Today we’re in the Bloomingdale Neighborhood of Manheim Township, an established suburban community in Lancaster County, PA with established landscaping everywhere you look. I “get down and dirty” with Andrew Landis of Showcase Landscape Services to discuss planting now, in late fall, for spring color.

Andrew brought along a bag of Tulip bulbs and the preferred hand tools for planting them. He talked about how to organize your plantings by color, type and locations within your yard. Since we’re having an unseasonably warm late fall, it’s still possible to get out there and do some digging while the temps are over 50 degrees. Andrew mentioned that you can get many bulbs planted in a half hour, so it’s not a big time commitment.

If you want to see a colorful landscape once spring springs in Lancaster County, take the time to “sow the seeds” of color before Christmas!

Read more at http://www.showcasegroup.biz or reach out to Andrew Landis at info@ showcasegroup.biz.

If you cast you eye across the area in PA from the Main Line out to Carlisle, you see a largely similar landscape of small cities (Lancaster, York, Lebanon, Reading and Harrisburg as examples) connected by a network of boroughs (Strasburg, Lititz, Millersville, Hummelstown, Camp Hill, Carlisle etc). In between are townships of suburban or rural character. With the economic malaise development of raw land in these last areas has become problematic from a profit/marketing standpoint, edging out all but the largest concerns.

For the next phase of growth that will bring small and mid-cap players into the mix, look to the first two categories – urban and borough level opportunities. The chatter about “second story development” in the cities and borough rezoning for economic opportunity areas has been ongoing in recent years, but I think we have not yet seen the municipal/business/developer cooperation truly needed to jumpstart this movement in real estate.

As a Mayor, I am opening lines of communication with our Lancaster County agencies to explore ways of creating a bundle of benefits we can offer prospective businesses in our downtown district. As a real estate professional, I’m looking explicitly at how we can cater to the free market to make our “product” – a vibrant borough with incentives to develop there – the most attractive in the area.

Regionally, this interplay of governmental/non-profit collaboration and the real estate sales/lease community is critical… we can’t work separately or worse, at cross-purposes. Catering to large developers isn’t the answer either – it’s the small business looking to grow who will be most open to expanding in urban areas and small class A spaces.

It’s my opinion that the counties of Central PA need to focus energy on their boroughs and cities very soon if they really want to see a turnaround in property values (and tax revenues). And it can’t happen soon enough.

Hello and welcome! Today we’re talking about “seller help” – you hear about it but what is it? “Seller Help”, “Seller Assist”, “Closing Cost Assistance” all refer to the same financial concept – moving some of the seller’s proceeds over into the buyer’s side of the settlement sheet. So, if a seller is expecting to receive $20,000 in proceeds at a certain price point, they can offer $5,000 to the buyer as an incentive as part of the agreement. Naturally they would then net only $15,000. Normally, the buyer initiates the proposal to add seller help.

(note that the name doesn’t much sense – most people think it should be “buyer help” or “buyer assist”. Sorry, I didn’t make it up!)

In this buyers market a great number of offers are made including seller help. Generally, if there is equity to be used, a seller is wise in considering these offers. With the general scarcity of qualified buyers even an offer with large (6% plus) amounts of seller assist included are worth considering. By the way, the typical range of seller help is 3%-6% per mortgage guidelines, but it can be more.

Now you know all about “seller help”!

Whether it’s your first foray into Real Estate or you’ve owned your home for many years, you’ll need to know some basics in order to make a successful offer on a home.

There are four key components of any offer, and as a homebuyer of real estate in Lancaster County PA or beyond you’ll need each of them to place an offer (it’s not called a “bid”, by the way).

1 – Mortgage Prequalificaton. If you are not paying cash you’ll likely need a mortgage. It’s critical to your budgeting that you have a clear picture of your mortgage situation. I did an episode with a top local lender you can watch here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6scZTljsHg ) to learn more. You’ll need a letter from the bank showing your credit worthiness to include with your offer.

2 – PA State Agreement of Sale with Addendums. This is the meat of the offer packet and the agreement details the terms – price, timing, conditions of sale, etc. Special contingencies or conditions will be covered in addendums to the agreement, which are submitted with the agreement to the seller at the same time.

