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Roberto Bell's Articles in Real Estate

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  • How To Find Management Rights Opportunities In Cairns Queensland
    Living in Cairns Queensland is a dream come true for people that want to live a very fulfilling and somewhat off beat laid back lifestyle. Purchasing management rights is quite possibly the best way to make that dream become a reality.
  • How Spray Foam is Part of an Energy-Efficient Home
    If you are not familiar with spray foam, it is a form of insulation used in building construction. It has polyurethane base; once the foam is mixed and pumped, it...
  • Five Innovations in Green Flooring
    As the name implies, green flooring is an ecologically friendly alternative to traditional synthetic flooring methods. It is focused on using organic and easily renewable materials, eliminating negative...
  • Discover Negotiating Tips for Okanagan Real Estate Listings
    Okanagan home finders Rob Dion and Lee Ivans are your #1 Okanagan Royal Lepage realtors. Let Rob and Lee search through Okanagan real estate listings for your perfect Okanagan real estate home. Visit our website for Okanagan homes for sale.
  • Kelowna Homes For Sale
    Discover beautiful properties with Royal Lepage Kelowna realtors Rob Dion and Lee Ivans. View the latest Kelowna real estate listings today by visiting our website!
  • Tenant Screening - What You Need To Know
    For building owners and property manager's there are few things more devastating than entrusting treasured real estate to residential or commercial tenants who abuse the property or...
  • Mega Property Projects in Dubai
    This is a short article about the mega projects engulfing the real estate focus in Dubai.
  • Useful Tips For Successful Real Estate Lead Generation
    The real estate industry is often considered as volatile, such that trends can change immensely, influencing either positive or negative outcomes, and overall affecting the state of...
  • Real Estate Market Today
    Real estate is a legal term for describing a piece of land and anything associated with the land – commonly a house or an apartment situated on that particular piece of land. Real estate was a booming industry before the severe recession hit the US, but now there is a significant slump in the business. Property prices are going down like never before and the real estate market is showing a big slump. Yet there is still hope.
  • The Tipping Point For Realtors
    It is a challenging time for a realtor that is for sure. The notion that land would appreciate forever, that traditional marketing always worked, and that your sphere of influence would support your business has been shattered.
  • Is Downtown Condo the Place for You?
    Since many years there has been a rise in the number of purchasers buying Grand Rapids downtown condos
  • Investing In Smith Mountain Real Estate Market Is A Good Option
    There is absolutely no denying the fact that recession has hit all markets and business sectors.
  • Now Is The Time To Invest In Smith Mountain Lake Real Estate Market
    Real estate business has the potential of giving you a lot of return on investment, especially if you consider investing in Smith Mountain Lake area.
  • Choosing The Best Realtor
    In today's turbulent real estate market, it has never been more important to select the realtor that will best represent the interests of the client.
  • Subprime Will Return, Alt-A is Dead
    Like a Phoenix rising from the ashes, Subprime lending will make a comeback. Lenders focus on the three Cs: Creditworthiness, Capacity, and Collateral. Creditworthiness is measured by one's FICO score, Capacity is based on one's income, and Collateral is the value of the property the loan is being written against. The subprime lending business model was originally intended to take people with poor FICO scores that had good income and savings and give them bridge financing until they could repair their FICO scores and refinance into conventional loans. This business model will probably return in a few years as there will be many people in this category due to the crash of prices in the Great Housing Bubble.
  • The High-End Suburbs Will Also Crash
    The course of a financial market, particularly the real estate market, is a long and winding road full of twists and turns and unexpected outcomes. It was certainly foreseeable that banks and builders might fail and the GSEs might need to be bailed out, but the how and when of these occurrences are always unpredictable and newsworthy.
  • The Loan Program for the Next Housing Bubble
    Lending during the Great Housing Bubble was too messy. There were too many loan programs. Since real estate always goes up, and since people want immediate access to this appreciation to spend it like income, a new loan product which readily provides this money is in order. The Option ARM was a major innovation. By allowing for negative amortization, people were able to add to their loan balance and effectively "cash out" their equity. The problem with this loan program is that it didn't go far enough, people still had to make payments, and they had to get HELOCs to extract the remainder.
  • Can You Still Make Money Flipping Houses?
    Speculation is a battle. The forces of greed and fear drive the financial markets, and the speculator attempts to profit from these moves. Speculation is not investment, although most do not understand the distinction. Speculation is the battle of the individual against the herd. For those who understand it and have learned to move against the emotional forces of fear and greed, there is opportunity to profit. For those who follow the herd, there are brief moments when profits are available, but few have the discipline to take them. Most speculators are slain by the market.
  • Denver Mortgage : Is home buying a good investment?
    I just want to give you some examples of why I believe home buying is a great investment. I know this is not the time to talk about home buying as an investment in this down market.
  • Why Did We Have All Those Bailouts?
    It all starts in the housing market. Realtors peddle fantasies of unlimited wealth that leads to people wanting to overpay for houses. The desire for real estate at any cost provides an opportunity for lenders and mortgage brokers to make huge origination fees if they can lower standards and qualify more people.
