Chance Gates' Blog » Business

Managing Your Credit

Chance Gates — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 22:53:30 +0000

Thanks to my friends at Prospect Mtg and a low credit score loan

Do you know your credit score and what factors raise or lower it? Do you know how to “dispute” an error on your credit report that could be suppressing your credit score? Understanding these and other critical credit issues is the foundation of consumer credit management.

Having real-time access to your personal credit information is the first step in managing your credit. New generation consumer credit management websites offer unprecedented value to consumers, who just 15 years ago were at the mercy of confusing, hard-to-read credit reports. It’s a whole new world of rapid access, easy-to-use navigation, and real-world advice.

Online credit management websites offer real-time access to your credit report and credit score, dynamic tools to help you understand how your credit score is determined, comprehensive credit education, fraud protection, “lost wallet” credit card cancellation services, online disputing of credit report errors (a much faster process than mailing hard copy disputes) and other convenient services.

If a low credit score is keeping you from getting financing when you need it and at the best possible rates, then managing your credit online is a wise move. You’ll be able to see the progress of your credit score as you work to improve it, and online disputing helps fix errors quickly. Do you have a high credit score and want to protect it? Online credit management allows for frequent monitoring, email pings when inquiries are made on your credit, fraud and identity theft protection, and other services that can save you time and money.

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As a Reno/Sparks Nevada real estate professional and property manager, I encourage all questions and comments on the Reno/Sparks real estate market or any of the articles posted in this blog. Please feel free to use my back door to the MLS and search the houses available in the Reno/Sparks and most Northwest Nevada neighborhoods. I can be reached by email @ chance@ballard-company.com http://www.myspace.com/chancegates . You can also follow me at http://www.twitter.com/chancegates . To checkout some of my property manager services goto http://chancegates.com/property-management-services/

If you are behind on your house payment and looking for a loan modification, go to making homes affordable

If the modification fails, contact your local real estate professional to help short sale your home. To make sure there is no deficiency judgment a homeowner might find it necessary to hire an attorney.

Wednesday Quotes: Mary Kay Ash 1918-2001

Chance Gates — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 17:15:20 +0000

A company is only as good as the people it keeps.
Mary Kay Ash

A good goal is like a strenuous exercise – it makes you stretch.
Mary Kay Ash

A mediocre idea that generates enthusiasm will go further than a great idea that inspires no one.
Mary Kay Ash

Aerodynamically, the bumble bee shouldn’t be able to fly, but the bumble bee doesn’t know it so it goes on flying anyway.
Mary Kay Ash

Central banks don’t have divine wisdom. They try to do the best analysis they can and must be prepared to stand or fall by the quality of that analysis.
Mary Kay Ash

Criticize the act, not the person.
Mary Kay Ash

Dare to risk public criticism.
Mary Kay Ash

Don’t limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, remember, you can achieve.
Mary Kay Ash

Every silver lining has a cloud.
Mary Kay Ash

Everyone has an invisible sign hanging from their neck saying, ‘Make me feel important.’ Never forget this message when working with people.
Mary Kay Ash

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If you are behind on your house payment and looking for a loan modification, go to making homes affordable

From the Old Farmers Almanac: Frozen Pipes

Chance Gates — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 15:57:17 +0000

Source: Home Owner’s Companion, 1997 http://www.almanac.com

Frozen pipes are one of the most distressing problems a homeowner can encounter. Here’s how to prevent freezing pipes and how to un-freeze pipes if you’re in a fix.

Freezing can create leaks because the frozen water expands and cracks the copper tubing. Not only do you have little to no water supply, but when the pipes do thaw out, you can have some serious leaks to repair.

Rules to Prevent Frozen Pipes

Keep all water-supply piping away from outside walls, where it could be exposed to cold winter weather.
If it is imperative to have pipes located on an outside wall, they must be well-insulated.
Piping insulation is sold in both rubber and fiberglass.

Tips to Fixing Frozen Pipes

Try the hair-dryer trick. Find the area where the pipe appears to be frozen, and work the dryer up and down the pipe. If the pipe has cracked, water will start gushing out as soon as the ice is dislodged.
You may want to know where your nearest turn-off valve is before you try using a hair-dryer.

Duct tape is a fibered tape known for its strength, durability and water resistance. It’s a quick fix for everything from leaky canoes to ripped seat covers to damaged pipes to broken furniture.

Mark your favorite properties and get instant updates price changes, new pictures and status changes.

If you are behind on your house payment and looking for a loan modification, go to making homes affordable

Beware Legal Pitfalls With Foreclosures, Short Sales

Chance Gates — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 18:39:42 +0000

Daily Real Estate News | Monday, September 26, 2011

http://realtormag.realtor.org/daily-news/2011/09/26/beware-legal-pitfalls-foreclosures-short-sales?cid=WR09292011:30262&ed_rid=1698691

Short sale and foreclosure transactions can be fraught with potential legal problems for real estate professionals. And as the number of these transactions continues to skyrocket, agents need to be careful, Stella Ling, managing senior counsel of the California Association of REALTORS®, told a crowd at CAR’s REALTOR® Expo last week.

Short sales success rate is only about 50 percent, Ling said, so “the best thing to do is to prescreen the short-sale listings.” For example, she encouraged agents to look for home owners who have refinanced in the mid-2000s and to avoid listings where a second trustee lender can come back for a deficiency through a judicial foreclosure or might not agree to a short sale. Ling also recommends checking to see if the seller has considered a bankruptcy.

Another danger she points to is “reverse staging.” With reverse staging, sellers trash the property in order to devalue the property. Ling says real estate professionals should ensure sellers don’t do any damage and if they suspect any, they should reconsider proceeding with the transaction.

