The real estate crunch has produced some useful websites and resources in today’s information highway.
Nowadays with so many homeowners renting out their homes after failed attempts to sell, it has been difficult figuring out ways to find the right tenant. After all there is a reason not everybody could enter the field of real estate investment with apartments and investment properties — not only was capital not so easy to access, it was hard to tell the difference between a really good “liar” and a genuinely good tenant. Now a website called RentBureau.com is offering landlords a way to screen potential tenants and for the most part, be able to tell whether or not it’s a good idea to rent to them. It takes into consideration the tenants’ past history with renting or home owning and is able to give you a score to rate them — 900 and above is good and 850 and below is considered “risky.” However this service is not free. It costs $9.95 per inquiry in addition to a one-time $10 set up fee.
Just keep in mind that this site is relatively new and is not comprehensive. If you are a landlord looking to find more information about your potential tenant there are many other steps to take besides just relying on RentBureau.com for a report. Remember to pull credit from all three credit bureaus, check criminal and sex-offender registries, and if possible run a background check on the individual.
Everyone has been looking for ways to renovate their homes in a cheaper, newer way. CNN has offered ten useful suggestions as on how to find these bargains and how to introduce them into your home.
“Most times you get what you pay for, but sometimes you luck out. Here are a few true deals, with features of higher-end products for less money.”
(more…)
When “foreclosure auctions” are mentioned the first thoughts that usually come to mind are: “Bargain, bargain, bargain!” This is just not the truth in most cases in today’s market.
Although it makes logical sense that the foreclosed upon properties would have lower price tags because, well, they’re foreclosed, and typically lenders want to rid themselves of owning actual property, this is not what is happening at the auctions. Many have shown up to realize that the starting bid is oftentimes almost market value due to the fact that the previous homeowners obtained riskier financing leaving them with a principal mortgage balance of the original price tag. Lenders have been reluctant to lower the starting bid prices because of the fact that they are still due so much money in the end. This combined with the fact that the properties that have been foreclosed are often in areas with depreciating values, suddenly buying a foreclosed home is no longer a great bargain.
This is not to say that there are no deals to be found. There will always be jewels in the rough, just expect to fight for it and for it to take a long while to find something worth the trouble. (more…)
A summary of the ten listed lies to generate interest and buyers:
- “My neighbors are wonderful!”
- “The roof leaked once, but we fixed it.”
- “I’ve only seen one termite on the deck.”
- “There’s no radon — ever.”
- “I didn’t know I should have told you about the foreclosure.”
- “The planes from the airport don’t fly over this house.”
- “Of course we had a permit to build the new addition.”
- “There’s never been any flooding.”
- “Our schools are great!”
- “They can’t build on that lot across the street.”
Read on for details about each lie and some important tips on how to make sure you don’t get duped. (more…)
You pay your mortgage on time, you have a savings plan in place, you have your retirement funds growing, you’re set right? Not exactly. Even if you think you are not directly involved in this whole credit crunch issue you may be more affected than you really think.
Take a look at this video by CNBC and you’ll see what I mean.
Despite the housing crisis and real estate value depreciation, most middle-class income workers still cannot afford to buy their own homes. Middle-class workers range from teachers and nurses to police and firemen. Even if this predicament doesn’t affect you in particular, it affects us all because with homes still being so expensive it is getting more and more difficult for certain “unaffordable” areas to attract quality workers.
“In Chicago, for example, the median home sold for $262,000. Assuming that a buyer would put 10 percent down and had a spending ceiling of 28 percent of gross income for housing, they’d have to earn $85,589 to buy a home.
But registered nurses earned a median of only $63,938 in Chicago. Customer service representatives grossed a median of $39,876, office clerks $42,441, retail salespeople $23,056 and food service workers $21,786. For these people, home ownership remains far out of reach.” (more…)
Recessions always put us all in a bad financial pickle and most of us don’t even realize we’re heading towards a recession until we’re in the middle of it. The best time to prepare for a recession, to ensure your survival through the recession, is when there is a boom because more often than not an economic plateau or, sadly, downturn will follow soon enough.
This article gives you different aspects to focus on while preparing for the economic onslaught. (more…)
The cardinal rule for decades now has been that owning your own home is better than renting your home. Why? Because it made long-term financial sense, it gave you an immediate investment, and you are almost always guaranteed to walk away with a profit after living there for x number of years. But now the housing crisis has turned everything on its head.
Usually even during a momentary real estate correction where prices are falling it is a fantastic time for buyers to enter the market. But this time professionals and analysts are predicting that prices will continue to fall as much as another 10-15 percent. Making a seemingly great investment a risky one in the next couple years at least.
Currently considering the taxes, commissions, and other fees and charges tacked onto the sale of a property by third parties and the government, a property’s value has to appreciate a minimum of 11 percent in order to break even. In this type of economic and real estate situation this “appreciation minimum” seems to be impossible.
It seems that the old cardinal rule still applies for investors and homeowners that intend on buying their homes and keeping it long-term — when I say long-term I mean over five years. But for those who are planning on staying in their homes for two or three years and moving onto the next, as many have done in the past decade, then the decision to buy a home will be a risky one and most likely will turn into an unaffordable one.
This article goes in depth as to whether it is truly better to buy or rent in different situations. (more…)
Some warning signs that are included in this article :
- Living paycheck to paycheck.
- No savings account or cushion.
- Being under insured, whether that is for automobile, home, or health insurance.
- Making minimum payments on credit cards.
Although these are not comprehensive and it does not necessarily mean one will go bankrupt, it does show there is some financial trouble in the works. (more…)
