How to Pay off your House ASAP (It's so simple)

Should you prepay your mortgage?

Should You Pay Off Your Mortgage Early?

Pay a little more each month. You can get all the benefits of an early payoff without the extra costs of a refinance by paying more each month. Divide your monthly principal and interest by 12 and add that amount to your monthly payment for a year.

In other words, you wouldn’t want to pay down a mortgage at 4% APR when you can earn a greater return by investing in stocks and bonds through a brokerage account or bumping up your retirement contributions. Add in the home mortgage interest deduction you can take on your federal taxes and, they say, you would be silly to prepay your mortgage and miss out on those perks.

When it comes to people who see the mortgage prepayment issue in black and white, the question is just about math. After all, why would you prepay a loan at 3% or 4% and lose out on part of a valuable tax deduction when you could invest that money instead and earn considerably more.

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How important is open house - How often - What time limit?

Pro

Open houses are a great way to get buyers through your home. You never know when the right person is going to walk through the door and fall in love with your home. Your neighbors will more than likely stop in and they are a great source of word of mouth advertising. It's worth the inconvenience of having to be gone for a couple of hours!

I send out a list of open houses in the MLS to the buyers that I am working with each Friday. I've sold several homes to buyers that have seen them at an open house.

Once every 30 to 45 days works well for me and hold them open from 1 to 3

Con
Open houses are successful only in certain markets. For example, San Francisco buyers know that the open house is their best ticket into homes. In places like St. Louis, Nashville and Charlotte, an open house is a way for an agent to generate buyers for other homes and allow for the neighbors to see the house. Nationally, less than 0.05% of all homes are sold at open houses. If you don't mind holding your home open for people to come through and your agent is willing to conduct them, go for it. It doesn't hurt. However, statistics say, it just doesn't help.

The most important part of selling your home is pricing right and having it in the best condition for the price point. The most important promotion of the home is a strong web presence with impressive visuals, solid copy and transparent information. Homebuyers are using the internet in their home search. In my opinion, forget the open house and strive for strong internet presence.

Personally, I think that open houses are very helpful in exposing the property to potential buyers when they are not with their agents. In the past year, we have had 3 properties sold to individuals that came through the open house, whether sent there by there agent, found on the internet, or following signs. That's enough proof for me.

As with most things in real estate, there are caveats. At the high end, you tend to get more Walk-ins who have always wanted to go inside a house like that, but that comes with the territory. We do our opens from 1-4PM on Sundays, just don't make it too long. It's better to have several groups in the property at once, bumping into each other, which better creates a sense of desirability and urgency. If you have someone linger in the home for 30+ minutes and no one else comes in, it plants the seed of doubt in their mind.

Just our thoughts, hope they help

The property can be yours for $5.595 million.

The well-maintained estate was built for Fletcher Dobyns, a critic and writer, and his wife Winifred Starr Dobyns, a landscape architect who authored books on the subject.

The property sits on almost an acre of land dotted with mature trees and gardens. Loggias and covered patios offer great posts from which to enjoy the landscape.

The cost of renting in LA

 

If you're apartment hunting, you know how hard it can be to find a quality option for a reasonable price. So what does the low-end rent on a rental in Los Angeles look like these days--and what might you get for the price.

The rental database finds that the median price for a two-bedroom apartment in the city of LA is $1,730—unchanged in the last two months. The price of a one-bedroom did rise a bit in February; it’s now $1,350, a $10 bump over the month before.

The general trend is still upward though. Prices are 3.8 percent higher now than they were one year ago.

Need a budget-friendly new spot? Though apartment hunting can be challenging, don't despair just yet--there are deals to be had. So what does the low-end pricing on a rental in Los Angeles look like these days--and what might you get for your money?

We took a look at local listings for studios and 1-bedroom apartments in Los Angeles via rental site Zumper to find out what budget-minded apartment seekers can expect to find.

New plans to reshape the LA River, from Vernon to Long Beach

 

The plans unveiled a week ago call for 146 individual projects in and around the river, including new trails, parks, crossings, and more. Among those proposals are seven “signature projects” that have been analyzed in greater detail. They include:

• Development of new green space, public art displays, and affordable housing around Cudahy Park
• Addition of park space, trails, and a dirt bike facility around the Atlantic Boulevard crossing in Vernon
• A trio of park-topped bridges, new landscaping, and a band shell at the Rio Hondo confluence in the city of South Gate
• Floating boardwalks above the soft-bottomed portion of the river that flows through Long Beach and new access to the levee at Willow Street
• Pathways, recreation areas, and links to existing bike trails at the stretch of river between Greenleaf and Del Amo boulevards
• New crossings, rest areas, public art space, and a nature overlook at Compton Creek
• A new park, expanded wetlands, new stormwater capture facilities, and an amphitheater around Wrigley Heights in northern Long Beach

More broadly, the plans also call for greater access to the concrete channel itself, including the addition of terraced seating and ramps that would allow people to explore the riverbed in certain areas.

The working group has held dozens of public meetings and community events to discuss the project, but numbers reported in the draft plans suggest community awareness of the project may be low. Workshops, pop-up booths, and bike tours have drawn fewer than 800 residents and only 420 responses were recorded in an online survey about the project.

