January 2008

The Importance Of Taking Things Step By Step

Tuesday, January 29th, 2008 at 1:39pm. 476 Views, 0 Comments.

If you are thinking of buying real estate, the very first step you should take is to get in touch with a competent mortgage professional who can pre-qualify you and let you know where you stand in terms of getting a loan.

Now if you make hundreds of thousands of dollars per year or plan on paying cash for your real estate, then you don't need to be as concerned about the pre-aprproval process. However for everyone else, it's where the rubber meets the road so to speak. I speak with new potential home buyers every week, and it amazes me how many of them would like to start viewing properties before they have even spoken with anyone about financing. It has always been true that pre-approval is the first step to be taken, before even looking at homes,…

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Keeping A Long Term Perspective On Real Estate

Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008 at 12:59pm. 488 Views, 0 Comments.

Just like the stock market, real estate will always be a long term investment. Our hot market from 2002-2005 led many people to believe that real estate is a get rich quick scheme, where you can simply flip homes one after the other and turn a profit. This may have been true for several years, and it may be true for a handful of experienced investors, but for most people real estate should be a long term investment that you plan to hold for a minium of five, but realisitcally 10-20 years.

Over this time period there may be ups and downs in the real estate market, but after 10-15 years you can almost be certain that will have gained equity during that peroid. When you own real estate, the market is only "bad" for you if you NEED to sell. If you don't,…

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Bank Of America Buys Countrywide

Friday, January 11th, 2008 at 11:31am. 601 Views, 0 Comments.

It's no secret that Countrywide has been in trouble since the mortgage industry began having problems. This is because Countrywide was holding over half of all the sub-prime mortgages that were made to borrowers, and of course the sub-prime loans are the loans that are having the highest rate of default.

Although they laid off over 15,000 employees, their troubles were deep and as of yesterday they were taken over by Bank Of America. B of A has purchased Countrywide for $4 Billion in stock options, which now makes Bank of America the nations largest lender.

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TIC's Can Be a Headache

Friday, January 4th, 2008 at 2:56pm. 473 Views, 0 Comments.

They have been common in SF for years, but only in the past several years have we started to see TIC or "Tenant In Common" units for sale. Unlike a condo, ownership as a TIC means that instead having a deed to the property, you own a 25% or 50% (depending on how many units) interest in the whole building.

Perhaps the biggest drawback to TIC's is the financing that is associated with them. Lenders view TIC units as a higher risk compared to conventional condo units, therefore they require larger downpayments and charge higher interest rates on loan for TIC real estate. I have seen several TIC real estate projects in Oakland in the last couple of years that were on the market for months and never sold because of the fact that it is so much harder to…

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Happy New Year!

Tuesday, January 1st, 2008 at 12:28pm. 594 Views, 0 Comments.

Well 2008 is upon us!  Time flies so quickly it seems these days, and years are starting to fly by like a blur! Most of the analysts believe that during 2008 we will see continued pressure on housing prices, mostly due to the fact that more foreclosures are forecasted to happen over the next year.

However for those who are ready to buy, the current market offers some great pricing with less competition among buyers than previous years.

So cheers to the new year!

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