Open Forum Wednesday Archives - Bascomb Real Estate Group

Grant Money Available for All Homebuyers

Summer is here and the time to buy is now! As a Realtist with the National Association of Real Estate Brokers (NAREB), we are offering an amazing opportunity for all homebuyers regardless of your current status as a homeowner.

NAREB has partnered with Eagle Connect and United Security Financial to provide a grant program for homebuyers to support our 2 million new black homeowners in 5 years (2Mn5) campaign! Grant funding for your new home purchase ensures you don’t have to pay back the funds you are awarded for down payment assistance and/or closing costs AND you don’t have to be a first-time homebuyer. Many down payment programs are for first-time homebuyers and must be paid back when you refinance or sell, but these funds do not!

Contact Bascomb Real Estate Group today to get qualified; we want to support you in buying a new home for the first time OR the second, third or fourth time!!

When Life Steps In

Have you had the best laid plan to be consistent with a specific task and/or process only to see life step in and completely change your trajectory?? You’ve started a new project that is very important; you get a great rhythm going and you are getting comfortable with the process and BAM, full stop! If you haven’t experienced this, I certainly have and very recently.

Sharing information with the community; educating; and providing the services that we provide for home buyers and sellers is core to our real estate work. In order to do this social media plays a central role in the sharing of that information. But life stepped in and I haven’t been online for the past two months and I must admit, I did miss sharing information with the community.

My hope is as I return to my platforms, you continue to find value in the information I share. So thanks to all of you who engaged with us prior to our hiatus and our hope is you continue to find value as we move into another summer!

Is It Spring in Seattle??

Spring is here and it is time to get out of the house and explore the region!

Our weather gets a bad wrap up here in the Pacific Northwest. It seems the dreaded gray takes over a good portion of our time here! But this week has provided some much-needed sun, along with longer days and the opportunity to get outdoors and see what our region has to offer.

Here are a few things you can get out and do now that the sun has reminded us it still cares:

If you have a yard, I am certain your grass mysteriously took over your yard overnight as mine has. This is a great opportunity to get some gardening started (or have someone start it for you).
Take a walk; this is such a novel idea for some of us who are not the outdoorsy type, I NEED THE SUN!
Take a ferry ride; this can be a great, quick, inexpensive getaway on Puget Sound. If you ride at dusk, the city skyline is such a beautiful site as you sail into the harbor.
Buy A House! With spring in the air, we are moving into a very healthy market. You can be in a new home before the summer is out.
Sell Your Home! If you are looking to upgrade due to life changes, or you are ready to downgrade as empty nesters, now is the perfect time to start!

Wholistic Health and Wellness

As a Real Estate Broker, most of my focus is typically on financial health and wellness and supporting my community in reaching their optimum financial well-being. However, wholistic health is the foundation of said well-being, from which all avenues of health flow. Spiritual, mental and physical health are the additional pillars that sprout from this foundation that is of importance to me and sharing information regarding these pillars will continue to be an additional focus of mine.

Throughout 2019, Bascomb Real Estate Group will share information with our community about partners we work with who provide access to maintaining your wholistic health. We will focus on these partners and provide a platform for them to share their message with the BRG community. This week we would like to focus on your physical health and wellness and how you achieve it.

Our partner, LaTaunya Witherspoon, who owns Spoon Fed Training in Renton, WA is focused on the physical health and wellness of the community. Spoon Fed Training not only offers workout opportunities for the community, but also provides support with how to maintain a healthy life with a wealth of information on their website. If you are not able to physically visit Spoon Fed Training, visit their site for videos, information on healthy eating, and so much more!

Open Forum Wednesday – #LifeGoals

As we go barreling through 2018, time is intent on trying to leave me behind with how fast it’s going by! I don’t know about you, but I find myself having to take stock of my next moves much more often then I use to. Time waits for no (wo)man and it certainly is not making any concessions for me; which brings me to #LifeGoals.

Taking stock or evaluating your next moves doesn’t have to involve writing a business plan for your life. All your plans do not have to be on a 1 – 5-year track, short #LifeGoals are highly effective in helping one move forward in a very meaningful way. Take the lightning fast summer approaching, what goals have you set for this time? This is the perfect opportunity to do things you’ve put off because you had it categorized under ‘ next year I will….’; no do it now! Take that mini-vacation you ‘ve been putting off but need desperately; take your kid(s) to that place they refuse to leave you alone about; read that book that’s been sitting on your nightstand for a year; pull your credit reports and review them. Completing these small tasks can get you to your final goal(s) surprisingly quick and you don’t have to put them off or feel as if you don’t have time, just do it!

