Expert Advice from Amy & Kyle Bergquist at Keller Williams Legacy Partners
We’ve been thinking a lot about mortgages lately. Something that jumps out at us is just how much of an opportunity the combination of declining mortgage rates and falling home prices has created for buyers. Interest rates for 30-year fixed mortgages were around 6% during the early and mid-2000s when we bought our house. Those same loans are now available for interest rates of 4% or less, and 15-year fixed mortgages are available for just
Landlords are required to follow rules while handling the money of their tenants. One of them relates to the security deposits that they collect when someone first moves in. Tenants are supposed to earn interest on their deposits at a rate defined by the state. For many years (since 2002) the state held the required security deposit interest rate at 1.5%. This page on the CT Department of Banking site shows the historical interest rates
West Hartford’s 2011 revaluation is progressing smoothly, and reached the public phase when Market Value letters began arriving during the second half of November. Before going any further, it is very important to emphasize three key points: 1. Property taxes don’t change until July 2012. 2. Taxes would be calculated based on the “New Property Assessment” in the bottom right of the letter, not the market value. 3. The mill rate will change, so multiplying
On Thursday, December 1st, updated market values began arriving from the City of Hartford. We were eagerly awaiting our letter because, well, real estate things get us excited and the revaluation is important. Now it’s here and it’s time to go to work interpreting what it all means. Proposed Fair Market Value The first important point to make is that the numbers sent by the City have no immediate impact on our property taxes. They
As part of our home’s 100 year birthday celebration, we learned that the original cost to build the structure in 1911 was $8,000. Starting with that data point, I tried to do some figurin’ to see how much that is in today’s dollars. Doing the calculation in my head was a very bad idea. Without actually thinking about it very much, I jumped to the conclusion that the $8,000 was “like a million bucks” in