Entries from Dan Melson's Website tagged with 'RESPA'

New Consumer Article: Why It May Be Costly to Reject Paying Points

The new consumer article for today is Why It May Be Costly to Reject Paying Points. The advice "never pay points" actually started out as misleading advertising intending to keep consumers away from what in fact were better loans, but...

New Consumer Article August 12, 2008

Today's new consumer article is What Buyers Need: What Sellers Should Want to Supply, a companion article to yesterday's, helping sellers to be successful by thinking like buyers....

New Consumer Article August 11, 2008

Today's new consumer article is What Sellers Need: What Buyers Should Want to Supply, which talks about thinking like a seller for buyers....

Steering: The Most Violated Law In Real Estate

I just picked a random ZIP code in my local MLS, and out of the first twenty listings I came to, ten had explicit violations of one or more of the sections of RESPA regarding steering right there in the...

Real Estate Liquidation Auctions

With the market turndown, Liquidation auctions are becoming a big thing. They were just advertising one on all the stations around here. The other agents in my office asked if I was going, and I told them, "There will...

Developers and Conditional Incentive Money to Use Their Lender

Good Evening! My name is DELETED and my wife and I recently signed papers to purchase a property from DELETED in DELETED, CA. After our options, their lot premium, and the elevation charge, the house is listed at 425,000....

How Can You Tell If A Buyer is Qualified?

A high percentage of buyers out there have no idea of how qualified they really are themselves. They have no clue as to any of the major factors in determining credit-worthiness. To be fair, there are dozens, if not hundreds,...

The Escrow Process and Reasons for Falling Out

There are all sorts of reasons why escrow falls through, but they fall into three main categories. They can best be described as failures of qualification, failures of the property itself, and failures of execution. Before I get into the...

What Does Escrow Do?

This is a question that gets asked a lot. Escrow is nothing more or less than a neutral third party that stands in the middle of a real estate transaction and makes certain all of the i's are dotted and...

Lowballing versus "Junk Fees"

One of the things that most mortgage and real estate consumers get mixed up on is the distinction between low-balling and junk fees. Junk fees are when they add fees that really aren't necessary to what you're paying. Low-balling is...

Do I Need A Deposit With 100% Financing Offers?

The answer is yes. Consider the situation from the seller's point of view, and the answer becomes obvious. Here is someone who is proposing to not put any of their own money into the deal. What's their motivation to consummate...

What to Beware in Third Party Services

RESPA (Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act) prohibits an agent from requiring you to have other services performed by outside companies. RESPA also prohibits an agent from accepting payment (kickbacks) from third party service providers. Nonetheless, these are major problems in...