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!

What is the Market Doing in Your Neighborhood?

This week, we attended the Greater Albuquerque Association of Realtors yearly convention. We were pleased to have Dr. Lawrence Yun who happens to be the Chief Economist from Washington D.C. and he went through some great information and statistics. You also may be wondering why we’re behind these microphones. If you weren’t aware, we host a weekly radio show here in Albuquerque on AM 1600 KIVA The Rock of Talk and also 95.9 FM on Saturday mornings at 10am. In our show, we go over market updates and what is going on in residential Albuquerque and thought it would be a treat to record our video blog for you here.

After finishing our show for the week, some statistics that were interesting are that the market prices have stayed flat and Dr. Yun’s overall national statistic is that there has been a 10% national increase in overall sales. Some markets have seen substantial price increases while we’ve only seen 1-2% increases. However, the number of homes sold in our local board has increased by 15%. We have certainly felt this as well; we have been very busy since the summer months and even frantically selling homes through Thanksgiving week.

Thanks and have a great day!

What Can You Expect From Lenders?

Today I wanted to talk to you about interest rates, lending programs and the state of the finance world these days. I am with Sarah Gmyr-Maez at the New Mexico Mortgage Advisors Office. Sarah has been one of trusted lenders for quite some time when she came through on a loan for us. Since then, she’s done a few more “pull a rabbit out of a hat” loans. Sarah is a broker where she can work with many lenders giving her the ability to take loans that other lenders aren’t able to do.

Part of Sarah’s expertise comes from years of experience learning the ins and outs of how the process works. Sarah also offers interest rates that are lower than her competitors giving her the edge for people who need that extra buffer. She uses many different investors to ensure she can find you the perfect loan. Sarah offers conventional loans, FHA, VA and jumbo financing. They also offer asset-based loans for those who don’t have a lot of income but have money in the bank and portfolio products for people with multiple properties.

The minimum credit score for FHA is 580 because they have an investor that allows for the lower credit score and VA and conventional loans are 620 and above. You can expect to put a minimum 3.5% down payment on FHA, VA has no down payment requirement and conventional has a minimum of 5% down payment. A 20% down payment on a conventional loan will avoid having to pay mortgage insurance. Jumbo loans are beginning to come back with more competitive rates as well and there are still strict guidelines on lending.

The misconception that there are not a lot of loans available is false; they’re able to do some credit repair and also refinancing as well. Interest rates are still very low and you can reach Sarah at (505) 319-0622 and (505) 898-4800.

Thanks and talk to you soon!