  • Housing Desire is Not Housing Demand
    The last line of defense for the housing bulls is the fallacy of pent-up demand. Belief in this fallacy relies on people's inability to distinguish between desire and demand. Most people want a house. About 65% of Americans own their homes, but probably 95% of residents wish they did. The desire for housing always exceeds the supply because there is always some segment of the market that is unable to obtain home ownership due to the cost of housing and a lack of available credit.
  • Why Were People Buying Houses While Prices Were Dropping?
    There is a great deal of price volatility in California. There are significant periods of time where house prices will appreciate faster than incomes increase. This is purely the result of irrational exuberance. Prices cannot rise faster than incomes on a sustained basis, but prices can certainly go up faster than incomes when a bubble is inflating.
  • Does Home Appreciation Make It Easier to Move Up?
    The conventional wisdom in California real estate is that you buy a home, and when it appreciates, you sell it and move up to a better home. There is some truth to this idea, but not in the way most people think.
  • Getting Out of a Real Estate Transaction
    Changing your mind on a stock purchase is relatively easy. Stocks are very liquid, and transaction costs are very low. However, changing your mind about a real estate transaction is not so easy. Real estate is very illiquid in a declining market, and the transaction costs are very high.
  • Market Solutions for Preventing the Next Housing Bubble
    There is one potential market-based solution that would require no government regulation or intervention that would prevent future bubbles from being created with borrowed capital: change the method of appraisal for residential real estate from valuations based exclusively on the comparative-sales approach to a valuation derived from the lesser of the income approach and the comparative-sales approach. Both approaches are already part of a standard appraisal, so little additional work is necessary, other than appraisers will have to focus on doing the income approach properly.
  • Personal Problems Resulting From the Great Housing Bubble
    The economic problems caused by asset price bubbles often lead to personal problems in the wake of the deflating bubble. Statistics about unemployment, foreclosure and bankruptcy are impersonal. The events that result in any one of these outcomes was anything but impersonal: these things happened to real people who had very real emotional responses. Many people during the fallout of the Great Housing Bubble experienced all three. Any one of these outcomes can lead to depression, suicide, divorce and a whole host of traumatic personal problems. All of it was preventable if the bubble was not allowed to inflate in the first place.
  • Take Advantage of a Buyer's Market
    When the market turned up in the late 1990s the market shifted. During the last decline, the buyers had an advantage. During the bubble the advantage went to the sellers. The seller's market went on for so long and became so feverish that people have forgotten (or may never have known) what it was like to see buyers in control of the action.
  • Lingering Problems from the Deflation of the Housing Bubble
    As with any illness, the recovery is often plagued by symptoms of the disease and unwanted side effects. The recovery from the Great Housing Bubble will be no exception. The main problems will be experienced by those who bought at peak prices and did not go through the cleansing foreclosure process. As painful as foreclosure is to those who must endure it, foreclosure is the cure to the disease of the market. After foreclosure, a borrower is no longer burdened by high housing payments, and is free to move to find new work and spend income on consumer goods.
  • Factors that Influence the Price Declines in Residential Real Estate Markets
    There are a number of factors that will influence the timing and the depth of the price decline. There are a number of psychological factors and technical factors in play.
  • Housing Market Speculation Was a Disaster
    Many people decided to speculate in residential real estate markets during the Great Housing Bubble. Most were amateurs that had no idea what they were buying or why prices were increasing. The only thing they did know is that prices were going up, and they believed they would continue to do so forever.
  • Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 Did Not Work
    In early October 2008, the Congress passed and the President signed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. The purpose of the bill was "to restore liquidity and stability to the U.S. financial system and to ensure the economic well-being of Americans." The law authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to establish a Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to purchase the toxic waste poisoning the balance sheets of lenders and other financial institutions. This measure was passed in response to an unprecedented seizure of the short-term credit markets. Banks quit lending money to other banks once it became apparent that few of them were solvent. This fear spread to all short-term commercial paper and threatened to bring down the entire financial system. It is unclear whether or not this new program will save the institutions holding the toxic waste.
  • Hope Now? The Big Lies of the Housing Bubble
    The first of the numerous bailout programs was "Hope Now" introduced in October of 2007. As the name suggests, Hope Now was sold to the general public as a reason for them to hang on and continue making crushing payments for as long as possible. It was a false hope, but even false hope gave homeowners a little emotional relief, and it provided a few more payments to the lenders. According to their website, "HOPE NOW is a cooperative effort between counselors, investors, and lenders to maximize outreach efforts to homeowners in distress." The plan was to streamline the process of negotiating workouts between lenders and borrowers to keep borrowers making payments and ostensibly to stop them from losing their homes. The emphasis was on making payments and maximizing investor value in collateralized debt obligations. Very few people benefited from the program, despite government claims to the contrary, and no rights or benefits were conferred to borrowers that they did not already contractually have. There was much fanfare when it was first announced, but the program did far too little to have any impact on the housing market.
