One of the bloggers I used to read talks about debunking a money myth and perpetuates one of his own. He took issue with someone refinancing to lower their monthly payment, insisting instead that the term of the loan was all important. His point is understandable in that because folks tend to buy more house …
Continue reading “Saving Money by Refinancing Your Mortgage”
do your property taxes go up in California when you refinance your property This is one of those urban legends. People are concerned that because the house is appraised by the lender, the assessor is somehow going to find out that their property is worth more and send their tax bill soaring. However, thanks to …
Continue reading “Refinancing Has No Effect Upon Property Taxes”
I just got a google search where the question asked was “What if the mortgage is recorded in the wrong county?” I’ve never actually seen this (and San Diego County, once upon a time, included what is now Riverside, Imperial and San Bernardino counties), but if it’s the mortgage on your loan, no big deal. …
I got a search for “which states allow prepayment penalties”. I’m not aware of any that don’t. If there are any, I’d like to know. Any such states should immediately be renamed “Denial”. I really hate prepayment penalties, for a large number of reasons. Nonetheless, to make them illegal would not be in the best …
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 t’s are crossed. They make certain that all of the terms of the contract have …
Asymmetric Information has an excellent article on what journalistic ethics are and are not, much to the chagrin of Juan Cole. As I stated a few days ago, I would not make it illegal for the press to publish anything, so long as they’re willing to defend its factuality in court. That they publish a …
Continue reading “Transparency, National Security and Shield Laws”
It seems I can’t hardly turn around in the investment world without a paean to Jack Bogle, who preaches the advantage of the index fund. Mr. Bogle’s reasoning goes something like this: Looking at the world of mutual funds, relatively few funds beat the S&P 500 Index, so why not just buy the whole S&P …
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 main subject matter of the article, I need to define a contingency period. This is …
Continue reading “The Escrow Process and Reasons for Falling Out”
I realized that I hadn’t covered timeshares, and decided it was time. I suppose I should define what a timeshare is, just in case. A timeshare is a property where you buy the rights to use it for a certain amount of time every year. The most typical time share is a two week period. …
(originally written 20 years ago, republished because it’s worth keeping. I do not favor war with Iran) Another blogger has a wonderful article about the demand for an antiseptically perfect war, with no collateral damage, no casualties (certainly no bystanders), and everything wrapped up in a nice little package before the attention span of the …
