Published on July 15, 2008
by Katherine Boehret
If you’re a BlackBerry user, you’re probably getting tired of hearing about all the things Apple’s iPhone can do. Rumor even has it that a more iPhone-like BlackBerry is in the works. But don’t despond: Your current trusty emailing device has a few tricks up its sleeve that you may not know about.
This week, I gathered up some useful shortcuts that come built into most of the BlackBerrys, even older models, made by Research In Motion Ltd. but not many owners actually use or know about them. Ironically, most of these shortcuts are conducted using a BlackBerry feature that the iPhone lacks: its physical keyboard. (The iPhone uses a virtual keyboard that appears on-screen only when needed.)
Some of these shortcuts are seemingly obvious, like number or capitalization locks, but others are more obscure, like codes that can be entered to display the BlackBerry’s precise signal strength. Some shortcuts are performed with a single keystroke; others work in conjunction with a trackwheel or trackball, depending on your BlackBerry model, and still others work when two keys are pressed simultaneously. BlackBerrys with condensed keyboards that use auto-correcting SureType may require extra or different keystrokes.
Navigation Simplified
A series of keystrokes work in various BlackBerry applications to make navigation much faster. Pressing the Space bar works like Page Down on a computer keyboard, moving down one screen per press. Holding Shift while pressing the Space bar moves in the opposite direction, like the Page Up key. To quickly move to the very top or bottom of a page, press “T” or “B,” respectively. Another way to page down or up through lists is to hold the ALT key while scrolling with the trackwheel.
Users can toggle between the BlackBerry’s running applications without the extra step of navigating back to the Home screen. To do this, press ALT and the Escape key, then release Escape and use the trackwheel to scroll through a display of icons that represent running programs until you reach the desired program, then release the ALT key to select that program.
Messaging Magic
Shortcuts in BlackBerry messaging can be a real boon when you’re trying to get work done quickly. While looking at a list of emails, hit “C” to immediately start composing a new email. When a specific email is highlighted, pressing “R” will reply to that message; “L” will reply to all and “F” will forward it. Hitting “J” while an email is highlighted will jump directly to the oldest message in that email chain.
A list of emails can be more neatly organized from the message screen by holding the ALT key and pressing a letter. “I” will alter the list to show only incoming emails, “O” will show just those emails that were sent. “P” shows a phone log, including dates and times, and “s” displays all SMS messages made or received on the BlackBerry.
In the body of a message, pressing the Space bar twice inserts a period and capitalizes the next word. When the left Shift key and ALT are pressed together, the keyboard’s number lock is on; the right Shift key and ALT work as the caps lock. Holding any letter down will capitalize it, saving users from pressing another key to do so. To type a letter with an accent, hold the letter key down while scrolling up or down with the trackwheel until you find the correctly accented letter.
Type Less, Say More
While composing emails, a series of AutoText codes can be typed in the email body to automatically display certain phrases or information. Typing “mynumber” and a space in the text of an email will automatically display your BlackBerry’s phone number. Similarly, when “LD” is entered the local date is displayed, and when “LT” is typed the local time appears.
If your email inbox is full and you can’t send emails, find out the PIN of your recipient’s BlackBerry and use it to message the person directly. (To find your own PIN, type “mypin” and a space into the body of an email. This code can be used to send PIN messages from one device to another without using the device’s usual email system.)
Geeky Codes
If you’re just dying to know some techie details about your BlackBerry, the “Help Me!” screen will be right up your alley. To view the “Help Me!” screen, press ALT, Shift and “H” simultaneously. This displays data that won’t matter much to the average person, such as the device’s vendor ID, platform and free file space. But it also shows the exact percentage of remaining battery power on the BlackBerry, which could be helpful if you aren’t sure how to interpret the imprecise battery indicator bars at the top of the home screen.
Another way to geek up your BlackBerry is to change its signal strength indicator from bars to numbers that tell how many decibels per milliwatt the device is transmitting. To do this, go to the Home screen and hold down the ALT button while typing “NMLL.” My BlackBerry displayed a minus 75 when I made this change. Strengths of minus 50 to minus 90 are said to be good, while anything higher, like minus 100, isn’t. Though this numerical indicator won’t likely be of any practical use, you could use it to turn to a friend and compare reception during an excruciatingly boring meeting.