  • Hope Now? The Big Lies of the Housing Bubble
    The first of the numerous bailout programs was "Hope Now" introduced in October of 2007. As the name suggests, Hope Now was sold to the general public as a reason for them to hang on and continue making crushing payments for as long as possible. It was a false hope, but even false hope gave homeowners a little emotional relief, and it provided a few more payments to the lenders. According to their website, "HOPE NOW is a cooperative effort between counselors, investors, and lenders to maximize outreach efforts to homeowners in distress." The plan was to streamline the process of negotiating workouts between lenders and borrowers to keep borrowers making payments and ostensibly to stop them from losing their homes. The emphasis was on making payments and maximizing investor value in collateralized debt obligations. Very few people benefited from the program, despite government claims to the contrary, and no rights or benefits were conferred to borrowers that they did not already contractually have. There was much fanfare when it was first announced, but the program did far too little to have any impact on the housing market.
  • Hope Now? The Big Lies of the Housing Bubble
    The first of the numerous bailout programs was "Hope Now" introduced in October of 2007. As the name suggests, Hope Now was sold to the general public as a reason for them to hang on and continue making crushing payments for as long as possible. It was a false hope, but even false hope gave homeowners a little emotional relief, and it provided a few more payments to the lenders. According to their website, "HOPE NOW is a cooperative effort between counselors, investors, and lenders to maximize outreach efforts to homeowners in distress." The plan was to streamline the process of negotiating workouts between lenders and borrowers to keep borrowers making payments and ostensibly to stop them from losing their homes. The emphasis was on making payments and maximizing investor value in collateralized debt obligations. Very few people benefited from the program, despite government claims to the contrary, and no rights or benefits were conferred to borrowers that they did not already contractually have. There was much fanfare when it was first announced, but the program did far too little to have any impact on the housing market.
  • The Despair Stage in a Financial Bubble
    There are many identifiable stages in a financial mania. These include: enthusiasm, greed, delusion, denial, fear, capitulation, and despair. From a perspective of market psychology, it is difficult to tell when the capitulation stage ends and the despair stage begins. Both stages have an extremely negative bearish sentiment. It is called the despair stage because most who own the asset are in despair and wish they did not own it, and the general public is still selling.
  • The Capitulation Stage in a Financial Bubble
    There are many identifiable stages in a financial mania. These include: enthusiasm, greed, delusion, denial, fear, capitulation, and despair. The transition from the fear stage to the capitulation stage is caused by the infectious belief that the rally is over. There is a tipping point where a critical mass of market participants either decide to sell or are forced to sell. In residential real estate, people are compelled to sell by anxiety, and the mechanism for force is foreclosure.
  • The Fear Stage in a Financial Bubble
    There are many identifiable stages in a financial mania. These include: enthusiasm, greed, delusion, denial, fear, capitulation, and despair. The most important change in the market in the fear stage is caused by the belief that the rally is over. Price rallies are a self-sustaining price-to-price feedback loop: prices go up because rising prices induces people to buy which in turn drives prices even higher. Once it is widely believed that the rally is over, it is over. Market participants who once only cared about rising prices suddenly become concerned about valuations. Since prices are far above fundamental values and prices are not rising, there is little incentive to buy. The rally is dead.
  • The Enthusiasm Stage in a Financial Bubble
    There are many identifiable stages in a financial mania. These include: enthusiasm, greed, delusion, denial, fear, capitulation, and despair. At the beginning of the enthusiasm stage of a financial bubble, prices are already inflated, so there is cautious buying from traders looking for trends and momentum.
  • Precipitating Factors in Financial Bubbles
    There is often a precipitating factor causing the initial price rally that pushes prices above their supported fundamental values. A bubble rally is usually kicked off by some exogenous event, but it may occur simply because prices have been rising and investors take notice, or it can be merely the result of a lack of investor fear and the widespread belief prices cannot go down.
  • Behavioral Finance Theory
    Behavioral Finance abandoned the quest of the efficient markets theory to find a rational, mathematical model to explain fluctuations in asset prices. Instead, behavioral finance looked to psychology to explain asset valuation and why prices rise and fall. The primary representation of market behavior postulated by behavioral finance is the price-to-price feedback model: prices go up because prices have been going up, and prices go down because prices have been going down.
  • Housing Bubble Market Psychology
    Financial markets are driven by fear and greed: two basic human emotions. Rationality and careful analysis are not responsible for, or predictive of, current or future price levels in markets exhibiting bubble pricing as the emotions of buyers and sellers takes over.
  • When Will Housing Prices Stop Falling?
    House prices became very elevated relative to fundamentals of income and rent. Since these fundamentals underpin the housing market, prices will continue to fall until they come into alignment with historic norms.
  • Adjustable-Rate Mortgage Resets Deflated the Housing Bubble
    The loan reset issue is not confined to those who bought late in the bubble rally of the Great Housing Bubble. Many borrowers are homeowners who refinanced to take advantage of more favorable loan terms. Most loans originated in the later stages of the bubble rally were adjustable rate mortgages. When these mortgages reset to higher payments, most borrowers defaulted, and their properties went into foreclosure.
