Category: General

The Register of Deeds does essential work. It’s the office of the county deed recorder (some counties call it the Register and Recorders Office), where vital records are filed. Title transfers and home loans can’t happen without the Register of Deeds.

Have you ever thought about becoming a recorder of deeds?

Continue reading “Would You Run as a Candidate for Register of Deeds?”

Buyers are frustrated. Many have worked hard for years to get into the position to buy a home, only to find absolutely nothing that’s accessibly priced, or to lose a nice find to better-funded bidders. Now, the vast majority of listings are above the $200K mark. Would-be buyers must keep paying ever costlier rent, rather than saving more for the investment they really want.

On top of it all, here come the rising interest rates. Interest on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is above 5% for the first time in years.

It’s understandable that some are giving up. Still, there are reasons for patience, persistence, and hope.

Continue reading “Rent or Buy? Is There Even a Choice in 2022?”

What’s the Status?

In 2020, the Biden administration announced an intention to limit the 1031 Exchange, which helps investors save on real estate taxes. Two years later, has there been any follow-through? If the limit occurs, 2022 could be the last year for investors to use a 1031 exchange for all it’s worth.

Here’s our update.

Continue reading “The 1031 Exchange in 2022”

Prices Up, Mortgage Rates Up…

It’s tough to find a home these days. Some hopeful buyers just won’t give up. Some are buying with housemates; others are searching online for REO homes. (Foreclosed homes go into auction and become real-estate owned, or REO, if the bank hasn’t managed to sell them at auction.)

Looking for REO sales can be one way to get a house in some markets. And many foreclosed homes have come into the market in 2022. While millions of homeowners received mortgage forbearance during the pandemic, in 2022 that assistance is winding down.

Is buying one of these homes a good idea? It depends. A foreclosed home comes with its own set of potential risks and rewards.

Some buyers will ask what they really have to lose at this point. Rents are skyrocketing. The high monthly housing costs are ravaging renters’ incomes — making it harder and harder, the longer this goes on, to ever buy a house. REO is the best answer for some buyers. Knowledge and preparation is, of course, vital.

Continue reading “Should I Buy a Foreclosed House?”

What is going on? Property values might level off, but the mortgage rate is the latest thing to soar. The typical rate is up by 2% over December 2021. So the hopeful home buyer continues to face difficult decisions.

Many people are wondering how long it will take for a normal market to return. Here’s what we can tell now.

Continue reading “Real Estate Market Predictions: The Next Five Years”

Buy With Cash and Borrow Later

Some buyers wonder if they should stretch themselves and make all-cash offers to get homes in this seller’s market. When cash buying is a necessary strain, there is a solution: buy with cash, and borrow soon after. Delayed financing can make it happen in the right circumstances. 

Delayed financing is a special type of cash-out refinance. After paying cash for a home, the buyer uses delayed financing to get some cash back. Then the buyer starts making monthly payments, much like someone who purchased the home with a mortgage in the first place.

Even for those in the position to readily buy with cash, taking a loan out on the house makes financial sense when interests rates are reasonable. Today’s interest rates are indeed a reasonable cost to pay for access to home equity. Plus, interest on home loans are tax deductions.

Not every mortgage company is familiar with delayed financing. Interested buyers need to know what to ask for. Here are the basics.

Continue reading “How Delayed Financing Can Help an All-Cash Buyer”

The Non-Arm’s Length Transaction

Most home purchases are arm’s-length transactions. That is, they normally happen between people who didn’t know each other before the house sale. When strangers sell and buy, each side is motivated to negotiate in a self-interested way. This tends to result in a price (and mortgage) that reflects the home’s fair market value.  

But sometimes friends, relatives, or business associates sell real estate to each other. A parent might sell to a child, or vice-versa. An owner might sell a rental house to a tenant. A company might sell a house to someone it employs.

The dynamics of these transactions differ from the norm. On one hand, the process can be simpler. On the other hand, it can be hard to diligently inspect and negotiate for property, or sell it for the right price, when personal relationships are implicated.

Here, we walk through a few of the potential benefits and drawbacks in a home sale between people who know each other.

Continue reading “How to Do a Home Sale Between Family Members”

Rising Profile Ahead for Eminent Domain

When you think of eminent domain, what comes to mind? Perhaps you think of land that suffered some kind of toxic dumping or spilling, so that the government has to take it in order to restore it, if possible, to a non-hazardous state. And that does happen.

But sometimes, city governments move to take property under eminent domain for other reasons. Maybe the owner has racked up more back taxes than the home is worth. Or maybe the owner’s mortgage has gone underwater. But can the government legally take such property? When do governments really resort to eminent domain?

As some financial observers are predicting a recession in the midst of a housing shortage, now is a good time to review eminent domain. And in the coming decade we’ll be seeing more of a new eminent domain issue — one driven by climate change.

Read on as we explore these issues.

Continue reading “Does the Government Seize People’s Homes?”

A Closer Look at Closing Documents

In each county a recorder of deeds keeps documents that show the makeup of the neighborhoods and the individual properties in the county, and the history of the titles. In addition to the real estate deed and creditors’ liens, there are plat maps.

Plat maps are created under the state’s property code. They represent aggregates of plots — the properties, with their individual parcel numbers, that make up a neighborhood and are individually taxed.

All the streets are numbered. Every piece of property has a builder’s lot number, going back to when the subdivision was created.

Continue reading “What Are Plat Maps?”

Left Unoccupied?

Clever crooks in Ohio, Maine, and many other regions are swindling people out of their homes by recording fraudulent quitclaim deeds. They’re doing it now, and they’ve been doing it for years. But now, property values have exploded. The stakes in real estate are higher than ever before. That makes the abuse of quitclaim deeds extremely appealing to house thieves.

Quitclaim deeds are documents that don’t require a seller’s warranty of title. Often, quitclaims are used to a house title between co-owners or people who trust each other and know the history of the title.

But there are shady characters out there who seize upon the quitclaim deed to sign vacant property over to themselves. And we all need to be aware of how they work.

Continue reading “Check on That Empty House.”