Getting the upper hand on a great real estate deal.

How do you position yourself to get the upper hand on a great find?

1. Have a mind set that there is no perfect house out there unless you are willing to pay the price for it, fix it up or build your own.

2. Know what you need, want and things you can do without. This step will help to eliminate doubt, hesitation and avoid buyer's remorse.

3. Act quickly when you find one. Waiting only creates more opportunities for competing offers.

4. Once you've found what you want, get a market report (CMA - comparable market analysis) of sold properties within the last three months or 6 months. The closer the comparables are to the current market the more accurate your offer will be.

5. Determine your financial limits - how high you are you willing to go and be comfortable with the payments.

6. Step forward with your best offer - price and terms. Avoid multiple offer situations by being the first to take the advantage and get it under contract. This isn't the time to hesitant and play guessing games.

Visit my website at www.nwabode.com.

Super Paint Part I

There is something riveting about colors. The right paint on the right location sets moods, tone, and states personal tastes. What more can we ask for from our paint? What about function? Aside from looking prettily on the walls of our home, our vehicles, business buildings, bridges, décor, pavement, on signs, can it do more for us? Yes, it can!

There are paints that help insulate, create protective barriers, and even generate electrical energy. Most of us know about “eco-friendly” low vapor paint, or inorganic paints (long lasting pants often used in concrete, cement, natural stone, marbles and so forth) but not a lot of us know about how paint can work for us, aside from helping to sell our houses. There are paints that changes colors according to the season to keep a painted building insulated year round. There are paint to keep out mold and then there are paints that produce electricity.

Heard of photovoltaic paint or solar paint? Paints that can generate electricity equivalent to 50 wind farms. WOW! Dr Dave Worsley and Dr. Trystan Watson of Swansea University in the United Kingdom (UK) have been working with Corus, a steel, company in the UK to fine tune the cost effective use and increased efficiency of dye-sensitized cells.

How does it work?

“The paint will be based on dye-sensitized solar cells. Instead of absorbing sunlight using silicon like conventional solar panels, they use dye molecules attached to particles of the titanium dioxide pigment used in paints.

That gives an energy boost to electrons, which hop from the dye into a layer of electrolyte. This then transfers the extra energy into a collecting circuit, before the electrons cycle back to the dye.

While less efficient than conventional cells, dye-based cells do not require expensive silicon, and can be applied as a liquid paste” (New Scientist).

More explanation on this working principle and diagram see Polymer Centret.

Is your real esate agent driving you nuts?

An older lady came to me the other day asking about an ongoing sale contract with another firm. She, like many of us, is not familiar with legal contracts because they aren't an every day thing unless you work with them. The obvious question was why she wasn't going to her agent for such matters. Her response was that there was no communication between them as he seemed always in a hurry and curt in their brief interactions. She needed help but felt she was imposing when she wanted or needed help. Now that there was a viable offer she wanted to know what her options are. At present, there wasn't much that I could do to help her as it was an ongoing contract.

What do you do when your real estate agent isn't performing up to your expectations? First and foremost, you give them the-benefit-of-the-doubt, in other words you give them the opportunity to do better or tell them what you want/need done better. I believe most us when given the opportunity will raise to the occasion and do better. In any relationship, an open and healthy communication dispels a lot of fears. And second, if after all your efforts to communicate fails, discuss with your agent's broker - their "boss". Repeat good communication etiquette. If that fails, go higher up, the owner of the company or the franchise owner of the company, etc. And last, you have the option to release or fire your agent and/or broker.

When interviewing for your real estate agents, know and discuss your expectations and know your options. Do ask questions. It helps to protect your investment by asking questions, having knowledge will help keep you safe.

Visit my website at http://www.nwabode.com/ for real estate tips and news.

House selling without the emotions

Max has a shared interest in property "A" with another unrelated party whom we shall call Joey. So Max and Joey have this dispute about the fate of their property. Both parties have gone to court to clarify their disputes but neither has come to an agreement about the sale entirely. Joey decides to take Max to the cleaner because he can and he's got the right lawyer to help him.

