Real Estate Investors Returning to Market

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by Robert Prophet on February 7, 2010

Savvy investors are always the first to jump in a potentially profitable housing market and a new survey indicates things are heating up.
More than 12 percent of homebuyers today plan to purchase a home as an investment, compared to less than half, only 5.6 percent, just seven months ago, according to a recent Move.com Homeownership [...]

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If You Rent Out Your House

January 31, 2010
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Here’s what you need to know about taxes and insurance if you turn your home into rental property.
First on your to-do list: Replace your homeowners insurance policy with rental-home insurance. It covers the building and provides liability protection but doesn’t cover possessions, so it tends to cost about 20% less than a regular homeowners policy, [...]

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More Homeowners Fall Behind on Mortgages

January 28, 2010
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About one in seven American households with a mortgage are behind on payments or in foreclosure, according to new data from the Mortgage Bankers Association. That is up from about one in 10 a year ago.
The group reported that 14.4% of first-lien mortgages on one-to-four-family homes were 30 days or more overdue or in the [...]

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Sell Your Home With Solar Energy

January 25, 2010
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According to the US Department of Energy, a solar residential home will sell two times faster than a traditionally powered home.  There are also rebates and tax incentives to be had.  Check your state to discover what is available in your area.  A useful place to start is www.dsireusa.org where consumers will find a record [...]

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The Life And Death Of Your Home

January 21, 2010
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Sooner or later you’ll have to repair or replace many of your home’s parts — inside and out.
One way to prepare for the costs of owning a home beyond the mortgage payment, insurance and taxes, is to know the expected life expectancy of your home’s components.
Such knowledge doesn’t supersede the use of a home inspector [...]

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Predatory Mortgage Lenders

January 15, 2010
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There’s been a lot in the news lately about predatory mortgage lenders. But how easy are they to spot and what tactics do they typically use to capture and take advantage of unwitting mortgage consumers?
First, it’s important to realize that, like other professions, there are only a handful of bad apples spoiling the mortgage lender [...]

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Steve Jobs At Stanford University

January 11, 2010
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I’m sure that we’ll all hear plenty of doom and gloom about the economy and the state of our nation in the coming months. But I’ve always been a “glass is half full” kind of guy so I wanted to share a few words of inspiration with you.
This is the text of the Commencement address [...]

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Prepare Now To Sell In Spring

January 6, 2010
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Spring may still be months away, but if you plan on selling this spring or summer, now’s the time to start getting your house ready to put on the market.
Home sales typically soar during the spring and summer months because of the more favorable weather in most parts of the country and kids out of [...]

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Orange County Housing Report: A 2010 Forecast

January 1, 2010
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There have been a lot of lessons learned from the housing speculative bubble. The most important lesson has to be that people need to look for a place to call “home” for the long term, making sure that their family can afford the monthly payment. If a homeowner pays their 30-year fixed rate mortgage for 30-years, they own their home free and clear.

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Strategic Default: Should I Stay Or Should I Go?

December 29, 2009
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A growing number of people in Arizona, California, Florida and Nevada, where home prices have plunged, are considering what is known as a “strategic default,” walking away from their mortgages not out of necessity but because they believe it is in their best financial interests.

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