One way to impress a technophile on a date is by pulling up a BlackBerry’s Event Log. To do this, go to the Home screen and hold down ALT while typing “LGLG.” This retrieves a long list of numerous confusing codes representing the functions that were performed on your device. The Menu screen in the Event Log gives users the option to clear this log, freeing up some BlackBerry memory, while an Options screen lets people set the log up to record only certain kinds of activities.
Finally, to reboot your BlackBerry without removing its plastic back and taking out the battery, press ALT, Right Shift and Delete simultaneously. More codes can be found in the blogosphere or in a special section of RIM’s Web site: http://na.blackberry.com/eng/support/blackberry101/tips/. Adopting just one of these shortcuts can significantly change the way you use your BlackBerry.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Monday, July 14, 2008
How to Sell a House, When You Have to Sell It Now
Seven tips for homeowners who can't wait until the market turns around
By DAVID CROOK
July 14, 2008; Page R1 Wall Street Journal
So you say you're selling your house?
Hey, it could be worse. You could be selling a Hummer.
If you've been waiting for a good offer to come through, this probably isn't exactly big news to you: This is the worst home-selling market since Herbert Hoover was president. In much of the country, prices are already way down and probably heading even further south. Houses are sitting on the market for months longer than sellers expected.
And don't think this is just a momentary lull, a short slowdown before the market recovers and then takes off again. What you see today is the market you have, for now and, quite possibly, for a long time to come.
"At best, I think we're a year away from the bottom," says Sally Bodmer, who has sold Tampa-area real estate for 31 years and has never seen a worse selling climate. She operates mainly in the newer suburbs on the far eastern edge of the metropolitan area. It was a super-hot area in 2005, when developers couldn't build houses fast enough. "Now," she says, "you can't give them away."
To be sure, things are not awful everywhere. Prices in metropolitan areas bypassed by the Big Bubble -- places such as Charlotte, N.C., or Rochester, N.Y. -- have held relatively firm or risen modestly through the Big Bust. And in some of the worst markets, elite properties and houses in the best neighborhoods may still buck the trends.
But even the perennial playgrounds of the upper crust aren't immune. According to Zillow, a real-estate Web site, prices in Palm Beach, Fla., are down about 10% from last year. Prices are down 13% in Santa Barbara, Calif.
So what's a home seller to do? What does it take to sell a house today?
If your job or life circumstances leave you no alternative other than to sell in this market, you must be prepared to go well beyond the usual feints and gimmicks if you want to get potential buyers in the front door and, ultimately, to the closing table. By all means, feng shui the living room, bury a statue of St. Joseph in the front yard and bake brownies before the open house.
But if you really want to sell the place, you need to think and act like a salesperson. Most important, you must separate your emotional attachment to your family home from your financial interest in your family's largest asset. Selling a house is business, and you must approach the sale in a businesslike manner.
Here are seven points to keep in mind:
1. DON'T WAIT AROUND.
Even in the better housing areas, it's taking a long time to sell houses; and in the hardest-hit metro areas, inventories of unsold homes are stretching well past 180 days.
So, don't try to sit out the market. That's what hundreds of other timid sellers are doing, each of them hoping -- somehow, some way -- that hanging on the sidelines will improve prices and, ultimately improve his or her chances for selling success. It won't. Not if you expect to sell anytime soon. If you want your place sold, the best way to make sure that happens is to put it up for sale.
Obviously, you should take advantage of your local market cycles -- early spring is usually better for selling in much of the country -- but otherwise don't try timing the market. You won't have any better luck than a stock trader who's always holding out for the market highs or lows.
2. FIX IT UP AND CLEAN IT UP.
Buyers are taking your house out on a date. It has to make a good impression.
Don't spend a lot of money -- absolutely no big-ticket renovations -- but do see that everything is in good repair. And give the place a new paint job and a general sprucing up. (Caution: This won't necessarily give you any pricing advantage over less fixed-up places, but it will attract buyers and keep them interested.)
As you get closer to the date that the house actually goes up for sale, start moving out by decluttering the place. No buyer wants to see a house filled to the rafters with other people's things. They want to imagine their stuff filling the place. "Stage" the place with only enough furniture to make it look livable; put the rest in storage.
3. PRICE IT CHEAPLY.
Don't fight the market by trying to price your house at bubble-era levels or by factoring in all those improvements you made. It won't fly.
