Archive for the ‘First Time Home Buyer’ Category

It’s that time of the week to feature yet another great condo / townhouse community in Bridgewater, NJ. This will be the last condo community to be featured that is onVanderveer Road. Vanderveer Road is right of Route 28 and The Bridle Club, Beacon Hill, and Vanderhaven Farms are all along the road. Every community has it’s own style so I’m sure you can find something you like. Vanderhaven Farms is tucked into the back of Vanderveer and Milltown Road which creates a higher level of privacy for those who live there. Without further delay lets get right to it:

Well I just pulled down all the newly sold October properties from the Multiple Listing Service and the answer is…. TREAT! Yes indeed, October was a good month for people looking to sell in Bridgewater. Not only did newly listed properties sell, some things that have been on the market forever found some buyers. This is a great sign. Take a look at the list and you will see that everything sold to pretty close to the asking price and some others around 5% less.

Take a look at the link below to look at each condo community:

http://www.bridgewater-condos.com/bridgewater-condos-sold.htm

Glenbrooke seems to have a lot of activity in both properties with high and low days on market. Also Glenbrooke had a properties sold on all ends of the price spectrum. There were properties ranging from $150,000 to $440,000. If I were someone looking to list and sell my place these numbers and prices are whats moving. People are attracted to value and a lot of these deals in Bridgewater are just that. If you have someone who knows the market and helps you come up with the right price to list then you will accomplish your goals.

To you buyers out there. With both the deals present in the market and extremely low mortgage rates what are you waiting for?

Let me know what your goals are and we’ll make a plan to get there.

Lets get this out of the way first, I don’t have kids but when I bought my place I made sure I looked into the school system. The bottom line when you selling your place down the road, you want to attract as many buyers as possible. Having a town with a great reputation is extremely important in reaching that goal. With there being so many towns to choose from in NJ there has to be a few thing that set town apart from each other. In many cases this the school system. Rest assured the schools in Bridgewater is top notch. They’ve won many awards and a lot of the graduates go to top schools.

With this being said, do your homework. I’ve attached the link below so you can read all about the schools and draw your own conclusions. Ask around, and I’m sure you’ll hear good things about the system and in turn about the town in general. Enjoy the reading and after your done give me a call and I can get you moving on either buying a new condo or selling your current condo.

http://www.brrsd.k12.nj.us/

I always look around some top real estate websites to keep up to date on the current trends. I cam across an interesting article today about how to declutter your home before you move. The one stat that jumped out at me was that a person can get rid of over 30% in their place and not miss it for a second. That may sound like a lot of stuff to get rid of but if you really think about it’s not. Go into each room and your house and I bet you see 30% of each room you could get rid of EASILY.

So have a read of the article below and see if you agree. Looking around my office I can see around 50% that could be parted with. Have a great day!

I can get rid of 30% of this I figure!

http://realestate.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=22240513

If you thought anything like me while looking for your first place you would be too scared to even look. How can I afford this? I rather just rent! Maybe I’ll try in a couple years? These were all the ideas that came to mind when I thought about buying my first place. I wanted to touch upon one major benefit of home-ownership this evening. TAX BENEFITS!!!!

For the first three years of ownership you can write off the mortgage interest. As you know, during the first years of your mortgage it’s mostly all interest and very little principal. This means, when you visit your accountant you can expect a healthy tax return. It more than makes up for the short term gain you may get from renting.

I live in a condo in wonderful Bridgewater and I can tell you from experience that I get back around 300-400 back a month at the end of the year. That’s just from the mortgage interest! Needless to say it really helps you understand that owning a home is not out of reach. Your accountant or even your mortgage broker can really go into this much more in depth but I hope you get the idea.

Thats all from now make sure you think about what I wrote and let me know if you have any questions!

From time to time its great to go back to the beginning to understand where we are today. It was only 2 years ago when I was a first-time home buyer. I thought when I graduated college that I would never have enough money to land a new place. I was invited to a first-time home buyer program locally and I received a great piece of information.

You can’t time the market, you have to be in it to win it. Now this sounds like a age old cliche but if you think about it, it makes a ton of sense. Say you have a place you love and its $300,000. You say to yourself I need a 20% down payment, closing costs, and various other fees. The next thing you say to yourself is I NEED 60 THOUSAND DOLLARS!? Thats how I felt for a very long time until I looked into it further. You don’t always need a 20% down payment AND your interest rate on your mortgage is equally as important.

So say at the time you looked at that place the mortgage rates were 6%. You save all the money you need and then look at the place again, now the mortgage rates are 7.5%! The monthly payment you were trying to get down just went back up to what it was the first time you looked. While you try to time the market it do any number of things and cause you many headaches.

