The Worst Day to Close on a Home
Sometimes, trying to avoid the worst day to buy a home is simply impossible.
Home buyers don't set out, as an ordinary rule, to buy a home on the worst day. Much of the time it's bad luck that lands them in that predicament. If buyers could pick the best day, it would be when nobody else is closing on a home, and that's not the worst day, by any stretch.
For some reason, and maybe it's just my bad timing, I manage to buy homes in the fall, either when it's snowing or raining cats and dogs. This means when I'm moving, I'm typically soaked to the bone by the elements. As I slosh through rain puddles, you might hear me mutter that this is the worst day to buy a home, but that's just me grumbling.
What would be worse is if I never closed at all
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At the time of writing, Elizabeth Weintraub, DRE # 00697006, is a Broker-Associate at Lyon Real Estate in Sacramento, California.
Is Jingle Mail Your Answer?
It won't go away. Jingle mail is a lingering phenomena in the United States, which is a direct result of the foreclosure crisis.
Some home owners, terrified of pending foreclosure, decide to mail their house keys to the lender and move out. They call it "jingle mail" because the keys make a jingle-bell sound when picking up the key-stuffed envelope. The term has become a euphemism for walking away from your home. I imagine most buyers would tape the keys to a card -- providing they possess a bit of common sense -- so the keys don't really jingle.
Here are a few questions you might want to ask yourself. How do you know that the lender will actually receive the keys or even wants the keys? And why would an owner move out while the home is in foreclosure? Typically, owners can stay in the home, payment free, until the lender evicts them. Eviction happens after the foreclosure is final and could take anywhere from three months to a year, depending on the way foreclosures are handled in your state
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At the time of writing, Elizabeth Weintraub, DRE # 00697006, is a Broker-Associate at Lyon Real Estate in Sacramento, California.
Buying a Home in a Seller's Market
Buying a home in a seller's market is a lot tougher than buying a home in a buyer's market. It might seem to many home buyers across the country that the market has turned on a dime. One day they are reading about falling prices and a depressed real estate market, the next, multiple offers.
What happened and why is not as important if you are a home buyer trying to buy a home. How you will compete in a seller's market with all of those other buyers is a much higher concern. Because if you can't compete, you might not buy a home. Read more about buying a home in a seller's market.
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At the time of writing, Elizabeth Weintraub, DRE # 00697006, is a Broker-Associate at Lyon Real Estate in Sacramento, California.
Buying a Home in a Seller's Market originally appeared on About.com Home Buying / Selling on Monday, May 14th, 2012 at 05:00:35.
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Do Feds Control Interest Rates?
It's not true that Fed cuts reduce mortgage rates, regardless of how many times you hear it, says my personal expert, mortgage broker Dan Tharp.
According to Mr. Tharp, when the Federal Reserve Bank announces a big reduction in rates, say, 50 basis points or more, that action can actually cause 30-year-fixed rates to initially go up. That's because mortgage rates aren't tied to T-bills, like many people erroneously believe.
Trying to predict which way mortgage rates will move, though, is a little bit like throwing darts at a moving target board. The lenders I work with often tell me that rates can fluctuate wildly throughout the day. Rates can be up in the morning, drop over lunch and go back up within a course of a few hours.
Agents and lenders advise buyers to lock a loan rate when rates appear attractive. But the thing in the back of every buyer's mind is what if rates go down? That's a big consideration. But what if rates go up? What could cause rates to go up? Many real estate professionals, including some loan reps, do not fully comprehend how mortgage rates are determined and how Fed cuts affect mortgage rates. There's a myth perpetrated within the industry that rates always go down following a Fed cut
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At the time of writing, Elizabeth Weintraub, DRE # 00697006, is a Broker-Associate at Lyon Real Estate in Sacramento, California.
I Got My Start in Real Estate at First American Title
When dinosaurs roamed Earth in 1974, I got my start in the real estate industry. I took a job typing title policies for First American Title. The typewriter, believe ...Read Full Post
Ronald Reagan's Former Home in East Sacramento
Spring is in full bloom in Sacramento, which makes May a perfect time to tour homes of East Sacramento and admire the delightful, whimsical spring gardens.
It amazes me that many people think the capital of California is Los Angeles. Even in my adopted state of 35 million residents, some of them, if asked to quickly name the capital, draw a blank. And half of those who do realize that the capital is Sacramento don't know where it is. Just for the record, Sacramento is located approximately 90 minutes north and east from San Francisco.
Sacramento is in the Central Valley, tucked at the confluence of the largest river in the state, the Sacramento River, with its tributary, the American River.
Located just south of the American River and east of Midtown is a delightful community known as East Sacramento. It's within walking distance of downtown. Many of the homes were built in the 1920s and 1930s, and are filled with Old World vintage details such as curved archways, stained and leaded glass windows, and richly appointed woodwork.
The photograph shown here is of the East Sacramento home where Ronald Reagan lived while he was Governor of California. It's hard to believe that the Reagans paid only $1,200 a month to rent it in 1967, especially when it last sold in 2000 for $1,765,000
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At the time of writing, Elizabeth Weintraub, DRE # 00697006, is a Broker-Associate at Lyon Real Estate in Sacramento, California.
How Can There Be 2 Offers on One House?
In a market like we are in today, it's not unusual for home buyers to find themselves in situations where the seller of the home they want receives two offers on the house...Read Full Post
Walk Away -- Should You?
When home values fall, a home owner might start to think about whether it makes sense to walk away from a home.
The scenario goes something like this: It's 2005. Dick and Jane have not saved any money for a down payment, but because market conditions are hot, and all their friends are using 100% financing, they decide to make the leap into home ownership. They find the perfect home to buy for $300,000. The back yard might be a sea of sand, but that's OK, they can get by without landscaping for a while.
Several years ago by. Dick and Jane still haven't put in a lawn. So, they go to the bank to get a home equity loan to help pay for the landscaping. The bank appraises their home and declines the loan because the home is now worth $200,000. Well, that's no surprise, says, Jane, after all, bank-owned signs are popping up like dandelions in their neighbor's yards.
To heck with owning a home, Dick and Jane say. Let's give the this worthless piece of crap to the bank. They figure: What's the worst that can happen? Plenty
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At the time of writing, Elizabeth Weintraub, DRE # 00697006, is a Broker-Associate at Lyon Real Estate in Sacramento, California.
Do You Get a Release of Liability for that Short Sale?
I can tell sellers that a release of liability takes precedence over just about everything else in a short sale, but that advice often falls on deaf ears.
That's probably because a release of liability seems insignificant to some sellers. They hear about all of the other benefits to doing a short sale such as qualifying to buy another home in a couple of years, and they forget about the release of liability. Without a release of liability, a seller with a a short sale on her credit report might not qualify to buy another home.
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At the time of writing, Elizabeth Weintraub, DRE # 00697006, is a Broker-Associate at Lyon Real Estate in Sacramento, California.
Do You Get a Release of Liability for that Short Sale? originally appeared on About.com Home Buying / Selling on Monday, April 30th, 2012 at 05:00:13.
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Tips for Buying a Bank-Owned Home
This is a good time to be an REO agent, which I am not. In my real estate market in Sacramento, REOs (bank-owned homes) are receiving multiple offers. Sometimes, 10 ...Read Full Post