Set a realistic, salable price on day one. Don't let the house hang around on the market as you gradually lower the price. Forget what you think the house should be worth or what it was worth three years ago. That's not what it's worth today.
Smart buyers will be looking for bargains. So you must set your price below comparable nearby properties. Look at the asking prices of neighboring houses, and set your price to beat them. If prices in your area are generally down 20% from where they were at the bubble peak in 2005, then price your house 25% to 30% below its peak bubble value. Your area down 40%? Be prepared to take just half of what the house was worth three years ago. Yes, it's painful. But if you want to sell, you don't have much choice.
And remember: In much of the country, renting is still a better deal right now than buying. As you try to settle on a price, look at rents on comparable properties. Buyers are not likely to be counting on huge price appreciation, as they did during the bubble, so they may be less willing to take on the higher monthly costs of home buying and owning. You must set a price that makes someone's prospective mortgage and home-owning costs look like a better deal than a month's rent.
4. HIRE A TOP REAL-ESTATE AGENT.
Get the best, most aggressive selling (listing) agent you can find.
When everything was selling before it even hit the market, of course, you didn't need the best. You just needed the cheapest. But not these days.
Fortunately, in this market, real-estate brokers are even more anxious than you. They're eager to get whatever work they can, so don't rely on your cousin with the real-estate license or your best friend's wife.
Ask, instead, for the local real-estate office's top salesperson. All offices have one or two sellers who greatly outperform their colleagues. That's who you want.
Interview various agents and insist that they present you with a well-conceived marketing plan that goes way beyond the usual Internet page, one or two open houses and a yard sign. (Think about using a professional photographer for multiple shots on the primary Web listing, your house as the featured "home of the week" in the local newspaper, a decorating segment on a morning chat show, a stop on the local garden club's spring tour.)
Sellers of higher-end properties should be able to negotiate a lower commission percentage, but this is no time to quibble over a couple of percentage points. Also, offer the agent a big bonus if he or she sells the house in 30 days or at your asking price. Offer other agents bonuses if they bring in the ultimate buyer.
5. PROMOTE. PROMOTE. PROMOTE.
Don't rely on the agent to do all the work. The agent should pay the usual marketing costs, but you should be prepared to pony up for extras, especially if you insist on more expensive or untraditional promotions.
You want the house listed regularly in local newspaper classifieds and, if it's a special, high-end property in a desirable location, in national publications, too.
Make sure your house is on the leading real-estate Web sites; Trulia, Zillow, Cyberhomes, Eppraisal and Realtor.com are some of the top ones.
Beyond that, get really creative. Advertise in corporate newsletters and intranet listings. Check in with local relocation firms that help transferring corporate executives find new homes. List the house on eBay. Put it on Craigslist. Put it in your church bulletin.
Trophy house in an upscale neighborhood? Hire a string quartet for the open house. Something a bit more midmarket in a family-friendly subdivision? Put a clown on the corner handing out brochures.
6. PLAY THE BANKER.
As bad as things are, there's one big factor in your favor: the tight credit market. If you have no mortgage you have to pay off, your strongest selling point might be your ability to finance all or a substantial part of a buyer's purchase.
You're a lot more flexible than a bank that has the Federal Reserve looking over its shoulders, so you might even be able to charge a higher interest rate than a commercial lender as well as command a higher sale price. (You'll need a real-estate lawyer to make sure everything is done to protect you and an accountant to set up a payment system. Peer-to-peer lenders such as virginmoneyus.com3 have systems to handle mortgage payments.)
Worst case? Your borrower defaults and you take the property back. And sell it again.
7. TAKE THE OFFER.
If any qualified buyer comes in with a reasonable offer, be prepared to accept it.
You don't want to lose the deal by digging in your heels over a few dollars. Every real-estate office keeps records that show the percentage difference between asking and selling prices, so it's easy to figure what's an appropriate offer and what's not.
Negotiate, of course, but recognize that the buyer has a lot more clout than you do. Your house, as wonderful as you think it is, is worth only as much as someone is willing to pay for it.
And that, unfortunately, will probably be a lot less than you think.
By DAVID CROOK
July 14, 2008; Page R1 Wall Street Journal
So you say you're selling your house?
Hey, it could be worse. You could be selling a Hummer.
