'Home Buying' Category

Since 1977, the tax laws have allowed home owners to sell their main residence as long as they have lived there for two of the five years leading up to the sale and keep a huge chunk of the profit tax-free. Married couples can rack up as much as $500,000 tax-free while singles get up to $250,000. It does not matter if you sell the house and move into a more expensive mansion or a less expensive cottage or even a rental apartment. [...] Read More

Townhouses offer tremendous value for the money. Whether they are modest starter houses or stately residences geared to forty and fifty-year olds in their peak earning years, townhouses give owners the most house for the least cash because very little of the investment is going into land. And of course you already know that land is expensive. [...] Read More

When you have a contract in hand on the house that you intend to buy, you will contact your lender again to get things moving on your preapproved loan. You will now face the big question: Do you want to lock in your interest rate or would you let it float? And the only way to answer that is with another question: Do you like to gamble? Nobody on earth can predict changes in interest rates with any accuracy, although that fact doesn’t stop people from trying. [...] Read More

The more documentation you have handy then the faster your loan application will be approved. The lender will pull your credit reports and scores. You may be asked to pay a nonrefundable loan-application fee of $50 or $60. But check out those fees before you apply. Some lenders and that includes big internet companies do not charge any application fees but others can be quite high like in the banks. [...] Read More

Consumer demands and industry changed have led the real estate industry to break out of its traditional mold of only representing the seller in a transaction and into more of a flexible way of doing business. There are traditional agents, dual agents, transaction facilitators and buyer’s agents - a category further segmented into “designated buyer agent” and “buyer agent” working for a traditional company - with the last three comprising the “new” type of agent today. [...] Read More

You can gain more specific information in another way which is by providing a bit of your own information to a real estate broker, including an online broker, through a system known as a virtual office website or VOW. These systems literally include all of the information available the regional MLS systems and can be accessed by consumers who give up some personal information like the name, address, phone, homebuyer preferences or criteria for example, essentially becoming clients of that online or traditional broker. [...] Read More

Once you have determined that you are financially ready to buy a home then it’s time to start looking for the right one. Some people may already have a community or specific neighborhood in mind while others may not have narrowed that part of their search yet. For the latter a good first step would be to simply drive around the city, county or community of choice and envision yourself living in the homes that you pass by. [...] Read More

Shop both internet and local internet mortgage lenders before you decide where you would like to make your new loan application. Mortgages are commodities these days so you can be fairly ruthless in your quest for the best combination of rates, points and terms. What you would want from a lender is businesslike efficiency and good rates. [...] Read More

There are also downsides with seller financing, the most obvious being the fact that the seller is taking a chance by extending a hefty dose of credit to a borrower whom other lenders have turned down. Buyers also have to be aware of certain challenges of seller financing. Before getting too involved in the process ask yourself the questions below. [...] Read More

Depending on your financial situation there are both pros and cons of using seller financing. Below are the positives that you can expect from this financing strategy. [...] Read More