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real estate : Mortgage Loans, Rates, Home Buying, Selling, Foreclosures

All Posts Tagged With: "real estate"

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What’s A Private Transfer Fee In Real Estate?

Usually when we think of a real estate sale we think that the interest of the seller ends with closing. It is, after all, called “closing” for a reason.
Now, however, some sellers are trying to maintain a financial interest in a property for decades after it’s been sold, not with a mortgage or a loan [...]

12Jul2010 | Peter G. Miller | 1 comment | Continued
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Mortgage Reform Now — 6 Ways To Fix What’s Broke

For all the talk of reform on Wall Street, a quicker and easier way to assure that big banks don’t fail and small borrowers don’t get screwed is to simply fix the mortgage origination system.
Fixing the mortgage system is crucial if we’re to prevent another financial meltdown. If the mortgages are done right than mortgage-backed [...]

22Apr2010 | Peter G. Miller | 0 comments | Continued
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Should We Dump Real Estate Investors?

When it comes to bailing out giant banks, huge companies and massive stock brokerages there’s no shortage of government interest and activity. After all, it’s in our national interest to protect investors — unless, of course, they’re folks who merely bought a house or two.
The investor double standard is hardly hidden. It appears everywhere and [...]

30Nov2009 | Peter G. Miller | 0 comments | Continued
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Real Estate: Why Do We License Brokers & Agents?

Across the country we license many professions, everyone from barbers to lawyers. There are several basic reasons for such licensure:

To protect the public against unethical and incompetent practitioners.
To assure that practitioners have certain minimum levels of education and experience.
To assure that consumers receive certain minimum levels of service.
To define what is and what is [...]

31Aug2009 | Peter G. Miller | 0 comments | Continued
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Real Estate: What Really Happened To Home Prices

We’re not going to restore the housing market without solid factual evidence to suggest that home prices have started to turn around. A good source for such evidence is the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), the government body that now oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
In figures release yesterday, FHFA tells us that in the [...]

26Aug2009 | Peter G. Miller | 0 comments | Continued
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Mortgages & Foreclosures: Let’s Pick On Real Estate Investors

The way things are going Arizona is scheduled to have a new foreclosure law in place by the end of September. In basic terms, SB 1271 says lenders can seek a deficiency judgment if you did not live in a property for six months in a row before foreclosure. Translation: The legislation is aimed at [...]

7Aug2009 | Peter G. Miller | 0 comments | Continued
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Capitol Hill Mortgages No Big Deal

According to various reports the Senate Ethics Committee has spent several hours lately speaking with a former Countrywide official. The issue is cushy mortgages and discounted mortgage rates for Senators Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), but curiously not a mention of any Republicans.
This is news?
The senators, of course, argue that they had no [...]

29Jul2009 | Peter G. Miller | 0 comments | Continued
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How To Pick On Appraisers

Many in the real estate community are upset with the newly implemented Home Valuation Code of Conduct (HVCC) and want it suspended or revoked so we can go back to the good-old-says when it was okay to threaten and pressure appraisers.
The HVCC was an agreement worked out between New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, Fannie [...]

26Jun2009 | Peter G. Miller | 9 comments | Continued
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The Case For Flexible Real Estate Commissions

Isn’t it time to change real estate agreements — to make them better for buyers, sellers and brokers? Syndicated columnist Peter G. Miller explains.

17Feb2009 | Peter G. Miller | 0 comments | Continued
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National Real Estate & Mortgage Associations

Below is a quick and handy list of the most important real estate and mortgage associations in the U.S.
American Arbitration Association Appraisal Institute Association of Real Estate License Law Officials (ARELLO) Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) Commercial Investment Real Estate Institute (CCIM)
Community Associations Institute (CAI) [...]

30Dec2008 | Peter G. Miller | 0 comments | Continued