Lucky #13 for Oklahoma City

Forbes.com recently named Oklahoma’s two largest cities #12 and #13 on its list of fastest-recovering cities in America.

Tulsa came in at #12, followed by Oklahoma City as #13. The list ranked the 100 largest metropolitan cities in five categories: unemployment rate, gross metropolitan product, foreclosures, home prices and sales prices.

Home Creations is proud to build new homes in both these cities and is grateful for a record-breaking year in 2009. With our average price across the state around $150,000 for a 1,600 square foot, 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 2 car garage brick home, the Sooner state’s home prices are a steal compared to other parts of the country.

Congratulations to my fellow Oklahomans on well-deserved rankings for our blessed state. Boomer Sooner!

Jan Sperry Astani
Marketing Director
Home Creations

Count Your Blessings with Orville Redenbacher

I came across a touching story in yesterday’s Parade Magazine featuring a young man’s account of how he spent Thanksgiving while growing up. He recalled warm memories of going to his aunt’s home for turkey dinner and finding popcorn sitting on everyone’s plate before they sat down for dinner. The popcorn was not meant to be eaten. Instead, during the meal, each family member would pick up a kernel, give silent thanks for a blessing in his or her life, and then place the kernel on the table. This continued throughout the meal. The young man didn’t mention if the goal was to rid your plate of popcorn or if it was OK to leave some kernels for those blessings that were about to come.

As we get ready to set aside one special day to recognize and remember all that we have to be thankful for, I’d like to share my popcorn kernels with you.

My husband who is the light of my life and the love of my soul

My two boys who are healthy, smart, athletic, kind, considerate and awesome

My parents who meet each new day the Lord has given them with a cheerful heart and songs of praise despite what age, arthritis and forgetfulness are doing to their bodies

My two sisters who are the best big sisters this baby sister could ever imagine

My nieces, nephews, their spouses and their children – each and everyone one of you is special in my heart

My husband’s mother, siblings and their families for loving us unconditionally

My co-workers who make me laugh and keep me from crying in this crazy new home construction business

My bosses for the awesome opportunities they present to me each and every day

My friends, both old and new, who keep in touch via email or Facebook. There’s technology hope for me yet.

My local YMCA for Zumba classes. Who ever knew exercise and dancing could be so much fun?

My media sales reps who are not only great business associates but more importantly fun friends

My home that’s always filled with special memories and silly laughter

My red room where nothing is better than curling up with a good book and a blanket and enjoying peace and quiet when no one else is home

My pantry that is full of yummy, unhealthy things to eat

My ability to travel outside the United States these last two summers and to realize how truly blessed we are to live in America

My satellite radio to keep me in touch with songs from the 70s and 80s. It makes me proud when my boys know Duran Duran, Hall & Oats, Bon Jovi, Michael Jackson and the Beatles. Forget this new stuff on MTV.

May God bless you this Thanksgiving. May you always take the time throughout the year to count your kernels. May you always have extras left on your plate.

Jan Sperry Astani
Marketing Director
Home Creations

Housing Angels Are Smiling

A lot of dancing and celebration took place in our Home Creations office earlier this week after hearing that President Obama signed the Home Buyer Tax Credit extension on Nov. 6. The extension continues the $8,000 tax credit for first-time buyers and those who haven’t owned a home in three years, and it offers a tax credit of $6,500 for existing home owners who purchase a new home. The home purchased must be used as a primary residence.

The tax credit for first-time buyers is based on 10 percent of the sales price, not to exceed $8,000.

The tax credit for current home owners is based on 10 percent of the sales price, not to exceed $6,500. Also, current home owners must have lived in their residence for five consecutive years out of the last eight to be eligible for the program.

The similarities for both groups, first-timers and existing buyers, are as follows:

• Buyers must be under contract by April 30, 2010, and close no later than June 30, 2010.
• Income limits for buyers increased with this extension. Single taxpayers with incomes up to $125,000 and married couples with incomes up to $225,000 qualify for the full tax credit.
• The tax credit applies to homes priced at $800,000 or less.
• The tax credit does not have to be repaid unless the home owner sells and moves within three years.

