Short sales in our area can hold the key to more than one real estate-related issue. For cash-strapped borrowers, short sale success means relieving an unsustainable obligation without having to go through foreclosure. For sharp-eyed buyers, local short sales can present outstanding opportunities to purchase properties otherwise beyond their affordability range.
Both are reasons to applaud …
For local homeowners watching property values rise and fall, surprises aren’t necessarily welcome. Surprises come in two flavors where real estate is concerned (and the previous decade certainly brought some of the unwelcome kind).
One of the basic numerical tools we have come to rely upon comes from Corelogic®, the California analytic brainiacs who collect and …
After weeks of dealing with inspections, appraisals, repairs, and the sheaf of paperwork created by your mortgage company, The Final Walk-Through should come as a welcome relief to those buying a home in town this summer. Despite its ominous name, that final walk-through is anything but — it provides a last layer of protection for …
When it comes to residential real estate outlook, some truisms say it all: “Strike while the iron is hot!” “The early bird gets the worm!” “Time and tide waits for no man…” Sometimes those hoary old clichés have survived because their wisdom doesn’t ever change — and right now, some hard facts and figures may …
If you’ve come across the term “zombie foreclosures” in recent months, it wasn’t referring to voodoo parlors whose priests couldn’t pay the mortgage.
Not exactly dead, but not exactly alive, they are properties stuck in a kind of zombie-like limbo. They are homes that have been abandoned by their former owners at some point before foreclosure. …
In the business publishing world, one of the most reliable bestseller categories is Marketing and Sales: How to Sell This, or Tips for Selling That. Selling may be a complicated business, but one approach always sets you ahead of the pack: putting yourself in the shoes of the customer.
Selling a local home is a case …
This month’s release of National Housing Data from realtor.com shows yet another rise in list prices, which, as expected, apparently spurred more previously reluctant sellers to put their homes on the market. The pressure to jump on board continued as “the home buying season shifted into high gear…”
With more area listings competing for prospects’ interest, …
When it comes to a home sale in town, adults automatically appreciate the importance of presenting a pristine property to potential buyers. Kids, on the other hand, would like a glass of apple juice, please.
Parents are forever juggling their other adult responsibilities with the needs of the children, so when you add home sale showings to …
When we update local readers about the latest news in housing prices, it’s usually not as ‘latest’ as we’d like. The reason is that there is a delay in most of the truly reliable indexes that measure housing prices. The big indexes are national (local housing prices are another matter), and they have a built-in …
The other day I ran across some eyebrow-raising financial trivia. There’s a takeaway that should be encouraging for everyone who already own property in town.
The undeniable value of home ownership is pretty clear when you take a look at some of these financial facts —
According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute, 56% of workers report …