If you love to golf, you might be considering purchasing a home on a golf course. Before making such a purchase, however, there are several things you will need to keep in mind in order to make certain you are making the purchase that is right for you. Here’s a look at the top 5 things you need to consider before purchasing a golf course home.

#1: Can You Afford the Added Expense?

It is no secret that homes located on golf courses tend to cost more than those that are not. In addition, you will likely need to pay annual dues to the Homeowner’s Association as well. Therefore, before making plans to move to a golf course community, you need to be sure you can afford to pay more than just the purchase price of the home, but also the annual fees that are associated with living there.

#2:  Are the Extra Expenses Worthwhile?

Even if you can afford the costs associated with living in a golf community, you need to ask yourself if those extra expenses are worthwhile. In other words, do you golf frequently enough to make the convenience of living on a golf course worthwhile? Of course, some people choose to live on a golf course simply because of the amazing views. Whatever your reason, be sure to consider the cost versus the benefits in order to make sure you are making the right decision for you.

#3: What Other Amenities are Included?

When comparing golf course communities, you should consider more than just the golf courses found within the communities. In fact, the other amenities that are available within the community can also be quite spectacular. Other amenities you might find in these communities include:

• Tennis courts
• Swimming pools
• Meeting spaces
• Restaurants
• Basketball courts
• Fitness areas
• Children’s playscapes
• Pavilions

#4:  Is the Location Right for You?

As with any real estate purchase, location is key when purchasing a golf course home. In addition to purchasing a property that is in the golf community of your choice, you also need to consider the location in relation to all of the following:

• Your workplace
• Parks, lakes and other recreational activities
• Restaurants
• Retail establishments
• Schools

Obviously, you don’t want to have to travel far in order to enjoy some of your favorite activities, so choose a golf community that is close to the other activities you like to do on a regular basis.

#5:  Does the Property Meet Your Long-Term Goals?

While the property may seem perfect for now, it might not meet your long-term goals. So, unless you plan on moving in a few years, be sure to consider your career and family plans before making a purchase. This way, you can purchase a beautiful golf course home that will be sure to meet your needs for years to come.

Jolenta Averill is the owner of Madison real estate brokerage Lake & City Homes Realty which specializes in lakefront, luxury and golf course homes. Visit her Madison Lakefront Homes page and Madison Golf Course Homes page or call (563) BUY-SOLD to discuss your unique requirements.

It’s a brand new year and new home builders are eager to show you their latest communities. Tomorrow is the model preview luncheon for KB Home’s latest Mountain’s Edge community, Sterling Ridge. The event is targeted at real estate professionals in the Las Vegas valley and will have a free catered lunch and a drawing for door prizes. Prices start around $140k and all homes are Energy Plus certified. There are limited lots left. If you would like to take a tour of the available models, call me at 702-493-8033 to schedule an appointment.

On Thursday there will be a builder’s expo at Providence. Builders and their guest exhibitors will be on hand to show you the latest incentives and pricing for the available new homes in the community.  The event will be held at the Coldwell Banker office on Sky Point Drive in Centennial Hills from 8:30 am to 10 am.

Lennar currently has approximately 30 move-in ready homes available. They are still offering zero closing costs and 4.50% Fixed For Life (4.99% APR)* when you use their financing.

With the deadline for the First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit rapidly approaching, new home builders are desperately trying to attract those remaining first time buyers.  Richmond American is offering super low interest rates on select quick move-in homes. Buyers can get an FHA 30 year fixed loan from HomeAmerican Mortgage Corporation for 4.375% (5.0405% APR). Not a bad incentive at all when you consider how low your mortgage payments will be on a nice brand new Las Vegas home (under $1k a month for a $200,000 home with 3.5% down!). Richmond American has dozens of move-in ready homes available all over the Las Vegas valley in some of the most popular communities like Tuscany Hills in Mountain’s Edge.

