The Myths and Truths about your Mortgage

Mortgages are tricky and often hard to understand. Because most people only purchase a home every five to seven years, prospective home buyers understandably don’t spend a lot of time in the interim educating Read more

VA Loans: Are you eligible?

The $417,000 VA Loan Benefit can be used to BUY or REFINANCE your home and is available to Active Duty, National Guard or Reservists, Retirees, Veterans, and Military Spouses. Read more

A Guide to Taxes as a Homeowner

Hey there, homeowner! We’re happy you’ve got a slice of the American dream, and you’ll get the tax breaks that go along with it. In fact, some of these tax incentives apply to even a second home. Ooh la la!

Whether you bought, sold or just happily lived in your home this year, we’ll walk you through all the tax stuff you need to know.

Just skim the “If you …” headers to find the sections that affect you.

If You Paid Interest on Your Mortgage … Read more

Kitchen Remodeling: The Do’s and Don’ts of Improving Resale Value

People generally love a beautiful new kitchen. With state of the art appliances, they feel as though they are master chefs in the comfort of their own homes. However, many people also remodel their kitchens to improve the resale value of their homes. Read more

Problems Persist, but Appraisals are Improving

While low home values continue to be an obstacle in the way of a full housing recovery, more and more markets in recent months have experienced home-price improvements. Read more

Is it time to rethink adjustable-rate mortgages?

By Kirk Haverkamp
Originally by MortgageLoan.com on

You don’t hear a lot about adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) these days. That’s too bad, because they’re still a good choice for many homebuyers, believe it or not.

ARMs can be a very smart choice for homebuyers who are not planning to stay in the home more than a few years. Think about it — if you’re planning to sell the home within seven years, as many homeowners do, what difference does it make if you have a seven-year ARM? Why not take advantage of the lower rate and pocket the difference? Read more

4 Things Homeowners Must Stop Doing!

Bad-habit cessation is the holy grail of behavior-change specialists and self-help gurus alike. Many millions of dollars have been made and books bought by consumers on the hunt for the key to stop whatever self-destructive actions constitute their particular vice, from smoking to overeating to overspending and gambling.

But these are simply the behaviors on the extremely and obviously destructive end of the bad-behavior spectrum. Read more

How to Help Boost Your Appraisal

 

According to the National Association of Realtors, a whopping 33% of all contracts were cancelled in January, 2012. This is up from just 9% in January 2011. NAR says one of the primary reasons for these elevated levels of cancellations is due to low appraisals.

Looking to sell your home or do a refi? Then you may need to boost your appraisal.

Here’s how:

Check Comps

While it’s technically the appraiser’s job is to derive a base for your home’s value based on the recent sales prices of homes that are comparable to yours — comparable in terms of location, size, condition, and age (in this order) — you need to do your due diligence as well. Get about 6 comps ahead of time. Start your research on Zillow. Read more

Fed Announces Low Interest Rates Through 2014

The Federal Reserve announced today that they will keep interest rates low until at least late 2014 in an effort to help jump-start the sluggish economy by making it less expensive to borrow money across all segments of the economy. Read more

Lenders are Looking More at the Condition of the Property

It is pretty well known these days that mortgage applicants are liable to undergo scrutiny more thorough than just about anyone in the business can remember. I don’t know about the rest of the country, but in our neck of the woods (Orange County, California) we are also seeing the emergence of a parallel trend. Not only are borrowers getting a more thorough examination, but also the properties themselves are being scrutinized as never before.

I am not talking about the value of the property — those kinds of appraisal issues have been with us for some time now. Today, I am referring to the physical condition of the property. Read more

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