Joel Hall's (joelhallrealtor) Blog

LONDON (Reuters) - A private equity arm of Goldman Sachs is looking to launch a $3 billion property debt fund in a bid to take advantage of a growing shortage of real estate financing across the UK and Europe, British newspaper the Times said on Monday.Real Estate Principal Investment Area (REPIA...

Home resales have climbed to their highest levels in nearly five years. In an unusual twist, activity might get a further boost from a recent rise in mortgage rates. Q. I would like to buy my first home this year, but I’m worried that prices are going to keep dropping. Should I buy now or keep wa...

A few weeks back during our series on “The Five Steps to Home Buying,” we discussed in Step 5 the details of the closing process. Probably the most important player at the closing is the closing attorney, sometimes referred to as the closer or title attorney. The slight variation in description i...

Home prices in 20 U.S. cities dropped at a slower pace in January, pointing to stabilization in the real estate market. The S&P/Case-Shiller index of property values in 20 cities fell 3.8 percent from a year earlier, matching the median forecast of 32 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News, after ...

    Many factors contribute to the experience and success of buying and selling homes, but even in the digital age of a more transparent real estate market, working with a good real estate agentcontinues to be one of biggest impacts on either side of the transaction. But how do you pick the right...

SANTA ANA, CA, Mar 26, 2012 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- With reduced home prices and interest rates near historic lows, affordability levels in early 2012 reached their highest point in 42 years according to the National Association of Realtors.   Not only are homes at record affordability levels,...

Looking for real estate bargains? Consider golf courses. Investors from Donald Trump to luxury homebuilder Toll Brothers (TOL) are wagering there’s money to be made buying them. Stand-alone 18-hole golf properties in the U.S. sold for a median price of $3 million in the first nine months of last ...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- It's the eternal question in real estate: Should I buy or rent? The answer has never been clearer: Buy. In 98 of the top 100 housing markets, buying a home is more affordable than renting, according to the online real estate company Trulia. Only Honolulu and San Francisco b...

Real estate is supposed to rival gold as one of the safest investments you can make. As the late rancher (and multimillionaire) Roy Rogers put it, "Buy land. They ain't making any more of the stuff." So why does a brief observation of the housing market tell us otherwise? Foreclosure, subprime lo...

Jen Slepicka bought her house in Yorkville 11 years ago, when she was 24 years old. She still loves living there, but her life has changed dramatically in the past decade. Now a single mom and recently laid off from her job in real estate, she can no longer afford the mortgage payments.