What You Should Know About Buying a Home in 2023

While the housing market is certainly cooling off from the sky-high prices of the past few years, rising interest rates may be keeping the market in a tricky position for the coming year. 

 

Is a new home on the horizon for your family in 2023? Despite the ever-changing climate of home-buying, we’re here to help you navigate the coming twists and turns you may face along the way. 

A Sellers Market

 

The first thing to understand, whether this is your first time in the home-buying process or your tenth, is that we’re currently still experiencing a seller’s market. A seller’s market is a real estate market in which there are more buyers than there are homes available, resulting in higher prices and increased competition among buyers. While we’re experiencing a cooling off of the intensity, homes will stay on the market for shorter periods of time and buyers may need to make more concessions – whether in the budget, location, etc. 

Tips & Advice for Homebuying in 2023

If you are considering finding your dream home in 2023, here are some of our best tips for staying sane through the process: 

 

1. Get Pre-approved First. 

 

Before you start looking at homes, it is important to get pre-approved for a mortgage. This will give you a clear idea of your budget and will make you a more competitive buyer. 

This critical first step also ensures that you’re ready to put an offer on a property as soon as you decide you’d like to purchase it, rather than having to go through the process of getting approved after finding an interesting house. 

 

This step can ultimately make or break your ability to have a competitive offer on “the one”, so don’t skip out on this simply because you don’t think you’re ready to put an offer down. If you get pre-approved in advance, you can usually have your lender extend your pre-approval with no penalty to you as the borrower. This leaves you ready at a moment’s notice if you should find your dream house unexpectedly. 

 

2. Work With a Real Estate Agent.

 

Put simply, there is no reason to not use a real estate agent. They’re low-cost or free to use as a home buyer (depending on the agent you work with), and home buying and selling are what they do for a living. Don’t stress yourself out about negotiating with the seller’s agent or researching every aspect of the purchase contract. Work with a seasoned professional and let them do what they do best. 

 

When you work with a real estate agent that you trust, you’re able to not only stress less through the entire process but also gain insight into elements such as similar sales and the concessions that were made to benefit the buyers in those instances. As an outsider, those are things you simply may not be aware of on your own. 

 

3. Be Flexible. 

 

The current market is a challenging one, especially for those looking to purchase a home for the first time. The best thing you can do as a buyer aside from financial preparation is to be more flexible with your expectations and necessities. Many borrowers are paying nearly double what they would have in 2021 due to rising interest rates, and inevitably that is leading to less value for money overall. 

 

You can absolutely maintain a deal-breaker list, but we urge you to consider areas, properties, and perhaps even types of homes that you may not have considered in an ideal situation. Boil your must-haves to the absolute essentials and broaden your search as much as possible. That’s not to say that you can’t find a home that ticks every box, but by expanding your search you’ll be more likely to find a home that meets your needs and is within your set budget. 

 

Whatever the year brings, it’s important to be as prepared as you possibly can. A challenging housing market may be an inconvenience to finding and moving into your dream home, but with preparation and a solid real estate team, your dream home can become a reality for your family’s next chapter.

            

Regardless of price point, our team is united in their efforts to support the client, support each other, and get the job done in the best way possible. Paula Higman Real Estate is a unique team of talented and diverse individuals with a passion for success and client satisfaction.

Contact Paula Higman today and let us take this journey with you to marketing and selling your home for the best value, to the biggest luxury real estate market out there.

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Mayflower Development Update - Park City, UT

 

Mayflower Development Update   The MWR Conference hotel has officially started as the general contractor, Jacobsen Construction, and the pile-lagging and soil-nail wall subcontractor have mobilized and started work. The CMA has been executed and three initial trades contracted; soil-nail, the balance of the excavation, and SWPPP. The footings and foundations scoping are complete and the contract award is scheduled prior to the month’s end. The balance of the GMP’s subtrades’ has been revived and re-bidding is in process. The building permit is complete and impacts fee payment released by July 5th. A groundbreaking ceremony was held in mid-June.  Ski Improvements and Associated Services   The connector lift, Lift #3, into Sultan’s Nose base terminal pad was excavated and graded to finish elevation. Ski beach grading and drainage is 35% complete and will be finished by the Fall of 2021. Planning for ski operations continues with a focus on snowmaking engineering and system design as well as skier services programming. Scoping and contractor selection for primary mountain access roads in the process.  2021 key summer initiatives follow: •  Snowmaking •  RFP Skier Service programming •  Lift amended RFP •  Mountain access initiation and roads construction Infrastructure Improvements   Substantial progress on-site work and civil infrastructure:  Water, sewer, storm drainage, and retaining walls are completed in Mayflower Drive and Glencoe Way. In addition, these roads are paved to the southern construction entrance which is roughly 4,000 LF and over 7,000 tons of asphalt.    Five-Star Hotel entry has permitted a borrow-pit and the emergency vehicle access (EVA) road under construction with completion scheduled for the first week of August. Water Tank #2 pad and pumphouse clearing complete and contractor contracted with construction starting mid-July.   Galena Ridge Way and Ski Beach Way roads graded; water is 25% complete and sewer 100% complete, and storm drain pending.    Non-Culinary Water. JSSD’s bids came back high, re-bid will occur in the Fall of 2021 ensuring ample time to complete improvements prior to required delivery. North Frontage Road. Engineering and plan sets are complete and under final review. A bid package was issued with responses pending, construction starting on the north end will begin mid.   Temporary Construction Parking. Engineering was enacted and permits pulled for over 200 temporary parking spaces adjacent to Lot 13. Construction; stormwater, drainage, grading, and asphalt, will be completed by June 25th.   Portals, North and South. UDOT continuing to make progress. They are tracking for a late fall of 2021 completion.   Voluntary Cleanup. The environmental contractor reinitiated work in May and is on track to complete VCP Phase 1, development parcels, by the Fall of 2021. Star and Glencoe mine remediation action plan in the process.

