Author Archives: Annette Walden Mason

Why Now Might be the Best Time to Sell Your Home

Trying to decide when is the best time to sell your home can be tricky, but also is determining the final profit on your home.

Here is some information to help you make that decision.

  • Home prices are trending upward. According to Georgia Realtors, home prices from 2018 to 2019 increased by 3%. Prices are looking to trend even higher for 2020. That is good news for the seller, but if you are also buying, it’s another consideration.
  • Housing markets are low. When the housing inventory is low, buyers tend to contemplate all options in the market area and make quick offers. This is good news for sellers because it often leads to bidding wars in attempts from buyers to get the best house in the area.
  • Homes are spending less time on the market. As with inventory being low, buyers are acting fast. The average time on the market in 2019 was 56 days. That was a 5% decrease over the previous year’s statistics.

So, are you still trying to decide when is the best time to sell?  Still wondering what your final profit might be? We can help with that. We are now iRep certified.  What does that mean? We can test the market for you without doing a formal traditional listing. We can help you receive cash offers on your home and a retail market valuation in 48 hours. Then you can decide whether or not to accept the offers or go the traditional route of selling your home.

The time is right. All the pieces are falling into place. With increased housing costs, lower inventory, and fewer days on the market, now is the best time to sell a home.  Let the Dinsmore Team help you through the process.

Homestead Exemption

What is it?  How and when do I file? 

We have the answers for you.

If you purchased real estate property in 2019 and occupied it as your primary residence on January 1, 2020, you are potentially eligible to file for a homestead exemption. 

What is Homestead Exemption? 
Homestead exemption is a discount on your real estate property tax bill for an owner-occupied principal place of residence.

Am I Eligible? 
If the property is your principal place of residence as of January 1, 2020, and you purchased last year (or any year prior), you are likely eligible to file for a homestead exemption with your county’s tax assessor’s office.

How much will it save me?
Savings vary depending upon where the property is located, but if you are eligible, you don’t want to miss the deadline for filing!  A Savings on your tax bill is a good thing!

The deadline for filing is April 1st of this year for all counties in Georgia.

The best place to get information regarding filing instructions is from your county tax assessor’s office. If you are in a city, you may have to also file with the city (i.e. Cumming, Milton, Roswell, Alpharetta, etc).

Below are some of the websites for tax assessor’s offices for this area –

Fulton County –

Click to access 2018-Guide-To-Homestead-Exemptions.pdf

Cherokee County –

https://www.cobbtax.org/property/exemptioninformationhttps://www.cherokeega.com/tax-assessors-office/homestead-exemptions/

Forsyth County –

https://www.forsythco.com/Departments-Offices/Board-of-Assessors/Homestead-Exemption

If your tax assessor’s website is not shown in the list above, a google search for your county’s tax assessor should quickly locate the necessary information for filing directions.

Congratulations again on your purchase and please let The Dinsmore Real Estate know if you have any questions about homestead exemption filings.

 

 

There’s More than One Way to Sell a Home

When it comes to selling your home, it’s a big undertaking.  Unless you’ve maintained your home in pristine condition, it make take a few months to get it to the point you can list and show it.  And what about those repairs that need to be done?  And do you invest in doing those upgrades or not?  Which upgrades will bring you your best ROI?  Just so much to take into consideration.

What if there was a way to get an idea of what your home value would be in it’s ‘as is’ condition?  Well, you may be thinking, I can just look at the other homes in my neighborhood.  Or call a Realtor who can give you an assessment.  Yes, those are viable options, but what if there was a way to present your property to multiple sources and receive multiple offers without the guess work?  What if I told you, there is a way?

I am now iRep certified.  Which means I can assess your property and put together a presentation to all those companies who advertise to give you cash offers on your home.  But you’re probably thinking, well can’t I just do that myself?  Yes, you could, but by using my services and expertise, I can help get you the best offer.

Typically, what happens when you go directly to one of these companies, they do no prior assessment of your property.  They just look at the basic information and what has sold around you and send you an offer.  If you want to proceed, then they send someone out to inspect your property and then give you the real offer, which is much lower than what they initially offered.  Why, because they see all the things that needs to be repaired, replaced, upgraded, etc. and lower their offer.  When you use my services, I provide the assessment to the company upfront which includes any repairs, etc. that need to be done.  You then get an offer of the true value of your property because they know upfront the condition of the property.  Plus, since I am representing you, you won’t be bombarded with emails and phone calls should you decide this is not the route you want to pursue.

Using my iRep services can help the home selling process in a couple of different ways.  First, if you’re thinking about selling and want to get a really good idea of what your home will bring, this is a good option.  Second, after receiving your offer, you can decide if you want to go through the listing and showing of the traditional route.  Perhaps you have small children, animals, or elderly parents that going the traditional route would be very disruptive to your home life.  Perhaps the difference between getting a cash offer and what it would take to get your home ready to list and show is not in your time constraints.  Perhaps you have a reason that you need to sell and move quickly.  All of these are very valid reasons to consider using the iRep process.

To learn more about the iRep process give me a call and we can discuss what is best for you and/or see our webpage at https://www.dinsmoreteam.com/irep/ for more information.

Home Sales for the Past Year

Happy New Year!  It’s still January so I can still say that.

The real estate market continues to be great!

Housing Indicators are in for 2019, and it was another great year for Georgia’s housing market! With a strong economy and low mortgage rates, buyer activity has been strong. However, inventory levels are still below historical norms, and prices continue to rise.

A few quick facts are listed below – all indicators are year over year for existing single-family homes.

• Median Sales Price: 6% increase to $228,000
• Pending Sales: 6.7% increase to 145,087
• Closed Sales: 4.9% increase to 142,915
• New Listings: 6.4% increase to 201,215
• Average Sales Price: 4% increase to $272,207
• Days on Market: 5% decrease to 55 days
• Months Supply of Inventory: 10.8% decrease to 3.3 months

If you are thinking about buying or selling, now is a good time.  Mortgage rates are still low and prices will continue to go up. Give us a call, we are here to help.

Marie Dinsmore

The Dinsmore Real Estate Team

770-712-7789