Opinion
How to Get a One-of-a-Kind Home, The Easy Way
By Lew Sichelman | April 26, 2024 | Reprints | Unlock LinkEven though I live in a custom-designed house, I don’t recommend designing your own place from scratch. It’s not for everyone.
Door Opens to Flip a House for Yourself, Not Profit
By Lew Sichelman | April 19, 2024 | Reprints | Unlock LinkHigh mortgage rates, soaring house prices and rising construction costs have driven many flippers out of the market. And with their exit comes a great opportunity for people eager to buy a fixer-upper of their own.
Worried About Your Commission? Learn to Show Your Value
By Bernice Ross | Special To Commercial Record | April 19, 2024 | Reprints | Unlock LinkBuyer’s agent compensation offers seem set to disappear from your local multiple listings service by this summer. And the effects will be wide-ranging.
Fixed-Rate Loan Payments Can Go Up
By Lew Sichelman | April 11, 2024 | Reprints | Unlock LinkIf you have a fixed-rate mortgage, your payments will always stay the same, right? Wrong. Taxes and insurance premiums invariably rise – which means your house payment does, too.
Setting the Record Straight on the NAR Settlement
By Lew Sichelman | April 5, 2024 | Reprints | Unlock LinkThe reporting on the recent $418 million settlement with the National Association of Realtors and several large national brokerage companies has been so atrocious that I must jump in.
Put Your Listings to the Nose Test
By Lew Sichelman | March 28, 2024 | Reprints | Unlock LinkNothing turns up buyers’ noses faster than a smelly house. They walk in, stop, take a whiff and are ready to turn around and leave. Some won’t even go beyond the front door.
No Immigrants, No New Housing
By Lew Sichelman | February 22, 2024 | Reprints | Unlock LinkFor any number of reasons, U.S.-born workers have been reluctant to join the construction workforce, leading to consistent labor shortages and rising wages – meaning the prices of new housing is going up, too.
Appraisals Fail Many Sellers
By Lew Sichelman | February 14, 2024 | Reprints | Unlock LinkThe real estate community has long complained about appraisals that lagged the market, but the report from the FHFA documents that their gripes are valid: Undervaluations spiked to 15 percent in 2021.
Scammed If You Do, Scammed If You Don’t
By Lew Sichelman | February 9, 2024 | Reprints | Unlock LinkI’ve decided to put my 50-plus years of writing about the housing business to work by offering my faithful readers a free online seminar on how to get rich in real estate without hardly trying.
Recycle at Home, With Your Home
By Lew Sichelman | February 1, 2024 | Reprints | Unlock LinkScrap tires have been recycled for years into building products like flooring, infill decking and septic system drain fields. But they’re not the only thing. From coal ash to washed-up seaweed, our homes help reduce and reuse.
Uncle Sam Offers a Boost to Fixer-Uppers
By Lew Sichelman | January 24, 2024 | Reprints | Unlock LinkThe Federal Housing Administration is poised to update the 203(k) program, which allows borrowers to purchase a house and include the cost of repairs or rehabilitation in a single mortgage.
You Rarely Know All Your Agent Does
By Lew Sichelman | January 19, 2024 | Reprints | Unlock LinkGood real estate agents go to great lengths to bring a deal to fruition. And much of what they do is behind the scenes, so you’ll never see it. And you think they don’t earn their commissions?
Too Many Agents, Too Little Training
By Lew Sichelman | January 11, 2024 | Reprints | Unlock LinkMost brokerages tend to hire anyone who can fog a mirror, turning them loose with hardly any training other than what they learned to pass their licensing tests. And as a result, the business is overrun with too many agents chasing too few deals.
Home Listings Now an Endangered Species
By Lew Sichelman | December 28, 2023 | Reprints | Unlock LinkIt’s time to place the for-sale existing house on the endangered species list, right alongside the African forest elephant, the Yangtze finless porpoise and other critically threatened varieties.
White House Acts to Boost Housing
By Lew Sichelman | December 7, 2023 | Reprints | Unlock LinkThe Biden administration is taking steps to help create more affordable houses and apartments, including accessory dwelling units, which could help fill the inventory gap that plagues the housing sector.
Homebuilders Ride a Bifurcated Housing Market
By Lew Sichelman | December 1, 2023 | Reprints | Unlock LinkThe existing home market has been stymied – by mortgage rates in the 8 percent range and ultra-low inventory – and it’s created an opening for builders to take credit for double their normal share of sales.
Don’t Put Your Earnest Money at Risk
By Lew Sichelman | November 16, 2023 | Reprints | Unlock LinkAttaching a check to the offer on a house you hope to purchase is thae right way to signal your intentions to the seller. But that means you need to keep your side of the bargain, too.
Buyers’ Agents’ Fate Is Sealed – If They Don’t Prove Their Value
By Bernice Ross | Special To Commercial Record | November 2, 2023 | Reprints | Unlock LinkThis past week’s ruling in one of the two “bombshell” commission lawsuits and Anywhere Real Estate’s and RE/MAX’s earlier settlements in both cases together form a watershed moment that will ultimately force buyer agents to negotiate their commissions directly with the seller and/or their buyer.
Don’t Put Your Earnest Money at Risk
By Lew Sichelman | November 2, 2023 | Reprints | Unlock LinkAttaching a check to the offer on a house you hope to purchase is the right way to signal your intentions to the seller. But that means you need to keep your side of the bargain, too.
How to Buy a House in Other Countries
By Lew Sichelman | October 20, 2023 | Reprints | Unlock LinkIt happens every election cycle: “If that guy wins,” one side or the other vows, “we’re moving to Canada.” It turns out that’s a lot harder than you might think in practice.