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Shopping around for a
home loan or mortgage will help you to get the best
financing deal. A mortgage--whether it’s a home
purchase, a refinancing, or a home equity loan--is a
product, just like a car, so the price and terms may be
negotiable. You’ll want to compare all the costs
involved in obtaining a mortgage. Shopping, comparing,
and negotiating may save you thousands of dollars.
Be sure to get information
about
mortgages
from several lenders or brokers. Know how much of a down
payment you can afford, and find out all the costs
involved in the loan. Knowing just the amount of the
monthly payment or the interest rate is not
enough. Ask for information about the same loan amount,
loan term, and type of loan so that you can compare
the information. It is
important to get information from each lender and broker.
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Real Estate Market Trends by Jeanette Fisher
If the real estate market is anything, it's cyclical.
Any experienced investor knows that the market goes up
and down, but the trend is always upward if you hold on
long enough. Only a first-degree optimist could have
believed that the frenzied pace of the past few years
could continue. It was unsustainable, and everyone
connected with the business knew that in their
heart-of-hearts.
That means the market trend will still be upward beyond
the downturn of 2007, but it also means that many of the
speculators who made fairly easy money during the boom
times of the last several years will be shaken out. It's
also proof that America's supply-and-demand system
works.
The rest of 2007 will continue to be slower than most
investors would like, and there are forecasters who
predict a similar situation throughout 2008. However,
the overall market is expected to rebound in 2009,
although no one is predicting a return to the dizzying
pace of the recent past.
The places hardest hit by the return to a more normal
market situation were also the hottest markets during
the run-up: Southern California, Las Vegas, and Florida,
which have experienced the largest declines in home
prices in 2007. Texas, which was also a hotbed of
growth, has also shown some significant price declines
during that period.
With the nation's home sales down overall, sales of new
homes have also begun to slow. In fact, the National
Association of Home Builders (NAHB) predicts a drop of
slightly more than 13%, which would be the biggest drop
since 1991 (15%).
There is good news buried among those figures, however.
With the decrease in new home construction, the market
will finally have a chance to absorb many empty houses
left over from the boom times. After those homes have
been sold, the supply-and-demand cycle will again kick
in, shifting the emphasis back toward building new homes
to fill a growing demand from buyers.
Although the market won't regain its white-hot status in
the near future, there are some areas of the country
where real estate investors might be able to profit
relatively quickly when the market begins to rebound.
The strategy is to look for areas that have seen home
prices plummet, even though then local economies are
still stable, vacancy rates are low, and price-to-income
ratios are reasonable. Such areas would include hard-hit
areas like Orlando, Las Vegas, and Phoenix.
Copyright © 2007 Jeanette J. Fisher Learn
how to make money buying houses. Free ebooks on real
estate investing and
Flipping Houses.
Jeanette Fisher teaches beginning investors how to make
money buying and selling houses at Joy to the Home
Realty's
Lake Elsinore Real Estate
office and design center.
Real Estate
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