The Hogue Group

We are starting into the holiday season with so many thoughts, hopes, and aspirations. But at this time of year we stop to say what we are thankful for. In my thought pattern it seems this should be something we do everyday.

• Be thankful for your family from your spouse or significant other, to your children, parents, grandparents, and ancestral lineage.
• Be thankful for the air you breath, the sounds you hear, words you speak, and thoughts you have.
• Be thankful for the work you have, the work you will have, and the work you have completed.
• Be thankful to the friends around you, the friends you have not spoken to in a while and the friends that you will make in the future.
• Be thankful for the place you are, home or location you live in, country you are a part of, and world that we have created.
• Be thankful for your prosperity, spiritual well-being, your God or higher-self.
• Be thankful.

We wish you a wonderful Thanksgiving or whatever holiday that you may celebrate and wish for continued prosperity for one and all.

Rick Hogue REALTOR
The Hogue Group
A Place to Hang Your Hat and Call Home
http://www.louisvillemls.pro

Researching & Budgeting
Before you begin home shopping, it helps to figure out your budget. That way there are no surprises later on, and you can fully enjoy home ownership rather than look at it as an overwhelming burden.

To determine your purchasing power, you need to consider the following things such as monthly income, monthly debts, down payment amount, loan closing costs, and your credit history.

Mortgage Calculators
Rent vs. Own Calculator
Monthly Payment Calculator
Payment Affordability Calculator

Home Purchase Tools
Get Pre-Approved
Find a Real Estate Agent

Determining Your Price Range
Pre-qualifying for a particular home loan amount helps your real estate agent focus your home search so you only look at homes that fit within your price range. In fact, many real estate agents require either a pre-qualification letter or a certificate of pre-approval before showing you a home. You can pre-qualify in a couple of minutes by speaking with one of our Mortgage Bankers, or by applying right here online. You won’t have to supply any supporting documentation until you actually start the home loan process.

Home Purchase Pre-Approval
A pre-approval certificate is the best way of demonstrating your ability to purchase a home. Pre-approval offers are also given stronger consideration by a seller than pre-qualification letters. To issue you a pre-qualification certificate, your Mortgage Banker will ask you for documentation such as W-2 forms, paycheck stubs, and bank account statements, and then run your credit report to establish credit worthiness. Once that’s complete, and everything checks out okay, your letter can be in your hands so you can submit the best offer for your next home.

What Documents Do I Need?
Get Pre-Approved for a New Home

Create a Wish List For Your Home
To ensure that your new home meets your needs, we’ve created a checklist to help you identify and prioritize features you want. With this checklist, you can also organize all the key people involved in your home purchase process.

Search For a Home
Now we get to the fun part – searching for your ideal home! You can browse the homes for sale at various online websites, in the classified section of your local newspaper, visit open houses, or find a real estate agent. A real estate agent not only has access to homes not always advertised in the paper, but will help you locate homes that meet your exact price, size and other criteria.

Apply for Home Purchase Loan

Make an Offer on a Home
Typically, the homebuyer or real estate agent will present an offer to the seller or their representative that includes the following information:

The proposed offer price
Seller concessions (if applicable)
Financing contingencies (if applicable)
Home inspection contingencies (if applicable)
A specific outline of what is to be included in the sale of the home
The “earnest money” deposit amount to be tendered with the offer

After the seller reviews your offer, it will either be accepted, rejected, or turned into a counter-offer. Any change to an offer is considered a counter-offer. An offer does not become a contract until both you and the seller (including all parties to the transaction) accept it. After acceptance, you and the seller will sign a home purchase agreement to finalize the deal.

Lock-In Your Rate
After signing a home purchase agreement, you’re ready to lock-in an interest rate. This freezes your interest rate and protects you against market fluctuations for a specific time period.

Closing
After locking-in your rate, your mortgage specialist will go to work to close your home loan in conjunction with all third-party vendors. They will schedule an appraisal and make certain that your file is complete and ready for final underwriting review. While all of this is going on, your escrow and title companies are working to gather the proper paperwork and approvals. Once all escrow conditions are met, your home loan is ready to fund, record, and close. The home is yours!

For more information about buying a home or starting an investment portfolio of properties, contact Rick Hogue, REALTOR, CDPE with Keller Williams at 502-649-3431 or visit his web site at http://www.louisvillemls.pro to start looking for homes.

We had 6 people for the workshop that Richard Hampton Scurlock III and I had at 1860 Campus Place in Louisville Kentucky on the 11th of November 2010.
The night started out with several updates on what was going on for Real Estate investments and concentrated on how to start using an IRA or 401k plan to buy and sell Real Estate. There is currently over 4 trillion dollars that has been invested in IRA and 401K plans and no more than 2 percent of those funds is currently invested in Real Estate.
Hampton had some great hand-outs that helped with question and answers and he spoke for about 30 minutes on the does and don’ts of investing with your IRA or 401k. Aster that I took the stage and showed how we had already taken a property that was in really good shape and paid just slightly higher than the offered price for it. This made the property a 31k purchase, it took 3k to fix the missing items in the home which is not much, and now we are putting the 3200 Sq Ft 4 bedroom 3.5 bath home for sale at 85k. Even if we get 69k for the property we will have more than doubled my investors original investment in 90 days and that will go right back into his IRA as non-taxed funds. How many mutual funds give that kind of return in 90 days? The answer is none. I also showed various properties in the Louisville Area that were priced from as little as 2k to 50k and all were negotiable prices.
There is no way to tell someone to go for rentals or go for flips. It is our belief that you use your judgment to figure out what is the right path to go with. Some of my investors go with all rental as they do not mind working with people each month or establishing section 8 housing. Other only want to do flips while the third kind will want to do a combination of both.
Once the seminar was over we talked about what to do next and I now have a new customer from the seminar that will start working with me in January and late on Friday I was asked i I could meet with another investor to discuss their needs on Wednesday of next week.
Holly (my wonderful wife) and I will be moving our investments to Retirement Tax Advisory Group Inc. http://www.reitrementtag.com in the next little bit and so will all of the others who attended the seminar.
If you know of someone wanting to find out more about using funds from an IRA or 401k to purchase real estate, have them contact Rick Hogue at 502-649-3431. We can work with anyone across the country to find suitable properties that will be good investments. Call Rick Hogue or visit my website at http://www.louisvillemls.pro. I am a member in good standing with NAR, KAR, GLAR, and hold the CDPE certification for working with distressed properties. Keller Williams Realty Louisville East is the company that holds my license and would not have it any other way. It is a wonderful company to work for. If you are in Real Estate and not happy about getting less than your unfair share of business, then by all means call me so we can look to get your career in Real Estate on track with a company who cares about their agents.