  • Subprime Foreclosures Burst the Housing Bubble
    The first sign of trouble for the housing market was the implosion of subprime in early 2007. Subprime borrowers stopped paying back the loans they were given due to loan resets and payment recasts. These defaults lead to foreclosures. During the bust, the vast majority of properties at auction went back to the lenders because the loan amounts usually exceeded market value. Properties purchased by the lender at a foreclosure auction are called Real Estate Owned or REO.
  • The Credit Crunch Deflated the Housing Bubble
    Loan standards vary over time as the credit cycle loosens and tightens. Many borrowers in the bubble rally were qualified with low credit scores, very high combined-loan-to-values, high debt-to-income ratios, and little or no income verification. When the ensuing credit crunch occurred, all of these standards were tightened and many of those who previously qualified did not qualify under the new standards. If no other conditions changed, this tightening of standards would have forced many borrowers into foreclosure; however, this credit tightening caused a chain reaction sending market prices for residential real estate which were already falling into an even steeper decline.
  • The Affordability Limit in Residential Real Estate Markets
    Affordability is the ultimate limit of any asset bubble. If prices are so high that no buyer can afford them, there are no transactions and thereby no market. The fear of many buyers in a financial mania is that prices will remain elevated to the absolute limit of affordability permanently. People who have this fear will put every available resource into getting a house before this happens. This becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as prices get bid higher and higher by fearful buyers.
  • The Supply Curve in Residential Real Estate Bubbles
    The supply curve is the opposite of the demand curve: sellers will make very few units available at low prices, and sellers will make a great many available at higher prices. Wherever these two curves meet is where supply and demand are in balance and market transactions are taking place.
  • Credit Rating Agencies and the Secondary Mortgage Market
    Credit rating and analysis of collateralized debt obligations and all structured finance products are integral to the smooth function of the secondary market for mortgage loans. A credit rating agency is a company that analyzes issuers of debt and debt-like securities and gives them an overall credit rating which measures the issuer's ability to satisfy its debt obligations.
  • Negotiating Skills Make a Big Difference in Home Sale Profits
    The negotiating abilities of buyers and sellers and the overall market environment greatly impact the profits from real estate. Sellers almost universally believe their properties are worth more than the market will bear. People become emotionally attached to their houses, and because it is very valuable to them, they assume it is just as valuable to a person who is not attached to the property.
  • The One Stop Mortgage and Home Loan Solutions
    Murfreesboro, Brentwood, Clarksville and all of Tennessee and Nashville home loan mortgage solutions and secrets have finally been unveiled in a radically designed website; an educational, informative and inspirational site, www.yourmoneysource.net is fully equipped with Nashville home loans and mortgage related info, loads of free reports, a home buying guide and free mortgage calculators. Specifically designed to enlighten the site visitors, YourMoneySource.net reveals all facts and figures aimed to empower our customers to take sensible decisions while obtaining a mortgage.
  • Regulating the National Association of Realtors Would Help Prevent the Next Housing Bubble
    The sales tactics of the National Association of Realtors should be examined and potentially come under the same restrictions as securities brokers through the Securities and Exchange Commission. Realtors routinely lie about the investment potential of residential real estate. People believe these lies and enter into transactions that often harm them financially.
  • Strict Loan Documentation Standards Will Help Prevent the Next Housing Bubble
    One of the most egregious practices of the Great Housing Bubble was the fabrication of income by borrowers that was facilitated and promoted by originating lenders. Stated-income loan programs were widespread, and they were the cause of much of the uncertainty in the secondary mortgage market during the initial stages of the credit crunch in the deflation of the bubble. Basically, investors had no idea if the borrowers to whom they had lent billions of dollars were capable of paying them back.
  • Regulatory Solutions to Prevent the Next Housing Bubble
    The regulatory solution proposed herein is simple, yet far reaching. It comes in two parts, the first is to limit the amount lenders can loan to borrowers with a rather unique enforcement mechanism, and the second is to increase the penalties for borrowers who commit mortgage fraud. The following is not in legalese, but it contains the conceptual framework of potential legislation that could be enacted on the state and/or federal level.
  • Changing Appraisal Methods would Prevent the Next Housing Bubble
    Investor confidence in the market for CDOs and all mortgages was shaken during the decline of the Great Housing Bubble, and rightly so. Investors were losing huge sums, and nobody clearly understood why. There was a widespread belief these losses were caused by some outside factor rather than a systemic problem enabled by the lenders and investors themselves.
  • Housing Bubble Causes - Why Did It Happen?
    The Great Housing Bubble was caused by an expansion of credit that enabled irrational exuberance and wild speculation. The expansion of credit came in the form of relaxed loan underwriting terms including high debt-to-income ratios, lower FICO scores, high combined-loan-to-value lending including 100% financing, and loan terms permitting negative amortization.
  • Future Housing Bubbles - Should We Prevent Them?
    The deflation of housing bubbles is very financially and emotionally painful, and if possible, housing bubbles should be avoided. The pain of the deflation of a housing bubble cannot be avoided by trying to keep the bubble inflated, or by trying to deflate it slowly. The only way to avoid these problems is to prevent the bubble from inflating in the first place through some form of intervention in the mortgage market. Intervention can take the form of a market-based intervention demanded by investors and ratings agencies, and it can also come about through direct government regulation.