For more information on the home buyer tax credit program, visit www.federalhousingtaxcredit.com or call Home Creations, 877.277.7121.

Jan Sperry Astani
Marketing Director
Home Creations

$8,000 Tax Credit Extension Almost A Done Deal

"I'm just a bill sittin' on Capitol Hill" from School House Rock series

In case you haven’t heard the great housing news…yesterday the Senate passed the $8,000 home buyer tax credit extension by 98-0. Today the House approved the measure as well. Now it’s up to President Obama to sign it into law, and that could happen as early as tonight.

Do I hear a Hallelujah sister?

Here are the provisions:

1. The $8,000 home buyer tax credit is extended thru April 30, 2010, with closing taking place by June 30, 2010.
2. Current home owners moving up are eligible for a $6,500 tax credit if they have resided in their current residence for five out the last eight consecutive years.
3. Income limits: $125,000 for single buyers, $225,000 for couples.
4. Credit is good on homes under $800,000.

The National Association of Home Builders estimates the extended and expanded home buyer tax credit will create 211,000 jobs and generate 180,000 additional home sales in 2010. It is also expected to generate $9.6 billion in wage income and $6.9 billion in federal, state and local taxes.

Mr. President, your blessing will make many Americans happy campers. Get ready to sign!

Jan Sperry Astani
Marketing Director
Home Creations

Lunch Conversation Includes Refinancing Question

My sales director and I had lunch today with one of our great media reps. She’s in the process of refinancing her 30-year mortgage down to a 15-year loan, lowering her current 6% rate down to 5%. Her payment will actually increase about $200 per month, and her closing costs are $6,000. She asked if she should go ahead with this loan.

We talked her out of it for three main reasons:

1. There’s not a lot of difference in the interest rate.
2. The cost of $6,000 to refinance with her current lender seems rather high. There didn’t seem to be any advantage to sticking with her current mortgage company (a national bank) for this new loan.
3. If she sells her home in the next two – three years, she won’t have a chance to recoup those $6,000 in fees.

Here’s what we recommended: Keep the current mortgage with the 6% interest rate. Pay an additional $200 or more per month with the current mortgage payment (write a separate check) and designate the funds to principal only. It also helps if you can get your payment in a few days before the 1^st of each month.

Rumor has it that if you make one extra principal and interest payment per year from the start of a 30-year loan, you’ll pay off your mortgage in 17 – 19 years. Here’s an example: If your monthly P&I is $800, send $80 extra in every month to your lender. Over 10 months, you’ve made one extra house payment. That doesn’t lock you into the higher payment of a 15-year loan, and when you don’t have the extra funds, say around the holidays, you’re not required to pay extra.

Keep your money, girlfriend. You’re in a good position already with your current mortgage.

Jan Sperry Astani
Marketing Director
Home Creations

 

Play Date Could Solve Tax Credit Extension Puzzle

What if all the Senators, Congressmen and Congresswomen paired up with a representative from the housing industry and had a play date to solve the perplexing puzzle of the home buyer tax credit extension? As it currently stands, the House will propose a tax credit extension bill that the Senate dislikes; the House brings up ideas the Senate shoots down; the Democrats don’t like the Republicans, and the Republicans don’t play with Democrats. Man, Washington is complicated.

Here’s how the Home Buyer Tax Credit Extension Puzzle Game works:

Each politician gets one of the following people to play with: Realtor, builder, title company rep or mortgage loan officer.

The politician must listen, truly listen, to the suggestions and ideas from his/her playdate. The playdate’s decision is final.

They select one puzzle piece from these four categories:

P / Participant:            Decide who is eligible for the tax credit?
1. First-time buyers and those who haven’t owned in three years.
2. Current homeowners who have lived in their home consecutively for the last five years.
3. 1 only.
4. 2 only.
5. 1 & 2.

