Buyer Help

Lease Purchase, Rent to Own

Buyer Help

Rent to own and lease-purchase agreements are cropping up in the Greater Phoenix real estate world these days. They’re a natural result of the continuing tight credit market. Lease-purchase and rent to own are essentially the same things.  A lease with a purchase option is almost the same, just with more complicated legalese thrown in [...]

11 September 2010 Read the full article →

Buy for less than you pay in rent?

Buyer Help

The conventional wisdom (and a lot of mortgage companies’ advertising) currently says that you can buy a house for cheaper than you can rent an apartment in the Greater Phoenix area.  Is it true? Mmmmm…  Yes and no. Case in point: First time home buyer, starter home in the south end of the 85016 ZIP [...]

4 June 2010 Read the full article →

Search the MLS, part 3

Buyer Help

Here are the Cliff Notes for part 1 and part 2 of this Pulitzer-winning series on why home shoppers who think they can search the MLS are mistaken: There is no 1 MLS, there are only lots of city-wide, regional or statewide MLSs. Consumers can’t search the MLS for their region directly because that database [...]

21 May 2010 Read the full article →

Search the MLS, part 2

Buyer Help

For those who didn’t read my previous post about the myth of “searching the MLS” here’s the Cliff Notes version: There is no 1 MLS, there are only lots of city-wide, regional or statewide MLSs. Consumers can’t view the MLS for their region directly because it’s private and for subscribers only. (i.e. Realtors, appraisers, etc.) [...]

17 May 2010 Read the full article →

Why you can’t search “the” MLS

Buyer Help

MLSonline.com MLS.com MLSlistings.com TheMLS.com Realtor.com RealEstate.com None of those are “the” MLS, or Multiple Listing Service. Listen up peeps, there are two giant misconceptions out there about consumers’ ability to search the MLS. (and see also our own Kelley Koehler on searching “the MLS”) Consumers can’t search “the” MLS because there is no single, national [...]

13 May 2010 Read the full article →

FHA.com is not the FHA

Buyer Help

File this in the category of Stuff You Should Know. The website at FHA.com is not run by the FHA (Federal Housing Administration) or by HUD (Housing and Urban Development) or by any other governmental agency. It’s run by a (presumably for-profit) group that collects information from users including their social security number, credit information, [...]

8 May 2010 Read the full article →

What’s in your electrical box?

Buyer Help

You might find it interesting to have a look at your electrical fuse box. A fairly frequent home inspection finding we’ve noticed lately is the ‘double tap’ inside the fuse box. If you click on that picture above, you’ll see that one fuse has two wires attached. I’m no electrician and I don’t even play [...]

10 April 2010 Read the full article →

90 Day Fix and Flip Rule

Buyer Help

You know how fix and flipping works in a cynical world, right? Basically. . . . investors buy a craptacular house at foreclosure auction or elsewhere and do no substantive repairs. They slap a thick coat of paint on everything and install cheap new carpet, then resell it as “Remodeled!” with a seriously  jacked up [...]

1 April 2010 Read the full article →

Bidding Wars and No-Brainers

Buyer Help

In yesterday’s post I promised 1 sure-fire way to avoid the stress of getting embroiled in dealing with a so-called bidding war. It’s bonus day here at The Phoenix Agents; here’s 2 ideas. Option One – Make your best offer right out of the gate Are you willing to pay $176,500 for that home that [...]

4 March 2010 Read the full article →

Bidding Wars and Balls

Buyer Help

Don’t know whether this is a memory from real life or a movie**, but go with me on this. Imagine a scene with a politician at a podium taking questions  from reporters. Let’s call one of the reporters James and pretend he’s a notorious philanderer, because it makes my story better. Reporter James lobs a [...]

3 March 2010 Read the full article →

Lenders Behaving Madly

Buyer Help

An illustration of just how ridiculous lender requirements have become, direct from an email written by a loan officer and sent to loan specialist Rob Chrisman: “Rob – The following is an actual underwriting condition from a large wholesale lender which is known for having the best wholesale pricing for conforming loans. (As background, the [...]

27 February 2010 Read the full article →