The Muljat Group Blog

Cornwall Park Bungalow

Cornwall Park is a neighborhood of classic homes within walking distance of downtown Bellingham and Cornwall Park. The median sale price in August was $312,650.

August saw 14 homes for sale in Bellingham’s Cornwall Park Neighborhood, with just 2 sales (there were 4 last year) and 2 under contract at the end of the month. This bucked the trend of Bellingham as a whole, where inventory was down, pending sales were up and sales were down about 7% from last year’s August. The number of days it took those two houses to sell was also up substantially over last year. The neighborhood currently has about a 7 month supply of inventory at these inventory and sale numbers.

Historic Active Listings Compared to # of Homes Sold in the Cornwall Park Neighborhood

Historic Median Price of Sold and Active Inventory in the Cornwall Park Neighborhood

Most of the homes in the Cornwall Park neighborhood are still at a relatively affordable price point, as is demonstrated by the median sale prices, which were within 99.39% of the list prices.

If you would like more specific information on homes in the Cornwall Park neighborhood, don’t hesitate to contact us. If you would like to know how your home anywhere in Whatcom County fits into the market, request a free online estimate of value.

If your neighborhood association would like a presentation on real estate activity in the neighborhood, we would be happy to make arrangements to meet with you.

Post written by The Johnson Team

It’s harder to buy a rental house than it used to be.

This answer to this question has been changing over time, and not in the direction of simplicity.

“I am currently in graduate school in another city, but would like to buy a house in my home town now that prices are more affordable. I’ll be moving back when I have finished my education. Can you help me find something?”

I can help find a property, but lending guidelines have changed dramatically over the past 6 months, so I did some checking with loan officers I typically use (one with a national lender, one who is local) to see how your current situation fits with the current lending climate. The short answer is that it doesn’t.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac guidelines require income sufficient to support the full payment on a rental property. A new twist on this requirement is that the rents cannot be used to offset the payment unless you can show evidence via tax returns that you have been actively managing other rental properties you own for a minimum of 2 years. I also asked about the possibility of your parents cosigning a loan. That is possible, but they would have to qualify for the loan in its entirety, and the limitation of applying rents to offset the payments would still apply.

Basically, the government (represented in this case by the largest buyers of home mortgages) are looking for ways to plug the holes in the system that lead to the sinking of the US housing market. Requirements are going back to earlier days, when lenders actually wanted to be confident that the borrower was in a position to repay the loan. Go figure…

If you have comments or experiences to share, please feel free. There is a lot of knowledge out there, so let’s help each other. If you have a question, post it – we’ll get you an answer.

By Lylene Johnson

http://www.johnsonteamrealestate.com/