Cash is king when it comes to buying a house. Always has been, and always will be. And these days, individual cash buyers – as opposed to cash-laden investors – have an even better shot of scoring the house of their dreams.
These days, disasters like wildfires, tornadoes, floods and hurricanes are more powerful – and more frequent – than ever. It’s increasingly likely that wherever you live, your home will be hit one way or another.
Some states are taking long-overdue legislative steps to deal with squatters: people who take over others’ properties without their consent, sometimes dumping the owner’s stuff and trashing their homes.
Homeowners may be able to find some relief from rising property taxes and insurance premiums – without doing much work in the process.
Nearly half of online property inquiries are simply ignored, according to new research from real estate analyst and consultant Mike DelPrete.
Homeowners considering adding solar panels to their rooftops should beware of crooked lenders who mislead customers about the terms and conditions of their financing.
Price, location and condition all play a part in whether or not someone decides to buy your house. But a homeowner can only control one of them, and it’s not price or location.
Right now, according to Redfin, more houses have been on the market for 30 days or more than any other time in recent memory
Loose lips can not only sink ships, they can also scuttle real estate transactions. That applies to what home sellers say on social media as well as during a showing.
No newly constructed house is perfect. That’s why builders employ customer service teams to go back after customers move in and rectify whatever issues have popped up.
Flaws in a home’s floor plan won’t cause the house to fall down – but unlike minor repairs, you’re stuck with them unless they were addressed during construction.
Nothing is more devastating to homebuyers than to search for months and finally find the place they want, only to be rejected by their chosen lender. But it happens to 1 in 10 applicants.
Even though I live in a custom-designed house, I don’t recommend designing your own place from scratch. It’s not for everyone.
High 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.
If 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.
The 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.
Nothing 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.
For 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.
The 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.
I’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.
