Approaching the Loan Application Process – What Loan Will You Qualify For?

On of the biggest time and money wasters in real estate is people that apply for the wrong loans – loans that they can never qualify for because they can’t meet the guidelines, or can’t prove they meet the guidelines, which amounts to the same thing. Often, loan officers are the worst offenders, judging by …

Appraisers Speak Out Against “Make The Deal”

Appraisers Petition Against “Make The Deal” I’ve spoken about these issues before in this post. I’ve certainly heard of plenty of abuse on both sides of this equation, and there is plenty of motivation for lenders to abuse the situation by requiring a higher than “real” appraisal value. Still, I think that by reading only …

Seller Paid Closing Costs (or, When Your Prospective Buyer Has No Money)

In many transactions these days, the buyer has absolutely no money, or an amount that is not sufficient to pay the costs that they would traditionally be expected to pay in order to close the transaction. Nonetheless, in today’s buyer driven market, often the seller still wants to do business with them. The usual way …

Related Party Transfers of Real Estate – Family, Corporate, or Partners

One of the things that has a lot of issues is any transaction between related people. Actually, 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 …

Probate and Foreclosure and Planning Ahead

This question brought someone to my site: If my house is going into foreclosure but the house is also in probate, can the lender actually go forward with the foreclosure sale while the house is in probate? The short answer is yes. The Trust Deed (or Mortgage Note) that was signed by the now deceased …

Lump Sum Payments on a Mortgage and Alternative Investments

This one came from a search engine: amortization of real estate loans early payoff based on a lump sum payment This is one of the smart things you can do. Not necessarily the smartest, mind you, but smart. The question is if there’s a better way to get a return on that money, wither by …

Losing Property Value with Highly Leveraged Properties

In one of my articles somebody wrote in the comments about going upside-down on their mortgage: What happens if the property value falls and becomes far less than the loan ammount? (POP) Lets say you get a loan for $280,000 on a home that was $330,00 and then three years later is is only worth …