  • What to Do When the Sale Price of a Home Does Not Pay Off a Mortgage
    Once a price decline gets underway many buyers who were late to the price rally find they are in a property worth less than they paid for it. As prices continue to fall, many find themselves "underwater" owing more on their mortgage than their property is worth. When these late buyers want to become sellers, they cannot sell and pay off the mortgage balance with the proceeds from the sale. Then they have a real problem.
  • Foreclosures and Residential Real Estate Markets
    The number of foreclosures will affect both the timing and the severity of the deflation of the Great Housing Bubble. It is foreclosures that drive prices lower quickly. Foreclosures control the timing of the crash because they directly impact the must-sell inventory numbers: the greater the number of foreclosures, the greater the rate of decline in house prices. By early 2008, most real estate markets had already surpassed the peak set in the price decline of the early 90s of Notices of Default and Trustee Sales (foreclosures).
  • Unemployment and Residential Real Estate Markets
    Prior to the Great Housing Bubble, house price declines had only been associated with economic downturns and increases in unemployment. As people lost jobs, they lost their ability to make house payments, and many lost their homes in foreclosure. Unemployment is devastating to housing markets.
  • The Housing Bubble - What Buyers Need to Know
    During the decline of house prices in the deflation of the Great Housing Bubble, price levels will fall to fundamental valuations of historic levels of appreciation, price-to-rent ratios, and price-to-income ratios. The nominal price declines may be impacted by inflation and monetary policy of the Federal Reserve, but inflation adjusted prices will fall precipitously.
  • In a Buyer's Market the First Offer is the Best Offer
    The most counter-intuitive part of buying in a buyer's market is to make the first offer the best offer. Ordinarily sellers, or more accurately the seller's realtor, try to create a sense of urgency to buy the house. They want the buyer to think other people are looking, there is going to be a bidding war, and the buyer needs to get an offer in today. Realtors thrive by creating fear in buyers.
  • Buying and Selling Real Estate during a Decline
    Residential real estate markets generally move very slowly and trend in a single direction for long periods of time. Once these markets reach an inflection point, the direction of price movement changes, and the balance of negotiating power shifts from an advantage to one side to an advantage for the other. However, most market participants do not recognize this change for some time. Sellers continue to price and attempt to sell using tactics that worked during the rally, and they find they are unable to sell their properties. It often takes two years or more before sellers accept the reality of the new market and adjust their attitudes and behaviors to the new dynamics of a buyer's market.
  • Distressed Sellers - Should They Attempt a Short Sale?
    A short sale is a property closing where the proceeds from the closing do not satisfy the outstanding debt on the property. The lender must agree to accept less money at the closing table for the closing to occur. From a credit perspective, there is little or no difference between a short sale and a foreclosure. Both a short sale and a foreclosure will show a series of missed payments and a secured credit line (or multiple credit lines) with a permanent delinquency and discharge for what is generally a very large sum of money. Both will have a strong, negative impact on the borrower's FICO credit score that will persist for many years.
  • Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI)
    Private mortgage insurance is a great tool for those of us who do not have the typical 20% down payment.
  • The Down Payment
    A down payment is money that the buyer must pay up front to buy a home. When a person takes out a mortgage the lender or bank in almost all cases will require that the person borrowing the money make a down payment.
  • How to figure out how monthly interest and principle
    The first thing you need to understand is the amount of interest you will pay each month will change.
  • How to Decide if an adjustable rate mortgage is Right for You
    An adjustable rate mortgage, called an ARM for short, is a mortgage with an interest rate that is linked to an economic index.
  • Residential Real Estate Markets Crumble from the Bottom Up
    The real estate market can be visualized as a massive pyramid. There are very few multi-million dollar properties at the top of the pyramid, and a large number of relatively inexpensive entry-level properties forming the base. Like any structure, if the foundation is weakened, the structure may collapse. In the same way, housing markets collapse from the bottom up due to problems with affordability.
  • It Is Different This Time... Not!
    Each time the general public creates an asset bubble, they believe the rally in prices is justifiable by fundamentals. When proven methods of valuation demonstrate otherwise, people invent new ones with the caveat, "it is different this time." It never is.
  • Understanding The Popularity Of Real Estate In Collingwood, Ontario
    If you have been reading real estate news lately, you're probably wondering why there's so much fuss about property in the Collingwood area of Ontario and why the buzz these days is about how buying or renting property there is such a great idea.
  • It Is Different This Time... Not!
    Each time the general public creates an asset bubble, they believe the rally in prices is justifiable by fundamentals. When proven methods of valuation demonstrate otherwise, people invent new ones with the caveat, "it is different this time." It never is.
  • Residential Real Estate Markets Crumble from the Bottom Up
    The real estate market can be visualized as a massive pyramid. There are very few multi-million dollar properties at the top of the pyramid, and a large number of relatively inexpensive entry-level properties forming the base. Like any structure, if the foundation is weakened, the structure may collapse. In the same way, housing markets collapse from the bottom up due to problems with affordability.
