WHAT CAN BUYERS DO
Rising interest rates are certainly not ideal, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t find your perfect home. There are many factors that need to be considered, including your personal financial situation and your willingness and ability to pay slightly more for that mortgage payment each month. The good news is that you will now be in a market with less competition and will likely have more power in negotiating with sellers.
Prior to applying for a mortgage, make sure your finances are in good order. Pay down debt, this directly impacts your Debt-to-Income ratio (DTI) that lenders look for.

• Improve your credit score – this has a big impact on the rate your lender will offer, higher credit scores typically mean you will get the best rates available. 
• Make sure you have a solid down payment, this will impact how much a lender is willing and able to offer and will impact the rate they offer as well. 
• Find a great realtor to help navigate this challenging and dynamic real estate market. A good agent will help you find property within your budget and will be able to assess trends in the market to ensure you negotiate a fair price.

Follow these 10 tips when you embark on an exciting home remodeling project.

1. Establish effective two-way communication with the home remodeler. It’s essential to have good communication for a smooth home remodeling project. Does the remodeler listen? Does he or she answer questions clearly and candidly? Can you reach him when you need to? Does he return phone calls promptly? Does he let you know when problems arise and work with you on solving them?

Homeownership is the foundation of the American Dream and with dwindling inventory across the country many potential buyers are breaking the barrier into building the homes they can’t find on the market.  This isn’t a task to enter into lightly, there’s plenty of horror stories to be found about buyers being scammed or having contractors walk away in the middle of the job whether they’ve been paid or not.

Due to the lack of inventory any good builder is going to have a pretty hefty pipeline and likely not enough help to keep up with the demand so it’s important to do a lot of research on your own before venturing into this territory.

ARM? GPM? PITI? You’d have to be a cryptologist to figure out some of the terms buyers encounter during the home buying process. Doing research on how to buy a house before beginning the process can greatly improve your experience and prepare you for the exciting course ahead. And with this glossary of home buying terms at your side, you can rest easy that your new home won’t get lost in translation.

Clutter can often be a sign of a chaotic lifestyle and it can also represent a very depressed person. You might have ready many articles on the subject and tried a variety of ways to clean up your own space but within days it’s right back to the same old trend of collecting mail or papers you really don’t need.  That’s because you haven’t found the decluttering style that best fits your lifestyle. There’s no one way that works for everyone.

It’s been proven. Clutter is a bummer — literally.

Dishes in the sink, toys throughout the house, stuff covering every flat surface; this clutter not only makes our homes look bad, it makes us feel bad, too.

At least that’s what researchers at UCLA’s Center on Everyday Lives and Families (CELF) discovered when they explored in real time the relationship between 32 California families and the objects in their homes. The resulting book, "Life at Home in The Twenty-First Century," is a rare look at how middle-class Americans use the space in their homes and interact with the things they accumulate over a lifetime.

Our over-worked closets are overflowing with things we rarely touch.

It turns out that clutter has a profound effect on our mood and self-esteem. CELF’s anthropologists, social scientists, and archaeologists found:

The beginning of a new year is always a good time to revisit our budgets, credit and saving money any way we can.  AHEAD is fulfilling these much-needed services by offering virtual one-hour workshops.

In January they have 4 courses being offered virtually and FREE. Even better, they are making them available during the day as well as in the evening.  Their January schedule is as follows:

Stay-at-home orders have led many families to cook together more, sending kitchens into overdrive. All that time prepping meals gives homeowners new kitchen goals: easier maintenance and better hygiene. Here are a few ideas for a fresher style.

USDA Rural Development’s Section 502 Direct Loan Program provides a path to homeownership for low- and very-low-income families living in rural areas, and families who truly have no other way to make affordable homeownership a reality. Providing these affordable homeownership opportunities promotes prosperity, which in turn creates thriving communities and improves the quality of life in rural areas.

