The Mini Token Blog

Selling your home yourself can save you thousands of dollars in commissions. However, that doesn’t mean you should necessarily do it for the following reasons:

Just Suffered A Major Trauma

People who have just gone through an event which changed their lives in a negative way are also apt to benefit from working with an agent instead of selling their homes as FSBOs. You aren’t likely to be your usual calm, clear thinking self if your husband or wife just died, for example. The same thing is probably true for people who are selling and moving because they have been diagnosed with a life threatening or debilitating disease. Divorce also makes it hard to function as well as normal for a period of time. Anything which really rocks your world in an unhappy way just before putting your home on the market is an indication that hiring a good agent is probably a positive move for you to make.

You Need Someone to Blame

Some people are very independent. They weigh the pros and cons and make decisions quickly and easily. Occasionally something goes wrong. They just chalk it up as a learning experience and move on.

At the other end of the spectrum are folks who agonize over decisions, cannot stand to make a mistake, and must have someone to blame if something goes wrong. With my apologies to real estate professionals, these people will probably be better off working with an agent. An experienced agent can’t always stave off problems, but she (or he) has probably solved similar problems and is likely to be able to help you solve yours.

If either of these situations describe you or your situation, going FSBO is probably not for you.

Why alternative housing? To save money, to travel, to live creatively - there are many reasons why people choose to live in tents, RVs, cabins, underground homes, rental rooms and anything else that’s less common than the houses, condos and apartments that most people call home. Below are some of these housing options, and their advantages.

Alternative Housing That Moves

Camping at a hot springs area, we sat around the campfire one night with several young men living in the desert in their old converted school bus. It cost them nothing to park it in the desert (on BLM land you have to move every two weeks, though), bathed for free in hot spring tubs that were as nice as those in nearby expensive resorts, and played guitar around the fire each night. Not such a bad life.

In Arizona there are whole communities that spring up each winter, full of people living in their RVs. Advantages of RV housing are obvious, and include moving with the seasons, trying out different places, and not paying property taxes. I’ve talked to people living in Rvs that cost $200,000 and ones that cost $600, so the selection of accommodations is varied, to say the least.

My wife and I lived for almost a month in our conversion van as we traveled from Arizona to Florida and then to Michigan. Advantages of a van include better mileage than an RV, and being inconspicuous. We found that could park and sleep almost anywhere.

Other Alternative Housing

In most areas where rents are high, renting rooms has become common. This makes sense for single people. Just pay a set amount each month or week, and (if it includes utilities) you have a predictable and lower cost of living. I rented out rooms in my own home for years, and even put carpet and lighting in a shed so I could get $50 per week for it in summer.

A friend of mine lived in a shack he built for $3,000 on a small piece of land he bought for $7,000. Eventually he ran into problems with the county because he had no occupancy permit. Apparently you can’t live on your own land in the woods if your home is too small. However, you can camp on it, so a $2,000 used RV parked on your land makes for a cheap and legal housing alternative.

Some people live on houseboats and avoid paying property taxes. Some live in the jungle near the beaches in Hawaii, so they can afford to be in paradise. I know people who lived in a basement while slowly building the house above for cash. People live in cabins built in the national forest wilderness, moving every few years as they are discovered. Truly, your imagination is the only limit to your alternative housing options.

Steve Gillman has invested in real estate for years. To learn more, get a free real estate investing course, and see a photo of a beautiful house he and his wife bought for $17,500, visit www.HousesUnderFiftyThousand.com

Doing your homework and shopping from a variety of mortgage lenders and brokers will save you thousands of dollars over the life of your mortgage. Here is a basic primer of mortgages and mortgage terminology.

A mortgage is basically a loan secured by your home. The lender charges you interest at a specified rate for use of their money. This interest rate can be fixed at a certain percentage for the duration of the loan, or it can be an adjustable interest rate. if you choose a loan with an adjustable interest rate your lender will periodically change the amount of interest rate it charges you at regular specified intervals. The interest rate you will be charged will be tied to some index, such as the prime interest rate for example, plus a premium amount charged by your lender.

The term of your mortgage is the duration the lender grants you to pay back the loan. Common term lengths are 5 years, 15 years, and 30 years. The longer the term length you select for your mortgage, the lower your monthly payments will be; however, you will pay a higher interest rate for longer terms than you would for shorter term lengths.

There are steps you need to take before shopping for a mortgage loan. You should make sure your credit is in order and take steps to protect your credit while shopping for a mortgage. A free mortgage guide can show you how to do this and could save you thousands of dollars.

You will also be able to avoid common mistakes many homeowners make while going through the mortgage process.

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Louie Latour has twenty years of experience in the mortgage industry as a mortgage broker.

He is the owner of Mortgages Refinance Advisor, a mortgage help site devoted to saving homeowners money with a free guidebook HREF="http://www.refiadvisor.com" rel="nofollow">Mortgage Refinance: What You Need to Know.

Sign up for your free guide today at: http://www.refiadvisor.com

Have your home’s appreciation grow twice as fast.

For Seniors over the age of 62 a Reverse Mortgage is a tool that, while new to many, is increasingly being used to maximize their retirement income. A Reverse Mortgage frees up large amounts of equity to be used in investment vehicles, insurance policies, and savings plans that add to the safety and enjoyment of many seniors’ lives.

When a Reverse Mortgage is employed, it allows you to keep earning appreciation on the home, while also earning growth on the equity. Equity normally has no growth. Example: Two people A and B buy the same home for $200,000. Person A puts a down payment for $200,000 while Person B puts down $10,000 and invests the difference. In 5 years both homes are worth $250,000. Person A’s equity experienced no growth while Person B invested the $190,000 not locked in the home and enjoyed 2 times the growth of Person A.

Reverse Mortgages are a very safe way for seniors to release the equity trapped in their homes. A Reverse Mortgage is a Federally regulated and insured loan that uses home value and age as a calculator to extract a portion of the equity that Seniors have built in their homes. A good way to estimate the amount that can be received is to subtract the amount of purchase price and current mortgage from the estimated sale value. This is the equity that can be reasonably expected to be obtained with a Reverse Mortgage. Reverse Mortgage Nation provides a free online calculator.

The differences between a Reverse Mortgage and a standard equity loan are that the Reverse Mortgage NEVER requires the Senior to make a monthly payment. For as long as the applicant lives in the home, there are no payments required. All of the money that is generated with a Reverse Mortgage is 100% tax-free and will not affect any social security or Medicare benefits.

One generally overlook strategy in doing a Reverse Mortgage is managing the interest growth. The home is the only tax-beneficial financial investments in existence. If you earn a large return on a bond or in the stock market, you will experience taxes based on the size of your return. With a Reverse Mortgage, you pay zero tax for any money generated, and because Reverse Mortgages have no-prepayment-penalty, you can receive these funds tax-free, pay off the accrued interest for the year, then take additional tax-deductions on the interest that is accruing. All this with no risk of default or foreclosure because there are never any payments required.

Troy Shellhammer is a Reverse Mortgage Loan Officer with Reverse Mortgage Nation (NGFS, a division of 1st Mariner Bank). He can provide illustrations and examples of these strategies for yourself, a friend, a client, or an elder parent.

Contact details:
troyshellhammer@reversemortgagenation.com
1.888.973.8377
http://www.reversemortgagenation.com