property: How to Rock a Mortgage Pre-Approval!!!
- 06/23/22 07:37 AM
How to Rock a Mortgage Pre-Approval!!! Buying your first home is a daunting task and can be a huge undertaking for the first-time buyer. Shoot, even for a move-up buyer, the experienced downsizer or a seasoned investor, it can sometimes be difficult to know where to begin. But getting a mortgage pre-approval often remains the best first step in the process, and it's also a likely reality that your Realtor won't seriously consider showing you property until you are either pre-approved or pre-underwritten by a mortgage lender or broker. After all, it's really tough to know your purchase power and your budget
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property: The Four Horsemen of Deals Dead
- 09/03/21 07:48 AM
The Four Horsemen of Deals Dead My wife likes to joke that all I do for my job is talk to people. "I hear you in there yucking it up all day..." So maybe there is always an element of the truth in jest, but an aspect of these conversations that she does not take into consideration is the near-constant battle I fight fending deals from The Four Horsemen; Delay, Indecision, Unfounded Expertise and The Unreasonable Pursuit of Perfection. When these vigilantes appear over the horizon of any real estate transaction, having a powerful defense can turn them away and save even
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property: The Seven Real Estate Stages of the Pandemic
- 10/05/20 08:09 AM
The Seven Real Estate Stages of the Pandemic By now, some of us have lost a loved one, friend or community member to COVID-19. Though if the cavalier denialism exhibited by some Americans is an indicator, there are still many who have yet to share the magnitude of such a loss. But even putting one's head in the sand about the medical realities of the coronavirus cannot spare us the social, emotional and economic impacts. It's accepted as true that though we all grieve a loss, everyone grieves in a unique manner. One of the most referenced works on the topic was written in
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property: N/O/O: Jumbo Mortgage's Scarlet Letters
- 05/02/20 07:59 AM
N/O/O: Jumbo Mortgage's Scarlet Letters May 1, 2020 Day 46 of Shelter-in-Place If you are a real estate investor at this time, in this market and looking for a jumbo mortgage to buy a non-owner occupied home (N/O/O), you may feel like our industry sees you with a scarlet letter(s) on your chest. Before the pandemic, everybody wanted to talk to you, but now...now, you cannot find a mortgage lender to make you a jumbo loan. Many of the options that existed before are gone. The ones that remain have been restricted, their guidelines whittled down to the ultra-conservative. Each day, you struggle to
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property: Investment Property Jumbo Mortgage with Low Down Payment
- 07/07/19 09:22 AM
Investment Property Jumbo Mortgage with Low Down Payment Since I'm in California, and property values where I live and work tend to be on the, shall we say, higher side, residential real estate investors --- those looking to purchase a home of 1- to 4-units to be used as an income-producing property --- can sometimes be limited in their attractive jumbo mortgage options. This is especially true if they are looking to keep their down payment as low as possible. Many potential rental property buyers are told flat out that even a 20% down payment is California dreamin', and that a jumbo
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property: What Is a Debt Service Coverage Ratio Mortgage?
- 06/04/19 07:50 AM
What Is a Debt Service Coverage Ratio Mortgage? Real estate investors have long turned to private money loans when conventional mortgage lenders have determined that either they, with their multiple property holdings, or the properties they are looking to buy, pose too great a risk. But for its benefits of closing quickly and not involving an intrusive qualifying process based on ability-to-repay (ATR), hard money loans are expensive and most often have terms that require the investor to refinance or pay off the loan in the short term --- not an ideal fit for those who own, or are building, a portfolio
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property: What Is an Escrow Account?