Are you thinking about buying home? Have you been doing your research? Are you overwhelmed yet? The homebuying world can be an intimidating place, especially for first-time buyers. But rest assured there are professionals at every turn that can help you through the process.

Many clients are looking for a care free condo, and single family homes are not on the top of the listing for vacation ownership. Many feel there is too much work to do maintenance and up keep. While that may be true with older homes, that concern can be the complete opposite with a newer home.

Steps to Homeownership

New Hampshire Housing offers a number of different homeownership programs to help make homeownership more affordable.  While the specific programs may have different income limits, in general, we serve borrowers with incomes up to $135,300. 

We offer low downpayment requirements, down payment assistance (up to 3% cash to help with downpayment and closing costs), the homebuyer tax credit (HBTC) (Must be a first-time homebuyer or buying in a targeted community) and low-mortgage insurance options;

Are you ready to buy a home?

Take our quiz to help you determine your next steps.

Just like every industry, the coronavirus flipped the real estate market upside down, completely changing the way realtors, buyers and sellers do business. The normal spring market is like Super Bowl Sunday every weekend. This year, Realtors were left scrambling to keep everyone safe in the process.  Standard showings became Virtual Showings and 3D Tours, and, in some cases, buyers were purchasing homes they’d never stepped foot in.

What does all this mean? In short – due to a previous Executive Order, consumers cannot be evicted or foreclosed on their residence until the original order is lifted.  What it doesn’t mean is that consumers are not liable to pay their rent or mortgage, it just gives them some wiggle room during the pandemic to create and adapt an emergency household budget or find other financial resources to pay these debts.

Real Estate is evolving on a daily basis right now and none of us truly know how the story will end.  Believe it or not, there are buyers out there that are still looking for their dream home. Those would be the buyers that are confident with their employment situation and have been able to save for the transaction. At the same time there are many homeowners not being pushed to sell because their lender has automatically deferred their mortgage payments.  Still, buyers should not assume that because we are in a pandemic they can automatically lowball a seller. Sellers may be more willing, however, to entertain offers on the lower end. The reality is a buyer won’t know how motivated a seller is until they make an offer. Buyers need to keep in mind that no matter how badly a seller needs to sell they may not want to engage with a buyer who low balls an initial offer.

Buying your first home can be emotionally and financially challenging. With rising home prices, limited inventory, down-payment requirements and upfront expenses, it's enough to overwhelm someone right out of the process. In New Hampshire some local banks recognize how difficut entering the housing market can be and have taken some steps to offer some relief.  In association with the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston some banks can offer the Equity Buider Program (EBP). The program is available to income eligibe households who can get up to $15,000 to use towards a down payment or cosing costs.

Per orders of Governor Sununu  all non essential businesses are to close as of midnight tonight. A Real Estate company happens to be non essential.  Our Campton and Lincoln offices will be closed until further notice. Our Realtors on the other hand will continue to do as much as they can from the safety of their homes.

Continued communication with our clients and customers is important to all of us. What does this mean for our sellers: marketing strategies will continue to put your property in the forefront of  buyers able and willing to purchase as soon as the restrictions have lifted. 

?During this unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, Alpine Lakes Real Estate is continuing to monitor closely local and world events. With many companies closing their offices and directing their employees to work from home to help reduce the possible spread of this virus, our offices are no different. Currently our offices in Lincoln and Campton are open.

First and foremost, we are taking the safety and health of our Realtors, staff and our clients and customers seriously. We are adhering to the recommendations from our local, state, and federal governments. This is a fluid situation which we are monitoring daily to better adjust and change how we operate within our company.

As the coronavirus spreads, how will it impact New Hampshire’s Real Estate Transactions?

We reached out to many of our most trusted professionals in the field to get their feedback and yet there appears to be only a minimal impact on NH transactions. Though Bank lobbies have been closed across the state, mortgage lenders are still able to meet in person with customers if they so choose and yet there hasn’t been a significant impact on transactions already in process.