With the various fluctuations in interest rates over the past few years, you have no doubt thought about whether or not refinancing your home is a good idea. Countless consumers have done so in the face of favorable interest rates over the past few years, but does that mean that it is always a good idea when interest rates dip? There are some key questions you need to ask yourself when contemplating a refinancing move for your piece of real estate.

Know Your Situation
When deciding on whether a future refinancing move will net you benefits, you must first examine what your present situation is like. That includes all of the factors that play into a loan arrangement, including how long you plan to stay in your home, the terms of your credit loan and the likelihood of getting a favorable interest rate on a new loan on your real estate...[more Mortgage Refinance]

FHA Home Loan Financing Options

There are many types of real estate financing options available to you. It seems that there are new ones coming out all the time. Despite credit challenges you now have many more FHA loan options to qualify for financing for a new home.

Before you make your mind up on which FHA loan to take do the research. Find out the advantages and disadvantages of each type of FHA loan for your financial situation. Find the home loan that best suits your situation and needs. Family or business, short term or long, talk to a trusted home mortgage, bank lender and your real estate agent to get their expert opinions...[more FHA Home Loan]

Entering a home for a showing and being confronted by a set of barking dogs is enough to make some potential buyers not enter the home at all. Similarly, the sight of a clump of cat hair on the sofa can sour some potential buyers as they try to envision themselves in your property. They won’t think you are a bad person or a bad pet owner, but they will come away from a real estate showing with a bad taste in their mouth due in large part to your pet’s effect.

Your job is to remove any trace of your pet’s stay in the home, starting with the clutter that can sometimes come from pet toys and food dishes. A cage is fine and a tidy area where a pet spends most of his or her time will not harm a showing, but having a stray dog bone here and a messy food dish there can distract a buyer from the beautiful breakfast nook you keep or the immaculate counter top you just cleaned. Home stagers recommend not letting your pet become a part of the home evaluation equation.

hile an auction may not be the best venue for a buyer of real estate unfamiliar with the process, getting a foreclosure property one step farther in the process is indeed a viable option. Because a home purchased from a real estate agent or directly from a bank can be assured to have cleared all of the potential financial claims against it, a first time home buyer can instead have confidence in their purchase that they won’t be pursued as the new real estate home owner of the property to settle any debts incurred by the previous owner.

Additionally, navigating the process of purchasing a foreclosure home is simply not familiar to most first time home buyers and as a result, buying under a more standard process with a real estate agent involved offers an easier way to purchase a home for a bit of a financial benefit without having to learn a great deal to do so. A first time home buyer already with a bead on a foreclosure property as a potential target can partner that good intuition up with a simpler process to create a value-laden transaction that will land a first home.

Charitable causes we have been supporting lately:

• Mike Huckabee ~ Mike Huckabee for President! Mike is a stand-up guy who is honest and trustworthy.
• Recycling ~ Consider recycling your waste, as it may save the earth!
• Buy Wii ~ Buy Nintendo Wii from us and Save The Children.
• World Vision ~ World Vision provides hope to millions around he world.
• Save The Children ~ Save The Children focuses on children in need around the world.
• The Acumen Fund ~ The Acumen Fund uses entrepreneurial efforts to helps those living on less than $4.00 per day.
• Tri Cities Habitat For Humanity ~ Enough said! Provide a home for those who cannot afford one.
• Shelby Mustang ~ Yup, ya heard it right! A page devoted to the 1965 Shelby Mustang! All proceeds go to the Polly Klaas® Fund.

Have you considered contributing a portion of your income to a charity you value? Consider doing so today. As a part of our real estate business, we do!

For some reason, many home buyers see buying a newly constructed home as an entirely separate kind of real estate transaction where the traditional rules don’t apply and everything is as simple as buying a loaf of bread at the store. Sadly, that is not the case and more and more consumers are finding out that a new construction home is every bit as complicated as a resale.

Builder have quickly become some of the largest companies in the United States and they have done so on the backs of rapid growth in many areas of the country as well as the increasingly common practice of constructing entire communities instead of simply a row or two of homes...[more New Construction Mortgage]

•:*¨¨*:• Colleen Lane •:*¨¨*:•
My ActiveRain Blog / My Localism Blog

I am the Realtor® that makes things move in The Lane Real Estate Team, while my husband Joe is the dude that provides the marketing that gives me the great clients I have. My sole purpose in life is to serve God, family, and clients. Joe's sole purpose in life is to serve God, me, and family (and ski). We have five children, all at home, all ours. We've been happily married for 23 years, and Joe has forgotten the anniversary almost all of those years! We service the Tri Cities Washington real estate market to include Kennewick, Richland, and Pasco, Washington. Oh, our house is for sale!

