Create a Non-Negotiable Must-Have List to Narrow Your Home Search

There are many great Albuquerque area homes for sale. Click here to perform a full home search, or if you're thinking of selling your home, click here for a FREE Home Price Evaluation so you know what buyers will pay for your home in today's market. You may also call me at (877) 933-6881 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions.

Meet my buyer team specialist, Jane Elizabeth, who is here with us today to discuss how to make your home search more successful. As a buyer specialist, Jane helps people find good homes all the time, so pay attention to her advice.

Jane has found that even if you were able to build a dream home with an unlimited budget, you would probably still be wishing for something more out of your home after it was built.

Because of this, Jane recommends that you begin your home search by sitting down and writing 5 Non-Negotiable Must Have criteria for your next home. These would be 5 things that you absolutely must have in your next home, such as a large garage or a home located in a good school district.

For example, in Albuquerque we have the Green Belt, Rio Rancho, and high desert areas. One way to narrow down your search is by figuring out what area you want to live in.

Or narrow down your search by looking for a home with only three bedrooms, for example. Try to keep it at right around 5 things, though, because if you put too many on this list it can grow harder and harder to find a suitable property for all of your needs. Just ask yourself what is most important to you.

The 5 things you put on your list will help narrow down your home search, which helps eliminate unnecessary time spent searching for homes that don't fit your needs. This helps me to do my job better, and you will be wasting less time and energy on properties that you will never want to buy.

If you're unsure of what you want or need, please feel free to come on into the office. We can talk about your specific needs and then search our list of inventory for a suitable home.

You can reach me directly at (505) 263-2529 or visit our website at www.welcomehomeabq.com.

Comprehensive 2014 Market Forecast for New Mexico

There are many great Albuquerque area homes for sale. Click here to perform a full home search, or if you're thinking of selling your home, click here for a FREE Home Price Evaluation so you know what buyers will pay for your home in today's market. You may also call me at (877) 933-6881 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions.

Comprehensive 2014 Market Forecast for New Mexico

Hello, I'm here again to forecast the real estate market in Albuquerque for 2014. As 2013 acted as a year of recovery, we hope to experience some growth in 2014. Here are some things you can expect to see.

• Nationally, the market is expected to be pretty hot. There has continued to be a shortage of homes for sale, and interest rates are supposed to remain steady.

• Locally, appreciation is expected to remain at 1-3%

• Trends you can expect to see this year are an increased velocity of home sales, as well as lots of new construction going on as the inventory of available homes declines. More custom-home builds are appearing as well, so land sales will also see some increased activity.

• Real estate will become more technologically driven. More than ever, buyers are looking online for listings and using their cell phones to find homes.

• Challenges here in New Mexico will most likely be affected by the loss of federal jobs, as real estate is linked with job growth.

• This will be the year for sellers as supply will be down. The inventories of certain areas will be impacted differently, but overall you can expect to see less homes for sale.

• Interest Rates are expected to take a slight hike this year and reach 5-5.5%

There are many things to take into consideration when purchasing real estate, so feel free to give us a shout and we'd be glad to sit down with you and take care of all your needs. Call us at (877) 933-6881 or email at info@welcomehomeabq.com.

Has Your Well Been Inspected?

Today we are at an inspection in Corrales; it is not a home inspection, but we are here to inspect the well. This is vacant piece of property that someone is buying to build a house on. Since there is an existing well on the property, I am here with Marty Deford from A-OK Home Inspections to perform the inspection. Marty is the best and is a wealth of knowledge! He knows a lot about everything and will talk to us about wells and water.

As I stated previously, Marty Deford is with A-OK Home Inspections, but his expertise reaches far beyond homes. Marty also is a commercial inspector, commercial buildings and a catastrophic insurance adjuster in 40 states. His duties at A-OK deal with anything from radon, mold, air quality, swimming pool inspections (with scuba gear!) and roof-to-basement home inspections. Marty is a nationally certified home inspector through NAHI and this allows him to train up and coming home inspectors.

As for today’s inspection, the first Marty will do is go over to the well area and inspect the pump and retaining tank for pressurization to make sure there are no leaks. Marty also checks to see that everything is connected correctly and that the electrical has continuity and no open grounds or anything that could damage the well motor.

After the internals are checked, Marty goes outside to perform a “recovery rate” inspection. This shows him the gallons-per-minute and how long it takes to recover that time. If you have a good pressurization tank, you can expect to see 8-20 gallons-per-minute. To calculate this, Marty runs the well for 15 minutes and after that he will fill up a five gallon container. Once the container is filled, he will time it and let the water run again. This is done three times so he can obtain a good average and to make sure the well doesn’t run out of water.

If you have any questions, give us a call at (877) 933-6881. Thanks and have a great day!