Just Real Estate. The Best of ActiveRain ReBlogged. No recipes, no jokes, no SEO, no fluff

There are MANY factors that affect the rate and closing costs that a mortgage borrower is offered. It is up to borrowers to know how to find that "best deal", and make sure it is actually delivered as promised. I provide my clients a "mortgage pre-approval worksheet", so they can gain a better un...

There isn't much that can prepare you to deal with the current real estate market we are in.  The double digit mortgages of the 1980's, WRAP mortgages and the early 1990's when in many markets appreciation took a holiday!  The current real estate market is a credit crunch that is testing everyone...

For the average real estate professional, the opportunities for exposing listings in a slow market is more than overwhelming - Newspaper advertising, open houses, web sites, single property sites, blogs, lawn signs, grocery store carts, bus benches, symphony programs - the list goes on and on. Cl...

I've had a couple of interesting run ins lately with well meaning home sellers, builders reps and agents. I've show a lot of houses over the years and made a lot of mistakes. I think the most valuable thing I've learned about showing properties is when to talk and more importantly when to be quie...

Saturday morning, my daughter and I went up to our local coffee hangout...placed our order....and sat at one of the tables outside in anticipation of enjoying our favorite beverage on a warm but clear day in Southern California. I bought that morning's edition of the Los Angeles Times...and was l...

Hope you're enjoying your Sunday, AR!   It's cool and pleasant here in Chicago today - far more comfortable than the mid-90's humidity of yesterday afternoon. As we know, the housing boom created any number of creative home financing options.  One of those riskier options - Pay Option ARM Loans -...

When life give you lemons, make lemonade!  We've got some upcoming lemons that will be thrown at us: Loss of down payment assistance, rising interest rates, less choices in lending programs, a tightening economy as a whole... More inventory may start piling up? So what if more inventory and more ...

What a sham. I get so angry when the uppity keep cramming it down the throats of us poor folk. If you happen to be be blogging here on AR, then I hate to break the news to you but you are the latter. (At least I still haven't seen The Donald's blog yet) The rich SOB's just keep infusing the irres...

Here in San Diego I have the opportunity to see a lot of retaining walls due to the type of terrain (hey, we're not just about beaches!). Since retaining walls typically hold back soil, it's likely that they are also holding back moisture in that soil. When the retaining wall is not built properl...

At Feature This... we often get questions regarding budget when deciding to add Curb Appeal. When reselling, it is imperative to identify and address curb appeal early on, to determine a workable budget and start planning and rectifying issues that may take a bit of time to produce results, such ...