Leavenworth Horse Property

Horse property in Leavenworth WA is hard to find. There are two obvious reasons for this. First of all, land here is becoming more valuable every day - larger parcels continue to be split up into smaller ones that aren't roomy enough for horses. Secondly, we are on the slopes of the Cascade Mountains. We have a lot of hill country and not the large flat expanses that you need for horses.

My partner Allyson and I have two great horse properties for sale in the Leavenworth area.

The first is on the Chumstick Highway about 9 miles North of Leavenworth towards Plain. This is a two bedroom home on 10 acres. The home was built in 1991 and is about 1500 square feet. The property comes with a fenced corral, a barn and huge 4+ car garage that is big enough for a bus. This house is listed at $500,000. An additional 2 parcels are available for a total of 34 acres.

Click here to view a virtual tour of this Leavenworth horse property.

The second property is also a two bedroom home with two baths. This is a custom built cabin with designer touches such as pine floors and ash cabinets. It sits on 2 acres in Peshastin at the edge of the Valley Hi neighborhood. The owners currently have a horse and a goat in nice fenced area that backs on to Forest Service land with miles of trails. The owners of this parcel have an additional 9 acres that is available as well.

Click here to view a virtual tour of this horse property near Leavenworth.

You can search all Leavenworth horse properties at our website.

Helping the kids get their First Home

Many homeowners I talk to are excited about all the appreciation they have gained over the last few years, but for us Baby Boomers, the conversation often turns to : how are my kids ever going to get into a home? This has been an issue in the Puget Sound region for some time, but now we are having to address this issue in our markets of Leavenworth and Wenatchee. With the basic starter home prices growing faster than most people’s salaries, it is getting exceedingly difficult for young people to get into their first home. If you want to help out a child, grandchild or close relative, it is a good idea to talk to a competent lender ahead of time, because sometimes good intentions and logic don’t mesh well with lending rules. Can I Co-sign? Cosigning on homes does not carry the same impact as it does on cars; the buyers still need to basically qualify for the payment themselves. Your credit score doesn’t pull theirs up, and if you aren’t going to live there, the rules below for gift money still apply. Let’s say the kids/grandkids want to buy a house, and starter homes in their area are now $400,000. Let’s also say they have some car payments, credit cards etc, so that they can’t qualify for all that plus the payments on the $400,000. Let’s assume that the kids haven’t had time to save up a bunch of money for a decent down payment, so maybe they have $10,000 in the bank or less. You are concerned that if you don’t help, they may rent forever, so you generously offer up $40,000 to help them out. Unfortunately, under FNMA lending guidelines, the buyer must contribute 5% of their own funds before utilizing any gift funds. With a $400,000 first home, the kids need $20,000 of their own cash before they can use your gift; bummer. The rule is waived if you gift them 20%, but that means you need to up your gift to $80,000 for this house. Well, what if I just put the money in their account and pretend it was theirs all the time? The lender is most likely going to ask for 2 months of printed bank statements showing that they have adequate funds for closing (this is called seasoning). They will also look at every page on the statement to make sure there wasn’t an unusually large deposit. So technically they could use your gift money; the funds just need to be in their account a long time before the home purchase takes place, so that 2 bank statements show the money as theirs. Another way around this is to let the kids finance 100% of the purchase, and you help them out in other ways. Our assumption above was that they couldn’t qualify with all their other debt payments. So, you use your gift to pay off their other debts, and now their total payments are low enough to qualify. FNMA does not ask for documentation on how the car was paid off. Also, with 100% financing, you can use the gift funds to pay for closing costs, including buying down the interest rate, as long as the buyer contributes just $500 of their own money. In our example, if you wanted to gift $40,000 and it only took $20,000 to pay off debts and cover closing costs, after the loan is closed, the kids could use your remaining gift of $20,000 to pay down and re-amortize the loan. ($400,000 - $20,000 = new loan of $380,000) Instead of this just reducing principal, you can have the loan payments refigured for the new balance, giving the kids a lower monthly payment. Some lenders charge a $200 fee for this. So the net effect is you helped them out, and they got into a house without the 5% of their own money; you just had to work within the rules to do it. Because the rule is; if they don’t have 5% of their own money, they can only use gift funds for 100% financing, or 80% and less; but nothing in-between. There are several things I didn’t cover here, so before you make a decision, find a lender you can trust and let him/her, as well as your tax advisor guide you on the best approach to your scenario.

Leavenworth Real Estate Market Update

The Leavenworth real estate market is made up of a number of different sectors that always seem to be moving in slightly different directions.

The majority of consumers, whether they are local homeowners looking at an increased tax bill or out of town investors, look to the growth of prices to gauge the strength of the market.

Home prices in Leavenworth WA are certainly up. At the end of May the average list price for a single family home in the Leavenworth area (including Lake Wenatchee and Plain) was $518,000. This is the number that tends to excite people and this is the number that most folks see when browsing the internet or looking in local homes magazines.

Of course the number that has more importance is the average SALES PRICE which is what the buyers are willing to pay. Considerably less - $354,000.

But as I said before, this is a tale of multiple markets wrapped up in each other.

The bulk of the Leavenworth real estate market is single family homes under $600,000 that are not on the water. We could even narrow the range to between $200,000 and $400,000, but the story is much the same.

At the end of May 2007 there were 45 of these homes on the market. Looking at the sales data, we have 5.7 months of inventory. More or less a balanced market with neither buyers nor sellers having much of an advantage. ( I would say that generally, home sellers outside the city limits probably have a stronger market that those inside the city, but that data will be saved for another day.) Last year, there were 39 homes on the market with a 3.9 month supply. Though supply does seem to be rising, we did have 63 homes on the market in August and September of 2005, so it is hard to say if this is a short cycle or a longer term trend.

Homes over $600,000 are the luxury segment of our market. In the past year, 6 homes (non- waterfront) sold in this price range and the 13 homes on the market at the end of May represent 26 months of supply. While few of these sellers are highly motivated, it is by any indication a buyers market. (And has been for some time.)

Waterfront homes are a different beast. Generally, these really just include homes on Lake Wenatchee and Fish Lake, and riverfront homes on the Icicle Creek, Chiwawa, White, or Wenatchee Rivers. At the end of May, there were 11 homes on waterfront or 7.8 months of supply. I think this market sector tends to be pretty balanced, despite ever growing price points.

Overall, I see strong demand for vacation homes by westside buyers at prices under $600,000. This continues to be for "cabins" or other vacation homes generally located outside of the city of Leavenworth.