10 Best Apps for Home Buyers

Photo from www.kikaenterprises.com

When it comes to staying organized and efficient during the home-buying process your best tool might already be in your pocket: your smartphone. If you are in the market for a new home, technology can help make your search a little easier. There are mobile apps that allow you to search listings, calculate mortgage costs, find out which businesses and attractions are nearby, and design what your new home could look like. Below are some of the best real estate apps for homebuyers.

Find the Home

MLS Apps: Realtor.com, Redfin.com, Trulia.com, Zillow.com...

Platform: iOS, Android

Cost: Free

These apps are grouped together because they essentially do the same thing: help you search the local MLS (multiple listing service) to find properties for sale. Homebuyers can search by city/state or zip code to see current listings, and filter by price, number of beds/baths, property type, square feet, lot size, features, age of home, and listing activity (i.e., open houses, new listings, price reduced). Realtor.com is often recommended by real estate agents because it tends to have the most accurate and up-to-date information, sourced from more than 800 MLSs, with 90% of its listings refreshed every 15 minutes.

AroundMe 

Platform: iOS, Android

Cost: Free

The AroundMe app quickly identifies where you are to show you a complete list of nearby businesses and attractions, including the distance from your current location. This can be helpful when looking for a house in an area that is unfamiliar to you. You can search for the nearest bank/ATM, bar, coffee shop, gas station, hospital, hotel, movie theater, restaurant, supermarket, theater and taxi company. You can view every listing on a map, view GPS directions to your chosen destination, add the information to your contact list and email the details to a friend.

 

Homesnap 

Platform: iOS, Android

Cost: Free

Homesnap is another MLS app with an added feature: Snap a photo of any home across the nation to get instant property details, including home values, when it last sold, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, taxes, lot boundaries, local school ratings, similar listings, and nearby sales. If a home is currently on the market, you may be able to see interior photos. When you are ready to buy a home (or put yours on the market), you can use the app to contact a real estate agent to schedule a showing or to add your home to the MLS. This app draws on the same listing information used by realtors to provide timely, accurate real estate information. Or if you're looking for a quick and easy way to find information on any property for investment purposes, do it with a single photo via Homesnap.

House Hunter

Platform: iOS

Cost: Free

It’s hard to keep track of all the details when house hunting, but House Hunter does all the hard work for you by providing a scorecard that organizes notes and photos of potential homes. You can choose from more than 80 different home features to score potential homes and access a quick note feature to enter information about the homes.

 

Fund the Home

Mortgage Apps: Trulia Mortgage Calculator, Trulia Home Loan Rates, Zillow Mortgages, etc.

Platform: iOS, Android

Cost: Free

If you are like most homebuyers, you will need a mortgage to purchase your new property. Mortgage apps, such as Trulia's Mortgage Calculator, Home Loan Rates and Zillow Mortgages, help you determine how much house you can afford, calculate your monthly payment and shop for real-time rates. You can also see side-by-side customized loan quotes from a number of lenders, compare lender ratings and reviews, and directly contact a lender from your mobile device to learn more about a specific quote. These apps also include refinancing calculators so you can see if/how much you'll save monthly and in total by refinancing.

Credit Karma

Platform: iOS, Android, CreditKarma.com

Cost: Free

Before searching for a home, it's important to be sure you can get financing (unless you're paying cash). A lot of realtors will even ask for a pre-approval letter from a bank before they will begin showing you homes. Credit Karma is a great tool that's available for free and can give you an estimated score that's provided by TransUnion, as well as an overview of how your score was calculated. What a bank sees may be a little different but the general consensus has been that Credit Karma is fairly accurate and generally within a few points. I pulled my own credit and then checked with my bank and both were within 10 points of each other.

If you need financing, you need Credit Karma.

The Dictionary of Real Estate Terms

Platform: iOS

Cost: $2.99

Buying a home can be confusing, especially if you aren’t familiar with real estate jargon. The app, which costs $2.99, has more than 3,000 real-estate specific terms to help navigate conversations with brokers and real estate agents.

