Web Wealth
Real estate is no easy game, as "underwater" homeowners have found in recent years. You need your wits about you, and these sites help you do that with plain language and suggestions.
Real estate is no easy game, as "underwater" homeowners have found in recent years. You need your wits about you, and these sites help you do that with plain language and suggestions.
The home-buying page at realestateabc.com notes some ways that a real estate shopper can be tripped without warning. For example, in this age of tightened mortgage requirements, it says, don't buy a car just before you begin hunting for a house. Car-loan payments could spoil your debt-to-income ratio. In fact, you probably shouldn't make any major purchases that increase debt. And don't shuffle your money around. Lenders watch for fraud, and money moving from account to account is a red flag.
www.realestateabc.com/homebuying
A calculator placed high on the realestateabc.com home page lets you enter your address and get a rough guide to its value, based on other recent sales in your neighborhood.
If you think FDR refers to a dead president, or that "in-law potential" is a way of thinking positively about your boyfriend's parents, you need to review Realtor.com's "short guide to real estate lingo and acronyms." That's where FDR is code for "formal dining room" and "in-law potential" refers to a part of a house that might serve as a separate apartment.
The Dummies.com page on real estate investing gives a broad look at ways to invest in real estate - basically, in rental properties - in a down market, how to find good tenants and collect rents. There's a handy "cheat sheet" that comes from the second edition of the book, Real Estate Investing for Dummies.
Nolo.com, a website of legal information, includes this section on real estate, with articles for buyers, sellers, landlords, and renters. For buyers, the first issue is to be sure "you wouldn't be better off staying put." Toward the bottom of the page, click on "Foreclosure" to get to posts that sort out the complicated process of losing a home to foreclosure, or of buying foreclosed properties.