Ilyce

Buying a home is hard enough. Owning a home is even tougher. But sharing your ownership interest in your home and adding the name of a friend to the title to the home should be done only after careful consideration. You must consider whether you are just friends, will be married, possible breakups and other life changing issues. Once you have thought about these issues, you can proceed to decide how you should hold title to your real estate and whether to include a friend or not.

2010 is finally here and the repeal of the estate tax has come.

But will it go away?

Ten years ago, the slow process of repealing the estate tax started. Due to budget issues, Congress decided to only pass a law that would last ten years. The last of those ten years would eliminate the estate tax completely. Now people are trying to plan their estates and they don't know what Congress will do now.

First TBW goes out of business. Then, borrowers don't know where to send their mortgage payments and payments sent to Equity Accelerator companies were frozen and payments were not being made. Once former TBW borrowers know who their new loan servicer is, they now find out that the money they had in tax escrow and home insurance escrow accounts is frozen and then need to come up with the money to pay those bills. Now they have not even received 1098 tax forms to complete their federal income taxes for 2009.

If you've just bought a newly constructed home, you should have received a home warranty from the seller. In some cases that home warranty will be a long document, while in others it may be a one page document. In some states, you get the warranty from the builder whether he gives you something in writing or not.

Ilyce Glink Show Notes - February 7, 2010 - Stock Market Update, Unemployment Update, How to Invest In 2010 Discount LAST WEEK. Stock market was down for the week, and down 7 percent from the high in January. The President submitted a budget for $3.8 trillion that provides some cuts but portends a huge deficit. Nine million housing units are for sale, out of about 130 million total. Those numbers mean home values will probably decline again. FREE BOOKS AND EBOOK DEALS. Last week for the 50% discount to the HOW TO INVEST YOUR MONEY IN 2010 Event/Atlanta.

Ilyce Glink Show Notes - February 7, 2010 - Stock Market Update, Unemployment Update, How to Invest In 2010 Discount LAST WEEK. Stock market was down for the week, and down 7 percent from the high in January. The President submitted a budget for $3.8 trillion that provides some cuts but portends a huge deficit. Nine million housing units are for sale, out of about 130 million total. Those numbers mean home values will probably decline again. FREE BOOKS AND EBOOK DEALS. Last week for the 50% discount to the HOW TO INVEST YOUR MONEY IN 2010 Event/Atlanta. For more show notes and helpful links, visit Ilyce's blog. Listen to the show here or download from iTunes. Tune in live Sundays at wsbradio.com

Whey you go out and buy real estate, you should make sure you understand the process of buying a home and surround yourself with a competent real estate attorney, real estate agent and mortgage broker or lender. You should do that and more if you decide to move forward and buy a short sale home or even a foreclosed home. Now more than ever, buyers need to use caution before buying a home.
You might not think that you need an attorney for the purchase or title insurance or a real estate broker, but if you don't know what you are doing, you might pay dearly.

$8000 First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit Has Time Restrictions
If you're looking to take advantage of the $8000 first time home buyer tax credit or the $6500 long term (move up) (repeat) home buyer tax credit, you'd better hurry. You have to have a contract signed in hand soon and you must close on the home by June 30, 2010. You also must meet the income restrictions of the tax credit and other requirements, including that the new home purchased must be used as your primary residence. If you purchase the home and rent it out, you may have trouble qualifying for the tax credit.

The real estate market is in such flux, that several years ago home buyers would never consider walking away from their obligations and walking away from a mortgage. However, times have changed and more and more home owners see less of a stigma attached to walking away from a mortgage. As falling home prices have decimated the real estate market in some parts of the country, people view the ability to walk away from a mortgage as another option along with bankruptcy, negotiating for a loan modification and refinancing a loan. Years ago, people viewed bankruptcy as a morally bad thing to do. But with more and more people suffering in this recession, walking away from a mortgage is seen more as somewhat unusual but not necessary as a morally bad thing to do.

When a loan servicing company goes out of business, you would think that the troubles would be over for those borrowers that had been dealing with that lender. Think again. Taylor Bean and Whitaker Mortgage Company went out of business last summer. Their customers are still feeling the pain. They may have new loan servicing companies, but the new loan servicing companies won't honor the amounts these borrowers paid TBW in their escrow accounts. You would think that escrow accounts (money held by a lender in trust on behalf of their borrowers) for the payment of real estate taxes and insurance premiums would be safe. But those accounts are frozen. You'd think that the federal government would have a law on the books that forces lenders to keep those accounts safe and segregated and readily available to transfer from one lender to another. And yet, months after TBW's bankruptcy, customers are still waiting for money, answers and are suffering with increased payments to their new loan servicers.