Fix-Up the Home

Houzz

Platform: iOS

Cost: Free

It’s hard to picture a fixer-upper in its final state, but Houzz will do all the imagining for you. Claiming to be the largest database of home design ideas on the Web, the Houzz app has more 500,000 high-resolution photos to give you remodeling ideas for out-dated homes. You can browse by style, room and location and save them to a virtual idea book.

Handy Man DIY

Platform: iOS

Cost: $1.99

For many home buyers, a new home comes with a list of required improvement projects. If you don’t want to hire a contractor you can get your own virtual one with Handy Man DIY and it’s only going to cost you $1.99. This app lets calculate and store room dimensions, figure out floor and wall square footage and create shopping lists for projects. The app also has how to videos and instructions to guide you through various projects. 

Sherwin Williams Color Snap app

Platform: iOS, Android

Cost: Free

Picking out paint colors can be tough but the free Color Snap app makes it a little bit easier. See a color you like in a photo, someone’s house or in a flower, all you have to do is snap a picture and the app will show you colors of Sherwin Williams paints that match. You can also browse hundreds of colors and adjust them to get the shade you want.

For Sellers!

If you are preparing to sell your home there are also some great apps available to help! Check out the one below and stay tuned for more ideas in the future!

Home Value Pro

Platform: iOS

Cost: Free

Eager to sell your home but not sure where to price it? This app lets you view property values, foreclosure information and housing trends in neighborhoods across the country. The app lets you analyze housing data by ZIP code, provides 12 month median home price trends, foreclosure rates and home sales trend activity that can help you properly price your home. 

Article compiled from articles on investopedia.com, imore.com, and foxbusiness.com

Corvallis Housing Survey Results

Many of you possibly took part in the recent survey regarding housing in and around Corvallis. For those of you who enjoy wading through pages and pages of data here is the link to the complete survey report. The official results are not completed yet but below is a recap of some interesting findings. Again, these are not official conclusions, only observations from a fellow survey participant. :) Stay tuned for official results from the Survey Committee and for the compilation of open-ended responses.

Purpose of the Corvallis Housing Survey:

"The City of Corvallis recognizes both the need to both understand local housing markets and housing need as well as implementing strategies to address the housing needs of Corvallis residents. Like many Oregon cities, Corvallis has found meeting the housing needs of all of its residents to be challenging. For a variety of reasons, Corvallis has higher housing costs than neighboring cities in the Willamette Valley. The characteristics of Corvallis’ housing market are different from other cities in the Willamette Valley. A few basic indicators of Corvallis’ housing market with other Willamette Valley cities underscore the key differences:

1. Corvallis has more rental and more multifamily units. Corvallis’ housing is much more likely to be renter-occupied, even when compared to Eugene. Corvallis has a much larger share of multifamily dwellings than other cities.
2. Corvallis’ housing is less affordable. The median sales price for single-family housing is substantially higher than other cities, except for Eugene, where average sales prices are somewhat lower than Corvallis’. The ratio of median sales price to median household income is higher in Corvallis than other cities, with sales prices more than six times household income.

The [survey] questions build from the assumption that there is a need to better balance housing supply with housing demand. [Results show that] nearly twice as many people commute to Corvallis to work as live in Corvallis and work elsewhere. The inflow/outflow of workers and residents is commonly referred to in the planning literature as “jobs-housing balance.” The factors that lead to jobs-housing imbalances are many. A core objective of this study is to better understand the characteristics of the 18,000+ individuals who commute to work in Corvallis that live outside the Corvallis city limit. In summary, the central question addressed in this survey was “Why do Corvallis workers choose to live in other places?”"

Charts and Summaries:

Some things to note before looking at the data...

1. The data shows housing preferences for survey respondents who work in Corvallis but choose to live outside of Corvallis.
2. The result conclusions focus on respondents who live outside of Corvallis, however it presents results of respondents living inside of Corvallis to provide context for the results.
3. 49% of respondents live within the Corvallis city limits and 50% of respondents live outside of the Corvallis city limits. 1% were uncertain. 
4. Because a non-probability sampling method (for more information on this type of sampling check out wikipedia) was used, the results presented are for the sample only and should not be inferred to be representative of the entire population. 
5. The sample size (1,681) is about 9% of the 18,476 individuals who work in Corvallis and live elsewhere.

