Should you give your kid a down payment?

Coeur d' Alene Place introduces new gated maintenance-free neighborhood

Give Kevin a call today at 818.4050 for available floor plans, pricing, and neighborhood information.

Foreclosure Freeze 101: Why banks are halting foreclosures and what impact it will have

Erroneous documents. A freeze on foreclosures. Charges of fraud.

A flurry of developments have sketched an alarming scenario: that major U.S. banks rammed through foreclosure after foreclosure without giving many borrowers a fair shot at keeping their homes.

Questions have arisen about the scope of the problem, the effect on the nation's foreclosure epidemic and the likelihood that some people could regain their foreclosed homes.

Here's what you need to know about the unfolding foreclosure mess:

Greenstone Homes in Builder Magazine

Cozy Cottages

Empty nesters have especially loved the master-down cottage plans in the Rocky Hill community (one even features two master suites on the ground floor), and the fact that yard work, mowing, and snow removal are handled by the HOA.

“We have been seeing a combination of young professionals and move-down buyers as the demographic,” says Jayson Hunnel, sales and marketing director for Greenstone. “We just did eight of these in a block at our Ponderosa Ridge community and they were all purchased by empty nesters and sold before the first building was framed.”

Project: Rocky Hill
Location: Liberty Lake, Wash.
Builder: Greenstone Homes

MLS statistics: January-July 2010

Number of SOLD units up 20% YTD!

Pricing to sell in today's market

Putting yourself in the right mindset to sell is essential. It's the most difficult aspect of selling for most sellers. Your home is worth what a buyer is willing to pay, which may not be what you think it is worth.

Detaching yourself emotionally from your home is difficult. Clearing out years of clutter, depersonalizing your home by removing personal memorabilia, and staging your home for sale can help you step back and view the home as a commodity that needs to be sold rather than as your personal sanctuary.

Putting your home on the market at a price that reflects what you want and not what the market will bear can cost you time and money as it sits on the market unsold.

The home-sale market is a localized phenomenon. The only way to get a clear picture of what your home is likely to sell for is to find out which listings are selling in your neighborhood and for how much.

The most recent sales -- those that closed within the last three months -- will be the most informative. Be sure to take a hard look at the list prices of homes that are new on the market.

If the list prices are lower than they were two or three months ago, this indicates that prices are declining. This needs to be taken into account when you select a list price.

HOUSE HUNTING TIP: Pay close attention to your competition. Don't fall into the trap of pricing your home higher than your neighbor's home because yours is better. If your neighbor's price is too high for the market, neither of your homes will sell.

Ask your listing agent to call the listing agents of properties similar to yours to find out what kind of showing activity they are receiving. Have they had offers? If so, why weren't they accepted? Was the price too low? If so, you should set your sights lower.

Some listing agents recommend that you list considerably under market value in order to stimulate multiple offers. In some cases, this can be an effective strategy.

For example, in the low-end foreclosure market, this was common practice at the end of last year. Some listings priced way below market value received more than a dozen offers.

However, it can be risky to price significantly lower than market value on a more expensive property for which the demand is lower. You could end up with more than one offer, but you could also receive under-market price offers.

Your home needs to be perceived as a good value to a buyer to sell in this market. However, you could shortchange yourself by discounting the price too much.

Your home is most marketable when it is new on the market. Buyers wait anxiously for the new crop of listings. Listings that don't sell relatively quickly often languish on the market.

Price reductions often follow as the sellers try to find market value. A listing that has been on the market for months is likely to receive a low offer -- if a buyer makes any offer.

A listing that receives a lot of showing activity when it first hits the market but gets no offers is probably overpriced for the market. In this case, it's best to lower the price to market value as soon as possible while the listing is still fresh in agents' and buyers' minds, even if this is within two to four weeks of the listing date.

THE CLOSING: Listings in neighborhoods where sales activity is slim require a longer marketing period. Even so, pricing right for the market is imperative.

Silver lining in the Dow's drop: record low mortgage rates

The Dow average is down 438 points over two days as investors move from stocks to Treasuries. That's pushing mortgage rates to 50-year lows!