The Hawaii Team Real Estate Blog
The Window Of Opprtunity For First Time Home Buyers Is Getting Smaller
For those you First Time Home Buyers out in the market place looking for your first home, you know that homes in the $200,000 and under price range are selling in days (sometimes hours) and not weeks or months. The current low interest rate environment along with the...
The Chasm
It's safe to say that there has never been a bigger chasm between seller and buyer than what we are experiencing right now. Sellers are getting offers anywhere from 10K off their asking price to several hundred thousand dollars off their asking price. So where is the...
No Doc Loan Could Come Back
Bank attitudes toward risky lending is making it very difficult for the self-employed, even those with high incomes, to secure mortgages. No-doc loans are particularly hard to get, locking out people whose incomes are derived from investments or who are able to...
Should you pay points on your new mortgage loan?
Recently a client of my was told by his credit union that he “should not pay any points†on the new mortgage he was taking out to buy a home. The reason the credit union suggested the client not pay points was that it added too much to the cost to the loan. It is...
More Foreclosures On The Way
Some economic observers are predicting another wave of foreclosures later this summer or in the fall. That’s because lenders that have held off on foreclosures as part of President Obama’s plan will now move forward aggressively to clear the backlog of troubled mortgages.
Treasury Trying to Help Re-Fi’s
The Treasury Department on Wednesday expanded its foreclosure prevention plan, lifting the current 105 percent loan-to-value cap to refinance up to 125 percent of a home’s value.
The Best Places To Live For Entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurs don’t retire, they just find a new project.
Over the past decade, baby boomers produced a high rate of entrepreneurial activity, and Dan Stangler, senior analyst at the Kauffman Foundation, says the number of baby boomers starting a business in their traditional retirement years is likely to increase.
The Bearer of Bad News
Lately, we (realtors) have the unenviable task of being the bearers of bad news. It seems more than ever we are having conversations with people about what the market is telling us regarding the price of their home, or we are talking to sellers about lowering the...
Mortgage Applications Bounce Back
Mortgage applications bounced back last week after nearly a month in the doldrums when the number of applications fell to a seven-month low.
Will Congress Expand The Tax Credit?
first-time home buyer tax credit of up to $8,000 has helped to move housing inventory during an otherwise sluggish real estate cycle. Now both legislators and the business community are hoping to build on the incentive’s success by expanding it.
Communication & Expectations
Without a doubt, communication and expectations are two of the biggest problems we have in real estate today. By no means does real estate corner the market on a lack of communication or failure to manage expectations, but these are two topics that seem to come up a...
Home Owners Insurance Goes Up While Your Home Value Goes Down
Homebuyers may be surprised to find that homeowners insurance isn’t going down, despite precipitous declines in sale prices.