Many people could be paying much higher property taxes than they should. When your home assessment comes in the mail really look at it. While having your property values go up is a good thing from an investment standpoint, that valuation also means higher taxes. With the housing market soft, you hav [Read More]

People sometimes use the terms, land contract and land trust interchangeably but theyre not the same thing. A land trust gets set up to protect estate assets, but its revocable. Typically the buyer sets up the trust anonymously and may, at some point, assign the trust to an investor. Alternatively a [Read More]

A mortgage foreclosure is a legal proceeding in which a lender terminates a homeowners right to the property in question. When a borrower defaults on a mortgage that is held by the lender, the lender has the right to repossess the property. Once the property has been repossessed by the lender, the b [Read More]

As youre driving down a tree-lined street it creates a distinctly different impact than a cityscape. Both visually and emotionally those trees reflect a sense of permanence and longevity for a neighborhood. And while its hard to put a firm value on trees, we can certainly measure it in various ways. [Read More]

Among early humans a simple cave would suffice for hanging ones club and having a shelter from the storms and occasional hungry tiger. Hunt by day, eat and sleep by night was pretty much the routine among hunter-gatherers. It wasnt until humans became more agrInnoDBn that the idea of a real house wa [Read More]

When it comes time to revise your homeowners policy or get a brand new one for a house you just purchased, it helps tounderstand the types of homeowners insurance in the market. Superficially buying insurance seems simple, but when you start getting into language and coding, all of a sudden your hea [Read More]

Not long ago I ran across an advertisement offering acres of land on the moon. While I admit that the prices for even the most prime locations were very reasonable (averaging around $20 each), I had to wonder exactly what are the legalities of such a purchase, and how exactly would I ever hire a ma [Read More]

Almost 60% of the Nation saw a rise in home prices over the first quarter of 2010, showing signs of stabilization in the housing market, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR). Many economists believe that it was the Government Programs that aided in boosting the sales, however now [Read More]

Short sales don't have to be as difficult as they typically are. Asking good questions of the seller at the start can go a long way to helping with expectations. Most sellers don't understand that their agent can help them along this path but the agent has to be knowledgeable and ask the ri [Read More]

There is a growing trend in real estate namely single women are becoming a significant segment of buyers. In the last 15 years the numbers of single women purchasing homes has increased 14 percent for first time ape owners (and 17 percent for repeat home buyers). On average these women are about 40 [Read More]