A little time spent shoring up your credit, crafting your budget and organizing financial documents will go far in smoothing the way to a home purchase. Ideally, you can start working on your home-buying project before you even start shopping for homes. Keep in mind that most buyers take eight weeks to actually shop for a home, according to a survey by the National Association of Realtors. Your financial prep work should start well ahead of those eight weeks.

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search for : home-buying project, National Association of Realtors

When you pay your mortgage, do you know everything that’s included in your mortgage payment? Oftentimes, it can be more than just the standard monthly principal and interest. When you own a home, you are also required to pay for your annual property taxes and home insurance. But this can become tedious. So lenders require you to deposit money into an escrow account to make sure your taxes and insurance are paid. It is possible to avoid escrow and pay your own taxes and insurance. Usually, this is done if your loan-to-value ratio (LTV) is less than 80 percent. If it is more than 80 percent, you may be required to escrow until the mortgage is paid down to less than 80 percent LTV.

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search for : mortgage, escrow account, loan-to-value, LTV

The real-estate slowdown has forced some investors to change tactics. Gone are the days when an investor could buy a single-family home or condo, flip it, and walk away with a sizeable profit just weeks or months later without much effort. But there’s one niche that continues to show promise for investors undaunted by the slumping housing market: college-town real estate. U.S. college enrollments are expected to increase by a minimum of 13% to 19.5 million between 2004 and 2015, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Meanwhile, tighter budgets at many state schools are likely to limit construction of new on-campus accommodations. “Colleges don’t have the capital they need to develop student housing,” Mr. Bayless explains. Already, students are increasingly being forced to find housing elsewhere — a major advantage for investors looking to get into the rental market, says Mr. Zaransky, author of “Profit by Investing in Student Housing; Cash In on the Campus Housing Shortage” (Kaplan Publishing, 2006).

search for : real-estate slowdown, U.S. college enrollment

Out of 131 million 1040s filed for 2004, there were 4 million math errors. If you make one of those 4 million errors, then mailing off your return is only the beginning of your headaches. Ernst & Young compiled a list of common errors. Some errors are simply careless. The easiest error to check if found with a a double-check of your math, the IRS does not give partial credit for getting the right formula but adding wrong. You might have done everything right, except for forgetting to carry a one, but the IRS doesn’t care. It will fine you for the difference. If, on the other hand, your careless math error leads you to overpay, who knows whether you’ll get that money back. It certainly could take a while.

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Many homeowners went a little crazy during the recent real estate boom. Convinced that prices would continue to rise indefinitely, people felt free to supersize their homes; the median size of an American home has increased 16 percent in the past decade, to 2,227 square feet. Bigger homes, of course, come with higher property tax bills, and they cost more to wire and keep heated and cooled. Meanwhile, lenders churned out new types of loans with low initial payments and, as the real estate market spiraled to new heights over the past few years, loosened borrowing restrictions. Stretching the limits of affordability wasn’t a problem when interest rates were plummeting and home prices were zooming. Then, homeowners who had trouble making payments could easily refinance or unload their home for a big profit. That’s no longer the case. Recently lenders have begun tightening their standards, and if your home hasn’t appreciated, you may not be able to refinance easily.

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search for : homeowners, real estate boom, lenders, refinance

In these times of depressed home sales, excess inventory, foreclosures, bankruptcies, short sales and a general real estate down turn, inventory of for-sale homes is at an all-time high. With sellers doing everything they can to move property, this article from Homes101 discusses the consequences of non-disclosure. So, what if you determine that your seller knew about the upcoming assessment? Does that make him legally obligated to disclose this to you?

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Every year, millions of young Americans leave the loving embrace of their parents’ home or student housing for an apartment of their own, and it takes only a little education to keep this rite of passage from turning into a hazing. Here are 10 things that experts say you should know (and that experienced renters say they learned the hard way).

· Location Matters. Visit potential neighborhoods a few times, at different times of day, before settling down. “It might look fine on a Wednesday afternoon, but factors like noise, parking and security can change at night or on weekends,” said Peggy Luers, coordinator of off-campus housing services at California State University at Sacramento. Luers’s office, and others like it at universities around the country, are great places for first-time renters to find legal information, advice, even apartment listings. These offices also have insider information you won’t get from friends or family — for example, that neighborhoods near college campuses might not be the best places to rent.

· The landlord is not your buddy. Your landlord might be perfectly nice, but your relationship is about business, not friendship. “First-time renters tend to be somewhat naive,” Boysen said. “You need a dose of cynicism.” That means checking into your potential landlord’s reputation before you sign a lease. Even if the landlord passes this test, Boysen cautions that you still shouldn’t let your guard down. Get everything in writing, even something as simple as an assurance of when a problem will be fixed, and keep copies of all documentation and correspondence between you and the landlord. (more…)

search for : student housing, apartment