Why It's Better to Own a Home than Rent One

Owning a home is better than renting a home for many reasons. We broke down the five main reasons to buy a home instead of renting one.

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There are five main reasons why you should own a home rather than rent one that I wanted to share.

The first reason is that you build equity with each mortgage payment. Say you take out a mortgage for $200,000. Every time you make a payment, that $200,000 balance continues to drop and your equity increases. The second reason is that you enjoy many tax benefits by being a homeowner. At the end of the year when it's time to file your taxes, the interest and other things you've paid can be deducted to release your tax burden.

The third reason is that buying a home is actually cheaper than renting in the long term. Say that $200,000 mortgage we talked about has a $1,200 a month payment, and you have a friend who rents a $1,200 a month home. The following year, your mortgage payment will still be $1,200, but your friend's rent is probably going to go up by $50 or $100 per month, and will continue to increase at that rate every single year. In 30 years, you'll still be paying $1,200 a month, and your friend could be paying up to $4,000 in rent!

Buying a home is actually cheaper than renting.

The fourth reason to own a home rather than rent one is that you will establish a solid credit history. Every single time you make a mortgage payment on time, your credit score continues to rise, which helps you in other aspects of life like getting better rates on insurance, cell phone payments, and anything else that requires credit.

Finally, homeownership is healthy for families and the community. Just think about what happens in a home – the word "homemaker" comes to mind. Family comes over for holidays, friends come over for a cookout, neighbors become closer, kids are raised in the home, and relationships get stronger. It's truly a wonderful thing.

If you have any questions about homeownership or you're interested in buying a home in the Charleston area, give me a call or send me an email. I'd love to hear from you and help you out.

Happy Thanksgiving from Our Family to Yours

I’d like to pass along a quick message of gratitude this holiday season and encourage you to do the same for those around you.

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With all of the holiday noise and Black Friday messages flooding your inbox, I just wanted to take this opportunity to say Happy Thanksgiving from the Jeff Cook Real Estate Team.

I know that I personally am so grateful for my amazing family, my incredible wife, Sarah, my two children, Ava and Jason, and our dog, Johnny.

I’d also like to give you a challenge. It’s very easy to get caught up in everything going on during the hustle and bustle during this time of year, but I’d like you to pick one person you know and one person you don’t know and lift their spirits this Thanksgiving.

We are better together when we love and encourage one another.

Not everybody is as fortunate as we are to have a great holiday season, so it’s important to make sure everybody knows that they’re appreciated.

At Jeff Cook Real Estate, this is our mission. This means that my job as the team leader is to empower my team so that we can empower the whole community. We are truly better together when we love one another and encourage each other.

Again, I just wanted to say Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. Enjoy your time with your friends and family and don’t eat too much turkey!  

What Does the Charleston Market Look Like?

The latest numbers are in for Charleston. We are excited to share them with you today.

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We’ve got the latest numbers for the Charleston real estate market and we wanted to share them with you today. So far in 2016, 19,000 homes have been listed on the market and 14,000 of those have sold. A large percentage have sold, but there will always be homes that don’t sell for a variety of reasons. Whether it’s because they are priced too high, they're unable to accommodate showings, or they simply go too long without an offer, not every home will sell.

This year, the median price in Charleston is $239,000, a 5.7% jump from last year’s median price. Our average sale price is also up by around 4.5% to $320,000.

Last year, we had about a five-month supply of inventory at this time. Right now, our supply is at 3.6 months. What we mean by this is that if no more new homes came on the market after now, it would take 3.6 months to sell all the homes on the market at the current rate homes are selling. Anything below five to six months is considered a seller’s market, so that’s what we are in right now in Charleston.

Buyers are more reluctant to pay full price.

I do want to caution you that in this fourth quarter, we have seen a growing trend of buyers becoming a little reluctant to pay full price. However, a lot of people are taking their homes off the market right now before the holidays, so you have a window of opportunity to sell high now.

If your home is eligible to be shown during the holidays, I recommend you get it on the market right now. You can get ahead of the January rush that will come and get your home under contract while there is less competition and more serious buyers.

We are in a tremendous market for home sellers. If you have any questions for us or you’re thinking or buying or selling, give us a call or send us an email. We would be happy to come out to your home and give you a complimentary home valuation to show you what you could really sell for this holiday season. We look forward to hearing from you soon.

You're Invited to Our Annual Jeff Cook Real Estate Pie Giveaway!

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This is the Jeff Cook Team's favorite time of year because it gives us a chance to express what we're thankful for. Right now, I am thankful for my health and that of my beautiful family. I'm also thankful for all of our wonderful clients, who are the life blood of our business. This is our way of thanking our past clients for their business and referrals. To show you how much we appreciate the support, you can come by one of our four locations for a free pie! For more information, watch this short video.

How do I get my Thanksgiving pie?

1. Please RSVP by Monday, November 14th, 2016 with:

•  Your name
•  Your email address
•  Your choice of Pumpkin or Apple pie
•  A location to pick it up

2. Pick up your pie at our Jeff Cook Real Estate office on Tuesday, November 22nd, between 12 - 6:30pm at one of these locations:

• Historic Summerville: 105 S Cedar St, Summerville, SC 29483
• Oakbrook: 10050 Dorchester Road, Suite 120, Summerville, SC 29485
• West Ashley: 821 Orleans Road, Suite 102, Charleston, SC 29407
• Mt Pleasant: 311 Johnnie Dodds Blvd #181, Mt Pleasant, SC 29464

Click Here to RSVP!

How Will the Election Affect Our Housing Market?

With the presidential election just weeks away, many people are concerned about what effect this election will have on the housing market. In reality, things look good no matter who is elected.

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Selling your Charleston home ? Get a free home value report

As the 2016 election nears, we find that several aspects of business are affected. What does that mean for the housing market?

One of the leading indicators of where we’re headed is consumer confidence. Consumer confidence is the willingness of an average U.S. citizen to purchase or finance a large asset. What we have found is that consumer confidence tends to remain high as we approach the election.

The National Association of Realtors says the housing market did show resilience and had its best first quarter of the year for existing home sales since 2007.

The dream of homeownership is still alive.

According to Fannie Mae, home sales should pick up heading into the future season. The main reason for this is declining mortgage rates. According to Freddie Mac, forecast housing continues to maintain its momentum through the remainder of 2016.

The outlook of the national housing market is projected to stay strong through the remainder of the year. The dream of homeownership, the American dream, continues to remain stronger than the fear of uncertainty in the next presidency. As we approach this election, the market is still strong and it is still a great time to buy and sell in Charleston.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to give us a call or send us an email. We would love to hear from you soon.