The other good news is that it looks like September home sales will be even better than August home sales. There are more Cache County Homes under contract than there have been in the last two months. We currently have 107 homes under contract compared with just 98 at this time last month.

One interesting thing about the Logan Utah Homes that sold during August is that they were bigger than homes that have sold over the previous four months. The average home that sold was 2,489 square feet, and had an average original list price of $221.767. During April, the average original list price of homes sold was just $176,975, and the average square footage was 2,093 square feet. I think this statistic shows that a much larger percentage of August home sales were made by non first time buyers, whereas, during April the large majority of Cache Valley homes were purchased by first time buyers.

via Logan Utah Real Estate Market Conditions: Cache County August Home Sales Numbers Improved.

Right now, interest rates for 30 year fixed mortgages can be obtained for less than 4.5%. Some people are getting 15 year fixed mortgages for less than 4% interest. This makes buying  Homes in Logan Utah less expensive than renting.

I own a townhome in Logan is currently renting for $700 a month. Comparable townhomes are selling for about $90,000. At a 4.5% interest rate, with a down payment of just 3.5%, the total monthly payment after taxes, insurance, PMI, and HOA fees would be around $650 a month. This is a monthly savings of $50 a month for someone buying a unit like this rather than renting it, and that doesn’t include any tax savings or equity gained.

Just because monthly payments are lower for those who buy houses right now, doesn’t mean that it is necessarily the best interest for every one to own real estate. There are significant upfront costs associated with both buying and selling Logan Utah Real Estate. When you buy a house, you usually pay about 3% of your mortgage amount up front, in closing costs. These costs primarily cover your loan and title fees.

When it comes time to sell a home, sellers typically pay around 7% of the homes sales price in fees at closing. This can add up to a substantial sum of money; that’s $10,500 in selling fees for a $150,000 house. Because buying and selling is expensive, it is not financially wise to buy real estate unless you are going to stay in the same home long enough to gain enough equity to recover the buying and selling costs.

Equity is gained in two ways. The guaranteed way to gain equity is by paying down the balance of your home loan. Each month, a small portion of your monthly payment is applied as “principal.” Every month the amount applied towards principal increases. With a $150,000 home loan, $2,340 in principal is paid off in the first year of a 30 year fixed mortgage. 15 year fixed loans will gain equity much faster. The same $150,000 mortgage would gain more than $7,000 in equity during the first year of ownership.

The second way homes can gain equity is through natural appreciation and inflation. Up until the crazy housing boom, homes consistently rose in value each year at a pace slightly above inflation. With the state of the current housing market, don’t count on natural appreciation any time during the next few years.

For those that know they won’t want to or need to move any time in the next decade, the all time low interest rates make buying a much better decision than renting homes in Logan. With a 30 year fixed mortgage buyers can have lower monthly payments than rent, and if they get a 15 year fixed mortgage, they are just 15 years away from actually owning a house.

Cache County is proposing a zoning change where 4 houses can be built on smaller lots but still only 4 per every 40 acres. The 40 acre parcel would be divided so that 70% of the land would be used for Greenbelt, and 30% for Residential. As incentive for rural land owners subdividing using this method, they are talking about allowing 5 property’s in the residential portion, as long as 70% remains the greenbelt, agricultural lot. The 70% agricultural percentage will have no rights for building homes. They are also talking about reducing the greenbelt back taxes currently required when agricultural land is converted to residential.

This appears to be a good way to preserve some of the rural Cache Valley Farm land, while also allowing the farmers to get more money from their land. Most people who want to live in rural areas, don’t necessarily want to take care of a full 10 acres of land. Two or three acres is usually enough land for the large gardens, and pasture areas they want. People that want to live in the country, usually want to for the open space and rural feel. This is a possible solution that can better the situation while helping Cache Valley land to maintain its rural identity.

The number of offers submitted before a short sale was actually completed was also down. The average short sale sold during June had 2.7 offers compared with 3.2 offers in June.

Still, major banks like Bank of America take about four months for a short sale to be approved. But, this is much improved from last year when it took nearly a year before bank of America would approve a short sale.

via Good News, The Average Time for Short Sale Approval Is Down | Short Sales.

The downward mortgage rates won’t last forever, but the question is when will they start going up? For people like me who are unable to refinance right now, but who will be able to next year, will interest rates still be this low in 2011? No one knows for sure, but here is what the experts are predicting. Take it with a grain of salt, because we all know their past predictions haven’t exactly been accurate.

In March, the Mortgage Bankers Association projected that rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages would rise to 5.8 percent during the final quarter of 2010, and average 6.2 percent in 2011 and 6.4 percent in 2012.

The MBA’s most recent mortgage finance forecast, issued on Aug. 17, projects that 30-year fixed-rate loans will rise to an average of 4.8 percent during the fourth quarter of this year, and stay around 5 percent most of next year.

MBA economists don’t foresee mortgage rates ticking up at a more rapid pace until 2012, when they expect 30-year fixed-rate mortgages to climb to an average of 5.8 percent during the final three months of the year.

via Mortgage rates plumb new depths | Inman News.

So in short, now is probably the best time EVER to refinance, but it looks like Utah Real Estate interest rates will still be incredibly low for the next few years.

via Utah Real Estate Mortgage Information » Mortgage Rates Down, Again – But When Are They Going Up?.

Consider this:

In the survey, just 9% of Americans adults desire a home bigger than 3,200 square feet. Currently 24% of the homes for sale in Cache Valley are bigger than 3,200 square feet.

Just 13% of  adults want a home between 2,601 and 3,200 square feet. 16.8% of Homes for Sale in Logan are of this size.

27% wanted a house  between 2,001 and 2,600 square feet. We’re about right on in this size range as 23.4% of Cache Valley Homes for Sale are this size.

28% of American adults desire homes between 1,401 square feet and 2,000 square feet. 20% of Cache Valley Homes for Sale are of this size.

9% want homes less than 1,400 sqaure feet. 16% of the current Logan Homes for sale are in this size range.

There might be a little bit more demand for larger sized homes in Cache Valley due to different demographics. Cache Valley’s population is much younger than national averages and we also have larger  average family sizes. The actual desire for different sized homes is probably different than the national averages. Even then, there are still way too many larger homes for sale in Northern Utah. We are likely going to see significant drops in the values of large Cache Valley Homes.

The average U.S. home size has increased each decade since the 50′s, but it appears that that trend is now coming to an end.

Probably not. Most people who can refinance right now and would benefit by it likely have already done it. The good news for anybody who plans to buy a Utah home in the next little bit is that mortgage financing is at all time lows.

via Utah Real Estate Mortgage Information » Mortgage Interest Rates Go Down, Again.

While these improvements are minimal, the good news is that they are improved and the real estate recovery is headed back in the right direction again.

via Logan Utah Real Estate Market Conditions: Short Sale Numbers Up in Logan.

The increased number of short sales could be partially attributed to homes that were under contract, that now are not. The long term effect of more short sales is result of lower home prices and a poorer economy.

The good news is that less demand means that these lower than ever mortgage rates will probably stay low for a while. There’s still hope that interest rates will remain incredibly low for those borrowers who may not be able to qualify for home loans until next year.

The bad news, is that this is a pretty good indicator that the real estate market has not recovered the way the experts thought it was going to. It looks like it will be a while before we will start seeing more demand for home buying, and real estate price appreciation.

via Utah Real Estate Mortgage Information » Mortgage Rates at New Record Lows – Demand for Loans Down.