Existing home sales up again.

This morning the National Association of Realtors anounced that existing home sales increased 7.4% in November. The rise was no surprise due to the $8,000.00 federal tax credit that was origionally supposed to expire November 30 of this year. Click here to read more.

What is your home worth?

If you are not sure what your home is worth click here. The National Assoction of REALTORS has a very clever site to give you a ballpark figure based on recent sales data.

Homebuilders might have a Merry Christmas after all.

Housing starts up highest since May. Good news for the industry check out the latest here.

Mortgage 101

What do you know about your mortgage? Are you familiar with the different options that you may have as a consumer? If you want to learn more just follow this link. The more you know the better off you will be. Your financial future depends on it.

Electric bills too high? Generate your own electricity.

If you think that you are paying too much for power then why not generate your own electricity? Uncle Sam may even pay you to do it. Here is an article to learn more.

Money has not been this cheap in 38 years?

Yesterday interest rates hit their lowest since 1971. If you qualify you should either refi or buy. Cheap money is the name of the game in real estate. Read this to learn more.

Winter weather is on its way, are you ready?

So far this winter has started off mild but we all know that is all about to change over the next several weeks. Are you ready for the cold and all that it will bring with it. Here is a checklist to help you and your home prepare for old man winter. Keeping up to date on regular home maintenance can save you thousands of dollars over the life of your home in costly repairs.

The Last 10 Years of Real Estate, how did we get here and what have we learned?

Over the last 10 years we have seen outlying highs and lows in the real estate market. Take a look at this article to get a unique perspective on how we sent our real estate values through the roof then down to the basement. It took 10 years to get to the top and back down to the bottom, and for many people it will take 10 more years to recover. Everyone should learn from this market cycle and have a game plan to acheive their future real estate goals.

Home Sale Contracts Up 32% in October.

Contracts up 32% as a result of tax credit. Click here to read more.

Modern Day Credit Scoring. How Companies are Quantifying your Risk.

Credit? What is the method behind the madness? How do the credit agencies and lenders rate your risk to decide how and when to give you a credit card or home loan? Your FICO (Fair Isaac Corporation) score also known as your Credit-risk score (which ranges from 300-850) is the most common and well know credit qualifier. However, there are eight other scores that lenders and credit agencies keep on you to determine your default potential and profitability. Response score, Revenue score, Bankruptcy score, Application score, Collection score, Behavior score, Transaction score, and Attrition-risk score are their titles. If you are interested please read this story which goes into greater detail on what each score is and how it can help or hurt your buying potential.