If you’re considering purchasing a home, you may have encountered several real estate experts advising against the purchase of a property unless you plan to stay put for a minimum time period of 4 to 5 years. This advice may seem reasonable given the odds you could lose money if your home doesn’t appreciate enough to cover your loan costs, closing fees, and Realtor commissions.
But let’s consider the downside of waiting to buy a home. When you procrastinate getting into the real estate market, you run the risk of home prices and mortgage rates spiraling beyond your ability to qualify for a home. Plus, you’re letting valuable tax deductions slip through your hands each year you continue to rent. If you consider the wealth building potential of owning a home and the thousands of dollars in equity you could be passing up, you’d be foolish to ignore the opportunity of owning a home.
If your future plans include moving within a few years, your best strategy would be to develop a short term home buying strategy. Homebuyers who’ve taken advantage of short term ownership have reaped substantial financial gains in the relatively short time. The point to remember is, there’s never a bad time to purchase real estate. Irrespective of the local market conditions and interest rates, there are always homebuyers who can churn a profit in any market.
Despite the fact local real estate conditions and interest rates constantly fluctuate; sharp homebuyers continue to reap profits by flipping the right properties. If you have the talent for redecorating and repairing a home, you can significantly raise the resale value of a home. If remodeling work isn’t your cup of tea, you can also locate a handy person to do it for low cost.
While purchasing homes in need of repair can be rewarding, there are several other effective ways to make money from real estate. Some homebuyers make money upfront by searching out homes for sale at bargain prices. You can locate these bargain properties by searching for distressed sellers, houses going through probate, foreclosures, and properties returned to the bank (also called real estate owned) after a borrower fails to pay their mortgage payments.
One terrific strategy to leverage the short term home buying concept is through a lease-option. As you rent with the option to buy, you’ll have the opportunity to build stronger credit, set aside cash (via rent credits) towards a down payment, and prevent the sales price of the home you want to buy from escalating in a future hot market.
One important feature of lease options overlooked by many homebuyers is the ability to not exercise their purchase option should the real estate market spiral upward-but find another interested homebuyer to pay them for the option. The new buyer would reap the benefits of any accrued rent credits and have the chance to buy a home below existing market price.
Looking for the best Orange County home? Then check out these Anaheim Hills homes for sale and use a local Anaheim Hills Realtors .
