You’ve no doubt heard that running credit will hurt your credit score. How true is this? Well, kind of. Let’s take a look. First, you should understand the difference between a hard credit pull and a soft one. According to American Express, “(A hard pull) should happen only when you formally request some form of...
Debt Consolidation Done Right
Total U.S. household debt increased by 6.2% from a year ago to a total of $15.24 trillion. Yikes.
Homebuyer’s Guides You Need to Consult
Have your mortgage advisor and financial advisor talk to each other.
Shop for the Right Lender
The pricing offered by the top handful of lenders is always pretty close, so we look for the lender among them that is currently offering the best service and the least amount of hassle.
Reverse Mortgage – What Is It, and Is It Right for Me?
2/4/2020 | Casey Fleming | The reverse mortgage is the most heavily advertised mortgage product today, but all that promotion unfortunately includes very few facts. It is a complex financial product that is not right for everyone, but is a miracle for some and an elegant financial management tool for others. Let’s take a look...
Conforming Loan Limit – What is It and Why Should You Care?
11/25/2019 | Casey Fleming – The conforming loan limit is something you might have heard about but never really fully understood. If you are buying a home, however, understanding what the limit is in your area and keeping your loan amount below that limit can save you tens – or even hundreds – of thousands...
Interest Rates and Inflation
10/16/17 | Casey Fleming | It’s been a while since I wrote about interest rates and inflation. In the last six weeks rates have crept up about 0.250%. Let’s talk about what happened. As you may recall, stocks and interest rates tend to move together most of the time. This is because as stock prices...
How Supply and Demand Affects Real Estate
Updated 4/22/2022 | For as long as I’ve been in the real estate finance industry (and that’s a long time) friends and family have asked me about real estate values – Are they going up? Are they going down? Are we nearing the peak? Are we close to the bottom? Over time the question changes,...
Pass on Real Estate Outside of Probate
There are only three certainties in life: taxes, death, and someone is going to be fighting over your estate if you die without putting your intentions in writing, especially if you own real estate. Of course you probably know you should have either a trust or a will, but now there is a new –...
The Importance of Thinking When Getting a Mortgage
One of the themes of my book is that rules-of-thumb are a very bad foundation on which to base decisions about your mortgage options. I recently completed a refinance for a client that perfectly illustrates the importance of thinking through the goals and concerns of the client before generating options and then choosing one. Background...