Been thinking about selling your home?

If you’ve been thinking of selling your home, but don’t believe it is worth enough to cover what you owe, you might be pleasantly surprised. The reason? Prices have gone up significantly during the last year!

This simple fact has helped a market that only about one year ago was still bouncing off the bottom, begin the slow, but steady process of recovery. As a result, people are buying homes again. 

I have a report that explains in detail why prices have gone up and why your home might be worth more than you think! Let me send you my report entitled “The Great Housing Rush.”  I believe you’ll be surprised by when you read the report. You can get the report by contacting me at cbreneman@prudentialindiana.com or by downloading it at my short sale site.

Once you are done, contact me today at for a free market analysis.

4 Questions to Answer Before Paying Off Your Mortgage Early

Paying off your mortgage early is a relatively risk-free move, which is not something that many other investments can offer. That being said, there are opportunity costs associated with paying off your mortgage early. For instance, paying off your mortgage quickly while not having enough “rainy day” funds or exposing yourself to other risk may not be worth it, especially if you already have a good interest rate locked in. Or maybe getting rid of that 3 percent to 4 percent interest sounds good, except maybe you could have made 7 percent to 8 percent interest by investing it elsewhere. It’s a tricky subject, but here are four questions you should answer before deciding to pay off your mortgage early. 1) How much principle remains? This is key in understanding how much you will pay and for how long during an accelerated pay schedule. Generally, it is a good idea to make an extra payment on your mortgage whenever it makes sense financially, but if you have 28 years left on your mortgage, trying to pay it off in 12 may not be as easy as it sounds. On the other hand, if you only have 9 years left on your current schedule, it is probably easier than it sounds. 2) What do your other investments look like? This is a follow-up to question No. 1. A home is one of the largest investments most people will make. But what about the rest of your portfolio? If you are sitting pretty on a couple of good stocks/investment groups and confident in their returns, you may decide investing in stocks, bonds, real estate or other capital is better than paying off a low-interest loan early. 3) What other debt do you have? If you have credit card debt which is hitting you with a higher monthly interest rate than your home – and add non-tax-deductible interest on top of that – you’ll probably want to focus on paying that down instead. Or if you have children who will be entering college in a few years and you would like to put more money to their college fund, this may be a better use of money than paying off your mortgage early. 4) What are your upcoming life plans? Do you plan on moving in a few years? What about having a child? Or maybe you are three years into a 30-year mortgage but only 10 years away from retirement. Take a look at how much you will spend short-term vs. save long-term and how that plays into your future life plans. For a closer look at what making extra payments on your mortgage will mean to your bottom line, fill out this Early Mortgage Payoff Calculator and decide what your best course of action is. If you still have questions, feel free to call me, your Central Indiana Prudential Realtor, at 317-442-9786 and I can assist you in your queries.

U.S. Home Prices on the Rise: What’s Next?

The Indianapolis Star reports that the average price of homes in the U.S. is steadily rising when compared to where they were a year ago. The most recent data, from May, shows a 12.2 percent jump from the 2012 averages.

For regular readers of this monthly newsletter, this is no surprise. There has been consistent good news on housing, like last month’s piece on home-sale agreements, or the 20 consecutive months of home sale improvements. In many places around the country, and even here in Central Indiana, it is starting to turn into a seller’s market — though buyers can still find fantastic deals and historically low interest rates.

After years of a down market, we are seeing signs of growth faster than we have in previous years. So what do you do next?

Well … it depends. If you’re looking to sell, now is a great time to list. There are still a few months left of the peak buying season, and if you move quickly, you can still show off your home with green grass and beautiful landscaping. If you’re looking to buy, rising interest rates should motivate you to contact me today and begin the buying process, which includes determining the kind of home you need and getting pre-approved for a mortgage.  I even have lenders that I can recommend to you.

Even though the peak buying and selling season is winding down, continued growth is showing that this year’s gains will continue into fall and winter. But who wants to look for homes in the snow when you can do so now in this beautiful weather? And if you wait until next Spring you will most certainly see higher interest rates.

Contact me today to get started.