P / Price:                     Decide how much the credit will be?
1. Keep at 10% of sales price, not to exceed $8,000.
2. Give current homeowners $6,500.
3. Give everyone up to $15,000.
4. 1 & 2.

P / Paycheck               Decide the maximum home buyer income to qualify.
1. Single income less than $75,000; couples $150,000.
2. Single income less than $125,000, couples $225,000.
3. No income limitations.

P / Penalty                  Decide how long buyers need to keep their home before selling it and incurring a repayment penalty?
1. Keep it at least three years before selling.
2. Keep it at least two years before selling.
3. Remove all sales penalties.  

Upon deciding the winning piece for each category, the perplexing home buyer tax credit extension puzzle is solved, and Americans continue buying homes to stimulate the economy! It’s that easy.

Jan Sperry Astani
Marketing Director
Home Creations

More Good News on Home Buyer Tax Credit Extension

Home Creations recently received a letter from Congressman Tom Cole, 4^th District Oklahoma, regarding the home buyer tax credit extension. In Congressman Cole’s letter, he stated that more than 30 percent of all home buyers this past year have taken advantage of the tax credit and noted the tax credit deadline, Nov. 30, has already slowed down the housing industry. In addition, the Congressman stated that construction of single family homes was down three percent nationally in August after an increase for the past five months. Builders have slowed construction because they’re afraid they can’t get the homes done for a Nov. 30 closing.  

Congressman Cole is a true friend of the real estate industry and has co-sponsored H.R. 1245, the Homebuyer Tax Credit Act of 2009. It would keep the 10 percent credit based on the sales price but would increase the maximum amount to $15,000. In addition, H.R. 1245 calls for repayment of the tax credit if a buyer sells or fails to occupy the home within two years of purchase. The current tax credit program requires repayment if a home buyer sells within three years of purchase.  

A big thank you to Congressman Cole for his work to keep the home buyer tax credit program alive. We’ll keep our fingers crossed that his friends in Washington will agree with him and continue the dream of making homeownership a reality for thousands more Americans.  

Jan Sperry Astani
Marketing Director
Home Creations

New Home Owners Experience Goblins for First Time

One of the surprising new experiences of first-time home buyers is having ghosts and goblins appear on their doorstep begging for candy on Halloween. Apartment living, with its darkened hallways and scary stairwells, doesn’t provide the ideal environment for trick-or-treaters, so new home owners are often surprised when they hear the words “Trick or Treat” coming from their front porch.

A few years ago I had new neighbors next door, and they had never experienced Halloween on Landsdowne Drive before. I told them to be prepared for 150 – 200 kids. They were shocked. When I saw them a few days after the holiday, they thanked me for the heads-up. They had no idea so many children came out of the woodwork to collect bags and pillowcases full of candy on that spooky night.

If you’re a new home owner, find out from your neighbors how many candy bars you should buy for Halloween. In case you’re not familiar with trick-or-treating rules, you turn your porch light on when you’re ready for the onslaught of Power Rangers, Transformers, Doras and Strawberry Shortcakes. When you’re out of candy or just plain tired of answering your door every two minutes, turn your porch light off.

By the way, if you live in Norman, Oklahoma, city officials decided to have kids trick-or-treat on Friday, Oct. 30. The reason: there will be too much traffic out on Oct. 31 for OU’s home football game, and it won’t be safe for kids to be dodging all those crazy football fans driving Suburbans and Escalades.

Bah humbug Norman! Let kids be kids, and let the official day of Halloween remain Oct. 31. May the wild rumpus of scary trick-or-treaters begin!

Jan Sperry Astani
Marketing Director
Home Creations

U.S. House is Housing’s New BFF

The U.S. House approved a bill yesterday that would extend the $8,000 home buyer tax credit through December 2010 for military personnel serving away from home in 2009. In addition, the bill would eliminate the current tax credit repayment penalty if military families receive government orders to move within the first three years of homeownership.

Co-sponsor of the legislation was U.S. Rep. John Tanner, D-Tenn.

