Glossary Posts

When can I buy again after a short sale or foreclosure?

Buyer Help

This is from one of our favorite lenders, Jeannie Bolger at Nova Home Loans. Don’t despair! You can buy after a short sale or foreclosure. Plus Jeannie and her staff will help you repair your credit during the waiting period. Heather Barr is a Realtor and a happy workaholic. She eats more than someone her [...]

7 October 2011 Read the full article →

The difference between Bank Owned, Foreclosure, REO, and Short Sale

Foreclosures

The low-down on the difference between short sales and REO foreclosures (bank owned) properties.

6 July 2011 Read the full article →

What’s a Notice of Trustee’s Sale?

Foreclosures

In Maricopa County where Chris and Heather work as Realtors, the Notice of Trustee’s Sale is the official notice that a bank has begun foreclosure proceedings against a homeowner.  Here’s a run-down of the typical process as of today’s writing. Remember, this information is meant for Maricopa County, Arizona homeowners, buyers and sellers. Your local [...]

8 May 2011 Read the full article →

Fair housing laws

Glossary Posts

Tagged as:

Theresa Boardman from the St. Paul Real Estate Blog wrote a great piece for Inman.com recently, about how confusing fair housing laws can be. I support fair housing and I understand it and I understand why we have the laws. It is the language and the rules for following fair housing laws that I struggle [...]

31 January 2011 Read the full article →

Robo-signing

Glossary Posts

Tagged as: ,

(image credit, StockExchange user macaruba) We’ve all learned a new word recently: robo-signing. The Big 5 Banks* are holding off on foreclosure proceedings in lots of US states because the employees in charge of signing off on the foreclosure documents have admitted to robo-signing up to 8,000 documents per month without reading each. Robo-signing and [...]

2 October 2010 Read the full article →

Mortgage rates hit the mid-4’s!

Glossary Posts

Tagged as:

A snippet of an article from CNN’s Money section: NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Mortgage rates continued to decline this week, plunging to the lowest level in decades, according to surveys from Freddie Mac and Bankrate. Freddie Mac’s weekly report said the 30-year fixed rate slipped to 4.44% for the week ended Thursday, the lowest since [...]

21 August 2010 Read the full article →

All about Federal Fair Housing law

Glossary Posts

Tagged as:

This is a reprint of an earlier post. Federal Fair Housing law prohibits discrimination in the sale, rental or financing of housing because of: Race or Color National Origin (the country in which one was born) Religion Sex Familial Status (whether one has children or not, whether married or not) Handicap/Disability Some states include additional [...]

5 August 2010 Read the full article →

All about the Phoenix monsoon

Glossary Posts

Tagged as: , ,

This is a reprint of a post from summer 2009. When I was a kid and we moved here in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the knee-jerk reaction answer to “When’s the monsoon?” was “August”. With the heat island effect, it seems like the monsoon arrives earlier and lasts longer each year. In 2008, [...]

4 August 2010 Read the full article →

What’s a mortgage rate lock?

Glossary Posts

Tagged as:

Courtesy of a finance blog I read regularly, Dan Green at The Mortgage Reports. He explains mortgage rate locks better, and quicker than anyone I’ve ever encountered. A Rate Lock Commitment is a bank’s promise to honor a specific mortgage rate for a specific period of time.  It’s a contract, of sorts, in which the [...]

13 April 2010 Read the full article →

The Credit Crisis, in Video

Foreclosures

Tagged as: ,

Found this amusing little video this morning, courtesy of a company called XPLANE. They’re very much like Common Craft, who I love. Clocking in at a little under 4 minutes, it explains the recent US financial meltdown simply, easily and with cute little stick figures and audio.  I think it must have been created last [...]

14 August 2009 Read the full article →

What Does AWC-I Mean?

Buyer Help

Tagged as:

AWC means Active With Contingencies, at least in the metro Phoenix real estate market where we work. In plain English: The seller accepted a buyer’s offer, They’re under contract, but There are contingencies that must be satisfied before the sale can close, and The seller might accept backup offers. Some common contingencies, in years past: [...]

6 July 2009 Read the full article →

← Previous Entries