First Time Homebuyer 101: Everything You Need To Know

Are You Ready To Buy Your First Home?

Are you ready to purchase your first property? Do you want to start building equity? Whether you’re a beginner investor or first time home-buyer, follow along to determine if you are ready to make an offer today:

Why should intention matter in real estate? It's a material transaction, right? Bucks for bricks. And yet, what you're looking for in those bricks, what they mean to you, makes all the difference.

Ask yourself these 10 questions to discover whether or not you are ready to invest in you first home:

What is your current credit score?
What is the extent of your current debt?
Why do you want to become a homeowner?
How long do you plan to live in your new home?
How secure is your current income?
How do you plan to pay for home repairs and upkeep?
Have you visited your local mortgage banker? 
Do you have enough money to make a down payment?
What do you understand least about home ownership?
How do you feel about being a real home owner?

If you answered mostly Yes: Congratulations! It looks like you're ready to become a homeowner
Next steps: Create a list of must-haves for your new home. Find a realtor.  And Good luck!

If you answered mostly No: You're almost there. You need to become more financially prepared.
Next steps: Create a detailed savings plan. Set up a meeting with your bank to get a second opinion.

If you are still unsure. Strive to build proper finances and educate yourself on home ownership.
Next steps: Boost your credit score. Stabilize your budget. And commit to the basics.

When you're trying to take out a mortgage or obtain mortgage insurance, lenders consider what you've got and what you owe. They take into consideration your paystubs, your bank accounts, your holdings, everything. When it comes to deciding whether or not you're a good risk, though, they look not at your wealth but at your income, and they weigh that total against what you owe — including any student loans.

So even if you're making a lot, and even if you've saved a lot, and even if you've been diligently paying off your student loans every month, it might not matter. Your debt-to-income ratio — or all of your monthly payments on your debts divided by your gross monthly income — has to come in below 43 percent.

People will try to question every stage of your house-buying experience. Most of them aren't necessary. If you're willing to make a spreadsheet, do some research and attend a lot of open houses yourself, you don't have to assemble a whole team of experts just to make a purchase.

With a little preparation, and the willingness to learn from the mistakes of others, you probably can too.

Wells Fargo beat on its earnings, but missed ever so slightly on revenue for the first quarter of 2017

 

The bank reported earnings of $1.oo per share, higher than the $0.97 that analysts were expecting.
Additionally, the bank said it generated revenue of $22.0 billion, just below analysts' projections of $22.3 billion.
CFO John Shewsberry said in a press release accompanying earnings that the results were driven primarily by improved loan quality and a lower tax bill.
"Expenses were elevated compared with last quarter, driven by typically-higher first quarter personnel-related expenses," Shewsberry said. "Credit results improved, with lower net charge-offs and nonaccrual loans, and we benefited from lower income tax expense."
The bank said that consumer loans declined by $5.7 billion compared to the same quarter last year and commercial and industrial loans - essentially loans made to businesses - were down by $1.6 billion compared to the previous quarter, but were up $16.8 billion against the same quarter last year.
The bank also said there was a decline in outstanding credit for the month. This was partly due to seasonal effects, but also tightening credit standards in some areas.
"Period-end loan balances were $958.4 billion at March 31, 2017, down $9.2 billion from December 31, 2016, driven by a decline in credit card balances due to seasonality, a slowdown in new credit card account openings, and a continued decline in junior lien mortgage loans," said the bank's release. "In addition, there was an expected decline in auto loans from the fourth quarter as continued proactive steps to tighten underwriting standards resulted in lower origination volume."
The report follows a wild week for Wells Fargo.
On Tuesday, the board of directors released its investigation into the bank's fake accounts scandal. In September, it was revealed that Wells had settled with regulators after its employees in the retail banking segment had opened up as many as 2 million accounts for customers without their knowledge between 2011 and 2015. The scandal led to multiple congressional hearings and the resignation of former CEO John Stumpf.
The board determined that both Stumpf and former Community Banking head Carrie Tolstedt were responsible for not cracking down on the practice earlier, and the board said the scope of the practices most likely extended beyond 2011.
For his role in the fake accounts issue, the board clawed back another $28 million in compensation for Stumpf (in addition to the $41 million it had clawed back previously). Tolstedt was also retroactively fired and had $47.3 million clawed back.
Since the settlement with regulators was announced, the bank has seen a steep decline in new account openings. The bank said that new account openings declined by 35% in March from the same month last year, but were up 7% from February. Additionally, bank branch interactions were down from the year before.
New Wells CEO Tim Sloan tried to move forward from the scandal in the earnings press release, touting the release of the investigation as "valuable" to the bank.
"Wells Fargo continued to make meaningful progress in the first quarter in rebuilding trust with customers and other important stakeholders, while producing solid financial results," Sloan said. "We have taken significant actions throughout the company to date and we are committed to building a better bank as we move Wells Fargo forward."
Additionally, on Thursday, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway announced it was selling a total of 9 million shares of Wells Fargo to duck under regulatory hurdles from the Federal Reserve.
Any entity owning more than 10% of a large bank - as Berkshire did with Wells - is subject to additional regulation from the Fed. Berkshire decided that the extra scrutiny did not allow them to be the type of shareholders they wanted, so Buffett's firm announced it would reduce its holding in Wells to just below the 10% threshold.