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4 days ago | 
lcsun-news.com | Gary Sandler
Las Cruces is a college town. According to the New Mexico Higher Education Department, so are 22 other communities in the state. What do they all have in common? College kids who will soon need a place to live. In many cases, parents or grandparents pick up the tab for their offspring’s housing. Some shell out hundreds each month for rental payments, while others purchase a home and assume the role of their kid’s or grandkid’s landlord.
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1 week ago | 
lcsun-news.com | Gary Sandler
If you’re thinking of helping a friend, neighbor, or relative buy, sell, or rent a home, apartment or commercial property, you’d better think again. A person conducting such activities without the benefit of a real estate license could be committing a felony in New Mexico. In 2008, the New Mexico Real Estate Commission (NMREC) fined two Ruidoso-area property managers $1,000 each for managing 12 rental complexes without a license.
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3 weeks ago | 
lcsun-news.com | Gary Sandler
According to a recent report from Fair Isaac Company (FICO), the average U.S. credit score is 717. In New Mexico, it’s 699. What many borrowers don’t realize is the extent to which just a few points – and sometimes even one point - can significantly alter their monthly payments and the amount of interest they pay over the life of their mortgage. That’s because mortgage rates are based on credit score tiers.
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1 month ago | 
lcsun-news.com | Gary Sandler
A home is usually the largest single investment any of us will ever make. Whether purchasing with cash or financing with a mortgage, title insurance is an important part of the process. For New Mexico property buyers who finance the purchase of a property, the $200 to $400 or so they customarily pay for their portion of the title insurance policy seldom raises an eyebrow.
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1 month ago | 
lcsun-news.com | Gary Sandler
Gary SandlerReal Estate ConnectionIf you own at least one of the 128,910 pieces of taxable property located in Doña Ana County, you may have already received your 2025 Notice of Value from the county assessor’s office. The notices serve to inform property owners of the total assessed and taxable values of their properties, as well as which exemptions, if any, have been applied to the individual parcels.
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1 month ago | 
lcsun-news.com | Gary Sandler
I couldn’t believe the panic in my friend’s voice. “I think I have termites!” she shouted into the phone. “What should I do?” Being no stranger to that question during my 48-plus years in real estate, I provided my standard reply: “Get an inspection!”While the decades old answer to my friend’s question may have been standard, what takes place before, during and after a termite inspection clearly is not.
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2 months ago | 
lcsun-news.com | Gary Sandler
According to an April 23 report from the Las Cruces Association of Realtors, 10.4% of the new and existing homes, townhomes and condominiums that closed escrow during the month of March sold for more than the asking price. That number is 22.3%below February’s 13.4% of sales and 52.2% below the 21.9% of homes sold over the asking price in March 2024. The record for over asking price sales in Las Cruces was set in May of 2022 when 50% of homes sold above list.
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2 months ago | 
lcsun-news.com | Gary Sandler
If you’ve ever taken out a mortgage, there’s a good chance the lender who made the loan to you sold it to another bank or investor before you made your first payment. There’s also a good chance that if you’ve had your mortgage for a few years, it may have been sold at least one or two more times. Why all the paper shuffling? The answer is straightforward. Lenders typically sell loans for two reasons. The first is to free up capital that can be used to make loans to other borrowers.
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2 months ago | 
lcsun-news.com | Gary Sandler
Purchasing a home or a vehicle are both exciting propositions. So exciting, in fact, that during the process one’s thinking can sometimes be skewed to the point where an emotional decision is made that would not have otherwise been considered prudent. Buyers who find themselves in such circumstance often suffer from a significant case of buyer’s remorse. That remorse often comes on the heels of a frightening realization that the decision was financially unwise.
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2 months ago | 
lcsun-news.com | Gary Sandler
Las Cruces-area Realtors sold more homes during the first quarter of 2025 than they did during the first quarter of 2024, but just barely. Home values increased as well, according to an April 3 report from the Las Cruces Association of Realtors. A total of 414 new and existing homes, townhomes and condominiums were sold during the first quarter of this year, of which 387, or 93.5 percent, were new and existing free-standing single-family homes. The remainder were townhomes and condos.