  • Home Price Appreciation and Transaction Fees - Only the Realtors Get Rich
    Profiting from house price appreciation requires getting more money from the sale of a property than was originally paid for it and not having that profit cancelled out by moving costs, transaction fees, and a large spreads between the cost of ownership and the cost of rental during the ownership period. Buying and selling residential real estate incurs significant transaction costs that are not reflected in the price. It is quite common for properties to sell for more than their purchase price and still be a loss for the seller. However, even if the seller loses money, the realtor gets a commission. Six percent of an owner's house price appreciation goes to paying the realtor.
  • Buy Now or Be Priced Out Forever... Not!
    When prices rise faster than their wages, people can obtain less real estate with their income. The natural fear under these circumstances is to buy whatever is available before there is nothing desirable available in a particular price range. This fear of being priced out causes even more buying which drives prices higher. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
  • Flip That House... Not!
    During the Great Housing Bubble, many speculators tried to make money through trading houses. The vast majority of these traders were not professionals but amateurs who thought they could be professionals. Most amateurs ended up losing money because they did not understand what it takes to be successful in a speculative market.
  • How To Easily Find Foreclosure Listings
    Finding foreclosure listings is the most important aspect of investing in foreclosed property. To understand how to locate foreclosure listings, you must first understand that there are several ways that property foreclosure listings can be found.
  • Inflation and Home Equity - What Is the Relationship?
    House prices historically have outpaced inflation by 0.7% nationally. In a normal market, this is the only appreciation homeowners obtain. This appreciation is caused by wage inflation translating into higher housing payments and the ability of borrowers to obtain larger loan amounts to bid up prices. In some areas where wage growth has outpaced the general rate of inflation, the fundamental valuation of houses has increased faster than inflation.
  • Tips on buying French Property
    The best of French house is just a click away! If one wants to buy a house in France as leave house or one's new home, France is the seamless place.
  • How To Easily Find Foreclosure Listings
    Finding foreclosure listings is the most important aspect of investing in foreclosed property. To understand how to locate foreclosure listings, you must first understand that there are several ways that property foreclosure listings can be found.
  • The Home Mortgage Interest Deduction is Widely Overestimated and Misunderstood
    Debt subsidies, in particular the home mortgage interest deduction, are seen as a great benefit to home ownership. The benefit is widely overestimated and misunderstood.
  • Lies Realtors Tell - Ten of Their Favorites
    Realtors are agents of sellers. It is their job to obtain the highest possible sale price for a piece of real estate. By law they cannot misrepresent any facts about the property, but when it comes to opinions about the investment potential of the property, or the state of the real estate market, Realtors can say whatever they want. There is currently no restriction on the exaggerations or outright lies realtors are allowed to tell regarding residential real estate market performance.
  • Foreclosure Investing - How To Make Money By Investing In Foreclosed Homes
    Foreclosure investing is an excellent way to see a huge return on your money. In times when the economy is slow, or the housing market has lapsed, great deals abound, making the environment perfect for foreclosure investing.
  • A Few Tips For Getting Started In Real Estate Investing
    Real estate has long been considered as one of the better investments available.
  • Renting Versus Owning Residential Real Estate
    Renting versus owning is both an intellectual, financial decision and an emotional decision. The financial decision is first and foremost an analysis of the comparative cost of renting versus owning. It makes no sense to pay more than rental equivalence to own residential real estate. Many people still do because they are chasing the fantasy of endless appreciation and real estate wealth, but most of these people will find the increased cost of ownership over time negates any appreciation advantage they may obtain. Also, many people have found out painfully that property does not always appreciate in value.
  • Bring Back Paternalism in the Mortgage Market
    As a society, we have created a system that strongly encourages a borrow-and-spend mentality. Saving in all its forms are punished while borrowing is strongly subsidized and encouraged. The credit orgy of the 00s saw this system taken to its ultimate extreme. The result was a vicious credit crunch, a collapse in asset values, and an economic downturn second in severity only to the Great Depression. Obviously, something needs to change. A little paternalism in the mortgage market is one of a number of necessary regulatory reforms.
  • Subprime Containment Theory Was a Lie
    Conventional wisdom (or market spin) was that the risk of default from subprime would not spill over into Alt-A and Prime loans. This argument was made because these two categories have historically had low default rates. Of course, this argument ignored the "liar loans" taken out by those with higher credit scores, the unmanageable debt-to-income ratios, and payment resets for interest-only and Option ARM loans which were also given to the Alt-A and Prime crowd. Historically, this group had not defaulted because they have not been widely exposed to these loan types.
  • Home Equity - What is It?
    Many people who purchase real estate have no idea what equity is, what creates it, what destroys it, and what to do with it. People who purchase real estate use the phrase "building equity" to describe the overall increase in equity over time. However, it is important to look at the factors which either create or destroy equity to see how market conditions and financing terms impact this all-important feature of real estate.
  • Unaffordable House Prices, Will It Last Forever?
