Category: General

Purchasing a home is one way to have control over your housing. But homeownership is also a wealth-building superpower. Pay off the mortgage, and the loan balance shrinks. Month by month, the home becomes a source of value that can grow with the real estate market.

At some point, you might want to tap into that value, to fund other goals. As a homeowner, you can consider a home equity loan (HEL) or home equity line of credit (HELOC).

Continue reading “Need to Pull Money Out of Your Home? Which Will Work—Home Equity Loan, or HELOC?”

Invited to put your name on the deed to a home? It might seem totally natural to just say “thank you.”

But stop and think a moment. If you accept a new deed, perhaps a quitclaim, with your name added on, you’ll put her, and yourself, at a financial disadvantage.

Continue reading “Your Mother Wants to Add You to the House Deed. Good Idea?”

Home sellers are staying away from the market in droves this year. Millions fewer new listings hit the spring market. Zillow reports that the February 2023 volume of listings is down 23% year over year.

The missing sellers are sending a message to the market. Look how comfortable we are with our current mortgages!

Most would prefer not to sacrifice this comfort to buy another home with a less comfortable loan. Trading up to one of today’s mortgages could easily add hundreds, even $1,000 or more to their monthly mortgage payments.

In case you were wondering, that’s where most homeowners are this season.  

Continue reading “Holding Low-Interest Loans, Many Homeowners Are Too Comfortable to Move”

Single women are a force to be reckoned with in residential real estate.

Most real estate marketing photos show couples and families. Understandably, considering that the National Association of REALTORS® says couples do buy the bulk of homes for sale.

But single women, NAR says, buy 17% of the homes. That’s big. Solo men, in comparison, buy just 9%.

Women, who couldn’t even apply for home loans without male co-signers until 1974, now own about 13% of U.S. homes bought as primary residences. The stats clearly show the high convictions of women in the role of real estate in their overall wellbeing.

Let’s take a look.

Continue reading “Single Women Buying Homes: A Powerful Force”

“I am meeting young people who make $78,000 and they cannot find a home. They cannot bid (against investors). They don’t have the money…Who wants to pay $3,000 a month for their first home? Nobody. It’s unsustainable.”

—Dina Neal, a state senator in Nevada, quoted in the Nevada Current.

We all know the stories of investors elbowing out ordinary home buyers. Corporate buyers really revved up after Covid took hold and real estate prices soared. Especially in Nevada. The nonprofit Stateline, examining statistics from CoreLogic, found that investor-buyers snapped up about one in four Nevada listings by 2021. Only Georgia and Arizona beat out Nevada on the score of how much real estate is going into the portfolios of corporate real estate investors.

Now, it looks like policy makers are ready to push back. State Senator Dina Neal of North Las Vegas is sponsoring Senate Bill 395 to rein in the large, corporate buyers.   

Continue reading “Legislate Corporate Landlords Out of Town? Nevada Might Just Try.”

It’s legal to buy a house at the age of majority. That special number is 18 years old — with a few exceptions. People reach legal adulthood at 19 in Alabama and Nebraska. And Mississippi residents are late bloomers—they stop being minors at age 21.

Legal majority means you’re old enough to apply for mortgages, sign (or even co-sign) binding contracts, and close real estate deals.

But it usually takes quite a few years after the age of majority to build the credit profile that works for a mortgage.

Continue reading “At What Age Is It Time to Buy a Home?”

Perfectionists are a giant step closer to finding their perfect homes. This month, two internet-savvy real estate giants launched ChatGPT plugins.  

It’s an intriguing new development, connecting real estate and the artificial intelligence (AI) company OpenAI.

And it’s part of a technological milestone: OpenAI only recently linked ChatGPT to the internet.

Continue reading “Zillow and Redfin Just Launched ChatGPT Plugins for the Perfect Search.”

Setting up an LLC for an investment property is simple, and not terribly time-consuming. Doing it well does take research, attention, and professional support. But it may be worthwhile.

Here are some basic considerations to have on your radar if you wonder whether forming an LLC could be a worthwhile goal. This is not legal or financial advice — just a checklist to help guide your own due diligence. 

Continue reading “When Owning Real Estate in the Name of an LLC Makes Sense”

Occasionally, the parties to a home sale make side deals, and do not write them down. This can lead to later questions, regarding just how meaningful a side agreement is.

To know whether a side agreement is binding after closing, it helps to be familiar with the impact a deed transfer has on that agreement.

Let’s take a look and side agreements, and what it means when they either “merge with” or “survive” the deed.

Continue reading ““Merging With the Deed”: Are Side Agreements Binding After Closing?”

Climate disruption has caused more extreme weather. As we’ve noted before, the impacts of out-of-whack weather systems are making their mark on real estate. 

Results of these extremes include intensified stormwater management challenges all over the continent, as unusually heavy storms inundate buildings. Of course, engineers design stormwater systems to handle and redirect the water. These systems, when they work well, head off pollution and flooding. But many areas are finding the need to update their infrastructure.

So, new stormwater fees are taking effect in many U.S. cities and towns. Here’s what we’re watching, in Q&A format so it’s quick and easy to find specific answers.

Continue reading “Climate Change Hits Home: Q&A on the New Stormwater Fees”