressed home construction activity in the wake of the 2018 recession, which did not keep pace with household formation across the country. Many single-family homes were also purchased by investors during the bust years and converted into rentals, further constricting supply.

Economic Health

Another factor that could prevent Americans from taking advantage of low rates is the overall health of the economy. Many buyers might get cold feet despite the potential savings they would be leaving on the table, Hamrick said.

“There’s no avoiding the fact that a home purchase is the most significant purchase individuals will make in their lifetimes” Hamrick said. Whether you are looking to downsize your home or take advantage of low interest rates, contact Karen Cannon, Realtors to walk you through the process. We can advise you based on the current climate and demand. 

Get started today by exploring Dunwoody homes for sale, Sandy Springs homes for sale, and Chamblee homes for sale!

Sources: bizjournal.com; marketwatch.com

Easy Energy Efficiency for Your Home

April 22, 2020 will mark the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. Across the globe, countries are committing to climate protection. Similarly, many steps can be taken on a local level to reduce one’s carbon footprint. There are plenty of weekend projects that can be done with immediate ease or over the weekend. These projects can improve a home’s energy efficiency, reducing the carbon footprint and saving money. 

Low Hanging Fruit

Start by replacing incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs. ENERGY STAR estimates CFL’s use 70-90% less energy and can save you $30-80 in energy bills over the bulb’s lifetime.

Touch your hot water heater. Is it warm to the touch? If the answers are yes you should add an insulating blanket to prevent heat loss. Just like insulating your walls or roof, insulating your hot water tank is an easy and inexpensive way to improve energy efficiency and save you money each month. A new tank is likely already insulated. An older hot water tank, check to see if it has insulation with an R-value of at least 24. If not, consider insulating your water tank, which could reduce standby heat losses by 25%–45% and save you about 7%–16% in water heating costs—and should pay for itself in about a year. You can find pre-cut jackets or blankets available from around $20. Some utility companies may even offer rebates for insulating the heater and don’t forget to add foam sleeves or insulating tape around hot water lines while you’re down there. 

Most homes come standard with a programmable thermostat, but if not, a quick replacement will ensure you aren’t heating or cooling a house no one is in. Installing a programmable thermostat allows you to automatically adjust temperatures to minimize the amount of heating and cooling you need. Many products now allow you to control them remotely from your smartphone as well.

For the Weekend

Pay attention to your outlets as each outlet in your home allows a little treated air to escape into the walls. “For just 10 cents apiece you can put precut foam gaskets behind each outlet to stop leaks. Simply fit the gasket over the opening and replace the cover. For outlets along exterior walls (especially ones you don’t use often) consider adding a child-safety plug to completely block air exchange”

Consider installing exterior storm windows with Low-E coating. This installation is one of the most cost-effective solutions. They’re easy to install and cost a fraction of replacement windows. Low-E windows are coated with an ultra-thin, virtually invisible layer of metal that ‘reflect infrared heat back into the home. Therefore, this coating improves the window’s insulation ability, in turn lowering your heating and cooling costs. On average, low-e storm windows can save you 12%–33% in heating and cooling costs. This equates to $120–$330 in annual savings, assuming a $1,000 annual heating/cooling bill.’   

Finally, in addition to replacing your lighting with CFL or LED bulbs, consider adding a programmable lighting system. Many programs can monitor energy use of outlets and switches and consumption is view-able via an app.  In addition to saving money on utility bills, some insurance providers offer incentives for installing smart home devices. 

In conclusion, as technology continues to evolve, opportunities present themselves to improve on the efficiency of your home. This will save money with lower energy use, but can also increase the value of your home. If you have questions on the types of adjusts and upgrades that can add value, contact Karen Cannon Realtors for suggestions. 

energy.gov – cited source

The Importance of 3D Virtual Home Tours

Whether you are stuck inside or not, the new 3D home tours are a great way to check out a potential home from the comfort of your home. Karen Cannon, Realtors provides 3D virtual tours of every house we sell so buyers anywhere in the world can tour our listings as if they were actually walking through your house. Our 3D virtual tours offer such an immersive experience that only the most serious buyers visit our listings in person.

Homes with a 3D virtual tour get more views via websites and social media, far exceeding those without it. The virtual home tour also has the capability to be emailed and is proven very effective in real estate search engines.

3D virtual home tours also allow a 24-hour open house and saves both the seller and buyer time. With a 3D virtual tour, prospective leads can do their own walk-through of your properties from anywhere, anytime, generating higher engagement and interest. According to viz360, “More than half of their respondents have taken a virtual tour of the property they liked. They like the technology so much that 54% of them won’t check out a property without these virtual images.”

