the ABC's of Real Estate

It's a Buyer's Market - Seek Incentives!

Home buyers are in an excellent position in the present market to seek financial incentives for new home loans. Buyers' incentives can be as much as 6% of the price of the home and applying the incentive to non-recurring closing costs can save buyers tremendously on the up-front cost of closing on their new home.

What the Heck Is a Short Sale?

A short sale is when the lender agrees to accept a mortgage payoff that doesn't cover the outstanding loan. Lenders almost always lose money when they foreclose on property. In many cases, they will lose less money through a short sale than they would by foreclosing on the home and selling it as a bank-owned property." And link that to the page.

Assistance Programs for First Time Homebuyers

Although many people can afford a mortgage payment and associated costs to owning their own home, the thought of coming up with a substantial down payment often stops them from taking the plunge. Charity organizations and federal institutions are available to these buyers to assist with this problem.

October Real Estate Report

Sales of existing homes were down to the lowest level in five years, according to data released by the National Association of Realtors. This report further explores trends via monthly home price graphs broken out nationally and by region, and provides insights regarding interest rates over the past year.

Should You Try to Sell by Owner?

Thinking of bypassing a listing agent and selling your home yourself? Seller beware! For the less-than 10 percent of those who do independently sell their home, they almost always accept not only a lower price, but they net less than if they had sold it with a professional real estate agent helping them. In an uncertain market with particularly high housing inventory, we recommend a qualified sales agent.

When Your Home's Value is Less Than the Mortgage

With the real estate market cooling off some people are finding themselves in an awkward situation. For the first time in years the value of their home is less than what they owe on their mortgage. Several things have contributed to this. First, home prices aren't increasing like they were the last few years and in come cases have even dropped. Second, specialty loan products like option ARMs and interest only loans have made it easy people to buy more home than they can afford. There is a solution.

Applying for a Commercial Mortgage Loan

Whether you want to borrow working capital to expand your business or leverage equity in a commercial real estate venture, you will soon find out the commercial loan process is very different from the more common home mortgage process.

Interest Rate Report

The Fed has been lowering key short-term interest rates for a while now. For the mortgage market, drops in short-term rates impact adjustable rate mortgages by helping to lower the indexes that the adjustments are based on. Unfortunately, what's good for short-term rates has very little to do with longer-term fixed rates. When short-term rates were lowered on September 18, 30-year fixed rate loans increased about 1/8th of a percent.