Queercents

This is a guest post from Jeff Hammerberg, the founder of GayRealEstate.com, the largest company in the nation representing the rights of queer home buyers and sellers. These are his words…

Buyers and Refinancers Flock to Interest Rate Bargains

Rather than lowering the numbers cautiously and gradually, which is the Fed’s normal policy when tinkering with interest rates, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke adopted a chainsaw approach during the first month of 2008. Wall Street and other world markets have reacted with mixed emotions so far, but American consumers wanting to buy a home or refinance an existing mortgage are completely ecstatic.

In an ongoing effort to avoid an imminent economic recession the Federal Reserve Bank slashed interest rates in mid-January, during an unscheduled meeting, citing continued concerns about a weakening economy. The Fed lowered its federal funds rate, which influences consumer loans such as retail credit card debt and auto loans. The discount rate - which calculates the interest banks pay to borrow money from the Central Bank - was also cut. Both rates were lowered by three-quarters of a point, the biggest single-day rate cut since October 1984. The historic decision to dramatically drop rates was the first to happen between regularly scheduled meetings since a half-point cut that occurred September 12, 2001, the morning after the terrorist attacks. Read the rest of this entry »

This is a guest post from Jeff Hammerberg, the founder of GayRealEstate.com, the largest company in the nation representing the rights of queer home buyers and sellers. These are his words…

Plain Talk about Fancy Mortgages: Stick with old-fashioned 30-year fixed

The word “candidate” derives from the word “candid”, and politicians running for office this year have learned that voters prefer frank talk, not a sales pitch. The same is true for homeowners shopping for a mortgage. As we prepare for springtime - which is historically the best time to buy a home - it is appropriate to talk about ways to weed out the hype about exotic residential mortgages in favor of old-fashioned fixed rate loans.

The most recent bull market in real estate was artificially inflated by high-risk loans that encouraged consumers to leverage themselves to the max. The old fashioned and reliable 30-year fixed rate mortgage - which helped to steadily grow this nation’s housing market for many decades - was upstaged by sexier, trendier, more exotic residential mortgages. Too many borrowers got in over their heads and are now paying a painful price, and the current mortgage crisis has left consumers shell-shocked and wary. Read the rest of this entry »

“It is only the poor who pay cash, and that not from virtue, but because they are refused credit.” – Anatole France

I’ve always kept a home equity line of credit (HELOC) on our house in Newport. Jeanine and I never access it. It’s there for catastrophic reasons (the HELOC would buy us more time to weather a major financial emergency). Over thirty percent of our home’s value is buffered in equity and the HELOC gives us access to about half of this value if we ever need it. Our first mortgage on the property is a 7 year fixed interest only. I’ve never stayed in a house longer than 3 years so despite what people think of ARM products, they’re a great alternative if used responsibly. It drives down our monthly payment and the mortgage interest deduction at tax time is significant.

I’ve used this same strategy on my rental properties, keeping equity lines open but paid off. However, with these properties the first mortgages are of the 30 year fixed variety. I’m paying down principal every month. I used one equity line this summer to do some improvements and then to carry the mortgage while I was trying to get it re-rented. It is now paid off again and all three properties are currently leased.

I give this background to demonstrate that I’ve been a prudent borrower and resourceful real estate investor. So it came as a surprise this week when I got a letter from Countrywide about the HELOC on one of my properties in Phoenix indicating this: Read the rest of this entry »

While Jason and I are still enjoying our new house, I want to talk about another real estate experience we encountered.

During the fall of 2006, my partner and I looked all over Indiana for a vacation property to enjoy for the summers to come. We finally settled on Nineveh, a small Indiana town about an hour south of Indianapolis. Nineveh has a series of small lakes with cute properties on its waterfront. After viewing over a dozen properties, our realtor finally decided to show us a neglected foreclosure that needed some work. Read the rest of this entry »

This is a guest post from Jeff Hammerberg, the founder of GayRealEstate.com, the largest company in the nation representing the rights of queer home buyers and sellers. These are his words…

Insightful advice for leveraging this historic market to your own advantage.

Although the champagne at the bottom of the bottle is still chilled from a warm celebration of the New Year, we can confidently predict that 2008 will be another lukewarm year in terms of real estate. Recent data shows that home sales have declined to record low territory, sinking year-to-year more than we have seen in over a decade and a half.

