I fielded a call this week and it's one that comes in quite frequently. "We saw a place we really like and are thinking about putting in an offer. But we don't know what we're going to do with our existing home and don't think we have time to sell it first..." It's the classic "buy first" dilemma that I've covered before.
It's fair to assume that one place the mind goes when dealing with the "what to do" of the existing home is the notion of lining up a renter. Our buyers in this situation recognize that … (10 comments)
In strong sellers' markets, like the San Fernando Valley, the San Francisco Bay Area and many other areas across the country, making a contingent offer is a virtual impossibility. That is, when a buyer must sell his current home first in order to close on the new one, and when the purchase offer on the new home is specifically written to alert the seller that the two transactions are interdependent, it is said to be "contingent." Another, less subtle, way to describe contingent offers might be, "dead on arrival." This is because the seller knows … (30 comments)
Not all mortgage scenarios in California --- and especially in the high-cost areas we often see in the San Francisco Bay Area, Silicon Valley and in the greater Los Angeles environs --- fit squarely in "the box." "The Box" is the narrow definition of what it takes to qualify these days, and for a jumbo mortgage that falls outside of the parameters of a conforming or "government," loan, such as FHA or VA. When you find yourself outside and looking in, sometimes the best solution is a "niche" mortgage program.
Now if visions of subprime loans and sky-high rates … (1 comments)
A while back, and in this post here, I talked about the four distinct ways that a homebuyer could purchase a new home without first selling his existing one. And of the options, perhaps the least understood and most complex is the cross-collateralization program. This is a type of financing where more than one piece of property serves as the real estate security for the loan and usually it implies that the existing home and the new home will BOTH make up the collateral value by which the loan-to-value (LTV) will be determined. I thought I would provide a real … (5 comments)
Packing Light for Your Departure Property
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