Get Pre-Approved For A Mortgage

1. Get pre approved for a mortgage. This is the first and most important thing any home buyer can do. Unless you are a cash buyer, neither you nor your Realtor can determine whether you can get a mortgage and if you can for how much. You are not ready to start looking at homes until you've done this. You can get recommendations on good local lenders from friends, family or your Realtor.

2. Be Realistic In Your Expectations

This is your first home not a showcase dream home and more important than glitz and glamor is location. Statistically you'll likely going to sell this home within the first 5-7 years of purchasing it and you'll want it sold as quickly and for as much as the market will bear when that time comes.…

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It’s a great question and one I hear all the time. There are many potential home buyers who are presently “waiting”. However more often than not, their waiting for the wrong things to happen and when those things do happen they’ll realize they missed the best deals.

I’ve been buying and selling real estate for nearly 35 years. I’ve been a full-time licensed real estate Broker for just over 20 years. I’ve been through Buyers, Sellers and neutral markets. I’ve had and worked with mortgages between 4% and 18%. I’ve made and lost money. In short I’ve seen a lot of markets, been through many real estate cycles and have gained the knowledge and perspective that only comes with time spent mastering whatever it is you do. It’s the main reason my clients hire…

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Sorry, this isn't about UNC Fraternities, Sororities, Undergrads, Medical Students or any thing else related to college life, it's about The Meat House; Chapel Hill's newest butcher shop catering to the area's lovers of fine foods.

I had a few spare moments yesterday and thought I'd stop in and check them out and will admit I was impressed. It's looks great, clean, contemporary and focused on customer service. The staff was friendly and the guys I spoke with behind the counter seemed to know their meat. The prices were pretty good for the quality of their products, certainly comparable to other higher end stores like Whole Foods, A Southern Season, Cliffs Meat Market and others. They had a nice selection of wines, spices, pastas and the usual upscale…

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Buyer broker I see and answer this basic question countless times on Zillow, Trulia and other real estate websites that are a daily part of my business, and I guess what surprises me the most is just how often these questions are posted by homebuyers. What's obvious to me is apparently not so obvious to all.

Be Weary Of Dual Agencies

Homebuyers do you honestly believe that one agent will do a great job getting you, the best possible terms and prices while at the same time their getting their Seller the same?

Dual Agency is designed to end run Buyer Agency and was bought about by pressure by state Realtors specifically for one purpose; to keep all the commission with one agent in complete and utter disregard for the contractual obligations made to their buyer…

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Real estate investments I feel like the William Tell Overture should be blasting over my sound system as I look at the cover of this months Fortune Magazine trumpeting the return of real estate. Forget stocks, forget gold, and put your money where it's bound to grow over time good old real estate.

You can read the entire article for yourself, but honestly this comes as no real news to me, it simply mirrors what I've long been saying, as long as population continues to rise, there will always be a demand for real estate.

Real Estate Is Still A Top Investment Choice

It's simple, most of the planets land is either uninhabitable or undesirable, leaving a limited supply of places people can and want to live. If you don't believe me go online and take a look at some US…

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Those of you who track me on Facebook saw the following posting earlier this week, you might have noticed this:

Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in TARP money, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes? Yeah, me neither.

It was prompted by some of this weeks real estate news.

Just two weeks ago CBS featured a scathing expose on the foreclosure fraud being perpetrated by the nations banks on 60 Minutes.

This week the bipartisan Senate Committee of Investigations released the results of two years worth of work squarely laying the blame for the majority of the financial problems on Goldman-…

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It's been too long since I've last written, I wanted to write more, thought about it guiltily, and there was plenty to write about but there are times when the demands of my job consume nearly every available bit of time I have and 2011 has demanded my complete attention.

I've enjoyed an unprecedented run of great clients, bringing on dozens of new buyers and sellers since the start of the year. Several of my listings are under contract and have or will close in the next thirty days, and I've got 8 of my buyers already closed or scheduled to close.

One of the things I most enjoy about my work is the people I get to meet, their all different and all respond differently during the negotiation process. It keeps things interesting and leads me to all…

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Having worked as long as I have as a Realtor; I often forget that most people don't know as much as I do about real estate and how it works until I speak with people and quickly realize they really don't understand even the most basic things such as what the job of a real estate agent or broker is, why they should want an agent who is exclusively looking out for them and why the last thing they should accept is an agent who wants to work both sides of a transaction. It doesn't help that despite the protestations to the contrary, that the majority of agents with the blessing of their State Real Estate Commissions, absolutely want to have their Buyer clients purchase their listings and allow them to “represent” both sides. (This is known as Dual Agency)

…

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Trulia.com one of the nations largest real estate web sites released their most recent quarterly report on the relative value of renting versus buying in the fifty largest cities in the United States. Here's a link to Trulia's Rent vs. Buy report.

In general they found when comparing rental prices to purchase prices on comparable 2 bedroom units that in fully 72% of the urban areas they looked at that it was highly likely to make more financial sense to buy rather than rent. In 8% of the cities they looked at it still made more sense to rent rather than buy and in the remaining 20% it was neutral. In other words not sure what you'll be doing or where you be in the next five years you'd be better of renting, thinking you'll be in the same place with a…

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I cannot begin to count the number of times I’ve had conversations with clients and customers about property tax values, both here in Chapel Hill and Durham as well as in Vermont where I worked prior to relocating here to North Carolina almost 7 years ago. Most property owners think their tax valuation is too high, though I’ve gotten calls from many through the years who actually were concerned that a new valuation was too low. The common factor in each instance was that the property owner didn’t understand why focusing on the tax value was as unproductive as trying to pick the right card in a Three-Card Monte game. They were trying to focus on one card and while not paying attention to the other two. Most homeowners tend to focus exclusively on their…

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