U.S. Rep. ED Whitfield, R-Ky., said in a news release, “Homeownership has long been a cornerstone of the American dream. The brave men and women who serve our nation abroad should be given every opportunity to make this dream a reality.”

 Keep your fingers crossed that the Senate will give this important bill its blessing as well. 

 Thank you to the men and women of the U.S. House for being housing’s new best friend.

 On a similar note regarding the home buyer tax credit, I was recently interviewed by a local newspaper regarding Home Creations’ experience with buyers taking advantage of this wonderful $8,000 free government opportunity. Read on for the questions and my answers.

1. How would you say the OKC market has responded to the tax credit? The Oklahoma City real estate market is blessed with reasonable pricing that puts homeownership in the hands of many people who wouldn’t be able to afford it in other states. I hope I’m speaking for all local builders and Realtors by saying that the tax credit has been a blessing to the local housing market in 2009. Home Creations sales numbers have been unbelievable. By July of this year, we had sold as many homes as we did for all of 2008. I’d say that about 75 percent of our buyers are first-timers taking advantage of the tax credit.

2. How have price ranges above the first-time range responded? We have homes from the $120s to the $250s, with our average price around $148,000 for 1,550 square feet. It’s not unusual for us to have first-time buyers purchasing a $175,000 home, and then we have families purchasing their 2^nd home in the $130s. In our market, we have a greater pool of buyers for homes priced under $175,000 than we do for homes priced above $175,000.

3. What will happen to the market here if the credit expires and Congress doesn’t renew it? In September 2008, down payment assistance was eliminated, and we feared that buyers would be forced out of the market. Fortunately, that didn’t happen. Then the government increased the down payment from three percent to three and one-half percent in January. That didn’t stop buyers, either. While we’d be disappointed to see the tax credit go away, we know that buyers will continue to find ways to purchase a home and take advantage of the numerous homeowner benefits. I saw a recent statistic that said this year’s tax credit accounts for almost 400,000 home sales nationwide. That’s amazing.

We were excited to see the U.S. House approve a bill Thursday that would extend the tax credit through December 2010 for deployed military families. The bill also removed the tax credit’s three-year repayment penalty for military families forced to move by government orders. If the Senate passes the bill, that will be a big boost to VA home buyers. Home Creations remains optimistic.

4, What’s the rush? Why should people act now? It typically takes a minimum of 30 -45 days to close a home loan once a purchase contract is signed. Right now, buyers have less than 50 days to make the Nov. 30 tax credit deadline. There are many players in the home-buying game (buyers, sellers, builders, contractors, mortgage companies, title companies, inspectors, etc), and each player needs adequate time to perform its job accurately. From our perspective as a builder, we can only control our job of completing the homes and making them ready for closing, pending the unpredictable weather. We can’t control how quickly the other players act and get their jobs done. That’s why time is of the essence for buyers to act now if they want to close by Nov. 30. The rush is on. 

Jan Sperry Astani
Marketing Director
Home Creations

The $1 Million (or $8,000) Question

One of the most popular questions that is leading readers to our blog has to do with whether or not the $8,000 home buyer tax credit will be extended beyond Nov. 30, 2009. That is the million dollar question of the day.

One of my colleagues suggested that the government would extend the tax credit at the last minute, just like the government extended the “Cash for Clunkers” program at the 11^th hour. We’ve noticed that prospective buyer traffic and Realtor inquiries have greatly increased at our show homes in the last few weeks. Sales people are once again seeing prospects they met back in the spring who are still in the market and trying to beat the tax credit deadline.

The tax credit program has definitely been a blessing to Home Creations here in Oklahoma and the national real estate and residential construction industry in 2009.

If you’re a first-time buyer who was inspired to enter homeownership because of the $8,000 incentive, let us know. Would you have bought a home without the tax credit? What will you do with the money? 

To see if you qualify for the tax credit, visit www.federalhousingtaxcredit.com. Hurry though…you have to be under contract and close by Nov. 30, 2009. Your home buyer clock is ticking.

Jan Sperry Astani
Marketing Director
Home Creations