When there are disputes over property it is sometimes very difficult to clear out the smog of animosity and the heat of revenge and see the business sense behind it all. As shelter is one of our primal necessities, the emotional ordeal is more heighten when selling a home. Max and Joey’s case is an extreme example. Generally, homeowners are attached to their houses and homebuyers are emotionally persuaded by strong visual presentations. The big question is how do we separate our emotions from our investments? After all, they are our appendages, an extension of us, our "babies".

I believe we ought too, we must. In order to make clear, sound and decisive business decisions we need to see, to know, and to understand the consequences of our choices. Strong emotions will clout our judgment and impair our vision. However, it doesn't mean that we allow honest ethics to languish or to become ignored or to forget our priorities.

The Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act of 2009

The Mortgage Reform bill is supposedly a tougher version of the 2007 Act; it is to regulate abusive and unfair lending practices as well as predatory borrowing, borrowers who provide false information to obtain loans.

States with strong anti-predatory lending laws or with some level of predatory lending protection are as follows: Arkansas, California, Georgia, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, North Carolina, New York, New Jersey, New Mexico, and South Carolina, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Wisconsin, and West Virginia.

* Ban all fees paid to loan officers that are tied to the interest rate of the mortgage or the type of the loan. During the headiest years of the boom, Wall Street investment banks paid mortgage brokers higher fees if they originated exotic loans such as short-term subprime adjustable-rate, interest-only, payment-option and "stated income" no-documentation loans with minimal or no down payments.

The lending industry also routinely paid brokers higher fees for originating mortgages that carried rates above prevailing levels. Loan officers frequently steered applicants with marginal credit histories into loans with excessive rates and penalties -- and were paid extra by banks and Wall Street for doing so. Studies have documented that minority and first-time borrowers disproportionately were marketed loans with unnecessarily high fees and penalties, based on their credit scores.

The new bill would prohibit any compensation -- "direct or indirect" -- that is tied to the rate or terms of the mortgage. "There should be no way you can be compensated for steering anyone to a higher rate," Frank said in an interview. The bill does permit home buyers or refinancers to opt for a slightly higher note rate to finance closing costs.

* Create mandatory minimum national quality standards for all mortgages. The rules would encourage lenders to make fully documented 30-year, fixed-rate loans with prevailing market rates, as opposed to loans with higher-risk features such as adjustable payments and negative amortization. The bill would also impose a federal "duty of care" standard requiring loan officers to offer applicants terms and rates that are "appropriate" to their income and ability to repay. Refinancing would have to pass a "net tangible benefit" test demonstrating that the replacement loan is superior to the borrower's current terms. Lenders would have to offer applicants the option to choose any loan without a prepayment penalty attached. Mandatory arbitration clauses in most mortgages would be banned.

* Allow borrowers who are put into mortgages that violate the new law to seek legal redress through cancellation of the loan contract, refund of all payments and fees and compensation for legal costs.

Borrowers who lied or committed fraud on their loan applications would have no such recourse. The bill would also extend liability for rule violations to third-party securitizes who buy loans for repackaging into mortgage bonds. Originators of all but fully documented 30-year, fixed-rate loans would be required to retain at least a 5% stake in the loan until it's finally paid off. If the loan goes into default, they would retain some economic stake in the losses.

See Full Article in the LA Times, and other related articles in Acorn, Realty Times and the Seattle Times, .

Here are some questions to consider:

1. What is the political agenda for this new Federal reform bill?

2. What is/are this bill's primary objective(s)?

3. Is this new reform bill more restrictive, more protective than State and local anti-predatory lending laws or regulations?

4. Since Federal Laws over ride State and local laws, what will happen to States with more restrictive or more protective consumer laws?

5. Have previous or prior reforms similar to this helped or have they hindered?

6. Who would profit from this reform?

Harpooning Housing Value

Pricing today's properties is like harpooning a dropping target in the ocean deep. During the high of the market it was the reverse, everyone was aiming for the highest value for their property as prices were soaring, even high priced listings could wait for the market to catch up. While in today's market, pricing a house too high could mean a loss in profit as housing values continue to sink. On the upside, real estate is seasonal. Sales are up during early Spring and goes back down in Fall.

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