Is Appreciation Still a Benefit of Lease Options?

So up to this point I have only given a big overview of what the benefits of lease options can be. But I haven’t spent time in detail on each thought. This may shed some insight to why a lease option makes sense vs. where you may be at right now.

The first benefit I would like to talk about is probably an area that we have heard a great deal of commotion about over the last year, no, its not politics although it does have to do with our economy…have you guess it? Its appreciation.

If you just listen to the news all day long you may think “what are you talking about, we are in a declining market”. Well despite all the media's infinite wisdom, they may have only got it partly right. Would I agree that our market is not appreciating at the same rate as 2002 – 2004, absolutely. Is our market in the negative, NO WAY!

To answer the question more in detail, if you compare our appreciation rates today to where they were at 2 years ago…then yes they have gone down. But then again our market 2 years ago was definitely not a normal market. Appreciation rates in the double digits each year (some areas had appreciation rates that were double digits each quarter) is not normal! But the fact is that the market we are in right now, in our backyard, is a NORMAL market.

Currently our area is seeing appreciation rates of 7.1% (King County) and if you average out each county (King, Pierce, Snohomish, Kitsap) the entire Puget Sound region is appreciating at 6.08% *. (Condos were at 28% average appreciation for Puget Sound!) Wait a second…”that’s not what the news said, they said that our area was depreciating and in the negative”, well like I said before, they only had it partly right.
*(Seattle Times, 01/22/2008, Elizabeth Rhodes, www.seattletimes.com)

The reason why our market is still appreciating is for 2 main points (and one of them is not because it is so beautiful here, although that’s why I like it). The first main reason is employment. Consider this; right in our back yard we have some HUGE companies fueling our employment rates. Here’s a portion of them, Microsoft (Redmond), Costco (Issaquah), WAMU (Seattle), Weyerhaeuser (Federal Way), Amazon.com (Seattle), Expedia.com (Bellevue), Nordstrom (Seattle), Starbucks (Seattle)…shall I go on?

The 2nd big point has to do with geography. I know what you’re thinking…”I knew you were going to say it was beautiful”…no that’s not what I mean. Take a look at the list above, what do you notice? All the business are in the same areas. The Puget Sound has a nice geographical funnel, mountains to the east, water to the west. Your only option for expansion is north or south. Most states have the ability to expand circular around large employment areas…but not us and most people don’t want to spend more than an hour on I-5 to get to work, so they keep buying locally. This drives prices up; now does it all make sense?

So for our lease option program our clients can expect to see anywhere from 5% - 10% of equity when they finally take over the house in 2 years. This is huge difference compared to waiting 2 years and then purchasing. Not only will home prices be higher if you choose to do that, but you are rolling the dice on what our market can do.

So there you have it. Big benefit in our market today, Appreciation! Get into a lease option and watch your home value go up!

If you would like more information about lease options, visit our website at www.EmpireOptions.com or feel free to give me a call. I am here to help.


Dedicated to Your Financial Success!


Kenton Becker
kentonb@empireoptions.com
Managing Partner / Lakemont Mortgage Specialist
License # 510-LO-36929
http://www.empireoptions.com/

How does your credit look?

(I know, I know…I wasn’t able to send this out yesterday like I was supposed to. Life took over and I got extremely busy, for this I apologize :)

Last month I talked about credit repair for a few weeks. I know that some of you really took to heart with what I was saying and ultimately took action. For some, after looking at their credit report, it was basically what they expected and for others they were shocked!

Remember what I said a few weeks back…”Did you know that 79% of Credit Reports contain errors?” That means about 8 out of every 10 people that receive this email will have errors on their credit report! Think it could be you? There’s a good chance it is!

The first step to find out what your credit looks like is to have it pulled. Don’t be so afraid of this, you can accomplish this step and its necessary to brave it out before you can address the problems.

Once you’ve gotten over the mental road block of not wanting to pull your credit, maybe you say, “Well, I can just pull my report for free online”. That’s absolutely true…and I would recommend you do that once per year, but just as a refresher. Sometimes once is not good enough, especially when you are trying to get your credit in line to do something big in the future. Purchasing a home, a car, or anything that you plan on financing; your credit will have a huge impact on.

Even if you don’t plan on financing anything in the near future, you still have to qualify for landlord credit checks, or even for employment; they are checking credit more and more. Unfortunately, whether you like it or not…life can revolves around credit and for some that’s their best way of determining what type of person you are. That could be scary for some of you.

In addition to this you want to make sure that the information you are looking at is also the most accurate. Sometimes the free credit reports are, well…free, so the information is not the most up-to-date. So you should have your report pulled by a mortgage specialist. We have access to the most up-to-date credit reporting software that will make sure your report is 100% current (this doesn’t mean accurate…that’s why were checking it).

From there we can analyze your report and recommend a credit repair option…if it’s even needed. Who knows, you may not even need credit repair like you thought. However, if you do…here’s what I recommend (and don’t worry, I will help you determine if you need this or not)…

1. Go to www.CreditandFinancialWellness.com and click on Credit Repair.
2. Read through the brief information on Lexington Law, our approved and reputable Credit Repair Company that has attorney’s fighting for your credit.
3. Click on the “Sign Up” button, enter in the Lexington ID Code and fill out your information.

Congratulations! You are now on the fast track to improving your credit and your overall financial picture!

If you have any questions please let me know. I will be more than happy to help.

Dedicated to Your Financial Success!


Kenton Becker
kentonb@empireoptions.com
Managing Partner / Lakemont Mortgage Specialist
License # 510-LO-36929
http://www.empireoptions.com/