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Low Asking Price on Unfinanceable Properties
At any given time, I will usually have at least one set of clients who really need to consider a condo or townhome who nonetheless have their hearts set on a single family residence. I agree to include single...
The Future of Real Estate Agency is Expert Consultants, Not Controlling Market Access
Expertise and attitude, not control of an informational chokepoint, is the way that things are going. Let's analyze this from both sides of the problem. The current owner looking to sell really needs a marketer. For better or worse, most...
Full Service Agent For Discount Price? Demand Specifics!
There is no such thing as a free lunch, but lots of people will pretend there is. It seems to me that many people consider compensation earned by real estate agents as paying some kind of toll. They think of...
Looking For Loans In All The Wrong Places
No, I'm not turning into a country western singer. Just got a search for "no closing costs no points loan cheapest rates loan". The visit (to this article) lasted less than a full second. The obvious implication was that it...
Facts Of Life On Buying and Selling "Without an Agent"
I saw your article on on Searchlight Crusade about exclusive buyers agents and I have a couple follow up questions pertaining to my own situation that I am hoping you could shed some light on. I don't have any...
Should I Buy A Home? Part 2: Process
Continued from Part 1: Preparation I am considering buying a home, although I have not made up my mind on the subject. This is not due to indecision, but rather due to a lack of necessary information. There are many...
Mortgage Protection Insurance - The Worst Life Insurance Policy You Can Waste Your Money On
One of a long series of emails about this horrid product: (identifying details redacted) Learn How To Make More Money Per Client ($500-$1000) In This Workshop You Will Learn Why The Most Successful Mortgage & Real Estate Professionals Across The...
Failure to Disclose a Known Material Fact to Buyers
My husband and I bought a golf course-view house in DELETED. We closed 5 days ago; moved-in 4 days ago; and 2 days ago found out that the golf course is scheduled to close. It was announced by the golf...
Be Careful Not To Commit Fraud With Rebates
With many people pushing various "cash back to the buyer" schemes in real estate, a note of caution is needed. Actually, it's more like an entire symphony of caution. Because if there is a loan involved, you run the risk...
What Type of Real Estate Listing Agent to Choose
On a regular basis, I see advertisements for real estate offices that say "discount broker - full service". This is nonsense. Actually, it is a calculated lie. A discount broker has consciously chosen a business model whose economics do not...
Property Advertisements: Trolling for Clients and Not Very Truthful
The first thing you need to understand in reading any property advertisements is that agents write them to get people to call. They are trolling for clients, not sales. Except in the case of someone who doesn't accept dual agency...
Mortgage Loan Advertisements: Horrible and Getting Worse
(Rates were much higher when I originally wrote this) Recently, a couple of mortgage places have been advertising "30 year fixed rate loan at 5.65%" like that's the lowest rate out there and it's some kind of great loan. It's...
APR vs APY: What The Difference Between Note Rate and APR Tells You
I have in the past told people to ignore APR. APR should not be used to compare between loans. Not only is it a one dimensional number used to measure what is fundamentally a two-dimensional trade-off between rate and...
How to Effectively Shop for a Buyer's Agent
This is easy. Much easier than effectively shopping for a loan or a listing agent. So easy that a congresscritter can do it. So easy that congressional leadership can do it. The only thing possibly moderately difficult to understand is...
For Sale By Owner Issues
I've been taking a long look at the world of For Sale By Owner and similar concepts lately. With the digital revolution, you always want to be watching the tide to figure out if you're in a business that's about...
Consumer Due Diligence on Real Estate and Mortgage Loans
Or: Please don't believe everything you read on the internet! Rarely a week passes by that I don't get a request from someone to link to their website or article. I'm happy to link to good sites and good articles...
Online Mortgage Quotes
(This is a reprint from December 2006, with a few updates. It is instructive in the wake of a certain new mortgage quote service, launched with great fanfare. The negative amortization loan is gone, but I'm seeing lots of other...
Real Estate and the Four Levels of Competence
People who talk about learning skills tend to discuss a model for learning called the conscious competence learning model. It starts with unconscious incompetence. You not only don't know how to do something, you don't realize that it is...
Avoiding Mortgage Prepayment Penalties by Partial Payment
I enjoy your blog very much and figured you would be a good person to ask this prepayment penalty question to. Is there a prepayment penalty if you dont pay down the whole amount? For instance, say I owe 620k...
Games Lenders Play Part II More Misleading Advertising
(This was originally published September 29,2005) Here's another advertisement that I got in the mail: "Pick a Pay, Any Pay!' The Revolutionary Option ARM!" "Start rates as low as 1%!" Loan amount $100,000 Payment $321.64 $200,000 $643.28 $300,000 $964.92 $400,000...
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