Sometimes, trying to avoid the worst day to buy a home is simply impossible.

Home buyers don't set out, as an ordinary rule, to buy a home on the worst day. Much of the time it's bad luck that lands them in that predicament. If buyers could pick the best day, it would be when nobody else is closing on a home, and that's not the worst day, by any stretch.

For some reason, and maybe it's just my bad timing, I manage to buy homes in the fall, either when it's snowing or raining cats and dogs. This means when I'm moving, I'm typically soaked to the bone by the elements. As I slosh through rain puddles, you might hear me mutter that this is the worst day to buy a home, but that's just me grumbling.

What would be worse is if I never closed at all . . . read more about Worst Day to Buy a Home.

More Articles by Elizabeth Weintraub:

• Before Buying Your First Home
  
• The Best Day to Buy a Home
  
• Location, Location, Location

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_{At the time of writing, Elizabeth Weintraub, DRE # 00697006, is a Broker-Associate at Lyon Real Estate in Sacramento, California.}

It won't go away. Jingle mail is a lingering phenomena in the United States, which is a direct result of the foreclosure crisis.

Some home owners, terrified of pending foreclosure, decide to mail their house keys to the lender and move out. They call it "jingle mail" because the keys make a jingle-bell sound when picking up the key-stuffed envelope. The term has become a euphemism for walking away from your home. I imagine most buyers would tape the keys to a card -- providing they possess a bit of common sense -- so the keys don't really jingle.

Here are a few questions you might want to ask yourself. How do you know that the lender will actually receive the keys or even wants the keys? And why would an owner move out while the home is in foreclosure? Typically, owners can stay in the home, payment free, until the lender evicts them. Eviction happens after the foreclosure is final and could take anywhere from three months to a year, depending on the way foreclosures are handled in your state . . . read more about Jingle Mail.

More Articles by Elizabeth Weintraub, click below:

• How Foreclosures Work
  
• Three Stages of Foreclosure
  
• Ways to Stop Foreclosure

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_{At the time of writing, Elizabeth Weintraub, DRE # 00697006, is a Broker-Associate at Lyon Real Estate in Sacramento, California.}

Buying a home in a seller's market is a lot tougher than buying a home in a buyer's market. It might seem to many home buyers across the country that the market has turned on a dime. One day they are reading about falling prices and a depressed real estate market, the next, multiple offers.

What happened and why is not as important if you are a home buyer trying to buy a home. How you will compete in a seller's market with all of those other buyers is a much higher concern. Because if you can't compete, you might not buy a home. Read more about buying a home in a seller's market.

More Articles by Elizabeth Weintraub:

• What is a Back Up Offer?
  
• How Many Short Sale Offers Can a Seller Accept?
  
• Winning in a Multiple Offer Situation

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_{At the time of writing, Elizabeth Weintraub, DRE # 00697006, is a Broker-Associate at Lyon Real Estate in Sacramento, California.}

It's not true that Fed cuts reduce mortgage rates, regardless of how many times you hear it, says my personal expert, mortgage broker Dan Tharp.

According to Mr. Tharp, when the Federal Reserve Bank announces a big reduction in rates, say, 50 basis points or more, that action can actually cause 30-year-fixed rates to initially go up. That's because mortgage rates aren't tied to T-bills, like many people erroneously believe.

Trying to predict which way mortgage rates will move, though, is a little bit like throwing darts at a moving target board. The lenders I work with often tell me that rates can fluctuate wildly throughout the day. Rates can be up in the morning, drop over lunch and go back up within a course of a few hours.

Agents and lenders advise buyers to lock a loan rate when rates appear attractive. But the thing in the back of every buyer's mind is what if rates go down? That's a big consideration. But what if rates go up? What could cause rates to go up? Many real estate professionals, including some loan reps, do not fully comprehend how mortgage rates are determined and how Fed cuts affect mortgage rates. There's a myth perpetrated within the industry that rates always go down following a Fed cut . . . read more about Fed Cuts Affect on Mortgage Rates.

More Articles by Elizabeth Weintraub, click below:

• How to Stop Trigger Leads
  
• Places to Get a Mortgage
  
• The Best Time to Lock a Loan

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_{At the time of writing, Elizabeth Weintraub, DRE # 00697006, is a Broker-Associate at Lyon Real Estate in Sacramento, California.}