Top Home Builders in Plano, TX 75093
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Highland Homes Dallas Office
By R Austin at Citysearch May 17, 2012
In adhering to the local Home Owner Association (HOA) by-laws, Highland Homes is a non-responsive home builder. In employing multiple sub-contractors, adding revenue to the local tax base, and building a beautiful home, Highland Homes disregard the posted construction hours during the week, on weekends, and major holidays. Locally, they do poorly in minimizing construction debris and containing excess trash on the building site. Ultimately, they build a beautiful home and contribute to the local economy. ...read more
Highland Homes Dallas Office
By IsaiahDec27 at Citysearch July 13, 2011
I have owned four homes previously and moved into a new Highland Home October 2011. The entire experience, from contract to move-in was flawless. The design and quality of our home is superb. More importantly, you cannot beat the customer service. While all of our issues were minor (touch up paint, hot water heater difficult to regulate), we barely finished typing the on-line service request and a friendly, efficient, and professional person totally dedicated to warranty issues, was at our front door! He personally inspected the repairs after completion. Our sales associate continues to immediately answer all of our emails with our questions about how to clean the cabinets or where to find a good pool builder. FABULOUS home and neighborhood! ...read more
Golan Homes
By GolanProp at Citysearch November 04, 2010
Golan Properties is a construction, property management, and leasing company with positive testimonials and reviews from past clients and tenants that have been with us for 10+ years. We have been a very successful company in the DFW metropolis for twenty years thank you to many of our loyal clients. We use our regular high quality contractors and make sure to involve the tenant every step of the way, ensuring customer satisfaction. Our goal is to achieve a superior and appealing architectural design and environment that will continue to please our owners and tennants, and ensure long term customer satisfaction. ...read more
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Credit Score
If you are looking to buy real estate in the Plano area, its time to get your credit score in order to determine what you can buy. I ran across an excellent article written by Dave Ramsey about the importance of credit scores. It reinforces my thoughts as to why people get into a pickle by being too conservative or too aggressive with the amount of credit they acquire. It really is a challenge to balance your debt in order to max out your credit score. Enjoy the excellent article, its good reading. I also recommend Dave's site. He has a strong understanding of money management. George Herring - Realtor The Truth About Your Credit ScoreCan you really live without it? from daveramsey.com on 11 Jun 2010The dreaded FICO score. It's that number that's associated with every credit report. We all know about it—most people have one—but what does the credit score really mean?Like it or not, your credit score is not an indicator of winning financially. All it tells you is whether you are good at borrowing money and paying it back. That's it.But let's take a deeper look. How is your FICO score determined?35% of your score is based on your debt history.30% is based on your debt level.15% is based on the length of time you've been in debt.10% is based on new debt.10% is based on type of debt.It's the I-Love-Debt ScoreYour FICO score is an I-love-debt score, isn't it? Does it factor in your income—or, even better, your debt-to-income ratio? Nope. Does it factor in your savings accounts, net worth—anything other than debt? Absolutely not.The only way to have a good credit score is to go into debt, stay in debt, and continually pay your accounts perfectly—without adding too much debt or paying too much off. In other words, stay in debt for as long as you can. How ridiculous is that?Now, if you are on Dave's plan—paying off old debt and not opening any new debt—then you'll eventually reach the point of being debt-free. At first, you'll pay off credit cards, car and student loans and things like that. Then, one sweet day, you'll finally knock off that mortgage.After killing all that debt, your credit score will become "indeterminable." This is great news! By this point in your life, you haven't taken out a loan in years, you've saved a ton of money, and you're paying cash for everything. So you don't need a credit score, anyway, since you don't plan on using credit!Getting a Mortgage Without a Credit ScoreLet's go back a few years, though—back before you paid off that mortgage. How can you get a mortgage without a credit score in the first place? Isn't this magic number your key to the world of mortgages and homeownership?Actually, no, it isn't. You can get a mortgage without a credit score. How so? Manual underwriting.Not every lender is going to do manual underwriting—which is basically when they use a little common sense and look at factors like your income and not just your credit score. Churchill Mortgage is one lender we recommend for manual underwriting.Now, this doesn't mean that just anyone can walk into a bank or mortgage lender and walk out with a home loan using manual underwriting. Remember, this is the way weird people do it, so there are some requirements you've got to live up to. Specifically, you must:Put at least 20% down on your home.Choose a 15-year, fixed-rate conventional mortgage.Have a strong employment history and personal income to support the loan.Demonstrate 4–6 trade lines that span 18–24 months. These are just regularly recurring expenses such as rent, electric bills, water bills, cell phones, etc.Also, your old credit history has to be in good shape. Even if you have a zero score, the old history is still there and impacts the loan decision. If you have an old history of late or missing payments, then you could have some problems. ...read more
