Local Realtor Appraiser, Mortgage Loan Officer Weigh In On Kosciusko County Housing Market
Posted
Jennifer Peryam-jperyam@timesuniononline.com
In September 2007, the average days a home was on the market before being sold was 144 days, according to the service statistics.
He said, in Warsaw, the average days the homes are on the market before selling is 143 days.
Harstine said now is a good time for people to buy a home, but getting a mortgage is difficult.
"There are plenty of homes to choose from because home inventory is very good, and homes are not as high priced as they were previously in 2005 and 2006 when appreciation rates were high," Harstine said.
He said in 2004 and 2005, there was a booming housing market where a person could put a sign in their yard and there would be a good chance their home would sell.
Harstine said, in the past two weeks there has been a tremendous amount of activity on the Internet with people looking for housing in the county.
"We call it the spring market, or cabin fever, where people feel cooped up in a small home and want to move to a bigger home," Harstine said.
He said a lot of people put their homes on the market typically in February or March, but the activity is not as heavy as it would have been a month ago when temperatures generally warm up after a cold winter.
He said it's harder now than before for people to get a mortgage.
Harstine said the deregulation of the banking industry several years ago has affected the way mortgages are handled.
He said, in 2003 and 2004, more people could get a mortgage when the appraisal and mortgage rules were relaxed, and now there is a foreclosure crisis.
He said the housing bubble now talked about was driven by financing, and depreciation rates were increasing because money was available to people who didn't necessarily qualify for a home loan. He said there were many predatory lenders who put people into bad loans
"Real estate is very cyclical, it's like the stock market where you have your highs and lows," Harstine said.
He said, in dealing with the property tax issue, residents who live on lakes who have owned their homes for generations and are on fixed incomes have seen their property taxes double or tripled.
Rene Tyson, loan officer for First Horizon Home Loans, Warsaw, has assisted people get home mortgage loans for the past 25 years. He said people applying for mortgage loans has increased in the past two months.
Harstine said people are applying for home mortgage loans because there are lower interest rates and people want to refinance their homes at the lower rates.
"Many homes that went to foreclosure are being sold under what they were sold the first time," Tyson said.
"When people want to refinance their home, they sometimes wait too long when they think interest rates will be lower, and then the interest rates don't decrease," Tyson said.
He said it is important for a person to get pre-approved without conditions before they consider purchasing a home.
Kosciusko County Area Plan Commission President Vic Virgil said there has been a decrease in building permits applied for in the county over the years.
There were a total of 1,275 building permits applied for in 2007 in Kosciusko County, according to Kosciusko County Area Plan Commission building permit totals. There were 1,674 building permits in 2003.
Virgil also sits on the County Board of Zoning Appeals. He said there has not been a hearing officer meeting for building permits this year for people seeking building variances.
He also said the cost to purchase farmland has increased because the price of corn and beans has increased. Where corn was $2 a bushel, it is now $6 a bushel; beans that sold for $4.25 a bushel now sells for $13 a bushel. He said food costs have an impact on the farmland market.
