Entries from Searchlight Crusade tagged with 'practices'
Short Sale Negotiators and the Interests of Potential Buyers
I am seeing a very disturbing trend these past few months. Rather than do the work they should be doing, listing agents are treating the entire short sale process as a kind of "Black Box", delegating the negotiations with the...
They Told Me Not To Make My Loan Payment
I've heard this story, in all of its variations, at least hundreds of times. Someone will send me an email and say "They told me not to make my loan payment because I was going to skip one. So...
Don't Rely On Reputation - There Are No Silver Bullets
On a regular basis, I get emails that ask me what I think of a particular company. When I check out public forums, I see questions about particular companies every time. "What do you think of X Realty, or Y...
I'm Competing Against Multiple Offers. How Do I Proceed?
The first thing to consider is that maybe you shouldn't. You never want to get involved in a bidding war. There's a classic riddle I ask every single one of my buyer clients at least once. "How often does...
Restricted Sale Property: Very Difficult to Find A Loan (Even harder to find a good one)
This is a warning to those who purchase restricted sale property. I've gotten a couple of calls for refinancing these in the past couple months, and I've never covered this subject. A restricted sale property is one where the...
You Want an Agent That Can Pay ENOUGH Attention to YOU
A lot of advice gets given to choose a "top producing" agent. These highly corporate offices may have the name of an individual agent attached to them, but they are in fact transaction mills. They have done pretty well for...
Inducements to Use A Builder's Lender for a Purchase
One of the things I'm seeing more of in MLS listings and developer advertising, among other places, is the phrase "$X in closing cost credit (or "$X in free builder upgrades") given for using preferred lender" Sounds like a bargain,...
Realtor and Loan Officer Responsibility: Can the Client Afford The Property?
Every so often, I write about professional responsibility. Every month I get a couple of magazines because I'm a Realtor. There was a letter from someone who was proud of the fact that he had never asked someone if they...
Shopping For The Best Loan In The Changed Lending Environment
It shouldn't be any surprise to anyone with the headlines of the last few years that shopping for a mortgage loan has radically changed. Indeed, a lot of the regulatory changes seem directly aimed at what were the best...
Who Has An Interest That Should Be Protected In A Real Estate Transaction?
I've been answering this question for a long time. Whose interests do we need to be concerned about, in a "If they are harmed, we've got a problem" sort of way? Who has a primary stake in a real...
Loan Providers Offering to Pay For The Appraisal
This is one of those commercial gambits I keep seeing that has nothing intrinsically wrong with it, and yet it is most often a tactic employed by the more costly loan providers. In short, sharks and scam artists. The basic...
My Loan was Denied - What Fees Can I Recover?
"What mortgage fees can i recover after loan denial" was a search I got. The answer is basically, "None." The only thing that should be charged up front is a credit check, which costs about $20, and you should be...
Loan Fall-Out And The Effects Upon Consumers
This is going to be a long article and somewhat technical in places, but it needs to be covered and it's important to everyone who is thinking about getting a real estate loan. "Fall-Out" is very simple: The number...
Online Real Estate Photographs - You Have Heard of Photoshop?
When Israel invaded southern Lebanon a few years ago, this picture from Reuters ran worldwide The problem was that it was heavily photoshopped by a Palestinian stringer trying to make it appear like the Israelis were setting the entire...
Lipstick on a Pig: Selling the Property You Should Never Have Bought
Lots of properties have some kind of problem with them. Maybe you bought in full recognizance because of something else about the property, but probably not. Mostly it's directly a result of not spending the effort to find a good...
Finding a Good Buyer's Agent (And Eliminating Bad Ones)
I hear people complain that they've never had a good buyer's agent, that they can't find one, or that they one they had hosed them (Sometimes, they're wrong about that, by the way). I also regularly get email from people...
Transaction Coordinator: For The Agent's Benefit, Not The Consumers
The last few years, real estate agents and brokerages have begun charging a transaction coordination fee in addition to whatever their share of the sales commission was. The purpose of this is to pay a transaction coordinator, so your...
Military Housing Allowance and Loan Qualification
One of the things that is really helping military families afford good properties is the military housing allowance and the way that lenders treat it, making it much easier for them to qualify with regards to debt to income...
Agents Refusing to Make an Offer on Real Estate
"buyers agent refuses to make offer" was a search hit I got recently. This is yet another reason not to sign exclusive buyer's agent agreements. My hypothesis - and based upon experience it's pretty strong - is that the CBB...
Find An Agent With Enough Time To Devote To Selling YOUR Property
Not very long ago, the purchase market in many areas of San Diego went through a phase that could only be described as "piranha feeding frenzy". This sort of market reinforces several pieces of advice I have given here....
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