Pioche Apartments. Buildings A, B, and D have footings complete and foundations in process. Building A has the first floor’s post-tension slab poured and second-floor formation in the process. Building C excavation encountered rock and blasting will occur. The site subsurface infiltration system build-out continues and is 55% complete. The GMP buy-out with the general contractor, New Star Construction, is complete and on budget; equity and bank loan in place with leasehold interest closed.    Pioche Proper. Pioche’s estate lots and townhomes are progressing. Engineered infrastructure permit set as well as initial plat remitted to an agency for review. Binding REPSA executed.  Tax Allocation Revenue (TAR) Bonds. In early June, the MIDA board unanimously approved the procurement and issuance of TAR bonds. A public release and offering is anticipated mid-August.  Architectural Designs. 4240 Architecture has been re-engaged on the Skier Hotel, skier services and village core. An RFP was issued for the Select Service.    East Overlook. East Overlook, utility parcel, engineering is in process with key partners, e.g. JSSD, RMP, and Dominion, as numerous system impact studies complete.    Skier bridges. Engineering contracted and pending approved subdivision plans.             Regardless of price point, our team is united in their efforts to support the client, support each other, and get the job done in the best way possible. Paula Higman Real Estate is a unique team of talented and diverse individuals with a passion for success and client satisfaction. Contact Paula Higman Real Estate today and let us take this journey with you to marketing and selling your home for the best value, to the biggest luxury real estate market out there.   Ensure that you have the best representation when buying and/or selling Contact Paula Higman Real Estate Park City at 435-602-8228  Connect With Us:

Are homes becoming more or less affordable.

 

Brought to you by Paula Higman Real Estate.     What does this mean? The direction and pace at which home prices are changing are indicators of the strength of the housing market and whether homes are becoming more or less affordable. The median price of a home in Park City is currently $2.20 Million.             Regardless of price point, our team is united in their efforts to support the client, support each other, and get the job done in the best way possible. Paula Higman Real Estate is a unique team of talented and diverse individuals with a passion for success and client satisfaction. Contact Paula Higman Real Estate today and let us take this journey with you to marketing and selling your home for the best value, to the biggest luxury real estate market out there.   Connect With Us:

What do today’s luxury buyers really want?

 

         

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Real estate analysis is based on what has occurred in the past; it is how predictions are made and how future decisions are evaluated. The last two years have had profound lessons for our present and future. A once-in-a-generation pandemic initiated a paradigm shift: people began reimagining their ideas of home and rediscovering their essential values at the very moment when wealth was rising to historic levels around the world, thanks to rebounding stock markets and surging home equity gains. According to the latest Wealth-X data, the population of individuals with a net worth of $5 million+ reached more than 3.6 million globally. That was an increase of 19.8% over 2020 and a notable difference from 2020, which saw only a 2.2% gain over 2019. This extraordinary wealth growth led to a real estate expansion like we’ve never seen before. A new map for luxury opened up new locations and multiple homeownership in greater numbers. Home as a safe haven became the rallying cry for our time.

Where do we go from here? What opportunities should we look for?  Rather than focusing solely on the past, we are looking forward to The Report 2022. Annual statistics in the top 10% of 120 U.S. markets were analyzed with Coldwell Banker Global Luxury's partner, the Institute for Luxury Home Marketing, to provide a view into future trends that could impact luxury real estate and the next opportunities that lie ahead. Also consulted were Wealth-X to provide a global outlook on wealth, homeownership trends and where current and upcoming pockets of international affluence may reside. Wealth management expert Barry Ritholtz added his financial perspective, and as always, Coldwell Banker Global Luxury Property Specialists and colleagues lent their boots-on-the-ground market insights. We hope you find the information invaluable in this report.

         

 

Regardless of price point, our team is united in their efforts to support the client, support each other, and get the job done in the best way possible. Paula Higman Real Estate is a unique team of talented and diverse individuals with a passion for success and client satisfaction.

Contact Paula Higman Real Estate today and let us take this journey with you to marketing and selling your home for the best value, to the biggest luxury real estate market out there.

 

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