Home Loan Information Home Loan Information From A Former Industry Insider

"Staging" for Dollars

It won’t help your appraised value one bit but it will sure help your home sell better! Trying to sell an empty box is probably the best example of a bad mistake but it’s much more than just putting furniture in a shell. Even if your home is filled with nice furniture and decor items, chances are, it’s not staged for the best sale price.

I am not a stager but I do help your buyers get loans to acquire your property and the more they spend the more we all make.

Try this StagedHomes.com

Tax Lien Sales (FIFA Auctions) – Cold Hard Facts

You’ve seen the late night ads. I’ve seen them, too.

Mark and Mary Hopton of Shecstedler, New York, purchased this beautiful 5 bedroom 3 and 1/2 bath home for just $1100!

Right.

Here’s what Mark and Mary actually did: They bought a lien against a 5 bedroom 3 and 1/2 bath home for just $1100. Value of their lien? $1100 plus maybe 20% …. of eleven hundred dollars.

Here’s what the commercials don’t tell you:

Increasing Value vs. Marketability

I see one huge mistake time after time. It causes more anguish between my mortgage division and clients than any other valuation issue: Finishing a basement to increase property value.

It doesn’t.

It increases MARKETABILITY but hardly affects VALUE.

Cut that out. I saw you roll your eyes! Here is a cold, hard fact: (at least for my area here in Atlanta) value per square foot of unfinished basement $5, value per square foot of finished basement $10 (plus or minus).

Considering it’s going to cost at least $20 per foot (doing the work yourself) to finish your basement that’s not a good investment if you’re doing it simply to increase the value of your home hoping for more equity. If, however, you are doing it so you can sell your property at the top of the market value for your area it can certainly help.

Home Buying 101

There are many emotions associated with the acquisition of an expensive item. Though we rarely regard it as simply an “item” your home is most likely the most expensive acquisition you’ll ever make. There are many upsides to purchasing a home whether it’s your first or tenth. We’ll review those in this article and hopefully you’ll finish your reading having obtained more knowledge which is the power to overcome anxiety, fear and trepidation often associated with a home purchase.

Firstly, at the risk of sounding flagrantly rude, forget what you think you know about real estate purchasing. There are going to be a minimum of 3 professionals to help or hinder you. Learn what the jobs of these 3 people are and you’ll enjoy the trip much better!

But I HAVE to laugh!

“I am having trouble getting to the closing table with the current broker I went with (don’t laugh), can you get me a 100% LTV on this Porterdale property, and how quickly can you close? The contract close date is (in less than 10 days). Can you close by this date? All the title work has been done and appraisal.”

I quoted that because it was an email that came to one of my team members while several of us were talking about how often people call us, talk to us, learn how to do this and then go someplace else usually because that other place *lied* to them, almost always about rate, loan product and closing costs, to get them away from us. And we did laugh, we all laughed. Heartily.

Your First Real Estate Investment

Unlike many real estate investment “gurus” I make my income from investing in real estate and financing real estate investments … not from selling seminars, CD’s and books. I’ve done over 60 seminars and have never received one dime from admission fees. I’ve given away literally thousands of CD’s. So why do I do it?

Simple: If you help enough people get what they want you’ll be greatly enriched which may also (and in my industry does) include becoming wealthy.

Cashing Out to Cash In

I get this one. Often.

Can I use my HELOC to buy an investment property or make a down payment on an investment property?

Why of course you can. But should you?

Unfortunately certain factions have begun to look at 100% mortgages as a fraud being perpetrated against “good citizens” by the mortgage industry. Here are a couple of facts for you:

Interest rates on 100% full doc investment loans are are less than most current HELOC rates.

"Junk Fees" versus Compiled Fees

Okay – I got that comment to my other post about $15 for your current lender to fax a one page payoff to your new lender. It does, indeed, sound exorbitant. But let’s look at it from a personal perspective. Let’s say you have 800 clients you manage. Let’s call you an Account Specialist.

Let’s say of those 800 clients you have about 10 minutes of work each month to perform as a standard part of your job. That will require roughly 34 hours per week. Now let’s throw in that maybe 10 percent of them caused a variation in the amount of time required costing an extra 10 minutes. That’s another 3.4 hours bringing you to 37.4 hours.

Now because of government regulations on how people are paid for the jobs they do and the hours they work you must clock out at exactly 8 hours every day.

Blowing Deals Because of Interest Rate

Maybe you haven’t noticed but you will from now on. The mortgage banking industry, one of the most highly regulated industries in the nation short of prescription drugs and weaponry, continuously shoots itself in the foot. How so? By advertising and selling off one of the most volatile components of a mortgage: interest rate.

Here’s the prime example. Look at almost any web portal today (the big ones at least) and you’ll more likely than not see an advertisement saying something like “A $280,000 mortgage for $875 per month. Click Here.”

What’s even more amusing to me is that these ads are usually placed not by lenders or brokers but by lead harvesting companies like Lower My Bills or Lending Tree. Oh, you didn’t know those are not lenders? Nope – they are lead generators only and do not directly offer financing. But, I digress.

The New Agent's First Sale – or Your Next One

You’ve passed the exam. A broker has brought you on or you’ve leased desk space from a mega broker. You’ve got your business cards and your lockbox. You’re pumped full of information and ready to “get at ‘em!”

Now what?