General Real Estate: August 2008 Archives

Newly Written Articles

Consumer Focused Carnival of Real Estate

Rent to Own and Lease With Option to Buy, talking about a common alternative that allows sellers to market to people who would not otherwise be able to qualify, and buyers to qualify when they would not otherwise. But there are pitfalls.

What If You Cannot Refinance Later?, dealing head-on with an assumption implicit in quite a lot of real estate advice and thinking.

Negotiation Basics: On What to Offer and Whether to Offer talks about some of the criteria for what is a good offer and what is not, as well as deciding whether to make an offer at all.

Updated Articles

Mortgage Closing Costs: What is Real and What is Junk?

Magical Thinking About Mortgage Loans

Professional Referrals in Real Estate and Loans

Newly Written Articles

Finding or Creating a "Green" or Eco-Friendly House talks about the basics of ecologically friendly dwellings

Loan Qualification Standards: Qualifying Rate and Payment discusses the exact way in which debt to income ratio is computed with various loan types.

The Moment of Truth, Signing Bad Loan Documents and the Right of Rescission goes over what to do when the final loan documents are not what you were led to expect. It happens more often than you think.

Updated Articles

Mortgage Rate, Points, and Closing Costs is a reprint of some very basic information on what they are, and the interactions between them.

Fixed rate, Balloon, ARM and Hybrid Loans is a reprint discussing some very basic information: the difference between the term and amortization of a loan.

Refinancing When The Rates Are Higher is an article talking about what to do when the refinancing rates available are worse than what you've already got.

Negotiations After the Purchase Contract: Seller's Allowances and Fixing Problems talks about the mindset to have when subsequent negotiations are necessary.

Newly Written Articles

Why Lenders Don't and Won't Tell Borrowers Their Loan Was Turned Down (Games Lenders Play, Part 9), talking about why lenders will keep quiet about changes in the loan during the process.

What Buyers Need: What Sellers Should Want to Supply, talking about seeing the other side in a purchase.

What Sellers Need: What Buyers Should Want to Supply, talking about seeing the other side in a purchase.

How Do I Know If I've Been Lowballed on a Mortgage Quote?, talking about the steps you can take to prevent it.

Updated Articles

Exclusive versus Non-Exclusive Buyer's Agent Agreement

Non-Recourse Purchase Money Loans in California

Can You Change Lenders After the Loan is Approved?

Rental History and Payment Shock in Applying for a Mortgage

When to Get A Buyer's Agent and Start Looking at Property

Buying Off A Prepayment Penalty At Loan Inception

Newly Written Articles

Conforming and Jumbo Only Apply to "A Paper" Conventional Financing

Desperation Mining: How a Buyer Hits Paydirt (and How Sellers Can Avoid it) talking about how to find that property you can get cheap - and avoid being that property that someone got cheap

Consumer Focused Carnival of Real Estate, the monthly carnival for articles written for consumers of real estate.

Updated Articles

Credit Reports: What They Are and How They Work

Probate and Foreclosure and Planning Ahead, talking about how to keep your heirs from losing everything you had because they can't make the payments until the end of probate.

Timeshares, Pro and Con (mostly Con)

What Can You Do If You've Bought A Vampire Property?, a discussion of what to do wrong if you get stuck with a money pit.