Every so often, you will see references to a "pocket" listing. These are usually bad for owners, and usually bad for buyers, but good for agents. A "pocket listing" is one where there agent keeps the listing "in his pocket"...
One of the things that always seems to be aiming to confuse mortgage consumers is advertising based upon whether the loan is fixed rate, and for how long. First, I need to acquaint you with two concepts: amortization and term....
That's way up there on the list of complaints buyer's agents get. Probably number one, definitely no lower than number three, and it's only going to get worse when the markets recover. There's really only one honest response: "Well,...
From an email: I was in the process of buying and selling the house when we saw a FSBO house we liked was for sale. But sale fell through, which is a good thing anyway because of contigency on our...
This woman made herself a victim stayed in a hotel for 7 weeks looking for my "Dream Home." And, when I found it, even though it wasn't in my price range, I knew I would do anything I could to...
One of my favorite blogs ran a picture of a listing sign that included the caption "REDUCED But Not Stupid or Desperate." I beg to differ on the former. On the latter, time will tell. Most successful real estate investors...
I went to a "direct from the providers" seminar on credit reports and credit scores. Some of this information has changed from previous information, and some of it will change in the future. Credit Reporting, FICO scores, and related items...
Dear Mr. Melson, If you sign two or more non-exclusive buyer's agent agreements in your search for a home to buy, how do you avoid putting yourself at risk for a procuring cause situation from either agent, or even the...
A while ago, another agent in my office got an offer and brought it to me for feedback. The listing was range priced over a $30k range, and priced correctly, so there was a lot of activity on it. The...
Loans are declined, or actually, the next thing to it, all the time. It is pretty rare for a loan to be outright rejected; I do not recall ever having had a loan outright rejected. That's a sign of a...
One of the things the place I work does to attract clients is advertise foreclosure lists to our clients. Several times a week, people call and ask for the lists, and we say, "Great! Just come on down, fill out...
My general rule of thumb is "Remodel for your own enjoyment. If you're lucky, you'll get some of your money back when you sell." The remodeling industry has made a very large amount of money seducing people into believing...
A while ago, I wrote Top Ten Reasons Your Home Isn't Selling. It was well received so I thought I'd take it from the buyer's perspective. Once again, I'll try to inject as much humor as I can. And...
Quite a lot of the time when I view a property, I get requests for feedback. Usually it's an automated email. Other times, it's some office assistant who wants to fax me a form which will "only take a...
This question: What real estate office can I trust to help buy below market house in (location) California? brought someone to the site and I have not previously written a real answer to the question. The short answer is "nobody."...
For at least the last thirty years, I've been hearing "affordable housing" advocates yammer about the high cost of housing, and how working families can no longer afford "decent" housing, which they apparently consider to be the three or...
Must you sell if you list at a specific price and the broker comes up with a qualified buyer? in the US in general, no you do not have to sell, but you could still be liable to the...
When I wrote explaining why borrowers should consider a 5/1 ARM, because the tradeoff between rate and cost is lower for that loan, and most people don't keep their loans 5 years anyway, so having a likely need to...
Yet that is exactly what you want them to do. To avoid competing on price, they have all kinds of distractions they offer to make life more convenient, but not cheaper. They offer automatic payment options, the convenience of having...
No, I never was a David Letterman watcher, for reasons having to do with turning into a pumpkin before his show started. I'm going to treat it a little more seriously than he did, as this is a serious...
If you use an RSS reader, you can subscribe to a feed of all future entries tagged 'competition'. [What is this?]