Book Review: The Geek Gap By Bill Pfleging and Minda Zetlin

A while ago, I had two publishers ask me if I would read books for review purposes on my site. I said that I would be glad to. One of the publishers included this little book on communicating between “suits” (businessfolk) and “geeks” (technical folk). Having a background on both sides of the fence (math, …

Payment, Interest Rate and Up Front Costs: Choosing a loan intelligently

Most people tend to shop for a mortgage based upon the payment. They figure the lowest payment will be the cheapest loan. This is the way most people make banks rich. Because they are looking for the loan with the lowest rate and the lowest payment, they choose the loan with two or three points …

When The Appraisal Is Below The Purchase Price for Real Estate

<blockquote>what happens when house doesn’t appraise?<BR /></blockquote> I presume this question meant “for the necessary value according to the lender’s guidelines”. Lenders base their evaluation of a property upon the standard accountant’s “Lower of Cost or Market.” This is intentionally a conservative system, because the lender is betting (usually) hundreds of thousands of dollars upon …

Failures of Imagination?

I recently discovered the film Secondhand Lions. Robert Duvall, Michael Caine, and Haley Joel Osmont. Beautiful tightly plotted movie, highly recommended, and if it hadn’t been up against Return Of The King it might have won Best Picture. Robert Duvall and Michael Caine are a pair of brothers, old coots who disappeared for forty years …

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 …

Amortization: Fixed rate, Balloon, ARM and Hybrid Loans

One of the things that always seems to be aiming to confuse mortgage consumers is advertising based upon whether the loan is fixed rate, and for how long. First, I need to acquaint you with two concepts: amortization and term. The term of the loan is nothing more than how long the loan lasts. How …