QuickTips Index
Real Estate Agents & REALTORS® - What is a REALTOR?
The differences between real estate agents and REALTORS. What sets real estate agents apart from REALTORS.
Counter Offers - All About Real Estate Counter Offers
What are real estate counter offers and how many times do sellers and home buyers bicker back and forth? How are counter offers rejected and accepted? What are normal procedures for counter offers and multiple counters?
Open Houses - How to Hold a Successful Open House
Selling houses at an open house. Here's how to host a successful open house and sell that house. Not all homes are candidates for holding open and why.
10 Tips For Buying a Home Pets Will Love
Guidelines to use before buying homes where pets will live. Home shopping with pets in mind. How to buy a home your pets will love.
Refinance Home Loans
Tips to consider before doing a mortgage loan refinance. How to recoup mortgage loan refinance costs, comparing rolling costs into the loan and scrutinizing amortization periods to accelerate loan payoffs. The drawbacks to refinancing that a lender won't tell you.
FHA Loans - Reasons Home Buyers Love FHA Loans
FHA Loans are rebounding with home buyers. Find out why FHA loans are popular for first-time home buyers and the benefits to obtaining an FHA loan.
Buying Homes With Swimming Pools
Pros and cons to owning homes with swimming pools. Types of pool construction. Whether swimming pools add or detract from the market value of a home.
Should You Tell Your Buyer's Agent the Highest Price You Will Pay?
How much should you tell your buyer's agent? Information you may want to keep a secret from your buyer's agent, especially when it concerns the highest price you will pay for a home.
Are You Ready to Make a Purchase Offer?
Making a purchase offer and buying a home are two different things. How to tell if you're ready to make a purchase offer on a home for sale. Tips for home buyers on dealing with the emotional tug and pull over deciding to make a purchase offer.
Comparing Short Sale Benefits to Foreclosure
Reasons to choose a short sale instead of a foreclosure. Differences between short sales and foreclosures and why a short sale could be preferable to foreclosure.
The Importance of For Sale Signs in the Yard
How important is a For Sale Sign in your yard? How more than one For Sale Sign can cause confusion. The quality of yard For Sale Signs.
Home Sellers Without Equity Pay to Sell
Why home sellers might pay to close. Bringing money to the table to close a real estate deal. How common is it that sellers have to kick in money to sell a home?
Home Losses on a Personal Residence
How to write off a home loss on your personal residence by turning it into a rental. IRS guidelines and expert tax advice about deducting home losses from your tax return.
Releasing Buyer Contingencies
Purchase offer contingencies and how to release contingencies. What happens if contingencies are not released. Types of contingencies, how sellers request releases and consequences of refusal.
How Canceled Debt on a Short Sale Might Result in a Tax Liability
How some short sale sellers can end up paying taxes on canceled debt. Plain-language advice for owners doing a short sale on how to sidestep pitfalls and taxation from canceled debt or forgiven debt.
Foreclosure and Short Sale Taxes - Home Sellers Might Owe the IRS
Home sellers' tax obligations on foreclosures and short sales. Distressed sale tax consequences. Sellers might owe taxes even when taking a loss and letting homes go into foreclosure or selling on a short sale.
Fluffery of Agents
Fluffery used by agents and how to size up potential agents you may want to hire as your real estate agent. The marketing material agents use can tell you a lot about that agent.
Stopping Trigger Leads - How Mortgage Loan Applications Result in Trigger Leads
Stopping trigger leads. How mortgage loan applications result in trigger leads. Preventing credit bureaus from exploiting your credit through trigger lead phone calls and direct mail solicitation.
Who Profits From Short Sales
Who wins on a short sale? Do sellers benefit from selling homes on short sales? Who profits from short sales? Are short sales better than foreclosures for a seller?
Expired Real Estate Listings
Why listings expire. How to handle an expired listing. Options for sellers of expired listings. Should you relist with the same agent after your listing has expired?
How to Make Lowball Offers
How to make a lowball offer that is not insulting to the seller. Tips on getting lowball offers accepted.
Garage Trends and Garage Remodels
Garages are back in favor. Home buyers demand functional garages and garage organization kits / extra storage space. How to fix-up your garage. New garage design ideas.
Mortgage Brokers and Fiduciary Relationships
Relationships between mortgage brokers, loan officers and borrowers. Why many mortgage brokers have no fiduciary relationship to a borrower, do not need to look out for the borrower's best interests and can serve a mortgage broker's own interest.
Short Sale Offer Tips
How to make a short sale offer. Ways to write that short sale offer that will encourage the seller to accept it and the bank to issue short sale approval. 10 short sale offer tips.
Using Land Contracts on Homes For Sale
How to sell your home on a land contract. Tips for putting your home up for sale on a land contract; negotiating land contract terms, protecting seller's rights under a land contract and making your land contract saleable on the secondary market.