3 – Signed PA Seller Disclosure. This 5 page form must be completed by the seller and available to you to review (in the event of a bank sale or estate sale the disclosure may be signed but blank). Use this form to see what property issues there are that might affect your offer terms. You’ll need to sign the form and include with your offer.

4 – Deposit check. Also known as Good Faith, Escrow, Earnest Money, this check will be made out to the listing brokerage in most cases and sit in their state-regulated “escrow account” until you close, at which time it is returned to you as a credit. If you don’t close, well….talk to your buyer agent about that.

There are some other items that may be needed in presenting an offer to buy homes for sale in Lancaster PA or in your location for that matter, but these four are the key components.

Any questions – love to hear them at jeff@yourlancasterhome.com.

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Choose Jeff Geoghan for your next home sale or purchase in Lancaster PA! Thanks.

(c) 2011 Jeff Geoghan

Today I talk about a recent report by Zillow.com, everyone’s “favorite” real estate website, and their rankings of 125 metro areas in the US for 2010. They called it the “ten best places to buy”. Here’s the link:

http://www.zillow.com/blog/best-place…

Turns out that the Lancaster, PA real estate market (the metro area around Lancaster City) was ranked #7 out of the 125. Zillow researchers listed the top 10 as:

1. Utica, N.Y.
2. Oklahoma City, Okla.
3. Rochester, N.Y.
4. Pittsburgh, PA
5. Tulsa, Okla.
6. Albany, N.Y.
7. Lancaster, PA
8. Madison, Wis.
9. Green Bay, Wis.
10. Lincoln, Neb.

In a nutshell, Zillow’s business model is to strip deed records from counties and build models of home sales & values. I’m sure they used these data for their average home price of $179,300 for the Lancaster metro area (most likely the zip codes that are labeled as “Lancaster” – 17601,17602,17603 that includes most of Manheim Township, East Hempfield Township, Lancaster Township and Lancaster City, plus a good portion of Manor Township, West Hempfield Township and West Lampeter Township).

So anyway, the Zillow study tabulated numbers for “affordability”, unemployment, % of foreclosure sales and the change in their recorded prices for the metro areas. Using that matrix Lancaster scored very well.

I was interested in the top ten areas – mostly in the west-midwest and a narrow section of PA and NY. Isn’t that interesting?

As I’ve been telling my customers for years, the Lancaster area is not getting hit with 40% price reductions, foreclosures aren’t every other house sale, and the blue-collar and sefl-employed work environment doesn’t lend itself to mass layoffs and an adrift professional class. This Zillow report just backs those insights up. Lancaster PA homes for sale are as affordable as ever and it actually IS a good time to buy (ubiquitous marketing pitches notwithstanding).

If you want to talk about this Zillow study, home sale stats in Lancaster County Real Estate or any other homes subject email me at jeff@yourlancasterhome.com or comment here.

You would think this doesn’t happen that much anymore, but even today home buyers find themselves dealing with “competing offers“. You’ve completed your offer and delivered it to the listing agent to present to the seller. Then you get the call from your buyer’s agent that another offer is coming to the seller, a competing offer to your own. What to do?

In Pennsylvania the convention is that buyers will put their “best foot forward” when submitting an offer. If there are multiple interested parties, then the listing agent needs to tread carefully with how they notify each party and present the offers to the seller. An ethical Real Estate agent will not attempt to “play” one buyer against another in PA – it’s a strongly discouraged practice here. Instead the listing agent will merely advise the buyer’s agents involved that competing offers exist, leaving the content of the offers to imagination of the buyer.

In this case, the buyer needs to look at their motivation. Odds are, their initial offer price was lower than the price they would ultimately agree to to secure the home. Now that they face elimination in a competing offer scenario, are they REALLY willing to “let it go” at the low initial offer price? Probably now, and I advise buyers to up their offer to a number (or other contract terms) that they, having lost the competition, would still feel comfortable that they’d offered their best.   I’ve had times where buyers, not having done this, later regretted not upping their offer price. Keep in mind that this may not be the ultimate price for them – just as much as they feel will give them an advantage and/or give them comfort should they lose out.