    During the Great Housing Bubble, prices detached from their fundamental valuations and became very inflated. This price inflation created a situation where affordability dropped to record low levels in many real estate markets. The fear of buyers was that failure to purchase a property would mean they would never be able to own because they would be priced out forever. For this fear to be realized, prices much sustain inflated levels of low affordability forever. Is this possible?
  • Interest Rate Resets on an Adjustable Rate Mortgages Are a Problem
    Many people took out adjustable rate mortgages during the Great Housing Bubble. After 25 years of steadily declining interest rates, people forgot about, or never knew about the risk of rising interest rates and what it would do to their housing payments. Adjustable rate mortgages are great while interest rates are declining. Their payments are lower than fixed rate mortgages, and as interest rates decline, they become an even better deal. However, when interest rates go up again, these loans will become a nightmare.
  • Real Estate Investment versus Real Estate Speculation - What is the Difference?
    Owner-occupied residential real estate is viewed by many people as a good investment. Realtors often use this idea as part of their sales pitch. This view is fallacious and it is one of the beliefs responsible for creating an asset price bubble. To understand why houses are not a great investment in most circumstances, one needs to understand the difference between investment and speculation.
  • Low Mortgage Interest Rates, It Is a Bad Time to Buy A House
    The fluctuation in mortgage interest rates has implications for when it the best time to buy and the best time to refinance a home mortgage. It is a popular misconception that low interest rates make for a good buying opportunity. It is not. Buy when interest rates are high, and refinance when interest rates are low.
  • Real Estate Only Goes Up... Not!
    The mantra of the National Association of Realtors is "real estate only goes up." This economic fallacy fosters the belief in future price increases and the limited risk of buying real estate. In 2006, prices in many markets began to fall. By 2008, the rate of price decline had greatly accelerated. This is dramatic proof that real estate does not always go up. Despite this obvious fact, the National Association of Realtors still tries to lure greedy buyers with fantasies of unlimited wealth in residential real estate.
  • Higher Interest Rates and Residential Real Estate Markets - What Would Happen?
    A key factor impacting the fundamental value of housing and thereby the bottom is interest rates. Higher interest rates would devastate residential real estate markets. When interest rates go up, the amounts borrowed go down assuming a consistent payment. As amounts borrowed go down, so do real estate prices.
  • Debt-to-Income Ratios Impact on Residential Real Estate Markets
    The debt-to-income ratio is a measure of how far buyers are "stretching" to buy real estate. Buyers have historically committed larger sums to purchase real estate when prices are rising in order to capture the appreciation of rising prices. Conversely, buyers have historically committed smaller and smaller percentages of their income toward buying real estate when prices are declining because there is little incentive to overpay. Some may look at this phenomenon as a passive effect of the rise and fall of prices, but since buying is a choice, the fluctuation in debt-to-income ratios is an active force on prices in the market.
  • Hyperinflation and the Housing Market
    The Federal Reserve under Ben Bernanke began aggressively lowering interest rates at the end of 2007 in response to the severe economic downturn caused by the collapse of house prices and the related difficulties falling house prices had on the banks and other institutions that made loans using houses as collateral. Many are concerned that these policies will ignite a period of hyperinflation in the United States.
  • Housing Market Bottom - Price-to-Income Ratio Estimates
    One method used to evaluation residential real estate prices is the price-to-income ratio. Since people borrow the vast majority of the funds necessary to purchase residential real estate, and this borrowing must be financed from current income, the ratio of house prices to rent is a useful barometer of market valuation.
  • Housing Market Bottom - Price-to-Rent Ratio Estimates
    Comparative rent is the primary method of evaluating the fundamental value of any property. The price-to-rent ratio links the cost of ownership with the cost of rental. This link is direct because possession of property can be obtained by either method. The cost of ownership encapsulates all of the financing terms and other variables associated with possession of real estate as does the cost of rental. Price-to-rent ratio fluctuates over time as changes in the cost of ownership and terms of financing makes financing amounts vary and house prices vary as well.
  • Housing Market Bottom - Price Action Estimates
    Most market participants focus on price action. The price-to-price feedback mechanism largely responsible for bubble market behavior gathers its strength from an awareness of market pricing, and the widespread belief that short-term, past price performance is predictive of long-term, future price performance. It is a fallacy that is often reinforced in the short-term as irrational exuberance takes over in a market, but over the long term, short-term price movements rarely correspond to long-term price trends, and when they do, it is only by chance.
  • House Prices Fall - How Low Will They Go?
    Despite the difficulty in market forecasting, many who have examined the residential real estate market point to continued declines through 2009 and beyond. The most likely scenario has resale residential real estate markets bottoming in 2011 at prices 30% off the peak nationally.
  • Future House Prices are Dependent upon Future Loan Terms
    Every homebuyer operating in the deflation of the Great Housing Bubble needs to consider what loan terms will be available in the future. At some point, most buyers become sellers. The future buyer will likely need to borrow most of the money necessary to complete a real estate transaction. The availability of credit and the loan terms this future buyer will face is the primary determinant of the price this buyer will pay for real estate.
  • Housing Bailouts are False Hopes
    One of the more interesting phenomena observed during the bubble was the perpetuation of denial with rumors of homeowner bailouts. The bailout rumors were false hopes provided by the government to allow homeowners in hopeless situations a brief respite before they faced losing their homes in foreclosure.
