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Adjustable Rate Loans for Cocoa Beach


ARMS may be called by various names including, variable-rate loans, adjustable rate loans or adjustable mortgage loans for your Cocoa Beach home. They all feature an interest rate that can vary over the rate of the loan.

Advantages: The monthly payment on a typical ARM is lower in the early stages than the fixed rate loan. This may make it easier for the buyer to afford the Cocoa Beachhome.

Disadvantages: As interest rates increase, your monthly payment may increase or the amount of your payment applied to the principle may decrease which means that you must gamble on property appreciation to offset this increase in your indebtedness.

Cocoa Beach Home Buying Pitfalls


Buying your Cocoa Beach home whether you are a first time buyer or an ‘Old Pro’ involves legal, financial and emotional considerations. The more you know about the most common buyer mistakes in Cocoa Beach, the more likely you are to avoid them.

Make sure that when you put in an offer on any Cocoa Beach home that you have spent time narrowing down just what you are looking for. When the sellers accept your offer, you are involved in a binding contract that could cost you your deposit and other damages should you decide to back out. The opposite scenario, waiting for the 100 % perfect home can be an exercise in futility. With the thousands of variables available in housing, including location, style, size, amenities and condition, perfection is almost always an unreasonable goal.


Cocoa Beach. How Much Should You Offer?


A good starting premise is that everyone wants to buy a home for thousands of dollars under market and when the time comes, to sell that home for thousands of dollars over market. This is basic human nature. When you are in the position of making an offer on Cocoa Beach real estate property there are certain facts you need to know.

Is it a Buyer’s Market or a Seller’s Market? In a Buyer’s Market conditions favor the buyer. Cocoa Beach real estate listings are plentiful, home sales are declining or stagnant. In a Seller’s Market the opposite is true. There are more buyers looking for homes than there are homes available. Your low-price offer is far more likely to succeed in a Buyer’s Market than in a Seller’s Market. How do you know what kind of a market exists? Ask your REALTOR, read the newspaper, check online.


Buying Cocoa Beach Real Estate...Will it Pay?


A frequent question from prospective homebuyers relates to building home equity. Cocoa Beach buyers like to estimate how much a home may increase in value based upon past appreciation. One of the many advantages of home ownership is that appreciation is based on the home’s market value rather than on the actual dollar amount invested or the down payment so that a $100,000.00 home that appreciates 5% is now worth $105,000.00. This is one way of building your Cocoa Beach home equity but there is more you can do.


Rent or Buy Cocoa Beach


In the early years of your Cocoa Beach mortgage, nearly all of every monthly payment is interest. This means you are only paying off a tiny bit of the loan principal, but it is good news in terms of tax savings.

The monthly payment for a $100,000, 30-year, 8% mortgage on your Cocoa Beach would be about $734. In the first year of your mortgage, $7,970 of your $8,805 payment or 91% would be deductible as mortgage interest. Even in the tenth year, almost 81% of your payments would be deductible. What this is worth to you depends on your tax bracket but this tax savings built into the home-buying equation is why you can afford to make higher mortgage payments than your current rent payments without squeezing your budget. There is no similar tax subsidy for renters.


Cocoa Beach BARGAINS


A bargain exists in the mind of a buyer when entering into an agreement to exchange goods when the buyer thinks the price is favorable. Bargains can always be found in the Cocoa Beach market if a buyer is patient and willing to wait for a truly motivated seller. In economic downturns many people believe that foreclosures and short sales are automatically bargains when, in fact, this may not be the case.

Robin Taylor Ritchie
Broker Associate
GRI, ABR, e-Pro

Licensed Real Estate Broker in the State of Florida

Titusville, FL 32780
321-698-8731