New laws slashing mortgage fees
New disclosure rule on closing costs will open the door to home buying for more
By Jill Goldman, Special to The Times
We’ve all been in the position of finally putting together enough money to buy a home, or helping a child put money down on a first home, and after putting together a 10-20% deposit, finding ourselves reeling from the mortgage company estimate that includes a whole lot of unexpected...
Mortgage rates sink again, hit all-time low
Lower rates mean more opportunity,whether buying or looking to refinance
By Jill Goldman, Special to The Times
Mortgage rates sank to new lows this week as fears about a U.S. economic slowdown and the impact of the European debt crisis continue to make Treasuries and bonds that fund most mortgages look like safe bets to investors. While everyone would rather hear about positive economic growth, the...
Will new homeowner tax effect you when you sell your home?
By Jill Goldman, Special to The Times
The “homeowner’s tax” that Congress created to help pay for the Obama Healthcare Law is theoretically a scary proposition, since it applies to the proceeds of real estate sales including primary residences. In actuality, however, few homeowners will be affected since only a relatively few sales will generate enough proceeds to high enough wage earners to...
Matson Goldman Team moves to Prudential Fox & Roach
WEST CHESTER — MaryAnn Piccone, manager of Prudential Fox & Roach, REALTORS® West Chester Office, announced that the Matson Goldman Team, one of the area’s top reality firms, had joined the Prudential family.
The Matson Goldman Team, co-founded by Jill Goldman and Katherine Matson, is an award winning, top-producing team recognized in Philadelphia Magazine’s Five Star Realtor Awards...
Housing recovery starting in some hard hit areas
Hard hit areas show the way for lesser-impacted areas such as Chester County
By Jill Goldman, Special to The Times
Several years ago I attended a real estate conference just as the housing market was really starting to decline, and one of the economic analysts assured the eager listeners (all real estate professionals) that eventually the housing market would not only level off and even start to climb,...
Can using a real estate agent maximize the sale price of your home?
By Jill Goldman, Special to UnionvilleTimes.com
Have you seen that “news” story on Facebook recently? You know, the one that says that real estate agents sell their own homes for more money than they sell their clients’ homes?
The original theory (not supported in any way by data from the National Association of Realtors) comes from the 2005 book “Freakonomics” by Steven D. Levitt...
Mortgage rates continue to drop
But low rates probably won’t last forever, so now is the time to take advantage
By Jill Goldman, Special to UnionvilleTimes.com
A few weeks ago we reported that it was now cheaper to buy than to rent in many parts of the country, because of the increasing rental costs and because interest rates have been so low. We proposed a few ideas for putting together the “down money” needed to buy...
What’s so great about living here?
A great deal, actually, from culture, to nature to great schools, Chester County has a lot to offer
By Jill Goldman, Special to UnionvilleTimes.com
With natural beauty, great schools and one of the great cities of the world just a short car ride away — Philadelphia — Chester County has a lot to offer.
Last week we promised to write about why Chester County is such a great place to live. We often...
Real estate market moving in the right direction
After some difficult times, some rays of sunshine are popping out in the local real estate market.
Welcome to the roll out of the Real Estate Section of The Unionville Times. The Matson Goldman team is honored to have the opportunity to launch this section and is really excited to bring readers good news about the local real estate market.
Good news about the real estate market, you say? Is it...
Let’s talk about home building
Building a house starts from the ground up
By John D’Annunzio, Columnist, UnionvilleTimes.com
This will be the first in a series of articles on how to construct a building the right way: I know because I started from the ground up. I’ve operated all kinds or heavy equipment from John Deere 450 loaders up to Caterpillar’s 977 Trackscavator.
From those experiences I can tell you that the first...