- 03/10/19 12:39 PM
What Is an Escrow Account? When renters desire to become home buyers, they quickly learn once in the mortgage process that their single rent payment will morph into "PITI" or "principal, interest, taxes and insurance," or a "total monthly housing payment." So, yes, there are additional monthly expenses to consider when you become an owner. Historically, ownership has bestowed tax benefit on the buyer and that's been an offset to the higher cost of ownership and because of this, the "rent vs. own" calculation has been used to more fairly compare the cost of putting a roof over one's head. Rent may be simpler,
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property: Closing in the Name Of
- 01/21/19 12:54 PM
Closing in the Name Of There will be no profanity in this post, just in case you get the cultural reference in the title. I won't even repeatedly scream at you. Instead we're going to cover a topic that sidesteps injustice, drama or even frequent occurrence, but it deals with a scenario that comes up occasionally and when it does, there is quite a bit we should know before taking action. So let's talk about closing a residential real estate transaction in the name of an LLC or other business entity, like a partnership or a corporation. Can you do that? What's
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property: Landlord Horror Stories
- 01/13/19 04:51 PM
Landlord Horror Stories Though you may be disappointed and feel misled, we're not actually going to focus on landlord horror stories here. Instead, we are going to talk about the nuances of getting home financing on the purchase of an investment property which, if done improperly, can certainly take on the stuff of nightmares. If you're thinking of making the leap into rental property ownership and becoming a landlord yourself, there are some things you need to know about how the mortgage industry will treat your loan application. And this treatment could be quite different from your previous experience with financing your
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property: Are the Lights Going Down on Real Estate?
- 10/09/18 06:22 AM
Are the Lights Going Down on Real Estate? You know what's on a lot of my clients' minds right now? No, not Journey of the the 1970's, but the real estate downturn of 2007/2008. Many of these prospective buyers are getting a sense that maybe this is the top of the market and that perhaps they should sit things out and wait for real estate to go on sale --- just like it did during the downturn. I have some advice for them, but it has little to do with market prognostication. In fact, I'll be the first one to admit that
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property: Paying Your Marin County Property Tax Bill
- 03/17/18 07:34 PM
Paying Your Marin County Property Tax Bill As I write this in March of 2018, my very own Marin County property tax bills sit alongside my computer on my desk, awaiting payment of their second installment. No doubt with the same procrastination exhibited by most fellow Marin County property owners, I still thought it was a ripe opportunity to share some basics on how, when and where to pay our real estate taxes and at the same time avoid the consequences of late payments. Property Tax Bill Information and Due Dates Secured property tax bills are mailed in October and payable in two installments: First installment due date: November
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property: 1031 Exchange Jumbo Mortgage
- 03/13/18 08:17 AM
1031 Exchange Jumbo Mortgage If, indeed, there are two certainties in life, death and taxes, then real estate investors just might have found their Juan Ponce de Leon in the 1031 exchange, which allows them to defer capital gains taxes on the sale of a rental property so long as they reinvest the proceeds in a "like-kind" purchase. Spared the death of writing a large check to the IRS, they can find the fountain of youth in a new investment --- always with the proceeds of the previous sale and sometimes with the addition of a new jumbo mortgage. Since our fabled 1031
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property: Caution: Collateral Crossing
- 08/01/17 06:36 AM
Caution: Collateral Crossing 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
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property: Unlocking the Rate Lock Mystery
- 06/27/17 08:07 AM
Unlocking the Rate Lock Mystery Everyone who has financed a home with a mortgage, either for a purchase or refinance, has probably struggled at some point during that transaction with the dilemma of locking or floating the interest rate. This critical decision does one of two things: Commits both the borrower and the lender to a specific interest rate for a set period of time. This “for better/for worse” proposition means that if rates move up or down, the commitment cannot be broken. This action is known as “locking” a rate. Leaves the interest rate open to future market fluctuation, again for
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property: Non-Warrantable Condo Financing
- 03/20/16 05:44 AM
Non-Warrantable Condo Financing The caps of our graduating class had barely wafted to the floor of the high school gymnasium when I packed up the old family car with my guitars, amps and all the naiveté a Midwestern teenager could muster and headed west to the glam metal capital of the world, Hollywood, CA. Years later, people still ask me, “What was the name of your band?” or “So how did you end up in the San Francisco Bay Area?” or the most laughably absurd, “Did you go to UCLA on a literary scholarship?” Well, I’m going to have to leave the arena
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property: Back to the Future - Prepaid Interest Explained
- 08/03/15 12:19 AM
Back to the Future - Prepaid Interest Explained It doesn't take a time traveler to appreciate the fact some folks are just inherently going to have a problem with paying today for something that won't come due until tomorrow. Especially when that something is perhaps ill-explained and/or part of a complex real estate transaction. Even with the rollout of the CFPB's new disclosure forms, the Loan Estimate (LE) and the Closing Disclosure (CD), consumers will likely still proffer some age-old questions about at least one component of a mortgage loan's cost structure. So let's hop in our DeLorean and venture to find out what
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property: To Airbnb Or Not To Airbnb...
