Why Would You Want To Sell When The Sky Is Falling?

November 20, 2008

Are you crazy? Are you so flush with money that you don’t mind giving away $20,000 or $30,000 of your equity? I almost said “hard-earned” equity – but for most of us who’ve bought in the last 10 years, we didn’t have to do much other than sit back and watch our home appreciate. But however we’ve earned the equity, it doesn’t seem on the surface to be a good idea to sell right now.

But what if I told you that by giving away $20,000 I’ll give you back $30,000? You’ve now netted $10,000. Sounds a bit better now, doesn’t it? You’re continuing to earn equity the “easy” way – even in this different market.

Let’s say that you own a house that a few years ago was valued at $200,000 – up 30% from when you bought in 1999. Unfortunately prices have dropped in your area so now your home is only worth $180,000 – down $20,000 from 3 years ago. Ouch! It’s no good wishing you’d sold then – that window of opportunity has already passed. But if you have a stable job in an industry that appears to be weathering the economic downturn fairly well, then you might want to consider taking advantage of lower prices on larger homes. If you’ve had to drop your price 10%, then larger, more expensive homes will have to drop their price also. A home that would have cost $300,000 two years ago may now be listed for $270,000.

Then add in the monthly savings of an incredibly low interest rate (I just spoke to a Mortgage rep and he told me as of December 30, 30 year mortgage rates are holding at between the high 4% and mid 5% range. Fifteen year rates are slightly lower at 4.75%.) So what does this mean to your bottom line? For many, the cost is only a couple of hundred dollars more a month for a much bigger comfortable home. Only you can do your calculate what the cost of moving into a more spacious home would be. If I were looking to move up, and my long-term employment seemed secure, I’d definitely be looking now!

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Local Information for Broken Arrow, OK

Latitude: 36.036305 -- Longitude: -95.783616

Other Area Cities: Claremore Broken Arrow Bixby Tulsa Jenks Owasso

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The name comes from a Creek community who established a new town site in a place where reeds for making arrow shafts grew plentifully. The town's Creek name, Rekackv (pronounced thlee-Kawtch-kuh), meaning broken arrow, was not "official" until the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway company built a railroad which ran through the area. MKT was granted town site privileges along the route. They sold three of the as-yet-unamed sites in 1902 to the Arkansas Valley Town Site company. W.S. Fears, secretary of the company, was allowed to choose and name one of the locations. He selected a site about 18 miles southeast of Tulsa and about five miles north of the thlee-Kawtch-kuh settlement and named the new town site Broken Arrow. From "Visit Broken Arrow 2006" published by the City of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. The median income for a household in the city was $53,507, and the median income for a family was $58,891. Males had a median income of $42,397 versus $27,559 for females. -- Source: Wikipedia.com

Oklahoma 2000 Census Population Profile Map

	Broken Arrow	Oklahoma	United States
Population	74,859	3,450,654	281,421,906
Median age	33.3	35.5	35.3
Median age for Male	32.3	33.9	34
Median age for Female	34.1	36.9	36.5
Households	26,159	1,342,293	105,480,101
Household population	74,342	3,338,279	273,643,273
Average household size	2.84	2.49	2.59
Families	21,167	921,750	71,787,347
Average family size	3.18	3.02	3.14
Housing units	27,085	1,514,400	115,904,641
Occupied units	26,159	1,342,293	105,480,101
Vacant units	926	172,107	10,424,540

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