mortgage
Foreclosures by Charles Feldman | February 10, 2010 
So many homeowners are now underwater (they owe more than the value of their property) Obama may want to offer a federal program to give scuba lessons to everyone! More than one fifth of ALL homeowners were underwater in the last quarter of 2009, according to Zillow.com and reported by BusinessWeek. And, if that weren’t [...]
Read the full article → Real Estate Technology by Justin McClelland | February 6, 2010 
There is a service offered in a select number of counties called, Property Fraud Alert, which, after you sign-up, runs a query against any new documents recorded within the county of your choice. The primary purpose for this service is to help stop mortgage and property fraud. If any document recorded within your county lists [...]
Read the full article → Commentary by Tom Koziol | February 5, 2010After reading a story titled, “Local homeowners get the runaround on loan modifications” in my local paper this week, I decided to do a bit of snooping about the HAMP program. Fortunately the title company I use for my real estate deals has a very proactive website. It not only gives me the latest NOD [...]
Commentary by Charles Feldman | February 3, 2010 
There has been much debate of late about whether or not it is morally acceptable for homeowners who currently own more for their mortgages than what their homes are actually worth to just walk away from their property, using their “new found” money to pay for a cheaper rental unit, perhaps. Today’s New York Times [...]
Read the full article → Real Estate Investing by Jeff Brown | February 2, 2010Lost in the weekend conversation about the current state of your portfolios, beside the fact your steak just cruised past medium rare, is what’s really important. Assuming your main goal is an ever increasing net worth, obsessing on appreciation can sometimes take your eye off the ball. That ball is capital growth. But isn’t appreciation [...]
Mortgages & Lending by Peter Giardini | January 28, 2010I just got off the phone with the commercial lending VP at a small local bank. This bank just survived its first Office of Thrift Supervision audit since the financial meltdown. This audit took the better part of two months — all for a bank with less then $200 million in assets. As I mentioned, they [...]
Mortgages & Lending by Peter Giardini | January 12, 2010 
I was speaking with one of my coaching clients this morning whose has purchased some killer deals using his Home Equity Line of Credit and private lender funds. This client now needs to recapitalize to get the cash out of these properties so that he can continue his buying spree. During the course of the [...]
Read the full article → Commentary by Brendan O'Brien | December 20, 2009 
I wish I could write a happy post about the Christmas spirit right now, but I’m not in a generous mood. I just read this article in which a professor of law advocates that people who are having trouble with their mortgages just walk away – free as a bird – and to heck with [...]
Read the full article → Real Estate Law by Richard Warren | November 30, 2009 
Last week a judge on Long Island wiped out a homeowner’s debt to Indymac Bank. (article) Many consumers are absolutely giddy over winning one against the “greedy” banks. What consumer wouldn’t want to have their own mortgage wiped out? It’s akin to finding a bag of money that fell off of an armored truck. While [...]
Read the full article → Housing by Tom Koziol | November 20, 2009 
Today’s news seems to bring us a tale of opposites every time they report on the real estate market as it exists at this point in time. For example, an article by the AP just the other day said “the pace at which people fell behind on their mortgages slowed during the summer for the [...]
Read the full article → Financing Real Estate by Florence Foote | November 10, 2009One of the worst kinds of sub-prime loans was the infamous “pick-a-pay” (Payment Option ARM) under which borrowers had the choice of how much payment to make each month, with the lowest options being negatively amortized, i.e., reducing the equity in a property every month. These loans took the concept of house-as-piggy-bank to another level [...]
Mortgages & Lending by Kyle Koller | November 9, 2009In my last article, I discussed how lender recourse, prepayment penalties, a loan’s assumability, and fees and costs affect a real estate investor’s strategy. In this continuation, I will explore several other loan characteristics such that you can more successfully plan your next investment project. Fixed Periods Many commercial loan products offer fixed interest rates [...]
Mortgages & Lending by Richard Warren | November 9, 2009 
This could be called a tale of two agents. In a recent article I discussed how I came to select a new agent to work with (article). Here I want to talk about a recent meeting with two mortgage professionals. One worked with a major lender while the other was with a smaller firm that [...]
Read the full article → Commercial Real Estate by Ted Karsch | November 5, 2009 
The IRS has issued a new rule IRS Revenue Procedure 2009-45 IRS Revenue Procedure 2009-45 that eases the restrictions on modifications of commercial mortgages that have been packaged into commercial mortgage backed securities. This action allows borrowers to open discussions with the loan servicer prior to any default in an attempt to work out the [...]
Read the full article → Commentary by Charles Feldman | October 28, 2009 
Think. That is one word I grant you. But, sadly, something fewer and fewer people seem to be doing when it comes to critical analysis of the near term prospects for the real estate market in the U.S. (And, yes, I know the real estate “market” is a patchwork of many markets dotted across the [...]
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Joshua Dorkin
Recent Important Snippets You May Not Have Seen
by Tom Koziol | February 5, 2010After reading a story titled, “Local homeowners get the runaround on loan modifications” in my local paper this week, I decided to do a bit of snooping about the HAMP program. Fortunately the title company I use for my real estate deals has a very proactive website. It not only gives me the latest NOD [...]