home buyers: Can Anyone Really Explain the New RESPA Guidelines? - 01/20/10 07:50 AM
I just came away from the second workshop in as many months about the new RESPA guidelines for the "new and improved" Good Faith Estimate and HUD-1. I understand it was devised to make the costs involved in the home buying process clearer, more understandable and more transparent.   Puh...leeze!
I tend to lean left when it comes to Government assistance with social programs but this thing is absolutely ridiculous.  It is anything but clear, transparent and understandable.  Worse, it will, more likely than not, create so much confusion in the marketplace that buyers will be even more frustrated about the costs … (5 comments)

home buyers: Are "Plain Vanilla" Home Sales on the Rise? - 01/18/10 06:40 AM
Here's a confession:  I hate short sales.  I do my very best to avoid them either on the listing side or the selling side.  Yeah. I know.  People tell me all the time  that "this is the market" and, if I'm going to survive, I have to learn and work with short sales.  Bah Humbug.
To be sure, I have not been having as much fun as I had in the early 2000s. There are fewer "plain vanilla" sales out there - sellers with enough equity in their home that there is "NO third party approval needed".  However, there are a … (9 comments)