Most of what you read on financial planning in the media is garbage, but here is one of those occasionally useful pieces: <a href=”http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/13/AR2006031300079.html”target=”_blank”>IRA Rollovers Could Have Tax Implications. Here’s the idea: You keep company stock in your qualified plan aside from any rollover you may do. Leave it with the company. Convert it to …
Continue reading “Company Stock in Qualified Retirement Accounts”
I got this email the other day, responding to one of my <a href=”http://www.danmelson.com/properties_worth_checking_out/”target=”_blank”>Hot Bargain Properties posts on my other site: I am currently working with a coworker with no agreement. However, she has offered to rebate 50% of her commission. Are you negotiable with your commission? I am very ready to buy a place …
Continue reading “Choosing Buyer’s Agents By Commission Rebate: Penny Wise, Pound Foolish”
Cold Hard Fact for today: The average Real Estate Agent or Loan Officer is not motivated to tell you that you can’t afford your property. For the agent you are trying to talk people out of a property after they have already fallen in love with it. Let’s face it, if it’s higher in price, …
A while ago I wrote an article called, “What Happens When You Can’t Make Your Real Estate Loan Payment.” This is kind of a continuation of that, as I got a search that asked, “What is necessary to persuade a bank to accept a short payoff on a mortgage” Poverty. In a word, poverty. You …
Continue reading “Short Sales of Real Estate, aka Short Payoffs”
In many transactions when I originally wrote this, the buyer has absolutely no money, or an amount that was not sufficient to pay the costs that they would traditionally be expected to pay in order to close the transaction. Today, unless they’re eligible for a VA loan, there is no such thing as a “no …
Continue reading “Seller Paid Closing Costs (or, When Your Prospective Buyer Has No Money)”
One of the things that has a lot of issues is any transaction between related people. This is not limited to purely family transactions, but applies also to transfers among partnerships and their partners, corporations and their officers. The market theory holding that the value of a property is what is agreed to between a …
Continue reading “Loans On Related Party Transfers of Real Estate – Family, Corporate, or Partners”
The most recent hot thing in mortgage circles is a mortgage accelerator program. Now I’ve heard other things, most notably biweekly payment programs, called mortgage accelerators in the past, so let me take a moment to define exactly what I’m talking about. A mortgage accelerator is essentially a combined mortgage and checking account, where every …
Continue reading “Mortgage Accelerator Programs: A Good Basic Idea, But the Devil Is In the Details”
This is part and parcel of the system that’s abused. Here are sample rates from one A paper lender, picked at random, that were in effect when I originally wrote this. Rates are lower now, but it’s a good example nonetheless. These were Fannie and Freddie conforming 30 year fixed rate mortgages with full documentation …
Continue reading “Loan Rate Sheets: The Games Lenders Play With Rate and Cost Adjustments”