If you've been waiting for a good offer to come through, this probably isn't exactly big news to you: This is the worst home-selling market since Herbert Hoover was president. In much of the country, prices are already way down and probably heading even further south. Houses are sitting on the market for months longer than sellers expected.
And don't think this is just a momentary lull, a short slowdown before the market recovers and then takes off again. What you see today is the market you have, for now and, quite possibly, for a long time to come.
"At best, I think we're a year away from the bottom," says Sally Bodmer, who has sold Tampa-area real estate for 31 years and has never seen a worse selling climate. She operates mainly in the newer suburbs on the far eastern edge of the metropolitan area. It was a super-hot area in 2005, when developers couldn't build houses fast enough. "Now," she says, "you can't give them away."
To be sure, things are not awful everywhere. Prices in metropolitan areas bypassed by the Big Bubble -- places such as Charlotte, N.C., or Rochester, N.Y. -- have held relatively firm or risen modestly through the Big Bust. And in some of the worst markets, elite properties and houses in the best neighborhoods may still buck the trends.
But even the perennial playgrounds of the upper crust aren't immune. According to Zillow, a real-estate Web site, prices in Palm Beach, Fla., are down about 10% from last year. Prices are down 13% in Santa Barbara, Calif.
So what's a home seller to do? What does it take to sell a house today?
If your job or life circumstances leave you no alternative other than to sell in this market, you must be prepared to go well beyond the usual feints and gimmicks if you want to get potential buyers in the front door and, ultimately, to the closing table. By all means, feng shui the living room, bury a statue of St. Joseph in the front yard and bake brownies before the open house.
But if you really want to sell the place, you need to think and act like a salesperson. Most important, you must separate your emotional attachment to your family home from your financial interest in your family's largest asset. Selling a house is business, and you must approach the sale in a businesslike manner.
Here are seven points to keep in mind:
1. DON'T WAIT AROUND.
Even in the better housing areas, it's taking a long time to sell houses; and in the hardest-hit metro areas, inventories of unsold homes are stretching well past 180 days.
So, don't try to sit out the market. That's what hundreds of other timid sellers are doing, each of them hoping -- somehow, some way -- that hanging on the sidelines will improve prices and, ultimately improve his or her chances for selling success. It won't. Not if you expect to sell anytime soon. If you want your place sold, the best way to make sure that happens is to put it up for sale.
Obviously, you should take advantage of your local market cycles -- early spring is usually better for selling in much of the country -- but otherwise don't try timing the market. You won't have any better luck than a stock trader who's always holding out for the market highs or lows.
2. FIX IT UP AND CLEAN IT UP.
Buyers are taking your house out on a date. It has to make a good impression.
Don't spend a lot of money -- absolutely no big-ticket renovations -- but do see that everything is in good repair. And give the place a new paint job and a general sprucing up. (Caution: This won't necessarily give you any pricing advantage over less fixed-up places, but it will attract buyers and keep them interested.)
As you get closer to the date that the house actually goes up for sale, start moving out by decluttering the place. No buyer wants to see a house filled to the rafters with other people's things. They want to imagine their stuff filling the place. "Stage" the place with only enough furniture to make it look livable; put the rest in storage.
3. PRICE IT CHEAPLY.
Don't fight the market by trying to price your house at bubble-era levels or by factoring in all those improvements you made. It won't fly.
Set a realistic, salable price on day one. Don't let the house hang around on the market as you gradually lower the price. Forget what you think the house should be worth or what it was worth three years ago. That's not what it's worth today.
Smart buyers will be looking for bargains. So you must set your price below comparable nearby properties. Look at the asking prices of neighboring houses, and set your price to beat them. If prices in your area are generally down 20% from where they were at the bubble peak in 2005, then price your house 25% to 30% below its peak bubble value. Your area down 40%? Be prepared to take just half of what the house was worth three years ago. Yes, it's painful. But if you want to sell, you don't have much choice.
And remember: In much of the country, renting is still a better deal right now than buying. As you try to settle on a price, look at rents on comparable properties. Buyers are not likely to be counting on huge price appreciation, as they did during the bubble, so they may be less willing to take on the higher monthly costs of home buying and owning. You must set a price that makes someone's prospective mortgage and home-owning costs look like a better deal than a month's rent.
4. HIRE A TOP REAL-ESTATE AGENT.
Get the best, most aggressive selling (listing) agent you can find.
