I am buying a house. I signed the contract but the seller said contingent to sell until she buys new house? Is that normal? People do it. It’s smarter to avoid the stress and complications of dealing with both at once, but there’s nothing wrong with a contingency sale, so long as you agreed to …
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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, …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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First in Series Sale
Now through Christmas, the first in each of my five fiction series is on sale for 99 cents in e-book! A duel in the shadows as echoes of an ancient war wash up onto a new planet! Life in the Empire has finally settled down. The last of the ston rebels have taken amnesty, and …
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 …
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May Be Out Of Touch
Starting tomorrow, I’m going to be potentially out of touch for a few days. Too cheap to buy a month of mobile broadband for a week, and I have no idea if there even is wifi coverage available. The blogs and FB Author page allow scheduling in advance, so I’m taking advantage of it. My …
Previous software hacked
My previous software was attacked, and tried to send out 52,000 emails. Evidently, that version cannot be made secure, and upgrading to an upgraded edition is prohibitively expensive. I’ll be replacing the articles as I get the chance, a process that is unfortunately largely manual.