By Realtor George Herring | RE/MAX Real Estate Agent June 16, 2010
Six months to Back in the Saddle
Monday, September 21, 2009...... It's been a hard past 18 months. However, we're staying alive, thanks to the Grace of God via our Web Site. Not only is our web site a great resource to our local customers, we're selling house plans to new customers outside the DFW area. Mainly down around Houston. Thank you Oil Industry! When my caller ID says, Exxon or Chevron, and the area code is 281, I know I'm selling a plan today! I do have a couple of jobs in the office right now and I need to switch over and wrap one up so that we'll get paid this week. Yeah!! Later... Jerry Karlovich http://www.korel.com ...read more
By Korel Home Designs September 21, 2009
Generation Y is Waiting for a Stronger Economy Before Buying Homes
With unemployment high among young people, more are going back to school and deferring purchases of new homes, reportsReal Estate Economics. The soft employment market certainly makes apparent the advantage of having a college degree, with a 4% unemployment rate among college graduates compared to 15% for those without a high school diploma. While this surge of people returning to school is creating a housing niche market in college towns, that is a discussion for another time. More significant is the fact that it is likely the young people of Generation Y who will lead a housing market resurgence. In the meantime, Gen Y is content to wait for a better economy before committing to buying a home. For now their presence is being felt primarily in the rental sector. Seventy five percent of Americans in their early to mid-20s are renters, and 15% of them have moved back home with parents. In the short-term, this isn't helping the housing market. However, as the economy begins to improve, the Gen Y fence sitters of today represent millions of future homebuyers. Affordable home prices and tax credits have helped stimulate demand among first-time buyers and the recent climb in mortgage rates above 5% has motivated some to hop off the fence, but down payment constraints are keeping many from attaining homeownership. This is problematic, especially since strength in the rental market means that those who are renting are likely paying as much or more to rent, than they would to own. While theFederal Reservecontinues to support the availability of low-priced mortgages, these policies are not sustainable, so the government will abandon its support of homeownership. This will be a foolish mistake on the part of the Central Committee presently running our government, but spending $100 billion to own Government Motors probably has them distracted. Therefore, it is essential thatFannie MaeandFreddie Maccontinue to play an active role in mortgage markets. As the economy begins to improve, and Gen Y jumps into home buying, mortgage money will become very expensive without Fannie and Freddie to help with availability and pricing. Supply and demand suggests that it may become very expensive even with Fannie and Freddie playing an active role. In the meantime, investment in housing is increasing dramatically. This is driven by the pervasive belief that housing prices in most markets have hit rock-bottom, and the even more pervasive perception that home values have reached levels which are significantly below the fundamental value of the underlying assets. When you see investors at auctions, buying foreclosed assets and converting them into rental stock, it is because they can rent those assets for more than it costs them to buy those assets. And that is a sure sign that it is time to buy. The US economy will begin to pull out of the recession by the end of this year or early in 2010; even sooner in markets where unemployment is stabilizing, like Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Austin and San Antonio. Coincidentally, in these Texas markets, there is already a seriously diminishing inventory of available new homes. The other thing they all have in common, these five Texas cities were recently cited as the5 Best Housing Markets in the USby Builder Magazine and Hanley Wood Market Intelligence. Yes, sadly, it probably will take a decade for the housing market in South Florida to return to normalized levels. But, here in the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex, new home inventory has quietly fallen to its lowest level in years, now representing enough inventory to satisfy less than 6 months of demand at present levels. Those of you who are sitting on the fence should be somewhat concerned that there just may not be any inventory available to buy, if you wait until there is overwhelming evidence that the recession is behind us. Sounds crazy, I know, but the facts are indisputable. There just aren't many new homes in Dallas or Plano or Frisco available, and when they're gone, they're gone. So, if you're waiting for a sure thing, you just may end up buying in South Florida. ...read more
By Lexington Park Plano July 17, 2009