If you have any questions or comments I’d love to hear them at jeff@yourlancasterhome.com.

Click here to see more about Lancaster PA Real Estate.

One of the things Lancaster PA first time home buyers experience is a bit of “stage fright” as they are presented with a seeming myriad of decision points. Even as they are looking at homes (which is supposed to be the fun part) they can get stressed quite easily. In fact, most of us homeowners probably can remember a time this happened to us…

Today I give some advice to handling stress in the first time home purchase process, based on my extensive experience with buyers in Lancaster County, PA:

1) The process of buying a home is relatively straightforward and has been repeated many times before, so don’t feel that things are out of control. Make sure you have professionals helping you that you are confident in.

2) For the most part, you as a buyer have only to make a few decisions to actually get into a home. Be sure to get those key decisions clear in your head, including when they should be made. If you figure on a 45 day closing cycle from the date of contract, that may help to make things concrete to you.

3) Be comfortable with your budget. Be comfortable with your budget. Oh, did I repeat myself?

4) Look for the adventure and learning in the process. We as real estate pros think this stuff is fun because we’ve been through it many times and really enjoy seeing you “grab the vision”. Remember, all homeowners before you have gone through it, so it’s great conversation starters.

5) Lastly…relax! By knowing your lifestyle plan (which is fun and forward-looking) and how the home will fit into it (the dreaming part – also fun) you will be more at ease tackling the decisions needed to make your first home a reality.

If you have questions about buying your first home in Lancaster County, feel free to email me at jeff@yourlancasterhome.com any time.  Visit Yourlancasterhome.com for Lancaster PA Real Estate listings and more.
(c) Jeff Geoghan

This week I again was dealing with a great-priced HUD home sale in Lancaster City ($57,000 for a 2,300 square foot home on West Walnut) that was generating a lot of buzz.  This prompted me to cut an episode talking about HUD homes in Lancaster County and how you might benefit some day from buying one.

The federal Dept. of Housing and Urban Development acquires properties through the foreclosure process of certain homeowners nationwide.  Once they have these properties, they need a vehicle to liquidate them back to the public.  This is accomplished by breaking the country down into regions and giving contracts to “asset management” companies to administer the sales in assigned regions.  For Pennsylvania and some neighboring states, there are 3 asset management companies.

Now that the asset management companies have properties to market, they hire listing brokers in different geographic areas such as cities and counties.  You can search HUD homes at http://www.HUDhomestore.com, by the way.  Once you find one you want to buy, you’ll need a registered SELLING broker to place an online bid for you.  HUD rules stipulate a 30 day “owner occupant priority” period where only buyers planning to actually live at the property may bid.  Investors (and there are many) are shut out of the process until day 31 for most sales.  HUD does accept FHA mortgage financing on qualifying homes, unlike most other foreclosure listings.

Once your online bid is accepted, the sale proceeds fairly normally to closing.  There is some extra paperwork involved, but the contract is much shorter than the standard contract and since the homes are sold “as-is” there’s no complications with inspections, etc.

Buying a HUD home has never been easier and if the property works for you, the savings may be substantial over a similar privately-offered property.  Email me if you’d like more info or have comments at jeff@yourlancasterhome.com.  Visit my Lancaster County foreclosure website at http://www.yourlancasterhome.com/lancastercountyinvestors.htm. Search Lancaster PA Homes for sale.

Today I talk about the “basics” of how a real estate agent can work with the public in the state of Pennsylvania (mostly similar to other states as far as I understand it).  Since we’re talking about either home buyers or home sellers, the relationship of the real estate pro to the client can’t be too hard to figure out, right?  Well, almost.

1) Listing Agents (or Seller Agents) – have a written “listing agreement” that empowers them to represent the owner of a property complete with “fiduciary responsibility” to tell the seller anything they know that would be of material importance.

2) Buyer Agents (or Selling Agents – note the possible confusion in terms) – have a written “buyer agency” agreement with a home buyer that empowers the agent to represent the buyer to various agents and miscellaneous parties.  Has a fiduciary responsibility to the buyer to protect their confidentiality.

