Motivated Buyers In my post, “Labor Day Weekend Traffic,” I offered up the (Realtor) conventional wisdom about open houses during holiday weekends and other traditionally slow periods. Namely, that such open houses often make up in quality what they lack in quantity. So who came through my Golden Valley open house today? –A “downsizer” who...Read More
Stuck in Place A healthy housing market functions like a gigantic escalator. The bottom rungs are occupied by first-time Buyers. As they purchase entry-level homes, the Sellers of those homes (“Move-up Buyers”) typically buy larger homes, enabling Sellers of those homes to buy even bigger homes. And so on, and so on. One of the...Read More
Next Big Thing: Reverse Mortgages Take 80 million Baby Boomers fast closing in on retirement age, many of whom (still) have lots accumulated equity in their now too-big homes, and what do you get? A vast potential market for something called a reverse mortgage. Like its name suggests, in a reverse mortgage, the lender pays...Read More
Reverse Mortgages Gain in Popularity So, after all the fiascoes with subprime mortgages and lax underwriting standards (if you can call them that), “no doc” loans are a thing of the past, right? For the most part. However, there’s still a niche of the market where lenders are approving borrowers with virtually no paperwork: reverse...Read More