Meanwhile mortgage troubles have spread like a virus, impacting everything from jumbo mortgages and home equity loans to consumer lending rules and credit card rates. For those trying to sell a home, 2007 was a constant uphill battle. One major problem was that there was enough excess inventory to supply the forward-reaching needs of the USA housing market for an entire year. Another was that borrowers were denied loans by overly cautious mortgage companies and banks. Even when buyers were ready to purchase they could not seem to come up with the necessary funds. Read the rest of this entry »

The current “mortgage crisis” is a result of greedy, poorly regulated mortgage lenders granting irresponsible loans to ill-informed borrowers. Neither the loan officer nor the customer gave much thought to the consequences that would follow.

The U.S. is experiencing is a market correction. The housing market isn’t expected to stabilize until late 2010.

Look beneath the surface of this mortgage melodrama and you’ll find low-to-moderate income families whose low confidence just got a whole lot lower.

For how long did we hear predatory lenders barking like hucksters, “100% financing! Low, low rates! Easy credit?” Read the rest of this entry »

“To own a home.” – The American Dream

You can summarize Bob Waun’s new book, Besting, Better Nesting: The New American Dream in one quote: “Downsizing is less about size, than about expectations, no one expects less in retirement.” Waun has written the book about what Boomers want in retirement housing.

It’s no secret that books are often promotional vehicles for other goods and services. Waun, as noted in this Wall Street Journal article, is the CEO of Vacation Finance, a mortgage brokerage and lending company in Birmingham, Michigan. That being said, he also practices what he preaches:

Until recently, Mr. Waun owned a traditional vacation home, a cottage in upper Michigan. But after a particularly bad winter — he arrived during a snowstorm to find that the plow service hadn’t cleared the driveway and that the pipes had burst — he sold the cottage and bought two condo hotel units instead.

Waun’s book is the primer on what life can be in a luxury hotel condo, fractional ownership, and timeshare. He explains by outlining Boomer trends and what’s creating demand for these types of investments. Dan Kadlec should be all over this book if he’s not already. Waun writes: Read the rest of this entry »

This is a guest post from Jeff Hammerberg, the founder of GayRealEstate.com, the largest company in the nation representing the rights of queer home buyers and sellers. These are his words…

5 tips to keep your listing active as the market cools in winter.

Although winter is notoriously sluggish in terms of real estate shopping, the downtime provides a golden opportunity for homeowners to enhance their property’s marketability. Here are five simple ways to pump-up your listing, even during the winter lull:

Calculate your estimated heating costs going forward for the rest of the winter

Heat rises, and so does the cost to keep a house warm while energy prices escalate. So you may want to offer a discount to your potential buyers in exchange for a prompt sale. For example, one owner of a large antique house faced combined utility bills of $900 a month for the upcoming four months, for a total of $3,600. He advertised that he would contribute $2,000 in closing costs to a buyer, and one jumped at the chance. He closed within 30 days, saving himself more than $2,500. Read the rest of this entry »

“I don’t know much about being a millionaire, but I’ll bet I’d be a darling at it.” – Dorothy Parker

If you’re a personal finance blogger, you get a lot of offers from publicists to read and review their client’s books. It’s a nice perk. In 2007, I didn’t buy a single nonfiction title, since I received about 25 for free. There was a period last summer when I was getting a book a week. I finally started declining the review copies because I couldn’t keep up.

I read about half and my three personal favorites were Brazen Careerist, One Person/Multiple Careers and The Anti 9 to 5 Guide. All happened to focus on career advice and not personal finance, but if you get the work part right then typically the money follows. Or does it?

Like most twentysomethings, Alan Corey had a crap job after earning what he describes as a “useless” degree. He kept the crap job for a good portion of his twenties. Why? Because a paycheck was part of his plan. It’s a not-so-secret formula that he reveals in his new book, A Million Bucks by 30 and it’s the first book you should read in 2008. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve mentioned in a previous post that Jason and I are renovating a property.  The moving van shows up tomorrow and, almost immediately, this new property will become home.  Thanks to Jason, tomorrow morning, I will leave our current house, work a full day, and return to our brand new home later that evening.  Exciting and pricey all in one!!!

It seems like you shell out money any time you move.  I remember when I first moved out of my parents place.  I couldn’t fathom how expensive the move would be.  I knew that I now had to pay rent, but what I forgot was that I also needed my own furniture.  Not only did I need a new bed, but I also needed to stock my own refrigerator and cabinets.  Spices can be very expensive…and honestly, I think the bottle of orange peels have now been with me for over 6 residences. Read the rest of this entry »