If a buyer does not have a written agreement in place with their agent showing them homes, they should not be disclosing sensitive information to that agent since the law seems to indicate that that agent would be compelled to disclose what they know to the seller should the seller (or listing agent) want to know about the prospective buyer’s financial situation, etc.   So get that buyers agency signed ASAP if you’re a buyer!

3) Dual Agent – represents both parties through separate agreements with each.  I do not understand why anyone would consent to letting an agent do this to them, although it is legal in PA.  It makes no sense – how does an agent truly best represent both a buyer and seller at the same time?  Run away…

Dual Agency shouldn’t be confused with the situation where a listing agent “works with” a member of the public while remaining loyal to the seller.  This happens all the time in new construction sales – the person waiting for you in the model home represents the builder and ONLY the builder.  Even so, people continue to go into models without proper representation of their interests every day…bad idea in my opinion.

4) Transaction licensee – where the agent represents NO ONE but writes up a sales transaction at the request of parties.  This is not usually a good option either because there is always the assumption of liability on everybody’s part.  IMO it’s best to just hire your own representative and be done with it, even if you’re buying your mom’s house…  It’s what you don’t know that will…you get the idea.

There are lot more nuances that your agent can explain as you go, but these are the basics.  Remember, always get it in writing!  If you have any questions feel free to email me at jeff@yourlancasterhome.com.

Homeownership almost seems like a dirty word in today’s society. People are blogging, tweeting and facebooking their belief that buying a home is just plain stupid. I respect their opinion on the issue though I totally disagree. Why?

This might be the best time to buy a home in American real estate history.

Some might think I’m crazy. Cynics might think that I am saying this because I still hold a real estate license (though I have not listed nor sold a home in ten years). My reason for saying it is actually quite simple. Owning a home makes more sense than not owning a home for the vast majority of families in this country. Let me give you five reasons why.

1. Real Estate is a Great Long Term Investment

Don’t take my word on this. This is what Mike Mandel, former chief economist at BusinessWeek and current Senior Fellow at Wharton’s Mack Center for Technological Innovation, had to say:

We’ve just had the biggest boom and bust in real estate in recent history. Nevertheless, real estate has still greatly outperformed the stock market over the past ten years.

Below is his chart actually showing the difference between real estate and the stock market.

2. A Home Is a Better Place to Raise a Family

Don’t take my word on this. When Fannie Mae asked current renters for the major reason to buy a house in their National Housing Survey 2010, these were the answers renters gave (they could pick multiple answers):

• 78% said it was a good place to raise children
• 75% said because they would feel safe
• 70% said because you have control of your own space

3. A Home Creates a Sense of Community

Don’t take my word on this. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York just published a paper The Homeownership Gap. The paper explained:

Because owners have a financial interest in their property, they have incentives to take measures that will maintain or increase the value of that property. Some of these measures—such as fixing a leaky roof—are closely related to the house itself. Others, such as investing resources in the betterment of the neighborhood and the community, have broader beneficial effects on the local area, creating what economists call “positive externalities.”

4. It’s Cheaper to Own Than Rent in Many Parts of the Country

Don’t take my word on this. Housing Wire just reported on a Credit Suisse study:

While a segment of the renting population continues to rent, many are looking to dip their toes in the homeownership waters. Credit Suisse said the percentage of median household income needed to pay the mortgage on a median priced home is at a 30-year low… Low mortgage rates and property values makes homeownership more attractive than renting for many. In many markets — including Washington DC, California’s Inland Empire, Las Vegas and Phoenix — paying for a mortgage is less expensive than renting.

And here is a graph from the study:

5. The People Who Do Buy a Home Don’t Regret It

Don’t take my word on this. Probably the best people to ask if buying a home makes sense are the people who currently own homes. A recent national poll commissioned by Bankrate.com found:

Ninety percent of homeowners say they don’t regret buying their home despite a nationwide tsunami of foreclosures, short sales and loan modifications.

It’s a great long term investment. It’s a great place to raise a family. It gives you a greater sense of community. It’s less expensive than renting. People who currently own have no regrets. Buying a home seems like a no brainer to me.