- 07/19/15 01:34 AM
To Airbnb Or Not To Airbnb... ...is anybody even asking the question? Shall we then conjure The Bard to determine not whether renting out some or all of your home(s) through Airbnb or VRBO is a good idea itself, but once done is done, to know how thee mortgage lenders may view thine income? Whilst the "collaborative consumption" economy may be in full, progressive and dynamic bloom, a rose by any other name, like the mortgage industry for example, can be quite slow to see the light. True, our dagger may well be perceived dull held alongside the cutting edge of the Uber-net. So to venture
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property: 59 Redwood Dr., Kentfield, CA, 94904 w/ REX 12.5% Down Payment Option
- 07/13/14 02:25 PM
59 Redwood Dr., Kentfield, CA, 94904 w/ REX 12.5% Down Payment Option Using RPM Mortgage and REX Homebuyer, this home can be financed today as: Purchase Price: $2,195,000 REX Down Payment: $274,375 Your Down Payment: $384,125 Monthly P&I Payment: $6687 Here are the terms for the scenario above: Loan Amount: $1,536,500 Loan Program: 7/1 ARM* Interest Rate / APR: 3.250% / 3.151% How can we help? Property Info: Dana Johnson, 415-306-3824, dana.johnson@sothebyshomes.com Mortgage Pre-Approval: Rob Spinosa, 415-367-5959, rspinosa@rpm-mtg.com *Rates will only apply for the initial period. The initial period for this program above is seven years. The payment
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property: 169 Spencer Ave., Sausalito, CA, 94965 w/ REX 10% Down Payment Option
- 07/13/14 02:07 PM
169 Spencer Ave., Sausalito, CA, 94965 w/ REX 10% Down Payment Option Using RPM Mortgage and REX Homebuyer, this home can be financed today as: Purchase Price: $1,599,000 REX Down Payment: $159,900 Your Down Payment: $189,100 Monthly P&I Payment: $5440 Here are the terms for the scenario above: Loan Amount: $1,250,000 Loan Program: 7/1 ARM* Interest Rate / APR: 3.250% / 3.152% How can we help? Property Info: Sherrie Faber, 415-339-9200, sherrie@firstcaliforniarealty.com Mortgage Pre-Approval: Rob Spinosa, 415-367-5959, rspinosa@rpm-mtg.com *Rates will only apply for the initial period. The initial period for this program above is seven years. The payment on
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property: 8 Saint Lucia Place, Tiburon, CA, 94920 w/ REX 12.5% Down Payment
- 07/13/14 01:48 PM
8 Saint Lucia Place, Tiburon, CA, 94920 w/ REX 12.5% Down Payment Option Using RPM Mortgage and REX Homebuyer, this home can be financed today as: Purchase Price: $1,695,000 REX Down Payment: $211,875 Your Down Payment: $211,875 Monthly P&I Payment: $5533 Here are the terms for the scenario above: Loan Amount: $1,271,250 Loan Program: 7/1 ARM* Interest Rate / APR: 3.250% / 3.150% How can we help? Property Info: Penny Wright-Mulligan, 415-601-8191, penny.wright-mulligan@pacunion.com Mortgage Pre-Approval: Rob Spinosa, 415-367-5959, rspinosa@rpm-mtg.com *Rates will only apply for the initial period. The initial period for this program above is seven years. The payment
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