Owning a home is a responsibility and a privilege. Even if you have owned a home for decades, you may still need help to handle some of its challenges by focusing on the three “M”s of homeownership: maintenance, minimizing expenses, and managing debt and risk. While you may recognize that you need an annual physical, […]
A team of professionals is involved in the process of buying a home. You have the lender, the appraiser, the inspector, the property insurance agent, the title officer plus others. But a real estate agent may hold the most critical role. Baking a loaf of bread seems simple. With only four ingredients: flour, salt, yeast, […]
As a homeowner, you will receive a generous exclusion on the gain of your principal residence. Current rules stipulate $250,000 for single taxpayers and $500,000 for married taxpayers filing jointly. Many people probably consider the gain or profit to be the difference between the purchase price and the sales price. Before calculating your gain, the […]
Many homeowners have had to rethink the way they live in their home over the last two months with the stay at home or shelter in place orders. Your home has now become an office for working, a school for your children, a gym for working out, and a place for recreation. With all this […]
A decade ago, some homeowners lost their homes to foreclosure or set up a short sale to get out from under the debt during the mortgage meltdown that caused the Great Recession. Lenders forgave all or part of the debt owed them in most cases. Again, in the early ’90s we had the Savings & […]
If you want to sell your home without having to get it ready to sell, put it on the market, having showings, open houses, negotiating or making repairs…the convenience will cost you a significant portion of your built-up equity. There are for-profit organizations out there called iBuyers. These companies buy homes from sellers. They expect […]
Due to the stay at home orders, the deadline for challenging your property tax assessment this year may be later than normal, but when you are notified you will want to be ready to decide on whether you can save some money on your property taxes this year. The assessment of value and the property […]
A legitimate way to fund a temporary cash crisis now or to have funds on-hand if the need arises is by taking cash out of the equity of your home. Most homeowners can pull out the difference in 80 percent of the fair market value of their home and what they currently owe on the […]
Yes, it is! There has not been a global pandemic in our lifetime. There has not been an economic shutdown like this before. There is uncertainty out there and unfortunately, people fear what they do not understand. Enough doom and gloom, there are opportunities for those who can act during this unprecedented time. The subprime […]
Your probably know someone in your life that has a tragic story. Whether it was a fire, a flood, a burglary, or another disaster they probably needed to file a claim on their insurance. To do this, you need receipts or a list of what you are claiming lost or damaged. And, since we are […]
