Planning to Buy Your First Home Someone asked me the other day when people should start planning for buying their first home. I replied that 8th grade would not be too early for a class in home ownership – I was only sort of joking. When you go to buy your first home, you’ll find...
Getting a Mortgage 1 Year After BK or Foreclosure
An old client contacted me yesterday worried that she would not be able to get a mortgage to buy a home. Her loan had gone into default a couple of years ago and a Notice of Default – the first step in the mortgage process – had been filed. To your credit report, this is...
19 Things a New Homeowner Should Do Immediately to Save Money
by Trent Hamn 19 Things to Do Immediately to Reduce Your Home Energy and Maintenance Costs 1. Check the insulation in your attic – and install more if needed. If you have an unfinished attic, pop your head up there and take a look around. You should see insulation up there between the beams, and...
Don’t overlook this when calculating mortgage refinance savings
by Aaron Crowe Determining if refinancing a mortgage is right for you is relatively easy. If you’re going to stay in your home for awhile and can get a mortgage rate lower than your existing rate that drops your monthly payment, then it’s probably worth doing. One of the many online mortgage calculators will quickly...
Welcome to my Loan Guide Blog
Welcome to my blog. I am a working mortgage advisor in California, and author of the well-reviewed book The Loan Guide: How to Get the Best Possible Mortgage. (Available on Amazon) I am often contacted as a subject-matter expert and have been quoted in Money.com, Yahoo Finance, U.S. News and World Report, Realtor.com, USA Today,...
The Next Housing Crisis?
More and more of my clients are asking me “Are we at the top of the market?” It’s a good question. An even better question is why they think I would know any better than any schmo on the street, but we’ll set that aside for the moment. Last year I wrote an article titled...