This question: What real estate office can I trust to help buy below market house in (location) California in the year 2006? brought someone to the site and I have not previously written a real answer to the question. The short answer is “nobody.” This doesn’t have to do with trust. It has to do …
Category Archives: Buying and Selling
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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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The Basics of 1031 Exchanges
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 …
Title Insurance, or Preventing Fifty Ways to Lose Your Money
Yes, I’ve always kind of liked Paul Simon. But this post was inspired by something I ran across from FATCO. And just to make certain you know, it’s fifty ways to lose your money if you don’t have title insurance. You don’t want problems from prior ownerships to interfere with your rights to your property. …
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Issues with Family Transfers of Real Estate
We live in (A California city). In a 2 bedroom 1 bath home on approximately a 20,000 Sq. ft. lot. It is easily worth 500K to 600K with a current mortgage of $116,000. The mortgage/Title is in the name of my father and his wife 90% and myself and my wife with a 10% interest. …
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Facts Of Life On Buying and Selling “Without an Agent”
I saw your article on on Searchlight Crusade about exclusive buyers agents and I have a couple follow up questions pertaining to my own situation that I am hoping you could shed some light on. I don’t have any buyers agent (currently). However I have spotted 2 houses in an area that I think I …
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Should I Buy A Home? Part 3: Consequences
Continued from Part 1: Preparation and Part 2: Process This is about the long term consequences of the decision to buy or not to buy a home, and economic benefits analysis into whether you should want to buy. In order to answer the question of whether it’s better to buy or rent and invest the …
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Should I Buy A Home? Part 2: Process
Continued from Part 1: Preparation I am considering buying a home, although I have not made up my mind on the subject. This is not due to indecision, but rather due to a lack of necessary information. There are many factors to be considered in my case, and in order for me to make an …