Northern Utah Home Team

Hello everyone! This is Ann Zieve with the Northern Utah Home Team and Keller Williams Success Realty here to give you my weekly market update, and today we’re going to talk about closing costs, but first let’s take a look at the market and then we’ll look at some new homes on the market. Here we have the graph of our rolling market statistics, and as we’re entering into February you can see that the number of new listings is starting to increase, and if you look at where they were a year ago, it’s about at the same point. We had the dip a year ago, and we had the same dip this year, so that’s just a seasonal thing, and when you look at new solds, you can see that those are still depressed, and they were depressed a year ago too. So again, another seasonal dip, but we will expect to see both houses selling and houses getting listed increase in the months ahead, and we can see that price is staying pretty much steady.

Well, let’s take a look at what closing costs are all about for all those sellers and buyers who will be entering the market. So one thing to consider when you are buying or selling a home are closing costs. Sellers are usually aware that they will have to pay a realtor’s commission. However, sometimes they don’t take into account other closing costs they might have, and then they are surprised when they don’t make as much money on the sale of their house as they had expected. Buyers are usually wanting to buy the biggest, nicest home they can with their money. However, if they don’t set aside money to cover closing costs, they will also be surprised at closing. So what are typical closing costs? Well basically they are the cost to pay everyone involved in helping you to sell your house or to buy a home. Realtor commissions are the most well-known closing costs. Also, if a buyer is getting a loan, they are pretty aware that there are going to be loan costs such as origination fees, down payments, points, etc.

Did you also know that the title company that will be closing the cost of the loan and the transaction will also have costs such as recording fees, document prep fees, and other fees? And also title insurance is another closing cost that both sellers and buyers will have. The seller will buy a title insurance policy for the buyer to insure that they are passing clear title, and the buyer, if they are getting the loan, will buy a title insurance policy for their lender to insure that the lender is getting a clear title. So in a buyer’s market when there are more sellers than buyers, it’s pretty typical for buyers to ask the seller to pay for their closing costs, and they seller is usually pretty willing to do so. However, in a seller’s market which we had at the end of the last year where there were more buyers than sellers, sellers are less likely to pay for the buyer’s closing costs, and buyers need to plan accordingly if they want to buy a great home. A knowledgeable realtor can help you anticipate these costs so that you can factor them into your buying and selling plans to make sure you’re not surprised at the end. Contact us for more information and to help you in understanding closing costs.

So let’s take a look at some new homes on the market. First I want to show you this incredible home in Roy. It’s over 8,000 square feet on almost a half-acre. It has a four-car garage, four bedrooms, four bathrooms, three kitchens, six family rooms, a formal dining room, a library, and the list goes on and on; an elevator. It has stained-glass windows. It has a huge master bedroom suite with a loft, and this home is just an incredible home to see if you’re looking for something in Roy in the upper price range. And here’s another wonderful new listing. This one is in Eden. It’s horse property with over 3 acres. It has horse pastures, a barn with electricity, and alfalfa fields. It has a beautiful, redone kitchen that opens up into a huge family room area. There’s four bedrooms in this house as well as three baths and two family rooms and just lots of elbow room inside and out if you’re looking for a great horse property in the Eden Valley among all the mountains and close to all the great recreational activities. So that wraps up this week’s market update. If you have any questions or need more information, give us a call, and we’re happy to help you buy a home, sell a house, or invest in real estate. Until next time, keep living smart.