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When is the Best Time to List Your Home?
Stan Humphries, chief economist at Zillow, says that early May is the peak time to list your home. Basing his advice on a lower inventory this year, he posits that increased buyer competition will result in a faster sale. Furthermore, Thursday is apparently the best day to list your home, because buyers are preparing to…
Read MoreHome sales drop 7.1% in February
Previously-owned home sales decreased 7.1% in February. Winter weather played a role in the drop, with the areas subjected to the harshest weather affected the most. February sales are up 2.2% from last year at the same time. Forbes has more information here.
Read MoreLeave Your Home To Your Children— Tax Free
MSN has some tips for giving your children your home, and avoiding tax debt in the process. The options range from the incredibly simple, sell at the lowest price allowable by law—to the somewhat complicated, create a qualified personal residence trust (or QPRT). There are a few more ideas worth perusing in the article. …
Read MoreConsidering Land Investment?
U.S. News and World Report has a slideshow dedicated to investing in land successfully. Much of the advice is common sense, but there are a few tips that were of particular interest. Ensuring you have mineral rights, and that you’re on the water wait-list stood out as things a neophyte investor may overlook. All 14…
Read MoreHere’s Why Your Mortgage Might Not Be On Your Credit Report
Fox News published a short piece on why your mortgage may not be showing up on your credit report. This could pose a problem in a few instances, namely if you were attempting to improve your credit scores. The article is worth a read.
Read MoreNew Ideas to Increase Curb Appeal
The LA Times published a succinct, but informative piece offering some tips to increase curb appeal. Laura Morton of Laura Morton Design shares some valuable insight into—some simple, and some not so simple—upgrades to increase a home’s attractiveness. She also has a clear aversion to treating the walkway and driveway like an airport runway.
Read MoreThe Fastest Growing Cities In the U.S.
Forbes has updated their annual list of fastest-growing cities in America. Austin has regained its position at #1, after being usurped by Houston in 2015. The rest of the list closely resembles the lists of years past, with one surprise being Salt Lake City, which is up 7 spots from last year.
Read MoreMillennials Continue Moving to Suburbs
Debt and high home-prices are motivating factors for millennials to move away from cities, and into suburban areas. While rates remain near an all-time low, opportunities abound for more space at affordable prices. This CNBC article with accompanying video details the results of a recent survey.
Read MoreAfrican American? Pick Me! I Promise I’ll Respond.
OK, everyone knows that there’s still discrimination. In fact, there probably always will be. But in a slightly weird piece of data, from a slightly weird source (phys.org), it would seem that the big discrimination still happening in the mortgage industry comes down to responding slowly, or not at all. The research claims that being…
Read MoreThinking on Stephen Karam’s New Play: The Humans
This is slightly off-topic for this blog, but I think it has some relevance, and I think that for those of us who think long-term, it might be very important to the industry. The New Yorker has a piece on the play, which focuses on the challenges of longer life, and the strange blight that seems…
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