Down and Dirty with the Property Recovery – China
Feb 15, 2012 Real Estate Advice Leave a comment | Tags: Property, Property Recovery
We all know of the growing void between capital and major cities, and the rest of the countries in which they stand when it comes to wealth, prosperity, property price growth and such like. These differences tend to be more pronounced in emerging markets than established ones, and the gaps are particularly big in the emerging markets of Asia.
Take China for example. The Republic of China is the largest country in the world in terms of population size (according to Wikipedia it has 19.5% of the world’s population, compared to 4% in the US), and it also has one of the biggest wealth gaps despite its communist ideals. In Shanghai and Beijing people are generally increasingly prosperous; they have good jobs paying good wages.
“Custom” mortgages a big hit
Feb 12, 2012 Real Estate Consultant Leave a comment | Tags: Mortgages, Mortgages Big
With mortgage rates at record lows, borrowers these days clearly favor fixed-rate mortgages, and many are choosing shorter terms than they had before.
Of those who refinanced during the last quarter of 2011, an increasing number of them opted for a shorter repayment term than the traditional 30-year mortgage. In fact, 43 percent chose a 15- or 20-year amortization period, the highest share since early 2003. And, 95 percent of all refinance loans were fixed-rate regardless of whether the borrower’s original loan had a fixed- or adjustable rate, according to Freddie Mac.
Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac’s vice president and chief economist, attributed the high interest in shorter-terms to the incredibly low rates that are now available on those mortgages. For
Oscars to Be Held at the Maybe-Ex-Kodak Theatre: With the Oscars less than two…
Feb 10, 2012 Mortgage Information Leave a comment | Tags: Oscars Two, Two
With the Oscars less than two weeks away, a bankruptcy judge ruled today that Eastman Kodak can walk away from its sponsorship of Hollywood & Highland’s Kodak Theatre. The company signed a 20 year sponsorship deal in 2000 and hoped to take its name off immediately; owner CIM Group fought that possibility and the judge has left it up to the two parties to hash it out: “If you believe it would be better to leave the sign up, I suppose the result will be (Oscars host) Billy Crystal will make some joke about this being the Kodak Theater and Kodak being in Chapter 11,” he said.
Pros and cons of financing car, house at same time
Feb 8, 2012 Mortgage Information Leave a comment | Tags: Car, Car House
If this had been a few years ago, I might have advised you to try to gut it out with your cars, just making the minimal investment in them you can get away with to bring them to a basic level of safety, given that you expect to buy a home in the next month or so.
It is time-honored real estate wisdom that buying a car on credit right before you buy a home is one of the easiest ways to shoot yourself in the foot, because the additional debt can impact your debt-to-income ratio, can either or both reduce the dollar amount of mortgage dollars for which you qualify, or increase the interest rate you are charged.
So, generally speaking, the insider real estate advice would be to wait a couple of months, close the deal and then buy your car.
But I can tell you with zero hesitation that even the best-qualified buyers on today’s market who plan to buy as soon as the weather thaws and sellers start that spring listing flood are still seeing it take two, three, even four times as long to close the deal on their homes as they expected it would.