A mortgage broker is a certified professional who gets the best mortgage terms for you by contacting a network of lenders which include major banks, credit unions and finance companies. This stable of lenders provides brokers with a certain amount of interest on a daily basis. There are some benefits of using a mortgage broker than doing the whole process on your own. The benefits are as follows: Read the rest of this entry »

Title: Investing is Like Riding a Bike
Article: What do walking, riding a bike, and investing in real estate have in common? All of them follow the general rule that doing something new for the first time can be quite challenging. Once you overcome those first time challenges with walking and riding a bike, your muscle memory takes over and you will not forget how to use your new skills. Unfortunately, the challenges with real estate can not be so easily memorized. Economics, market cycles, trends, just to name a few factors, all change on a continuous basis. This means that first time investors as well as seasoned investors have challenges that they must face. The good news is that challenges can be overcome, and once the challenges are managed, there is great reward for your efforts.
Read the rest of this entry »

To better understand the current real estate bubble, we need to examine how the real estate market works, not only in the United States, but in other countries around the world. Since 2005, real estate bubbles have existed in the United States, and also in Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, South Africa, Israel, Greece, Russia, and China, to just name a few. In 2005, the Economist Magazine stated that “the world wide rise in house prices is the biggest bubble in history”.

A real estate bubble exists when property values increase rapidly and reach levels that are unsustainable, given the economic conditions that exist at the time. Unfortunately, the fact that a real estate bubble even exists is not identifiable until the market correction begins. Property values rise, and when the market begins dropping, the bubble “bursts”. Unlike a stock market crash following a bubble, a real estate crash and recovery is a slower process because it is not as liquid as the stock market.
Read the rest of this entry »