Mortgage Rates drop: time to take advantage of these rates now.

Mortgage interest rates have dropped to the lowest levels I have ever seen in my nearly 20 yrs. in the housing industry.  If you have a fixed rate loan over 5% and or a loan originated within the past 4 yrs. with 2nd mortgages (a substantial number if you are similar to the throngs of [...]

Brokerage John L. Scott partners with Zillow.com for listing placements

Local Northwest real estate brokerage, John L. Scott Real Estate, has entered into an agreement to place their listings on Zillow.com. It is this bloggers opinion that it was a matter of time before a local large company placed their listings on Zillow. Many have resisted Zillow because they argued that placing their listings at [...]

Realtor Economist: nearly 25% of today’s sales are all cash deals.

From CNBC:    “Existing-Home Sales Plunged An Unexpected 7.2% in January.” “Today’s figure is certainly not good news in terms of sales,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the NAR. Distressed sales accounted for 38 percent of sales, sharply higher than December’s 32 percent. Yun said all cash deals represented about a quarter of all sales, [...]

Cars, Housing Debt and Cancelled Credit Card Affects on FICO Scores

Lets face it, debt is a problem in this Country, State and local community of citizens of Snohomish and vicinity.  It’s all around us.  We live in debt.    I have debt.   One of the goals I have is to eliminate the debt and be debt free.   It’s going to be tough but I’m determined [...]

Claiming homebuyer tax credit: obtaining “signed” Final Settlement Statement

In Washington State, signed final Settlement Statements (HUD-1 Form)  are not traditionally done.    Estimated Settlement Statements are signed at escrow just prior to closing your purchase transaction.  The Final Settlement Statements are mailed to parties after the transaction has closed. After talking with a CPA, they reported that the IRS has generally accepted a non-signed [...]

Realtor group fighting data drain to public via Zillow and others

With the advent of real estate technology data mega firms like Zillow.com, the National Association of Realtors are fighting to keep their member base from losing complete control of information that the public can obtain without the assistance of real estate agents.   Valuation information has been the closely held data tool that Realtors used [...]

Housing

This section is dedicated to housing analysis, economics, home improvement, sales and lending.    Here you’ll find a good mash up of topics that should keep the interest high as we work through what arguably led us into the economic recession we find ourselves in and what may help to bring the Country out of it. [...]