ARCHIVED BLOG POSTS

2015 

Living Trusts Estate planners often recommend Living Trusts as a viable option when contemplating the manner in which to hold title to real property. When a property is held in a Living Trust, title companies have particular requirements to facilitate the transaction. While not comprehensive, an...
01/15/2015
Insist on a Home Inspection A professional home inspection protects both you and the buyer. It allows both you and the buyer the opportunity to learn about the property’s defects. A home inspection usually covers the following: Plumbing conditions - if there is leakage or clogging Roofing condit...
01/14/2015
Hot, Normal, and Cold Markets Hot Market This is an extremely competitive market and is advantageous to the seller. Sometimes, homes will sell as soon as they are listed or even before homes are listed. Typically, during a hot market, multiple offers will be made on each home and more often than...
01/13/2015
Documenting Your Assets - Verifying Your Down Payment When buying a home, it is not enough to just come up with the money. With the exception of no asset verification loans, lenders want to verify where the money for your new home will be coming from. If you can document that the funds are comin...
01/12/2015
Statements of Information What’s in a name? When a title company seeks to uncover matters affecting title to real property, the answer is, “Quite a bit.” Statements of Information provide title companies with the information they need to distinguish the buyers and sellers of real property from o...
01/11/2015
Lead Poisoning Lead poisoning is a serious problem that can lead to adverse health problems. In children, high levels of lead can cause damage to the brain and nervous system, behavioral and learning problems, slow growth, and hearing problems. In adults, lead poisoning can cause reproductive pr...
01/08/2015
Getting the Highest Price in the Shortest Time In order to get the highest price in the shortest time, you need to know how to market your home. The better you market your home, the more offers you will get. And the more offers you get, the more choices you have to get the price and terms you wa...
01/07/2015
Getting a Legitimate Lender and Getting Pre-Approved It used to be that buyers could go house shopping and when they have found their dream home, then they go to get pre-approved. However, in today’s market, that has proven to be one of the least effective methods in landing the dream home. Most...
01/06/2015
Closing Costs When Buying or Refinancing a Home This is a detailed summary of costs you may have to pay when you buy or refinance your home. They are listed in the order that they should appear on a Good Faith Estimate you obtain from a mortgage lender. There are two broad categories of closing ...
01/05/2015
Required Reporting to the I.R.S. Sellers of real property will have certain information regarding the sale reported to the Internal Revenue Service. This required reporting is a consequence of the Tax Reform Act of 1986; it is intended to encourage taxpayer compliance and aid in audit and enforc...
01/04/2015