Of course, Richmond American isn’t the only builder that is looking to get rid of standing inventory. Lennar is currently pushing its homes with “pool sized” lots. New homes with large yards are still a rarity in the valley. If you are looking for a new home with a large yard, take a look at some of the new homes available from Lennar:

Anthem

Pulte has reinstated its “no worries” sale and is offering an additional $8,000 off from September 12th through September 30th. Pulte has brand new homes starting in the 100,000’s. There are several communities across the valley offering quick move-in homes for sale and builder closeouts. Here are just a few of the Pulte communities with brand new homes available:

• Flagstone Ranch 2 move in ready homes
• Azure Canyon in Mountains Edge
• Flagstone Manor
• The Club at Madiera Canyon
• The Gallery at Stallion Mountain

Not to be outdone, Lennar is also having a sales event this weekend touting 15 homes under $190,000. One of the conditions is that these homes must close on or before November 30. Lennar will also pay all closing costs, has special financing available and homes include free upgrades.

If you would like to tour the new homes available, call me at 702-493-8033 or use the contact form below.

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When it comes to internet marketing, Lennar is leading the pack. We get several updates a week from Lennar giving details of their latest promotions, standing inventory and sales. No one else comes close to the frequency and deals that Lennar offers on a continuous basis.

If you are a frequent reader of this blog, you’ll be aware of Lennar’s stance on the REO market. Foreclosures have caused new home builders a lot of sleepless nights. Falling prices, massive inventory and the overhaul sluggishness of the market has forced a lot of new home builders to slash prices and boost incentives.

Currently Lennar is offering to pay all closing costs and has special financing available. Here are a few of the Lennar new homes available:

Del Webb’s Hometown Heroes Incentive ends at the end of this month. If you haven’t heard about it, Hometown Heroes is a  special incentive to all current military and veterans, along with Clark County School District teachers, firefighters, police officers, nurses and EMTs. As a qualifying professional, you get an additional 1% off the sales price towards any Del Webb home in the Las Vegas valley. In order to get the additional discount, you have to be employed in the above professions and have the voucher (I can provide you one) to present to the sales office.

As far as specials go, I think Del Webb could learn a thing or two from Lennar. For over the past several months, Lennar has been waging its own battle against the massive foreclosure market. Here is a quote from their latest mass email:

Short Sales & Foreclosures Just Don’t Measure Up! BUYING NEW DOES!

Short sales and foreclosures can cost you more than a new home because of hidden problems. Also, you can wait months only to find out someone else got the home.

Lennar does make a good point. Home buyers are finding out the hard way that short sales are not what they are cracked up to be. Only roughly 10% of the short sale property listed will actually close. Those are pretty low odds, even for Las Vegas! So instead you look at REO (real estate owned, aka foreclosures) and make an offer on one of those. Instead of a smooth 30 day (or less) close time, you might find yourself waiting 45 days or longer, required to have repairs made to property  in order for you to buy it and a slew of other issues.  So Lennar is banking on the frustrated home buyer that they’ll turn to looking at a brand new home instead, even if it is priced a little higher than a comparable foreclosure property.

Lennar is also offering zero closing costs and special Interest rates of 4.25% (4.7567% APR) fixed for life (on certain properties that close before 8/16 and other restrictions apply (of course)).

If you’d like help navigating the Las Vegas real estate market, call us at 702-493-8033 or send us an email with your particulars. Thanks for stopping by.

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This week Lennar is pushing its inventory of homes with pool sized lots. Unless you are prepared to spend upwards of half a million, most new homes don’t have a large yard. There a few exceptions to the rule of course, but if you have been actively looking at only new homes you’ll find most of them have small yards. The explanation for this is simple: you have to factor in the original cost of the land. Back when these home builders were buying up parcels of land from the BLM four or five years ago, it was very, very expensive. So to be able to make a profit, builders had to squeeze more homes on an acre.

