With our energy costs going up and up, now is a good time to be thinking about making your home more efficient.
The City of Austin has a great rebate program that rebates homeowners for certain renovations they make to their home. The renovations have to improve the energy efficiency of the home and are items such as: AC replacement, AC duct repair, insulation, weatherstripping and solar screens among others.
The rebates are 20% of the costs of the upgrades, so can amount to quite a lot when doing a big job such as replacing the AC unit. They also offer 9% loans for these repairs.
If you don't have, or don't want to use, the cash to pay for the repairs immediately. The City also has a program that will give you a short term loan at 0% interest for AC replacement. The loans are repayable over 3 years, and longer terms are available but do accrue interest.
Check out http://www.austinenergy.com/energy%20efficiency/Programs/Loans/Residential/Home%20Performance%20with%20Energy%20Star/index.htm for all the details.
With our energy costs going up and up, now is a good time to be thinking about making your home more efficient.
**Special note: The City asks that you use one of the approved providers for the work. Be careful who you pick and make sure to get multiple bids. I had a company come and look at one of my homes and he wanted to charge almost double what other companies were charging. So even with the rebates I would have still been way overpaying. I'd recommend too getting a bid from a contractor not on the list for comparison purposes.
If you need a recommendation please let me know, I'd be happy to refer you to a contractor that I have used and been very satisfied with before.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Thursday, June 26, 2008
May real estate stats
Average price for all of Austin for May is $263,151, up from $241,722 last month, and up from $250,156 a year ago. This is breaking the trend over the last 9 months where the 2008 monthly average was lower than the 2007 average. It's encouraging to see that increase. The Median Price at $196,120 has also made gains above last month and the year before.
It's great to see those numbers as they buck the trend in a positive way, however it's not time to start celebrating yet. I still see a lot of houses sitting on the market and most buyers expect to negotiate.
I think the national news has a lot to do with this. Always talking about a bad economy and housing market, they keep a lot of buyers on the fence waiting to see how the economy will turn out. Without these buyers it takes longer to absorb the amount of homes that are already on the market. When these buyers come back into the market we should see a good pickup of sales.
It's great to see those numbers as they buck the trend in a positive way, however it's not time to start celebrating yet. I still see a lot of houses sitting on the market and most buyers expect to negotiate.
I think the national news has a lot to do with this. Always talking about a bad economy and housing market, they keep a lot of buyers on the fence waiting to see how the economy will turn out. Without these buyers it takes longer to absorb the amount of homes that are already on the market. When these buyers come back into the market we should see a good pickup of sales.
Monday, June 2, 2008
mortgage payment changes
What to plan for when your payment changes due to your escrow account.
If you have an escrow account on your mortgage loan your monthly payment can change as the lender adjusts to pay for taxes and insurance that can change year to year.
Sometimes your payment can go down if the lender has too much in the escrow account. This has happened on two of my loans this Spring. While I appreciate the fact that my payments are lower, I'm also consious that my property taxes have risen this year.
How can this be that my payments go down but my taxes have risen? Lenders are strictly regulated as to how much they can hold in their escrow accounts and have to give back any overages. They have to base their escrow account amounts on what they paid out last year and don't have the tax information for the current year. Of course at year's end when taxes are due they'll notice the escrow deficiency and raise your payments higher than they were before to cover the deficiency last year and anticipating the next year.
So if your payments drop as a result of the escrow accounts be sure to know what taxes are to be paid at the end of the year so that you can put a little extra away and don't get surprised by a payment increase.
If you have an escrow account on your mortgage loan your monthly payment can change as the lender adjusts to pay for taxes and insurance that can change year to year.
Sometimes your payment can go down if the lender has too much in the escrow account. This has happened on two of my loans this Spring. While I appreciate the fact that my payments are lower, I'm also consious that my property taxes have risen this year.
How can this be that my payments go down but my taxes have risen? Lenders are strictly regulated as to how much they can hold in their escrow accounts and have to give back any overages. They have to base their escrow account amounts on what they paid out last year and don't have the tax information for the current year. Of course at year's end when taxes are due they'll notice the escrow deficiency and raise your payments higher than they were before to cover the deficiency last year and anticipating the next year.
So if your payments drop as a result of the escrow accounts be sure to know what taxes are to be paid at the end of the year so that you can put a little extra away and don't get surprised by a payment increase.
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