When you sell with Karen Cannon, Realtors, we provide the highest quality 3D virtual tour of your home. It allows Karen Cannon, Realtors to:

  • Sell at a 4-9% higher sales price.
  • Decrease time on market by up to 31%.
  • Increase time on site by 15%.
  • Attract more qualified prospects by giving viewers the most complete representation of your property, filtering out those the property may not be right for while also attracting leads that are genuinely interested in your property.

5 Female Trailblazers in Real Estate History

According to the National Association of Realtors, the U.S. residential real estate industry is dominated by women with 63 percent of all Realtors are female. In 2011, Trulia found “that there are more women real estate professionals in every state than male real estate professionals.”

‘But women weren’t always dominant in selling homes. According to NAR’s history of women in Real Estate, when the association first started in 1908, its membership was entirely male, despite 3,000 women working as brokers nationally. Their first female member, Corrine Simpson, a broker from Seattle, Washington, wouldn’t join until 1910. And though organizations like NAR didn’t explicitly ban women from joining, organizations did require local real estate board membership, and these boards did explicitly ban women. So, just like so many times in history, women decided to create their own professional organizations.’

 

Here are 5 women who took a first step that paved the way for many of the women in residential real estate today:

Ebby Halliday

Any woman who started and owned a business in the late 1930’s was almost by definition a trailblazer, but Ebby was not satisfied with owning her own hat boutique. She easily transitioned to residential real estate and dominated the Dallas market for decades. She credited her success to simple hard work and caring about the needs of others.

Ebby died in September 2015, but her real estate firm continues to sell homes. At the time of her death, the firm was the largest independently owned residential real estate services company in Texas and the 10th-largest in the nation. The firm closed 19,200 transactions in North Texas that year with a sales volume of $6.64 billion. Ebby Halliday in 1968 from a retrospective on her life that appeared in the Dallas News.

Dorcas Helfant

Dorcas was the first female president of the National Association of Realtors. She elected to the office in 1992 and was also the first woman to serve as the president of her state association. Her service to others in her profession included a key merger of her own real estate firm with other Caldwell Banker firms that provided “an effective career track for our associates.”

In addition to her leadership in the real estate field, Dorcas is a past chair of the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce and the Virginia Chamber of Commerce. She served as president of the Virginia Aquarium Foundation and was named Hampton Roads Woman of the Year in 1990. Dorcas currently is vice-chair of the Foundation Board of Virginia’s Community Colleges. Dorcas Helfant

Abby Hamlin

As the founder and president of Hamlin Ventures, Abby has blazed trails where most women and many men fear to go. Her stated goal is to use real estate and urban design to enhance people’s lives.  She has won recognition for her development in Brooklyn for formerly homeless and low-income individual. Her firm remains one of the few successful female-owned development firms.

Abby is a civic leader as well as a noted developer. She has served as a board member of the Van Alen Institute for Public Architecture from 2001-2010 and as the chair for the last 4 years of her tenure. She is currently a Trustee of Art Omi, a board member of Trainor Dance and of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership. Abby Hamlin

Tracy Dodson

While women have been very successful in residential real estate, commercial real estate has been a much more difficult market. Only 35% of professionals in this sector are women, and virtually all of them work in property management. As vice president of brokerage and development at Lincoln Harris in Charlotte, N.C. Tracy is one of the pioneers in commercial real estate development.

“In this industry, it’s hard in a lot of ways. You have to have a lot of success to work your way up,” Dodson told Bizjournals.“It’s not just the hours. You’ve got to have successful projects and you’ve got to have successful deals.” Tracy Dodson

Debra Cafaro

Debra has blazed a trail of success. She took over the helm at Ventas, a publicly traded Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT)  in 1999, the firm was facing collapse. The sole tenant of the properties was bankrupt and had stopped paying rent. The firm had a market cap of $200 million and $1 billion in debt. In addition, there were claims of Medicare fraud.

Now, Debra is recognized for returning shareholder 3,981.3 % for the 16 years ended December 31, 2015. She is one of only 23 CEOs named by Harvard Business Review for four consecutive years and one of only two women on the 2017 list. This same year Forbes Magazine recognized her as among the 100 most powerful women in the world.

 

A portion of this article was written by Christian Miller for www.sharestate.com on December 2017. 