Top Take-Aways:

• Although housing costs are similar - only about a $100 difference not including utilities - of respondents within and outside of Corvallis, the size of homes outside of Corvallis are very different. In general residents outside of Corvallis tend to have more bedrooms, bathrooms, and square footage than residents in Corvallis. Meaning that for the same price they are getting more. It's not that residents are particularly looking to lower overall costs of housing by living outside of Corvallis but they want to get more for their investment. See exhibits 6, 7, 11, 12, and 13 above.

• The top reasons for living outside of Corvallis include: wanted more affordable housing, rural setting, wanted to own versus rent, good place to raise children, and wanted a larger home. Two of the top 5 reasons for choosing a current location to live had to do with home size or affordability which is directly related. Therefore the baseline cost of housing is not an issue but rather the cost per square foot is higher in Corvallis and not as desirable as other areas. See exhibit 15 above.

• "The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Services (HUD) estimates that the median family income (MFI) for Benton County in 2014 is $69,400. Using standard estimates of housing affordability, a household earning the MFI could afford to pay about $1,735 for housing per month or a house costing about $210,000. The median sales price for housing in Corvallis is nearly $270,000 in 2014. (based on median prices on Zillow). The median housing costs for survey respondents who rented and lived inside Corvallis was $1,150, including rent and utilities. According to the American Community Survey, the median rent in Corvallis is about $790." Corvallis is less affordable than surrounding communities. To be able to buy/rent an average home in Corvallis, assuming the family does not spend more than 30% of their gross income on housing costs, the resident more than likely will need to make more than the median family income for Benton County, thus making buying/renting a residence in Corvallis difficult for those who make the MFI or less.  See exhibits 24 and 25 above.

• Homeowners outside of Corvallis living in larger homes are more likely to be able to afford housing costs in Corvallis but it seems that they feel they will be making sacrifices on preferred location within the city, higher tax costs, and suitable condition of properties to get something comparably priced. See exhibit 40 above

Information taken from the Corvallis Housing Survey Report prepared by ECONorthwest. The full report and City Council agenda/meeting notes can be found here.

How's the Market - July 2014

I often get asked "How's the market?" in response I have developed the following report to give a clear overview of the Corvallis real estate market and any changes over time. Read on to get some insights into the reports for this quarter!

We are 50% through 2014...where did the year go?!

We are starting to see some clear trend lines in the Corvallis marketplace this year –for at least the first 6-months. The first thing we noticed is that total home sales were down in the first three months of this year. Most of us in the business attribute this to a lack of quality homes for sale. That being said, the total unit numbers were down.

Another interesting trend is that for the first 6 months our average price is a little less than 2013 and our days on market are higher. This is a little concerning. We will have a clear view of the trend come October 1st – when we can see how our highest closing months –July and August –really end up.

At this time, there are no major red flags in the numbers –but we do have some minor concerns with some of the average sales price statistics.

In addition, here is a link to the very useful FHFA Pricing Index Report. If you would like to find out information on many cities, most counties, regions and stats in the country this FHFA report is an incredible resource. –Here are some points of interest:

In the last 12 months:

• Nevada has seen home values rise 20.96%.  Oregon has seen a rise of 9.71%

• Merced California has seen a 1-year appreciation of 30.63%

• Bend, Oregon, has seen a 1-year appreciation of 18.82%

• Albany, Oregon, has seen a 1-year appreciation of 5.85%

• Corvallis, Oregon, has seen a 1-year appreciation of 6.58% (This is lower than expected as we have seen some price reduction in the last 6 months)

If you would like more information about our marketplace, real estate in general, or would like an analysis of your home– do not hesitate to contact me.

Make it a great day!

Lee Eckroth
Town & Country Realty, Broker
Lee@Talk2Lee.com
541-760-4742

How's The Market? - June 2014

I often get asked "How's the market?" in response I have developed the following report to give a clear overview of the Corvallis real estate market and any changes over time. 

As of April 2014 the numbers show that prices are almost back at their peak, days on the market is dropping and the inventory of homes is low. All of these point to a sellers market! Of course the busy season is upon us and many things have changed even in recent months...stay tuned for updated numbers!