Better Than Yellow Pages: The Right Real Estate Attorney

For many buyers and sellers, a real estate agent is all that is needed to get through the buying or selling real estate process. A real estate agent can provide valuable advice on the current state of the market, the best way to stage your home for sale or good areas to look at when investigating a home purchase. What a real estate agent cannot do, however, is provide legal advice and in some situations, such advice is critical to the real estate transaction process.

A real estate attorney can be a great way to not only get that valuable legal advice but to protect yourself every step along the way as well. A real estate purchase or sale is a complicated transaction impacted by countless laws and regulations. With a piece of merchandise so expensive changing hands, issues are bound to crop up and sometimes a real estate lawyer is the best way to deal with those issues...[more Real Estate Attorney] Another resource: Real Estate Lawyer

Looking for a real estate to buy is a very exciting experience. Your emotion balanced with logic is the wisest thing to do. Educating yourself about this long and stressful process of home buying will result in the biggest investment that you will be making in your life. Wrong decisions may lead to an irreversible and costly mistake. So, what should you avoid so as not to make this mistake?

• AVOID USING YOUR HEART OVER YOUR HEAD. You might fall in love with a home instantly forgetting that you are making a huge financial investment and that someday you might want to sell it, only to find out, when it is too late that your home is tough to resell....[more avoidance tips on Home Buying Mistake]

Sale of real estate notes raise cash quickly. A real estate note is the loan document created to finance sale of the owner’s house or investment property. It could be a mortgage note or a land contract or contract for sale whereby payments are made in cash by the buyer.

A risk involved is that while a seller won’t get the full face value for his note there could be other fees needed to be paid. Questions arise such as whether there is a normal discount on a note or whether the buyer is trustworthy. Some guidelines for these are:

1. There should be no upfront fees. Certainly there will be some buyers who will check on the buyer’s credit and give a note without charging any fee...[more Real Estate Note]

Microsoft launches experimental search site Tafiti (you will need to download and install Silverlight). I find this interesting in light of the rumors behind Microsoft acquiring Yahoo. Let's look at an analogy here. IBM slept, and Microsoft took over IBM's share of he PC market. Now let us compare Google to IBM. Google, at the top of the market and resting on it's laurels, all the while Microsoft has Microsoft Live, Yahoo (let's imagine for a moment), now Tafiti. As real estate agents staying the next step ahead on the tech path, we might consider keeping an eye on what Microsoft is up to these days.

The point here is Microsoft is not simply focusing it's attention on areas other than the search engine market. While Google appears to be content with their position as the forerunner in the search engine market, perhaps their days are numbered. Those of us doing well in the serps need to pay attention to the up and comers that may one day overthrow Google's grip as search engine giant.

Related Reading:

• Microsoft Not Content With It's Market Share
• Microsoft Takes Steps to Becoming An Advertising Agency
• Microsoft and Cisco Working Together
• Yahoo Surpasses Google in Customer Satisfaction Survey
• Yahoo Rubbishes Google Usability

Choosing a real estate agent is perhaps one of the most critical parts of the real estate process as that agent will become your closest ally in the long term effort to buy or sell a home. Real estate transactions are major milestones in a person’s life and that real estate agent is the key person to be involved in making sure your wants and needs are met throughout that process.

After that extensive process, you are then faced with a person that you have invested a great amount of time and effort in. Trusting that real estate agent to represent you fully at all times may seem to be at the foundation of a realtor’s responsibilities, but there are other types of responsibilities those agents are motivated to serve that you need to be aware of...[more Double Agent]

House hunting is by itself a rather stressful process. The need to close the contract only adds on to the stress. You could as well do with a few tips and some information to control the frustration involved.

The settlement process, also called “closing”, begins once you have signed the contract to buy a house. “Closing of escrow” is the process whereby the title of ownership moves from the seller to the buyer. There are a few things you need before that.

Firstly you need to secure financing, which means you need to avail a mortgage loan. You will have to furnish some financial details to the lender. This may include among others, a credit report, property survey, proof of income, current expenses, current appraisal and in certain cases, even an inspection to check for termites or radon gas, etc. It will most probably be approved within a few days thanks to the competition among lenders...[more Real Estate Closing]

Resources you may consider for real estate closing information: Closing Fee Free Deal | Agent Pulling Weight | Earnest Money | The Best Service

In another forum (dare I say that!) I found this thread. The thread is dated, however, the points made are still applicable. The thread started with a member asking for beginning seo and other advice.  There were 4 recommendations of sources members recommended to this new SEO enthusiast that I thought worthy of passing on.  Rather than read the thread, here are the recommendations:

Beginners Guide to Search Engine Optimization || SEO Podcast

High Rankings® Advisor || Monster List of Search Engine Blogs 

Kind of an eclectic short list of resources, but they'll keep you busy for awhile.  :)

The Pitfalls of Predatory Lending

Predatory lending is a term used to capture a whole slew of techniques used by lenders to ensure the most beneficial terms for the financing institution at the expense of borrowers. While there may be a preconceived notion of these practices affecting particular subsections of the population, predatory lending is something for everyone to watch out for when buying or selling at home.