  • 3 Steps To Finding The Perfect Piece Of Real Estate
    Are you looking to purchase a piece of real estate? Whether you are purchasing residential, commercial, or investment properties, you can use the 3 steps outlined in this article to ensure that you get the property you need.
  • Housing Bubbles as Cultural Pathology
    What is a Cultural Pathology? There are certain beliefs if widely held and acted upon by a group of people leads inevitably to collective suffering and personal destruction. The housing bubble was a form of cultural pathology. It spawned a number of beliefs and actions that caused people to lose their houses in foreclosure.
  • Flip That House - Houses Were Traded Like Commodities
    Commodities are items of value and uniform quality produced in large quantities and sold in an open market. Although every residential real estate property is unique, these properties became uniformly desired by investors because all real estate prices rose during the Great Housing Bubble. The commoditization of real estate and the active, open-market trading it inspires caused houses to lose their identity as places to live and call home. Houses became tradable stucco boxes similar to baseball playing cards where buying and selling had nothing to do with possession and use and everything to do with making money in the transaction.
  • Fundamental House Value, What Are Houses Really Worth?
    The fundamental value of all housing prices is equivalent rents. Rents define the fundamental value of real estate because rental is a direct proxy for ownership; both rental and ownership provide for possession of property. Most people believe comparable sales define the value of real estate. In reality, comparable sales measure the collective foolishness of buyers who often have no idea what a property is really worth.
  • Showbiz Lifestyle and Properties
    Showbiz people are more attracted to an easier type of lifestyle where they can achieve both comfort and convenience while earning a living.
  • The Difference between City Life and Country Life
    Lifestyle changes as people shift living from countryside to city. There is need to cope with the demands of the city in terms of custom and culture.
  • Foreigners Consider Philippines Properties for Investment Purposes
    Tourism aids in the sale of Philippine properties thus opening doors for opportunities toward economic growth and development. There is a need to pay importance to foreign investors.
  • Good Investment Plans in the Philippines
    Foreign investors are looking towards the possibilities of investing real estate infrastructures in the Philippines to enhance economic growth and modern lifestyle.
  • Chandler Real Estate Market Showing Signs of Possible Recovery
    Chandler real estate is a bright spot in the Phoenix housing market and looks like it is weathering the downturn better than other local housing sub-markets. Indeed, there are indicators that suggest that Chandler may have seen the bottom of the market and that 2009 could be a stronger year for Chandler in terms of residential real estate.
  • Tenant Credit Check Adds New Dimension To Management Of UK Properties
    Landlords can look for tenants themselves or they can take recourse to the services offered by various UK properties management companies. Apart from searching tenants, these companies offer range of services including tenant credit check.
  • The Need For Research When Conducting A Free Property Valuation
    A look at methods to find the value of a property and how detailed research is needed should an accurate figure be found.
  • With the Current Stock Market Malaise, Investment in Phoenix Real Estate Makes Even More Sense
    The Phoenix residential real estate market represents a great opportunity to individuals, families, and investors who are weary about the stock market and are realizing that their investment portfolios are too exposed to fluctuations in Wall Street.
  • With the Current Stock and Credit Market Crises, Investment in Real Estate Will Make Even More Sense in the Future
    With the current financial crisis pervading stock markets in the global ecomony, real estate once again should be looked at as a serious, long-term investment strategy that can help investors further diversify their investment portfolios in the future.
  • State of the Phoenix Real Estate Market Address
    To members of Congress, President Bush, President-Elect Obama, fellow Americans, and current and future residents of the Phoenix area, the state of the Phoenix residential real estate market is “weary but hopeful.”
  • Radiant Heating for Added Value
    With the recent economic misery hovering over homeowners and driving property prices lower its a good time to add value to your home by installing electric floor heating.
  • Easy Buy Your Real Estate for Good Price
    FsboListAndSell.com has been ranked number 1 realtor website for sellers. Also consider that on average a seller not using the MLS on average receives 16% less or $32,000 for a $200,000 home.
  • House Renovations - The Basics of Property Remodeling
    With the mortgage business being what it is these days, it may be a safer bet to improvise your house as opposed to selling it and buying a new one. House prices have dropped so much that today's homeowner will have a tough time getting the proper worth for their land.
  • Evaluating Homes: Termite Damage
    During a real estate inspection, if any termite damage is found, it will affect the outcome of the home. In most cases, the buyer is told that the seller will fix the problem. Although this may sound good to some buyers that the seller will treat for termites, other buyers often wonder.
  • Private House Sale
    Many homeowners opt for a private house sale instead of hiring someone to do the marketing and sales for them. A lot of people feel really connected to their home and they dont want anyone else to show the home to potential buyers.
  • Sell My House Fast
    So, there you are minding your own business quite happily trundling along in life. Then all of a sudden, BAM, the unexpected happens - partner files for divorce, you lose your job/made redundant, serious accident resulting in prolonged time off work, your business goes belly-up or other life-changing and personally devastating event.

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