Buying Timeshares

Daily Real Estate News  |  April 23, 2008

4 Things to Consider Before Buying a Timeshare

Who doesn’t want their own little slice of paradise? With the real estate market moving slow, some buyers may be looking more seriously at vacation timeshares. Here’s some advice for potential buyers, according to certified financial planner John Gin :

• Consider the extra costs. The purchase price is only part of the equation. What will it cost to maintain the property? What are the property taxes? How much will it cost you to travel to that destination?

• Is it a good market for renters? Find out if there’s potential to generate rental income during parts of the year when you don’t use your property. You need to investigate and possibly be willing to set up rental arrangements.

• Potential retirement spot. Does the home have potential as a place you’d want to retire? Retirement can have a big impact on your investment decision, and give you more leeway in terms of your options. The most important factor is to know this is a location you are comfortable spending most or all of your time when retirement comes.

• Avoid snap decisions. Weigh your options and read over all documents carefully before signing anything that commits you to a purchase. A financial adviser may be able to help identify a plan to buying a timeshare or vacation property.

Source: The Times-Picayune (04/22/0

FDIC Warns Of Loan Practices, Housing Outlook

DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
April 16, 2008 10:00 a.m.

 

 

   By Michael R. Crittenden

   Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

 

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)–The same non-bank lenders who played a major role in creating the recent housing bubble may be returning to the market, a top bank regulator said Wednesday.

A Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. official told the Senate Banking Committee that recent cuts in interest rates have been accompanied by advertisements for “teaser” rates, no-documentation and no-money-down loans, and other misleading comments from lenders not overseen by federal regulators.

“We would emphasize that there is a particular urgency for Congress to act on legislation to establish national licensing standards for non-bank mortgage participants,” Arthur Murton, director of the FDIC’s division of insurance and research, said in his prepared remarks.

Murton, who is scheduled to testify on a Senate proposal to aid struggling borrowers using the Federal Housing Administration, also said the housing market is showing continued signs of weakness. Adjustable-rate loans are falling delinquent before their interest rates reset at much higher than expected numbers, he said.

Additionally, Murton said that “unaffordable resets” for Alt-A loans, which generally fall between prime and subprime mortgages, “have begun in earnest, and will continue to rise into 2009.”

Murton also contended that voluntary efforts by banks and other lenders are not enough to stem the record tide of home foreclosures.

“It must be acknowledged that the pace has not been sufficient to achieve the scale necessary to contain broader harm to communities and our economy,” Murton said.

 

-By Michael R. Crittenden, Dow Jones Newswires;               202-862-9273       ; michael.crittenden@dowjones.

Buying and Selling today!

Daily Real Estate News  |  April 16, 2008

Why Selling Now Makes Sense

Home owners who are reluctant to sell because prices have fallen, should do the math, and realize that the market downturn could work in their favor, say practitioners in hard-hit, but still pricey Boston.

Their reasoning may work in many other parts of the country as well.

“People are finding houses at prices they thought they’d never see again,” says David W. O’Neil of Century 21 Spindler & O’Neil Associates in suburban Boston.

O’Neil points out to potential sellers that if the house a buyer covets used to be $500,000 but its price has fallen 20 percent to $400,000, it is a deal, even if the buyer’s own home also has lost 20 percent of its value.

In general, the toughest sell is people who bought about four years ago at the height of the market, says Zur Attias of The Attias Group at Barrett & Co. in Concord, Mass. But even for these home owners, selling now may make sense as long as they can at least break even.

He argues that almost everyone forgoes something, and probably several things, that he or she wanted when buying a house. For instance, the home may be in the right school district, but on a busy street. Or it may in a great neighborhood, but it’s a Cape, not a Colonial. These are things Attias calls “unchangeables.”

He says it’s a good time to sell if a seller can get rid of the most negative unchangeables in his current home, and replace them with better unchangeables in a new home. Once the market really turns around, the growth will be bigger in the better house, he predicts.

Source: The Boston Globe, Vanessa Parks and Jonathan Wiggs (04/13/200

Residential Wind Turbines

Daily Real Estate News  |  April 16, 2008Residential Wind Turbines Catching On

The next big thing among eco-minded consumers is the personal wind turbine.

An increasing number of home owners, especially in northern California and the Northeast, are attracted to wind turbines, which generate electricity —sometimes nearly enough to power an entire house. The technologically-sophisticated systems are expensive, but state tax incentives and laws that require utilities to buy excess power from residential turbines at retail rather than wholesale prices are making them more cost-effective.

”Back in the early days, off-grid electrical generation was pursued mostly by hippies and rednecks, usually in isolated, rural areas,” says Joe Schwartz, editor of Home Power magazine. ”Now, it’s a lot more mainstream.”

In some places, the neighbors aren’t too thrilled, Schwartz says. ”In urban and suburban areas, neighbors are never happy to see a 60- to 120-foot tower going up across the street.”

Source: The New York Times, John Casey (04/15/200