As for me, I am getting small projects in my house done that I haven’t because I felt I needed to do the big things first. Well I am certain you can guess, it hasn’t happened yet. So, I’m starting with my girls’ bathroom and my foyer chandelier, I am finally making headway towards my big house project, that is one of my biggest #LifeGoals!
Have a great week and give us a shout with your questions/comments/inquiries customerservice@bascombrealestate.com.

Black Homeownership in the Pacific Northwest

As a member of the National Associations of Real Estate Brokers, I am pleased to share one of the many great initiatives currently launched by NAREB, the 2 Million in 5 Initiative (2MN5). This initiative focuses on 2 million new black homeowners nationwide in 5 years and was created out of a response to the State of Housing in Black America report that discusses the stark difference in homeownership rates between blacks and whites. The current disparity (42% black vs 71% white) is yet another indicator of the inequities faced by black Americans but provides an amazing opportunity to be a part of this lofty objective proposed by NAREB.

Visit the NAREB website to learn more about 2MN5, you can read the report on the state of black homeownership and the objectives set by the organization to support NAREB’s motto of ‘Democracy in Housing’. In addition, you can read about why an increase in black homeownership matters. Contact Bascomb Real Estate Group to be 1 of the 2 million new black homeowners by 2023!

Credit: Tradelines

This week we are going to continue our conversation around your credit. As discussed last week, if you are in the market to buy now, very soon or sometime in the future, it is wise to start here.

Your credit mix is also important when a lender is reviewing your qualifications to buy a home. Just having the right credit score will not guarantee an approval, your credit mix is just as important. The term ‘credit mix’ encompasses the items that make up your credit as well as the age of your credit report.

Your credit lines (or tradelines) are very important; generally speaking a good mix is 2 – 3 unsecured tradelines lines, i.e. credit cards, lines of credit etc….; 1 – 2 installment loan(s), i.e. a car loan and/or fixed rate loan with the occasional student loan mixed in for a good number of us! For your credit lines, you should try and keep your balances at 30% of the line amounts. An example of this is you have a credit card with a limit of $2,000, you want to keep the balance at no more than $600 while you are shopping for a home.

The age of your report is also important, you may have a great score and all the tradelines lines needed, but if you credit is only 1 year old, additional questions may be asked. To verify your credit age, confirm how old your oldest tradeline is, that will determine the age of your credit. Until next Wednesday, have a great week!

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Why Credit is an Important Aspect of Real Estate

Credit is one of the 3 C’s considered when weighing someone’s worthiness with regarding to lending, the other 2 are Capacity and Collateral. It is, however, is the first thing considered by lenders when reviewing your request to purchase. It consists of many things, the first are your scores which are determined by the Big 3; Trans Union, Experian, Equifax. These 3 scores are received when credit is pulled and the mid-score of the 3 is what is used to determine your creditworthiness and your interest rate.

Although the magic number of ‘620’ is what many lenders require as a minimum score, there are numerous lenders available that will make decisions based on scores as low as 600 – 619 depending on the program. In addition, credit repair is an important factor if your credit is currently problematic and/or thin. We have great partners we work with who do an amazing job of working with our clients, so contact us today and don’t let it be the reason you don’t become a homeowner.

Next Wednesday, we will continue our discussion on Credit and its many facets in determining creditworthiness. If you have additional questions before our next installment, feel free to message us in our Facebook Page.

Power to the People

Power To The People

Knowledge is power as the adage goes. The more information you have, the higher the likelihood the decisions you make are going to benefit you and those you care for. Knowledge cannot be taken away, usurped, or destroyed once obtained and building wealth in the community is central to consolidating that power.

Every Wednesday we will provide answers to some of the questions most asked and misinformation most conveyed to me around homebuying. We will also use this forum to address questions you may have around buying property, whether it be lending, credit, saving, what you need, what you don’t need and sharing insights around the process with the community. We will start with one of the most common comments I hear:

I can’t afford to buy a house.

You can’t afford not to. Rents in the Puget Sound region from Everett to Lakewood are skyrocketing. With renting comes required deposits; first and last months rent to potentially be provided; and application fees to be paid. All to go towards adding equity and security to someone else’s property. This kind of money could be put towards starting on the path of building your own wealth and security with homeownership. With down payment assistance and lender specific credits, money is not the biggest barrier to buying, misinformation is. Contact Bascomb Real Estate Group and let us help you stay informed!