Many of these types of predatory situations can be resolved by being vigilant and consulting a trusted realtor or related party that has a demonstrated consistent and reliable approach to the home buying process. There are a few steps you can take to ensure that your real estate transaction goes smoothly and the realtor/lending agency combination you choose is out for your best interests...[more Predatory Lending]

Renovating homes has gotten a boat load of publicity over the past few years as a great way for prospective real estate investors to make great money over a short period of time. Hopefully, you’ve taken that message with a grain of salt as renovations can often take a lengthy period of time and selling the home for a big profit is never a guarantee.

In fact, as any real estate investor will tell you, a few quick calculations will give you at least a rough idea of your chances for profit, be it large or small. Doing these quick and dirty calculations will not only give you that forecast of the future but determine whether a particular investment is worth the hassle, a step that many real estate investors skip that deserves adequate attention...[more Fixer Upper]

As a prospective home buyer, getting to the inspection stage is one of the big milestones over the course of a real estate transaction. You may have walked through the home a few times and given it your own critical eye, but now the big guns are coming in to tell you just what you might be getting in to.

That can be a bit of a blessing and a bit of a curse at the same time for prospective buyers that have fallen in love with a property. They want to know everything about it, but they don’t want to hear that it’s got significant problems that might be a barrier to purchase. Because of this dynamic, inspections can be a bit of a daunting prospect, but they certainly don’t have to be.

Many prospective home buyers have walked through a property only to fall in love with it. Maybe it has the perfect amount of space for a particular family or maybe it has the right kind of amenities for a new couple. Whatever the case, rose-colored glasses may immediately be put on and seeing flaws in the property can then prove difficult...[more Home Inspection]

Additional home inspection topics: Home Inspection Zen | Inspect Your Inspector | Inspector Termination

With the housing market starting to slow up a bit in some areas of the country, sellers are using more tools at their disposal than ever to get a house sold in a timely fashion. While these methods vary greatly by region, nationally there has been a rise in the amount of real estate auctions seen. Naturally, auctions are not a new phenomenon, but to see them increasingly used as a primary tool in selling real estate is.

The potential pitfalls are many in the auction business and while it is certainly one of the quickest ways to liquidate a home, it is often wrought with a great deal of uncertainty. What if your home doesn’t sell for the price you were looking for? What if the auction fees take out such a hunk of the selling price that you see little profit? These are key questions to not only ask yourself but to brace for if you pursue the auction as a real estate selling method...[more Real Estate Auction]

Made as a kind of good faith payment made by an interested buyer, earnest money is another of the small steps along the real estate process that deserves to be explored. While no real estate transaction is exactly like another, generally earnest money comes in as part of the process when an interested buyer signs over an amount of money (often in the neighborhood of $500 or $1000) to more or less express that they are serious about buying the home...[more Real Estate Earnest Money]

In the recent newsletter from Washington REALTORS®, an article caught my attention regarding multi-cultural clients. Knowing the unique needs of our multi-cultural country's residents is critical in keeping with a competitive marketplace.  I've included the introduction to the article, as well as the link to the entire article. Ten Myths About Multicultural Real Estate Clients...

"Over 60% of all homebuyers in America today are minorities according to the National Association of REALTORS®. There are over one million people from overseas coming into the United States every year and they all want to show friends and family they are successful by buying an American home. In addition, there are 80 million multicultural Americans already here. As a result, minorities are currently one-third of the population and by 2038 will be half. This is a huge market for real estate agents all across the country, if you know how to meet the unique needs of the fastest-growing group of homebuyers...[more Multi-Cultural Clients]"

If you are a real estate agent then an open house is a prospecting tool rather then a way to sell the home they are showing. There are many reputable real estate agents that won't host their own property's open house. They opt for a newer agent to take on the job.

It is common for a listing agent to pass the job on to someone else even though they could be there if they wanted to be and keep all of the commission. They are offering half of their commission if the hosting agent sells the home. Real estate agents don't feel that an open house is how a home is commonly sold to someone so this act isn't considered high risk...[more Real Estate Open House]

Related resources for open house selling: Selling Preparation | Perfect Listing Price | Showing Beyond The Basics | Curb Appeal