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 …
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. 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 …
Continue reading “Related Party Transfers of Real Estate – Family, Corporate, or Partners”
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 …
Continue reading “Probate and Foreclosure and Planning Ahead”
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 …
Continue reading “Lump Sum Payments on a Mortgage and Alternative Investments”
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 …
Continue reading “Losing Property Value with Highly Leveraged Properties”
I’d been locked out of the website’s publishing function for about three weeks due to an error in software. Here’s hoping it doesn’t return. Assuming everything keeps working, there will be a new article Wednesday morning.
This is something I probably should have covered quite some time ago, as it’s 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 a few days ago. These are Fannie and Freddie conforming 30 year fixed rate mortgages with full …
Continue reading “Loan Rate Sheets: An example, and the games lenders play”
Section 1031 of the IRS Code has to to with tax treatment on the exchange of one parcel of real estate for another. It’s similar to Section 1035 which covers most non real estate exchanges. Car for a car. Boat for a boat. Business for a business. But section 1031 allows indirect exchanges so long …
First off, let me say that your site has been very informative and helpful. I stumbled across your blog looking for information on ARM vs. 30 year fixed loans and ended up reading every article. One issue I have never really seen addressed is joint loans. When a couple, married in this case, gets a …
Most of what you read on financial planning in the media is garbage, but here is one of those occasionally useful pieces: 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 non-qualified …
