chrisgriffith on June 16th, 2010

Selling Florida real estate for sale by owner to unqualified buyers.

Continue reading about Home Buyers Vs. Home Dreamers

chrisgriffith on May 17th, 2010

Coughing Up Info Before The Real Estate Hunt What do you have to divulge before you buy real estate?  The short version is “it depends”.  The longer version comes after you decided what you’re thinking about budgeting for your real estate and how you’re going to pay for the real estate. It really doesn’t matter [...]

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chrisgriffith on February 17th, 2010

Taking Mortgage Broker Recommendations There’s a big difference between inexpensive and a good value where home loans are concerned. Throw in a few dozen flashy ads with teaser interest rates and all the magic the loan officer promises to work for you and let the mortgage cyclone begin. Getting a mortgage is unsettling for some [...]

Continue reading about Time Zones, Online Mortgages and Russian Roulette

chrisgriffith on February 3rd, 2010

Pros and Cons of a Bi-Weekly Mortgage Program When a borrower enters into a contract to make bi-weekly payments on their mortgage, the amortization schedule is accelerated. For example, with a 30-year amortization schedule, the borrower makes 12 payments per year. In a bi-weekly arrangement, the borrower makes 26 ‘half’ payments, which allows the loan [...]

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chrisgriffith on January 29th, 2010

The Low Interest Rates Won’t Last Forever To everyone’s great relief, fixed mortgage rates have been extraordinarily low for the last year averaging between 4.75% – 5.25%.  However, perhaps you remember the summer of 2008?  Gas prices crested $4/gal, inflation was all the rage and home buyers were snapping up 6.5% mortgage rates like they [...]

Continue reading about The Dollars and Cents of a Great Interest Rate

chrisgriffith on January 15th, 2010

A Brief but Passionate Affair This was almost the mailbox to a first time home buyer in the Bonita Springs-Estero area.  Some houses just have a few issues that pop up that push them outside of budgeted repairs or even insurance guidelines or lately, mortgage guidelines.  Anything can pop up during the home inspection.  That’s [...]

Continue reading about The First Time Home Buyer’s Almost Mailbox | The Mailbox Series

chrisgriffith on January 7th, 2010

Know Your Credit Score In the past, it wasn’t out of the question to obtain a mortgage with a FICO score in the low 500 range. In fact, if you were willing to accept the payment, you could even do so with little money down. Today, however, if you have a low FICO score, you [...]

Continue reading about Your Credit Score and Your Mortgage

chrisgriffith on December 16th, 2009

Kinda Makes Me Want To Pull The Fire Alarm A buyer recently asked me if there is anything that I can do to speed up the short sale process. Why funny that they asked on the heels of the shiny, new and improved rules that that have just been formed to streamline the short sale [...]

Continue reading about New Short Sale Real Estate Guidelines – We’re Saved!

chrisgriffith on December 4th, 2009

Mortgage Rates Hit All-Time Low Levels Again! In case you haven’t caught the news, home loan rates have done it again, dropping to their lowest level…ever. Not only has the 30 Year Fixed rate returned to its lowest all time level, rates across the board are at their lowest levels.   Yes, that means, go [...]

Continue reading about The Time Financing a Florida Home Couldn’t Be Better

chrisgriffith on November 3rd, 2009

First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit Expires Soon Attention potential First-Time Home Buyers!!!  You have less than four weeks to close on your new home to get the $8,000 tax credit.  Do not rely on an extension with possible additional benefits.  Take what you know you can get now.  Not what you could or could [...]

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chrisgriffith on October 28th, 2009

Foreclosure by Choice When did the mentality about walking away from the obligation of a home change? Maybe the change started when the possibility of owning a home was made so easy that anyone with a pulse and a blue ink pen could qualify for a loan. Home ownership was no longer a challenge for [...]

Continue reading about Strategic Default – Walking Away From The Debt

chrisgriffith on October 26th, 2009

The Haunted Halloween Mortgage Rates Report The 4% rates have come back to haunt us this week. Or is that taunt us? For almost one week, the rates were in the 5% range. However, with a last minute inter-day rate change, an eerie ghost appeared on my rate sheet. I quickly snapped this photo of [...]

Continue reading about Bonita Springs Florida Monday Mortgage Report 10-26-2009

chrisgriffith on October 19th, 2009

There’s no place like 4%, There’s no place like 4% It appears as though potential home owners had their house land on the higher rates of 5% and reward them with some red ruby slippers to wish rates back down into the 4% range. But you better hurry and take advantage of the minor dip [...]

Continue reading about Bonita Springs Florida Monday Mortgage Report 10-19-2009

chrisgriffith on October 12th, 2009

Don’t Think We’re in the 4′s Anymore Toto Over the weekend a major tornado wreaked havoc on the mortgage industry. Analysts are certain of the cause, but while siphoning through the damage, on thing is certain. 4% interest rates have disappeared from this realm of reality. While we can only hope that these rates find [...]

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Financing after bankruptcy, foreclosure, short sale, deed-in-lieu

Continue reading about Credit and Purchasing Real Estate After Foreclosure, Bankruptcy, Short Sale