Category: General

It happens to more than a hundred homeowners each year. Governments and companies take home equity from the owners who run into hard times and can’t cover their property tax bills. In other words, these entities aren’t only recovering their legitimate past-due balances through foreclosures. They are also keeping all the value they can extract from the debtors’ homes.

Plaintiffs litigating against the practice call it unconstitutional. And now, they hope the Supreme Court will hear their cases.  

Continue reading “Surplus-Retention Seizures: Legalized Home Equity Theft?”

The purchase contract. It’s the core of the transaction.

Negotiating a strong position is important. Making sure that position is reflected in writing matters. Reviewing the document is a must.

Here are some of the most important issues a buyer usually wants to see in a purchase contract.

Continue reading “Negotiating the Purchase Contract”

Is a real estate move among your New Year’s resolutions? If so, there are some advantages in selling early in the year.

But whenever you do it, successful selling is an art. Here are a few tips to create the perfect mindset.

Continue reading “New Year’s Resolution: Sell My Home!”

So you really, really, want that special home. Will you be the seller’s choice?

It’s tempting to gush over the home in a letter to the owner. That way, couldn’t you bond with the owner over your love for the home? And isn’t it helpful to create goodwill with the party you’re hoping to deal with?

Sure. But writing certain personal details in a “love letter” to a home seller, says the National Association of REALTORS®, could be risky. It could lead to activities that might be called out as discriminatory, NAR says.

Could a buyer’s words to a seller actually offend fair housing laws? Maybe so, says NAR — if a seller chooses one particular buyer while excluding others, possibly because of personal traits.

This is why Oregon recently banned buyer love letters. But the law was deemed unconstitutional. Buyer love letters, a federal court has said, are protected as free speech.

Continue reading “Free Speech! The Current Status of Buyer-to-Seller “Love Letters””

It doesn’t happen often, but it happens occasionally. Someone in a deceased homeowner’s family was missing or unknown. Maybe that someone had a potential interest in the home.

So here’s the question. What if a relative decides to make a claim, perhaps years after a home has changed hands?

Sure, anyone can claim anything. No way could that person succeed, right? It all depends on the law of the state, and the facts of a case.

Continue reading “The Case of the Missing Heirs: Could Survivors Claim My Home?”

Struggling to sell? Does it feel as though the potential buyers are all worried about the economy (or about “buying at the top of the market”)?

Or maybe they can’t get the loan they’d hoped for, given the recent rise in mortgage interest rates.

If so, you might wonder if it’s time to lower your asking price. Then again, is it better hold tight until excited buyers show up?  

Here, we walk through the pros and the cons of reducing a home’s asking price.

Continue reading “A Home Seller Wonders: “Should I Lower My Asking Price?””

It’s hard to find a starter home these days. Across the United States — and especially where younger generations are hunting — there are rarely listings for less than $300,000, let alone anything that fits the popular image of a first-time buyer’s home.

This means younger buyers are coming up with their own ideas of what a starter home looks like. And often, it looks like a condo.

A condo — short, of course, for condominium — is a unit on a multi-unit property that is deeded to the buyer of the unit. Condo owners often share walls. But condos can be detached homes, too.

So, is the condo the new starter home? For many young buyers, the answer is yes. Here’s why.

Continue reading “Condos Are Cheaper. That’s Not the Only Reason Younger Generations Want Them”

Housing is in high demand and short supply. With so many hopeful buyers searching for affordable listings, the idea of installing accessory dwelling units (ADUs) is increasingly popular, according to Bankrate.

An ADU is a mini home on the same property as (or even connected to) the main home. In some cases the units are converted attic or basement spaces. Others have been converted from outdoor garages, or built as “in-law cottages” on foundations in backyards. They have separate entrances, kitchens, bedrooms, and bathrooms. Unless they are part of the main home, they have separate HVAC and plumbing systems, too.

ADUs can boost a property’s value. They can also bring in income as rental or home-sharing spaces.

Continue reading “The Rise of Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs)”

Gen Z (“Zoomers”) are people who were born between 1997 and 2012. A Rocket Mortgage survey says 86% of this generation in the United States is mentally ready to buy homes. Nearly half hope to make their purchases within five years.

They’d likely benefit from becoming homeowners. But can they afford it?

Continue reading “Can Generation Z Buy Homes?”

The internet and the smartphone help with all kinds of tasks. But can technology support accessibility at home?  

Property-related technology, or proptech, can indeed.

To start, tech innovations can make housing safer. They can monitor and improve indoor air quality. They can warn us about potential outages of basic systems in our homes. Smart tech can help people with audio or visual disabilities do more — or do it more easily — at home.

There’s so much innovation happening. We’ll take a look at just a few examples here.

Continue reading “Inclusivity Matters: Making Real Estate Accessible”