When everything was selling before it even hit the market, of course, you didn't need the best. You just needed the cheapest. But not these days.
Fortunately, in this market, real-estate brokers are even more anxious than you. They're eager to get whatever work they can, so don't rely on your cousin with the real-estate license or your best friend's wife.
Ask, instead, for the local real-estate office's top salesperson. All offices have one or two sellers who greatly outperform their colleagues. That's who you want.
Interview various agents and insist that they present you with a well-conceived marketing plan that goes way beyond the usual Internet page, one or two open houses and a yard sign. (Think about using a professional photographer for multiple shots on the primary Web listing, your house as the featured "home of the week" in the local newspaper, a decorating segment on a morning chat show, a stop on the local garden club's spring tour.)
Sellers of higher-end properties should be able to negotiate a lower commission percentage, but this is no time to quibble over a couple of percentage points. Also, offer the agent a big bonus if he or she sells the house in 30 days or at your asking price. Offer other agents bonuses if they bring in the ultimate buyer.
5. PROMOTE. PROMOTE. PROMOTE.
Don't rely on the agent to do all the work. The agent should pay the usual marketing costs, but you should be prepared to pony up for extras, especially if you insist on more expensive or untraditional promotions.
You want the house listed regularly in local newspaper classifieds and, if it's a special, high-end property in a desirable location, in national publications, too.
Make sure your house is on the leading real-estate Web sites; Trulia, Zillow, Cyberhomes, Eppraisal and Realtor.com are some of the top ones.
Beyond that, get really creative. Advertise in corporate newsletters and intranet listings. Check in with local relocation firms that help transferring corporate executives find new homes. List the house on eBay. Put it on Craigslist. Put it in your church bulletin.
Trophy house in an upscale neighborhood? Hire a string quartet for the open house. Something a bit more midmarket in a family-friendly subdivision? Put a clown on the corner handing out brochures.
6. PLAY THE BANKER.
As bad as things are, there's one big factor in your favor: the tight credit market. If you have no mortgage you have to pay off, your strongest selling point might be your ability to finance all or a substantial part of a buyer's purchase.
You're a lot more flexible than a bank that has the Federal Reserve looking over its shoulders, so you might even be able to charge a higher interest rate than a commercial lender as well as command a higher sale price. (You'll need a real-estate lawyer to make sure everything is done to protect you and an accountant to set up a payment system. Peer-to-peer lenders such as virginmoneyus.com3 have systems to handle mortgage payments.)
Worst case? Your borrower defaults and you take the property back. And sell it again.
7. TAKE THE OFFER.
If any qualified buyer comes in with a reasonable offer, be prepared to accept it.
You don't want to lose the deal by digging in your heels over a few dollars. Every real-estate office keeps records that show the percentage difference between asking and selling prices, so it's easy to figure what's an appropriate offer and what's not.
Negotiate, of course, but recognize that the buyer has a lot more clout than you do. Your house, as wonderful as you think it is, is worth only as much as someone is willing to pay for it.
And that, unfortunately, will probably be a lot less than you think.
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
To Sell to Gen-Y, You Have to Meet Them Online
By Ilyce R. Glink with Samuel J. Tamkin
Saturday, July 5, 2008; F06
Real estate agents are used to competing heartily against one another for listings. They're used to competing against other agents who have comparable houses for sale in the same neighborhood. Local Realtor organizations host award ceremonies each year to recognize real agents with the most sales. Heck, real agents are even used to fighting for ad space in the local media.
But on the World Wide Web, the nature of real estate competition is changing -- particularly for those interested in snagging Gen Y-ers, those young and future home buyers who are now in their 20s.
For real estate agents, finding these buyers and interacting with them requires some of the same skills your teenager might have already mastered, combined with a mastery of local real estate and demographic information.
The second iteration of the Internet is known as Web 2.0, and at its core is social networking. Over the past four months, we've been dipping our toes into the social networking world, to better understand how today's teens and those in their 20s interact with one another and the outside world -- and what this means for real estate.
We started by launching Ilyce Glink sites at Facebook, MySpace, Current.com, Friendster, Bebo and elsewhere. These sites feature some of the real estate and personal finance content I've created through the years. The other part of our social networking strategy includes "twittering" regularly at Twitter.com/glink, uploading dozens of videos about real estate and personal finance to YouTube.com/expertrealestatetips, and signing up for LinkedIn.com, a site that allows business colleagues and partners to network, and tends to pitch toward a somewhat older crowd.