Other sources: apartmenttherapy.com

Dunwoody, Georgia: Perfect for Young Families

Dunwoody is a growing community just north of the perimeter in North Atlanta. It’s close proximity to I-285 and 400, make it a perfect location for young families who may have a commuter. In addition to its location, Dunwoody offers many preschools, great elementary schools, new parks and community events. Whether you are thinking of starting a family or looking to move to a family-friendly community, take time to discover Dunwoody.

Commute

There are a lot of companies based in the perimeter area either in Dunwoody or Sandy Springs. Employers like IHG, State Farm, APEX Systems, Convergent Outsourcing, UPS, Newell Rubbermaid, First Data and Centene. To maintain sanity and quality of life, experts suggest trying to live close to work whenever possible. Atlanta’s traffic is ranked as some of the worst in the world. Living in Dunwoody means a few miles to I-285 or 400, two MARTA stations, or a few side-streets.

Preschool and Elementary Schools

Dunwoody has A LOT of preschools. Dunwoody Baptist Preschool, Montessori School of Dunwoody, Kingswood UMC Preschool, Dunwoody United Methodist Preschool, the Weinstein School, Dunwoody Christian Academy, North Atlanta Preschool, Dunwoody Prep, Kindercare, and Primrose to name a few. If you are looking for a community that takes early education seriously, look no further than Dunwoody. The Dunwoody cluster of DeKalb County Schools has 6 public elementary schools: Austin Elementary, Vanderlyn Elementary, Kingsley Elementary, Dunwoody Elementary, Chesnut Elementary and Hightower Elementary. An experienced Realtor can offer insight as to the niche accolades that make each school special and the right fit for you.

Windhollow Park source: Atlanta Parent Magazine

Dunwoody Parks and Recreation

It’s truly amazing the amount of acreage (180 to be specific) that Dunwoody has devoted to outdoor recreation. Brook Run Park is the largest park in not only Dunwoody, but the region at 110 acres and is ranked among the best in Atlanta. It includes a large children’s playground, 2-mile loop multi-use trail, skate park, dog park, community garden, event pavillions, baseball fields and general purpose rec fields coming soon. Dunwoody Park is attached to the Dunwoody Nature Center and “includes a significant nature preserve with hiking trails, Wildcat Creek, a playground in the woods, and nature classrooms.” Plus six other new or updated parks including The Dunwoody Trailway. This multi-use trail which connects across three distinctive parks in the City of Dunwoody: Brook Run Park, Pernoshal Park and Georgetown Park. Equipped with bicycle repair stations, the trail then leads to more outdoor adventures within Georgetown Park, a perfect place for a game of bocce, a relaxing stop at a pavilion or a newly built children’s playground furnished with comfortable shade awnings. In April 2019, the new pedestrian bridge over the north fork of Nancy Creek was completed. The 145-foot bridge connects Dunwoody’s Georgetown Community with Perimeter Center. Future plans for the trail incorporate connections to other parks in the city.” The Nature Center and Donaldson-Bannister Farms also host fantastic summer camps and school break camps for school aged children.

Dunwoody 4th of July source: Atlanta Parent Magazine

Celebrations

The Dunwoody Fourth of July Parade is hosted by the Dunwoody Homeowners Association and the Dunwoody Reporter. 2,500 participants walk or ride in the 2-mile stretch that brings in close to 32,000 spectators. It is the largest Independance Day parade in Georgia. It includes floats, bands, cheerleaders, animals, veterans, antique cars, etc. and it ends with the Boy Scout’s BBQ lunch. The Dunwoody Homeowners Association also hosts the annual Light Up Dunwoody Festivities. Santa sits outside of the Cheek-Spruill Farmhouse and the evening ends with the lighting of the Christmas Tree and Menorah. Bands, dancers, performers, balloon artists and cookie decorating makes it a favorite family tradition. Dunwoody has numerous trunk-n-treat events put on by churches and at Brook Run Food Truck Thursday the week of Halloween. The Dunwoody Police Department hosts numerous community engaging events that foster a sense of community. Everything from Coffee with A Cop, Pizza with the Police, car seat safety checks, cpr classes and national night out.

When You’re Ready to Move

If Dunwoody sounds like the place for you, call Karen Cannon Realtors. We are one of Atlanta’s top producing Realtor teams and have strong ties to the community. One of our experienced agents can listen to your priorities and assess the perfect area and home for your unique real estate situation. We find out about homes for sale before anyone else, and make sure that our clients see them first. The homes we list sell faster and for a higher percentage of the listing price than those listed with other local agents. Check out our Dunwoody homes for sale now! We have the skill to get the job done, and the heart to make sure it’s done right.

Newer posts
Older posts