If in the beginning I would have dug deeper I would have seen this very same mistake and I lost about 2 years playing the waiting game.  I found my dream starter condo in Bridgewater and I haven’t looked back. The amount I pay every month is what I would be paying for a similar apartment in New Jersey.

I’m not saying everyone is able to buy a new place the first time they look but knowing ALL your options will help you set a plan. I love being a homeowner and I still feel over 2 years later that it was one of the best decisions of my life. I hope to help you with that same decision.

How can taxes in New Jersey be a beautiful thing you ask? I’ll tell you why in one word…. RATEABLES! What are rateables you ask? It basically breaks down to the companies and businesses present in a given town. If  you’re a mega sized corporation and you have your headquarters in a given town then you are taxed a high level. The corporation pays a large sum in property taxes but a corporation doesn’t have use for many of the towns services. Sure they may need police and fire service from time to time but a corporation doesn’t go to school.

The high level of taxes and low need of town services make for lower taxes for the rest of the towns residents. In Bridgewater for example, there are countless pharmaceutical corporations who call Bridgewater home. This allows and creates a high number of rateables. This also allows for lower taxes for me and every other resident in town.

If you don’t believe me look at any property listing for Bridgewater and then look at a similar place in Raritan. You will see a noticeable difference in the yearly taxes thus making the property a little harder to manage.

For all you sellers, this is a major point that needs to come across to potential buyers.

With this being said, look at some properties on my website and we can go over everything I just wrote about in greater detail.

As a homebuyer the first thing you think you should do is go online, check out some properties you like, call an agent (hopefully me), and see some properties. One major step that is missed in that line of thinking is getting pre-qualified for a mortgage before you go out and see those properties. You’re probally saying “I’ve never heard that before” or “the other agents I’ve worked with didn’t ask for that.” To those comments I say, now it’s time to do it right.

Think about it for a second. You see a property for $400,000 and you LOVE IT. You see yourself in the house, make mental plans and start to daydream. The problem is THEN you set up time with your mortgage professional and they tell you you’re only able to afford $340,000. You’re crushed and discouraged. It’s not a good feeling and can set you back on your goal.

If you got pre-qualified before you saw that$400,000 proprty you would have known it wasen’t for you and avoided the setback all together. Getting pre-qualified is a painless process and don’t get it confused with getting your acual mortgage. That process is much more involved and comes later in the process. Getting pre-qualified involves getting your credit pulled and going over some basic numbers.

With that being said let me know if you have any questions and I will be happy to point you in the right direction. Have a great weekend!

Many of you out there probably have heard that very same question. Why even buy a condo? I heard it and I decided condo ownership was a wonderful way for me to enter the world of homeownership. Some people just don’t understand the benefits of living in a condo or townhouse so they give advice from a place of misunderstanding.

I know, I know I sound biased because not only do I live in a condo, I sell condos as well. Try to look past that because the main reason why I focus on condos is because I have such conviction for community living. I feel like I am part of a community and I have many benefits many homeowners wish they had.  Don’t forget as well, I live in a Bridgewater condo.

We have a pool, tennis courts, club house, nature trail, and trash pick up 3 times a week. When it snows, who cares? When the grass gets overgrown, who cares? All the aforementioned things are taken care of by the landscapers hired by the community.

Need a new roof? Part of the monthly fees paid go into a reserve fund and over the long run pay for such capital improvements.

The siding on townhouse is a little loose? The condo community handyman will come and fix it in a timely manner.

See where I’m going with this? Owning a single-family home is just one way to be a homeowner. Community living is another. You need to look at all the options but if you’re anything like me you will love the perks mentioned all over this post.

Lets go see some of these communities and I’m sure you’ll understand what I’m talking about.

So you’re ready to buy the perfect place, preferably a condo in Bridgewater right? The last thing on your mind is to ask your agent to see if the finances of the condo community your joining are on the up and up. This overlooked step can sometimes cause you problems, but thats where a good Realtor comes into play. As your Realtor I can make sure you get the condo’s financial documents in time, which gives you ample opportunity to look over the in’s and outs.

I serve on a condo board in Bridgewater as their secretary, so I know what these budgets look like and it can be tough to understand. There are many pieces to the budget but the main thing to look for is to see if they have about 1/3 of the total money in reserves. This just means that if the community needs a new roof down the line, there is enough money to cover it.

Most communities have their books in order because they use a third party company to take care of all the budget issues. For example, the Bridgewater Condo community I live in is the Bridle Club and we’re managed by Integra Management. We have two full time property managers that handle the day to day operations and have a real grip on the budget. The point is, it’s your purchase and it’s good to know all the facts. I can help you sort through these facts and get you into a great place.

Questions? Give me a call.