On Burning Your Mortgage

As you may know I co-own an insurance agency with my son. To say we have a varied clientele is to understate the characters in our portfolio. I write this first piece based on one of them.

Actually they are a couple who paid off their mortgage and were ecstatic. It turns out they paid their mortgage close to the day they had to renew their home owner policy. Pretty mundane stuff until the Missus made the announcement her and the old man were going to burn their mortgage.

They meant they were going to burn the original paperwork tehy received at the title company. You know, the papers that say it is over and done, you don’t owe us anything any more. It goes by Deed of Re conveyance and one or two other names but, no matter, it is an important document.

I know I don’t have to tell this audience not to burn those final papers but rather burn a copy of them if you just feel the urge. Regardless of the recording of the fact that you actually are out from under the mortgage monster you just may need to have that silly thing handy. Even if you never need it, keeping the original mortgage is a superb idea.

By the way, let’s say you are the proud parents of a paid in full mortgage. From an insurance perspective, don’t cancel your home owner policy either. While none of us believe our house will burn down or the tree on the south corner won’t get hit by lightning and collapse our roof, stuff happens.

So I don’t sound like I’m giving a lecture on insurance, I’ll move on to tidbit #2.

True Story That Happened In My Backyard

We have all been warned numerous times about NEVER hiring anyone who knocks on our door and tells us he will do such and such a job on or around the house for a bargain basement price. Since we live on a piece of property with numerous trees and bushes, trimming said nature’s gifts and raking leaves is part of ownership.

I guess my wife thought I hadn’t been attendant enough to these aforementioned chores because one day I came home and there was this guy whacking away at the bushes, pulling out some others and trimming the hedges. Not all at once but the remnants on the ground told me what he had done.

I walked into the house and asked who was the guy with the clippers hacking away at anything that looked like a bush. She said it was a guy who said he lived around the corner and he’d do all the “yard work” for only $XXX. She thought that was a good price and gave him the go ahead.

The answer to is he licensed, bonded and insured made my heart sink. Yes, it was no. This guy knocked on our door and was given the job. My wife said she wanted the place cleaned and spruced up and he said he would do it.

Mind you, wife mate is the one who lets her fingers do the walking through the yellow pages and checks out their licenses and references before she hires them to do the work. OK, used to check out that kind of namby pamby stuff.

To make a long story short, the result was a disaster. Lesson re-learned: NEVER hire a guy who knocks on your door and says he will do such and such a job on or around the house for a bargain basement price.

I mention this not to point fingers at my wife but to serve as a reminder because a momentary lapse like this one could result in a whole bunch of heartache, headache and backache. Imagine if he was hired to do a kitchen remodeling, driveway repair, etc.

In our area, we experience a lot of door knockers willing to do almost anything for a bargain basement price. If you are in the same boat, keep our adventure in mind. It will save you a lot of money, time and energy.

Photo Credit: doortoriver

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Tags: handyman, mortgage, Mortgages, service

Tim Maitski of the Atlanta Report predicts that internet powerhouse Zillow might creep into the national scene to become a replacement for the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) operated by the National Association of Realtors (NAR).

According to Maitski:

Zillow has the potential to be the standard national MLS system open and free to anyone and everyone. They just introduced a free listing system as a new feature. If they can entice a critical mass of people to put their listings into their system, then it will be a must for everyone who wants to sell a home.

I have a feeling they might have a hard time convincing all the Realtors to put their listings on there but their system is so easy to use that the sellers could very easily do it themselves. So the challenge to Zillow will be to try to become a household name. They seem to be getting a lot of free press lately so it might not be that difficult. In a few years if your home isn’t listed on Zillow it will be the same as someone without email or a cell phone.

I agree with Tim that the company with the best chance of succeeding with a national online MLS is Zillow. Over a year ago, I proposed creating a national online MLS. Since then, states like Maine have taken steps towards breaking down the NAR monopoly over MLSs, but the Zillow news is a breakthorugh.

I noticed earlier today that Zillow was now allowing realtors or homeowners to list their properties for sale. Since I’m currently selling one of my properties, I decided to give it a try and list on Zillow. It was very easy to do. The site is well planned out and the properties for sale addition will certainly raise the stakes for Zillow, but there are quite a few things which make me somewhat nervous. I’ll discuss the most important one, security.

Security Problems

The only security check to determine if you are the actual owner of the property is a dropdown list of names. You have to pick who the real owner of the property is, which takes 3 seconds to find out using public records. I could very easily just list a few homes for sale in my neighborhood on Zillow, theoretically raise the comparable prices for my property, then list my home and trick users into paying a premium. People believe what they see, which makes this “scam” an easy one. Trouble makers could easily game the system in its current form and harm innocent property owners.

At this point, it is still early in the process. Zillow could fix the security issues and other problems and grow to become a true giant - the National MLS. On the other hand, it might just continue to churn along, and sit amongst the crowd of other MLS coulda-beens. I guess we’ll soon find out!

Tags: listing, MLS, multiple, NAR, national, Real Estate Websites, realtor, service, zestimate