There are plenty of real estate agents, brokers, investors, educators and mortgage lenders who are already active on these sites.
Are you a real estate professional who wants to stand out in a crowd? There are fewer than 14,000 members of the "Real Estate Investing" group on MySpace, and fewer than 15,000 members of the top five real estate groups on Facebook. While that seems like a lot of people, there are probably few who live in your own neighborhood. You can also demonstrate your expertise by engaging in a group discussion.
Or, go for the "big fish in a small pond" mentality. There are loads of real estate-related groups to join that have fewer than 100 members. Social networking sites allow you to "friend" members of these groups, and start a group of your own.
You can join or start real estate-related groups with location-specific ties. Brokers with expertise in a specific neighborhood start groups that might provide information about a three-block-square area. Buyers and sellers interested in the happenings of that micro-market will be able to find out information that may be unavailable elsewhere. That can make your group popular.
If you're a broker in a college town with students who may be looking for a home, you might be able to link them into your site so they could get updates about neighborhoods they might want to live in after graduation. Agents are also connecting to one another, setting up relationships that can be profitable by increasing their referral networks.
The person heading up our initiative is our intern Claire Young, a student at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. Her observation? Although she says she learned about social networking in college, the next generation of kids will have social networking in their blood.
More than that, she confirms recent news reports that suggest people in her age group are using social networking to make many big-picture decisions, including renting an apartment, buying a car, getting married, buying a digital camera or buying a house.
Today's teenagers will grow up using the Internet to connect their social and business interactions. This clock can't be turned back.
Whether you work in real estate or some other business, here are some things to think about if you're going to dabble in Web 2.0:
· Social networking takes time. Connecting online can help build your business, but it takes awhile -- and time generally is in short supply for real estate agents.
· Be flexible. You can start with a plan but be prepared to make changes along the way. Be willing to try out new groups, change your profile and add features and content.
· Stay attuned to new technology and Web sites. New social networking sites pop up all the time. Most of them won't make it. But if you're among the first to sign up, you'll be able to get a jump on making connections.
· The more connections, the better. LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, your other social networking sites and your blog can all be linked together to help you build a strong online community. Create links from one to another. Connect Twitter and your blog so that they automatically upload to the other sites. Try to get your friends, colleagues and online connections to try out your other sites.
You don't have to be a technical genius to make this work. Most of the social networking sites we have joined make it easy to get started, upload written content, photos and video, and get going.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not suggesting these are uncharted territories by any stretch of the imagination. There are thousands of real estate agents and mortgage lenders who have signed up for these sites and are spending time trying to forge connections that will bring in business.
What's becoming clear is that you've got to be there, or you may be left behind.
Q I have a Veterans Administration loan and want to do a streamline refinance, which I've done before. I can't find what I believe is a true source of current VA loan rates. I've been to Bankrate.com and don't see the information I'm looking for. Can you help me find this information and choose the best lender? I also have a home equity line of credit that I would like to roll into the streamline refinance. Is this possible?
A Many lenders that offer conventional loans may also offer VA loans. But most VA loan rates are not advertised the same way conventional loan rates are advertised.
To find a good lender with expertise in VA loans, I'd start with the VA regional loan centers ( http://www.homeloans.va.gov/rlcweb.htm). Each of the regional loan centers has a Web site as well as a bricks-and-mortar office, and is set up to help veterans, active duty personnel, Reserve members and National Guard personnel with financing a home.
When shopping for a good lender, it helps to start with a couple of reputable lenders in your area. You should check in with a local bank or savings and loan in your area, particularly if they are active residential lenders who work often with VA loans. You should also contact a mortgage broker in your area and a national mortgage lender.
Ask each of the lenders to quote you the VA rate, and then ask them to tell you what fees they charge in connection with the loan. While VA loans have higher fees than conventional loans, you want to make sure the lender you approach does not add any additional fees to the transaction. If they do add additional fees, then you want to be able to compare the various lenders on equal footing.
If the lender is a good lender for conventional loans and they have experience with VA loans, you should be okay. The key is to make sure that that lender has done enough VA loans to get the deal done, but just because you find a lender that does only VA loans does not mean that the lender will be a good lender.
