Financing

We’ve spilled gallons of ink this year describing how difficult the market is for buyers and speculating about the policy and housing production solutions needed to turn things around. But what about buyers who need to buy something right now? Are they out of luck? Absolutely not!! The market may be crazy, but there is a method to the madness. Here are the two most important things to do to set yourself up for success in the post-COVID real estate reality. 1) Choose a highly

Every few years it is worth evaluating the costs and benefits of paying off your mortgage early. We'll discuss four scenarios with a home purchased for $450,000, 20% down and 2.75% interest on a 30 year fixed rate mortgage. For the purposes of this exercise we will be calculating principal and interest payments and not including mortgage insurance or escrow payments for taxes and insurance. To see our math you can refer to the embedded Mortgage Payment Calculator at the end

Thinking of buying property? How is your credit scored? The following factors are taken into consideration: 35% --payment history 30%--amount owed 15%--length of credit history 10%--new credit 10%--types of credit in use Simply put, for good credit you need to pay bills on time, do itall the time, owe little money compared to your income, use credit reasonably,and donot open up new accounts prior to applying for a loan. In this particular economic time, good credit is of utmo

Community Banks versus National Lenders Recently, banking industry gnomes come up frequently in casual conversation. Everyone seems to have a horror story about their brother's cousin's friend's mechanic and a banking issue. While many of us have long standing relationships with banks and are are happy with our lenders, an equal number ofus seem to be distressed for one reason or another. Community banks are often easier to deal with and more accommodating than large nationwi