Homes for - 1601 13th NE, Kasson, MN 55944

30-Year Fixed Mortgage Rates Fall to Lowest Level in several Weeks

30330 year Mortgages fell over the past week, with the current rate borrowers were quoted on Zillow Mortgage Marketplace at 4.14 percent, down from 4.20 percent at this same time last week.

The 30-year fixed mortgage rate plummeted on Wednesday from 4.24 percent to 4.12 percent, where rates have continued to hover into this week.
“Last week, rates dropped to their lowest levels in weeks as investors shifted out of stocks and into safer assets, like U.S. Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities,” said Erin Lantz, vice president of mortgages at Zillow. “This week, there is a full slate of economic reports scheduled for release, with the potential to nudge rates up.”
 Check Zillow Mortgage Marketplace for mortgage rate trends and up-to-the-minute mortgage rates for your state.  
*The weekly mortgage rate chart illustrates the average 30-year fixed interest rate in six-hour intervals.

Selling Your Home After Making Improvements?

The tax break doesn't come into play for everyone. Most home owners are exempted from paying taxes on the first $250,000 of profit for single filers ($500,000 for joint filers). If you move frequently, maybe it's not worth the effort to track capital improvement expenses. But if you plan to live in your house a long time or make lots of upgrades, saving receipts is a smart move.

What counts as a capital improvement?
While you may consider all the work you do to your home an improvement, the IRS looks at things differently. A rule of thumb: A capital improvement increases your home's value, while a non-eligible repair just returns something to its original condition. According to the IRS, capital improvements have to last for more than one year and add value to your home, prolong its life, or adapt it to new uses.
Capital improvements can include everything from a new bathroom or deck to a new water heater or furnace. Page 9 of IRS Publication 523 has a list of eligible improvements. There are limitations. The improvements must still be evident when you sell. So if you put in wall-to-wall carpeting 10 years ago and then replaced it with hardwood floors five years ago, you can't count the carpeting as a capital improvement. Repairs, like painting your house or fixing sagging gutters, don't count. The IRS describes repairs as things that are done to maintain a home's good condition without adding value or prolonging its life.

There can be a fine line between a capital improvement and a repair. If you replace a few shingles on your roof, it's a repair. If you replace the entire roof, it's a capital improvement. Same goes for windows. If you replace a broken window pain that's a repair. Put in a new window, capital improvement.

Market Recovery?????

We believe that we are experiencing the beginning of a recovery in the residential real estate market. In the first five months of 2012, on a company-wide basis, our volume of completed home sales increased 12% compared to the first five months of 2011. According to NAR, in April 2012 existing home sale transaction volume increased approximately 17% as compared to April 2011. Furthermore, the most recent NAR forecast estimates that the volume of existing home sales will increase 12% for the year 2012 compared to 2011 and increase a further 10% in 2013.

Homes for Sale in Rochester Minnesota

Currently there are 817 homes for sale in Rochester MN.  Since the start of the New Year there have been over1200 homes put on the market.  According to MLS of those on the market, 329 have gone pending and a total of 707 homes have already been sold in 2012.  The Average Days on Market is right around 130 days.

If you are planning on putting your home on the market now is the perfect time.  According to Stats taking from MLS the number of homes up for sale is down compared to last year which means there are less competition and fewer homes for buyers to choose from.  The number of homes that are currently under contract or have already sold is up from last year which means there are more buyers out their looking for homes.  The average sales price is up from last year which great for sellers looking to gain a little more value from your homes sale.

Local Real Estate Stats.

Olmsted County Market Update for April 2012

	April 2012	April 2011	'11/'12 change
New Listings	299	296	+1%
Pending Sales	296	215	+37.7%
Active Listings	1,032	1,311	-21.3%
Avg. Days on Market	128	177	-27.68%
Median Sales Price	$151,000	$136,000	+11.03%
Average Sales Price	$180,352	$176,384	+2.25%
Months supply of Inventory	6.38	8.89	-28.23%

 

Information provided by FlexMLS based on data collected from the Southeast Minnesota Association of REALTORS® (SEMAR). This data is for Olmsted Country only.

March 12th 2012

March 12th, 2012 ·

Rochester Minnesota area home sellers are seeing the attractions of the spring market as even more homes were listed for sale last week (March 2 to 8, 2012) than the previous week. There were 83 new residential listings in Rochester.
There were just 11 closing last week. The average sold price for these homes was $207,681 — 97.3% of the asking price and just 89.2% of the original list price. These homes averaged 284 days on the market.
There are currently 747 active residential listings in Rochester, Minnesota - average 148 days on the market.