As far as your equity line is concerned, you should be able to obtain a VA loan to refinance both your loans. Unfortunately, whether the lender will be able to "streamline" your application may depend on your particular circumstances.
While VA loans have not been affected the same way as the rest of the mortgage market by the credit crunch, my impression is that your application for a VA loan will require full documentation.
You may be able to get a streamlined loan, but I don't know if your circumstances or even the general real estate market in your area would affect your ability to obtain a VA loan with limited documentation, particularly when you are paying off the equity line you have and increasing the amount you want to borrow.
Your best bet is to sit down with a lender with extensive experience with VA loans and go over these issues.
How has the residential market been in Albany, N.Y., over the past year or two? I have an investment property there (three-unit), and I am trying to get an idea how badly I will get hit if I try to sell, or if I will escape the worst of the housing slump. Do you know of any reports or studies that would be helpful?
It's difficult to know how any particular real estate market is doing. You can look at the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight home price index, which indicates that housing in New York state fell just over 4 percent in value in the past year. Or, you can look at the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, which are based on 20 top housing markets (not including Albany), and which indicate that home prices are down roughly 15 to 16 percent from their high.
None of these tell you what's going on in a neighborhood. And, when it comes to real estate, the old mantra of "location, location, location" remains valid. It's all about what's going on down the block and in your back yard.
If you're thinking about selling your investment property, you should invite three top neighborhood agents in to do a comparative marketing analysis of the property. This analysis is an agent's calling card. He or she will walk through your property, go back to the office and pull up the comparable sales of similar properties in the neighborhood. Then the agent will come back with a marketing plan and a suggested list price. You'll be able to see the research: what has sold in your neighborhood, when it sold, and for how much.
After reviewing the data, you can make a decision to sell or keep your rental property.
My daughter is buying a house from me with 25 percent down in cash. We can close anytime, and, at age 28, she has excellent credit (over 700). Should she get a mortgage now or should we hold off a few months for a better interest rate, as rates are now climbing again?
I don't think anyone knows where interest rates are going at the moment. But it's true that mortgage interest rates have been on the rise lately, despite the Federal Reserve lowering the short-term federal funds rate. That, in conjunction with falling home values, is making some buyers nervous.
I hope mortgage interest rates don't climb much beyond where they are at the moment. If they go too much higher, first-time buyers may have trouble qualifying for a home.
In your case, it sounds as though you have the luxury of time. If I were you, I would help your daughter find a quality lender and get pre-approved for her mortgage. That way, when you're ready to close, the lender will be ready as well.
If your daughter decides to obtain financing now and rates go down to a level that would justify her refinancing the loan, she can do that later. The interest rate your daughter gets on her loan today is still near a historically low level.
Rates may rise over the next couple of months, and if she waits she will have lost the opportunity to get today's rates. But if she takes today's rates and over the next year or two rates decrease, she can refinance. And, if rates decrease after she applies for the loan, many lenders will give her the ability to re-lock her loan rate once or twice before the deal closes.
My father and I are joint tenants with rights of survivorship on a two-family house. He is 88 and is not well. We went to a real estate lawyer and had the house put in my name.
If Dad goes into a nursing home, what is the lookback period for Medicaid? Would Medicaid be entitled to half of the equity in the property? Would I have to sell the house?
Under new federal rules, the Medicaid lookback period is five years from the date of transfer. In other words, if Medicaid has to pay for your father's stay in a nursing home because your dad is broke, the government could reverse any transfer of wealth from your father to anyone for the previous five years, if they suspect him of trying to hide assets or he transferred assets that could have been used to pay for Medicaid costs.
Would you have to sell the property? Maybe. It's also possible the government would put a lien against the property that would have to be satisfied when the property is sold or refinanced down the line.
For more details, talk to a real estate lawyer or an estate lawyer.
Ilyce R. Glink is an author and nationally syndicated columnist. Her latest book is "100 Questions Every First-Time Home Buyer Should Ask." Samuel J. Tamkin is a real estate lawyer in Chicago. If you have questions for them, write Real Estate Matters Syndicate, P.O. Box 366, Glencoe, Ill. 60022, or contact them through Glink's Web sites, http://www.thinkglink.comandhttp://www.expertrealestatetips.net.
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