How Homeowners Can Save on Rising Insurance Premiums
Homeowners may be able to find some relief from rising property taxes and insurance premiums – without doing much work in the process.
Basic Customer Service Creates Big Opening for Agents
Nearly half of online property inquiries are simply ignored, according to new research from real estate analyst and consultant Mike DelPrete.
Thinking Solar? Beware of Crooked Lenders
Homeowners considering adding solar panels to their rooftops should beware of crooked lenders who mislead customers about the terms and conditions of their financing.
Listing a Home? Get the Sellers to ‘Edit’
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.
Overpriced Listings Become Stale
Right now, according to Redfin, more houses have been on the market for 30 days or more than any other time in recent memory
Casual Chitchat Can Cost You a Real Estate Deal
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.
Spotting Design Flaws
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.
Spotting Design Flaws
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.
Rejected for a Home Loan? Don’t Give Up Yet
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.
How to Get a One-of-a-Kind Home, The Easy Way
Even 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
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.
Fixed-Rate Loan Payments Can Go Up
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.
Setting the Record Straight on the NAR Settlement
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.
Put Your Listings to the Nose Test
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.
No Immigrants, No New Housing
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.
Appraisals Fail Many Sellers
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.
Scammed If You Do, Scammed If You Don’t
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.
Recycle at Home, With Your Home
Scrap 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
The 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
Good 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?
