Home Repairs: Do It Yourself or Hire Help? Spring is here, and so is the time to make all those home repairs you have been putting off all winter. But do you do the repairs yourself or hire a contractor? There are pros and cons to each option. Minor repairs, like painting trim and getting [...]
Can I Save My Home From Foreclosure? By Ilyce Glink I’ve been traveling across the country this month, speaking to hundreds of employees about financial wellness. The speech is called “Everyday Money,” because I believe it’s the basic choices you make every day with your money that will determine whether you have enough or not [...]
What’s Going On with Foreclosures? By Ilyce Glink A recently published RE/MAX survey of fifty-four major markets found that national home prices are down an average of 5.9 percent, compared with February 2010. This steep decline suggests a couple of things about the greater housing market, as well as the expected shape of the ongoing [...]
Foreclosure Guidelines: OCC Takes Action By Ilyce Glink The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency announced this month that it has determined a mandatory course of enforcement actions against eight high-profile mortgage servicers, including lending giants Bank of America, Citibank, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo. Unlike the loan modification programs, the banks do not [...]
Real Estate Investing: How to Handle Nightmare Tenants By Sam Tamkin “There’s a beeping sound in the home that’s driving me crazy. Can you come fix it?” When I heard those words, I knew I had a tenant who did not know the basics of home maintenance. In this case, the smoke detector needed a [...]
Spring-Cleaning and Home-Maintenance Checklist By Sam Tamkin Spring is here, and that means it’s spring cleanup time. Making a list of all the things to clean and repair or maintain can be daunting, so I use a spring-cleaning and home-maintenance checklist to make my job easier. The first thing I do is walk around my [...]
Spring Home-Maintenance Tips: Keep Your Home in Top Shape Even If You’re Not Selling By Sam Tamkin During these uncertain real estate market times, even if you’re not selling your home you should keep it in good shape. Here are some spring home-maintenance tips: Fix the exterior of your home. Walk the exterior of your [...]
Let’s start with the experts. Every month for six months a panel of 111 leading housing economists, real estate experts, and investment and market strategists assembled by Robert Shiller, the man who called it right on the housing bubble, has grown more pessimistic. In March, their consensus hit a new low. They see only a [...]
Spring Housing Market: 8 Tips For A Successful FSBO If you’re like me, Spring just can’t get here soon enough. We started counting the days until Spring January first, and it’s finally here. Although the Spring housing market typically starts January 2nd, the years since the housing market crash have been a little different. This [...]
Consider A Lease With An Option To Buy When You Can’t Sell Your Home By Ilyce R. Glink These days, I’m hearing from plenty of homeowners who want to be home sellers, but simply can’t sell. Either there are so many foreclosures in the neighborhood that their homes are worth only a fraction of what [...]
