Fixed Rate Mortgages are down for the 7th week in a row!
June 3rd, 2011 | 
Author: Yes, fixed-rate mortgage rates fell again for the seventh week in a row. We haven’t seen the 30-year rate this low
since November of 2010.
Freddie Mac released market survey data showing that the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 4.55% last week ending – 2 June 2011. This is down from 4.60% one week earlier. Last year at this time, 30-year fixed-rate mortgages were averaging 4.79%.
The 15-year fixed-rate mortgage this week settled at an average of 3.74%. The week before it was 3.78%, and last year at this same time it was 4.20%.
The weekly Freddie Mac market survey comes from data reported by approximately 125 different lending institutions all around the USA.
The 5-year ARM (fixed rate for the first 5 years) averaged 3.41% in the same survey. This was no change from last week, but it is down from last year at the same time when it averaged 3.94%.
This is good news for buyers and for homeowners.
By the way, it is a great time to buy investment property!
Call me – 408-202-2089.
Geoffrey Gault
CA DRE lic # 01129916 NMLS # 346758
Posted in 
Deferring Capital Gains Tax on Real Estate Sales
Yes, the IRS wants some of the money from the sale of your investment property. No surprise there. However, worst-case scenario is that it can be as high as 40% of your profit. BUT, there is a way to defer paying that tax using section 1031 of the IRS tax code known as a 1031 Exchange.
To qualify for this you have to use the capital gains from the sale of your property to buy another property which is of equal or higher value. The properties that you sell and buy must be business related or an investment property such as a rental. Note that the requirement is not “single-family to single-family” or” duplex to duplex.” It is like-kind property; property of the same nature or character, even if they differ in grade or quality.
One of the benefits of this is that the investor can often find a property with better cash-flow, or a property with better equity.
I just helped an investor sell his duplex and do a 1031 Exchange into a 14 unit apt building. The new property cash flows very nicely. It had 2 vacancies when we closed escrow, and we had both rented in about a week with good tenants.
This was a great win-win for the investor: his capital gains taxes were deferred, and he rolled into a property with a much higher cash flow that puts discretionary income into his pocket every month.
If you are interested in selling your current investment property in order to buy “up” into a higher equity property or a greater cash-flow property, please call me so we can discuss how to make this happen for you.
If you are ready to jump into real estate investment, I can help you find the right property for you.
Please call me directly at 408-202-2089.
San Jose Real Estate Investing — Why Here?
There are many good reasons for real estate investing in San Jose. And I am going to try to list most of them here.
1) Technology is never going to leave San Jose. There are always new innovations, new ways to use exiting technology, and more and more people going online to buy high tech products. This is Silicon Valley after all.
2) As exiting high tech companies in San Jose expand and new high tech companies are created, more and more technology employees and their support personnel will be needed. This creates employment opportunities and results in people moving to San Jose from all over the world.
You probably already knew the above BUT sometimes you have to look at it in a new unit of time, especially after the bad news about employment in the last couple of years. Bottom line is that high tech is still here. It’s alive and growing.
3) San Jose is in a valley, surrounded by hills and the Bay. Once all the land is used up, that’s it. Builders will have to go out of the area to find land to develop. If you work in San Jose and you want to live close to your place of work, you will pay a premium to buy or to rent here. Yes, some people will commute, but that is going to get pretty expensive as gas prices continue to increase. So the key phrase is “to rent here.”
4) Interest rates for 30 year loans and 15 year loans are still outrageously low compared to the 1980s. These are the loans you want if you are going to buy and hold investment property in San Jose.
5) Home values took a hit the last couple of years (good for investors) but values are starting to rise in many areas in and around San Jose. The best time to buy is when values are going up. You don’t want to buy while values are declining! Ride the market up!
6) The San Jose real estate market currently has some good deals due to short sales and foreclosures. Distressed owners want to sell NOW. And lenders want to get these dead weight “assets” off their books.
7) There is an existing government loan program which allows investors to buy non-owner occupied properties for only 3% down! We have access to the list of those properties. No mortgage insurance and no appraisal!
So, yes, now is the time to buy rental property in San Jose. Please call me so I can help you.
Geoffrey Gault
408-202-2089 direct
CA DRE # 01129916 NMLS # 346758
click here …The William Jefferies Company
San Jose Current Market Conditions
Inventory is down almost 50% over this time last year. Believe it or not we are actually in a Seller's Market at this time. Hard to believe, huh?
With so much bad press about the housing market for the last two years it is hard to believe that things have changed so much so let me explain what is driving or pushing this. First, most of the press we see on the "housing problem" is based on national figures and the rest of California is included in that. However in the Bay Area we have a different situation. We have a lot of areas that are "landlocked" due to the proximity of mountains and the San Francisco Bay "locking" areas in from any further housing growth. We also have certain demographic cultural ideologies that cause those demographics to buy and rarely sell. For example for at least 7 years the city of San Jose has not had an ethnic majority. In other words no one ethnic group comprises 50% or more of the population in the City of San Jose. Interesting, huh?
So when you have certain ethnic cultures in an area and they buy and rarely sell, then that substantially stabliizes that housing market and causes values to go up.
If you have any questions or would like further information about the real estate market in San Jose and its surrounding areas, please contact me here www.geoffreygaultrealestate.com