One of the exceptions can be found in the city of Henderson. Lennar is offering to pay all closing costs, 4.5% fixed rate loan (4.9913% APR) if you elect to finance through them and all homes are completely upgraded with granite counters, blinds, stainless steel appliances and the energy efficiency package.  Here are just a few homes for sale:

Anthem
3181 Sq Ft (5 Bed, 3 Bath, 3 Car)
$335,990

Henderson
3100 Sq Ft (5 Bed, 3 Bath, 3 Car)
$303,990

Lennar isn’t the only builder having a sale. Del Webb is offering 50% off home site premiums at the Club at Madiera Canyon for the month of July. Homes start in the $420’s and there are 10 models available to tour.  The community is gated and located directly across from the newly opened Madiera Canyon park. If you would like to tour any of these homes, please call 702-493-8033 or send me an email using our form. Thanks for reading our Las Vegas real estate blog.

This is our first time hosting the Carnival of Real Estate. At first I was worried we wouldn’t get any entries but over the holiday weekend my fears turned out to be unfounded. I want to thank everyone who took the time to submit to this, the 149th edition. There were a lot of great entries, unfortunately not all were a right fit for this edition.

After reading through them all, I have our winners. And the “winners” are….

The top spot goes to Dan Melson at Searchlight crusade submitting a great post about Short sales and the sales process. If you haven’t stopped by his blog yet, Dan consistently writes great stuff about our industry.

Claudia Gonella has a great post that gives you a very comprehensive look at the real estate market in Nicaragua.

On the lighter side, Sarah Greenleaf posted an interesting article on famous American homes on an era bygone showing some famous (and not so famous) residences. I was surprised at the modesty of Al Capone’s former residence in Chicago.

On the marketing side, Ben Roberts put up a great cautionary tale listing the top 10 ways not to promote your real estate career and listings on twitter. A fun, yet informative post about What NOT to do on Twitter as a real estate professional… I LOVE number 3.

That concludes this edition of the Carnival of Real Estate. Thanks for stopping by!

This weekend marks the end of the Pulte No Payments til 2010 sale in the valley. If you have ever toured a Pulte home, you understand why they are one of my favorite builders. Recently Pulte had lowered their prices in most of their Las Vegas and Henderson communities. If you were waiting to buy a Pulte home, there truly hasn’t been a better time to do so. In addition, Pulte Homes is offering some additional buyer incentives including zero closing costs, free GE appliances and great financing options.

Currently there are 11 Pulte communities with homes on sale. If you would like to tour any of these communities, feel free to contact me at 702-493-8033 or send us an email using the form below.

This weekend Del Webb is having a Green Building Open House at the Club at Madiera Canyon community in partnership with NV Energy. There will be green vendors along with light refreshments provided by Whole Foods. The expo is open to the public and is being held in the recreation multi-purpose room from 10 am to 11:30 am this Saturday.

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New home builders are having a tough time competiting against the Real Estate Owned (foreclosure) market. Las Vegas leads the nation in foreclosures and despite last month’s numbers, experts believe that we will see more in the coming months. Investors and savvy first time home buyers have been quick to take advantage of these fire sale prices. Last month showed a decrease in foreclosures and an increase in sales compared to historical data for the prior year.

In order to compete, new home builders have been forced to lower prices, offer free upgrades and other incentives to lure in home buyers. Another tactic they are taking is the relative ease of the closing process versus buying a bank owned home. New home sales will usually close in 30 days or even less while some bank owned properties can take up to twice that time. The Club at Madiera Canyon is a good example. Del Webb just lowered pricing all of their models. The community offers additional amenities like 24 hour guard gates, a private community center with resort style amenities and use of the brand new Madiera Canyon Park located just outside of the community.

Other builders like Lennar take a slightly different tack and offer special financing options, unemployment insurance (pays your mortgage for a certain time period while you are out of work) and pay for all closing costs. Of course there are some restrictions that apply which is important why you should bring your own agent with you. Someone that works exclusively for you, not the builder. Given the current state of the market, everything is negotiable. So if you are thinking about buying a new home, feel free to contact us for free, expert representation at 702-493-8033 or use our contact form below. Thanks for stopping by.