“If a seller does reverse staging, destroying their own home, what else are they going to do? What other misrepresentations are they going to make?” Ling told the crowd of real estate professionals.

Ling also suggests when handling REO transactions that real estate professionals read the REO addendum carefully that lenders often add to the purchase contracts. Oftentimes, these addendums make buyers give up a lot of their rights, she notes.

Source: “Avoiding the Legal Pitfalls of Distressed Real Estate,” Inman News (Sept. 23, 2011)

Mark your favorite properties and get instant updates price changes, new pictures and status changes.

As a Reno/Sparks real estate professional, I encourage all questions and comments on the Reno/Sparks real estate market or any of the articles posted in this blog. Please feel free to use my back door to the MLS and search the houses available in the Reno/Sparks and most Northwest Nevada neighborhoods. I can be reached by email @ chance@ballard-company.com http://www.myspace.com/chancegates . You can also follow me at http://www.twitter.com/chancegates . If you are behind on your house payment and looking for a loan modification, go to making homes affordable For a free copy of my report “5 Steps For Reno/Sparks Homeowners To Prevent Foreclosures” go to my about page http://chancegates.com/about and ask for more information on preventing foreclosures. or to request a modification. If the modification fails, contact your local real estate professional to help short sale your home. To make sure there is no deficiency judgment a homeowner might find it necessary to hire an attorney.

Wednesday Quotes: Al Capp 1909-1979

Chance Gates — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 15:52:25 +0000

Image via Wikipedia

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/al_capp.html

Any place that anyone can learn something useful from someone with experience is an educational institution.
Al Capp

Anyone who can walk to the welfare office can walk to work.
Al Capp

Like all New York hotel lady cashiers she had red hair and had been disappointed in her first husband.
Al Capp

My work is being destroyed almost as soon as it is printed. One day it is being read; the next day someone’s wrapping fish in it.
Al Capp

Success is following the pattern of life one enjoys most.
Al Capp

The public is like a piano. You just have to know what keys to poke.
Al Capp

The secret of how to live without resentment or embarrassment in a world in which I was different from everyone else. was to be indifferent to that difference.
Al Capp

Today’s younger generation is no worse than my own. We were just as ignorant and repulsive as they are, but nobody listened to us.
Al Capp

Young people should be helped, sheltered, ignored, and clubbed of necessary.
Al Capp

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Wednesday Quotes: Rube Glodberg 1883-1970

Chance Gates — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 17:01:01 +0000

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/r/rube_goldberg.html

Image via Wikipedia

And during my college, at the end of the junior year I worked in a mine.
Rube Goldberg

And I, uh, I wonder how anybody can think his personality changes with his success. I’ve had quite a bit of success but I feel that I’m just the same person as I always was.
Rube Goldberg

And, uh, I did that, and there was nothing more ridiculous to me than finding the weight of the earth because I didn’t care how much the earth weighed.
Rube Goldberg

And, uh, I’ve got about six thousand cartoons up there, also books and papers.
Rube Goldberg

I didn’t have any real art training, but when I was about twelve nad thirteen, another boy and I went to a sign painter’s house every Friday night and took lessons.
Rube Goldberg

I didn’t write because in the corps I took mining engineering of all things and, you know, they, they graduate a mining engineer as a sort of an illiterate.
Rube Goldberg

I, I don’t think anybody’s continually happy, uh, except idiots, you know. You know, you have to have little moments of depression.
Rube Goldberg

It just happened that the public happened to, uh, appreciate the satirical quality of these crazy things.
Rube Goldberg

Naturally, I’m conservative; I’m a Republican. I always was.
Rube Goldberg

When I did sports cartoons, I used to uh, go to fights.
Rube Goldberg

Yeah, yeah. I, I don’t think I’m always right. But I don’t think young people are always right, either.
Rube Goldberg

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NRHA announces Home At Last™ Plus-record low rates plus down payment help!

Chance Gates — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 19:01:43 +0000

The Nevada Rural Housing Authority continues to make the dream of buying a home a reality for many moderate-income Nevada households with innovative first-time buyer programs. They have just launched Home At Last™ Plus offering a great, below market mortgage rate, plus down payment assistance in the form of a cash grant.

What does the Home At Last™ Plus offer buyers:

• FREE cash down payment grant equal to 3% of loan amount (never has to be repaid)
• 3.85% 30-year fixed mortgage rate
or
• 3.35% 30-year fixed mortgage rate (without down payment grant)
• Instant home equity
• No asset limits for homebuyers

Who qualifies:
• First-time homebuyers or qualified Veterans who will live in home as primary residence
• Households meeting income qualifications and normal FHA, VA or RHS underwriting requirements
• Home purchase is in rural Nevada (population fewer than 100,000) and falls below maximum price

Maximum home prices:
Carson City…………………$363,417
Clark…………………………$364,556
Douglas……………………..$427,215
Elko, Eureka & Nye.……….$296,202
Lyon……………………..……$301,898
Storey & Washoe…..………$367,974
All other areas.……………$247,032

Maximum income limits:
Carson City
2 or fewer persons…………$81,840
3 or more persons…………$95,480
Churchill
2 or fewer persons…………$66,878
3 or more persons…………$76,910
Clark
2 or fewer persons…………$78,120
3 or more persons…………$91,140
Douglas
2 or fewer persons…………$91,080
3 or more persons…………$106,260
Elko
2 or fewer persons……$80,741
3 or more persons……. $92,852
Eureka
2 or fewer persons……$81,240
3 or more persons……. $94,780
Humboldt
2 or fewer persons….. $71,400
3 or more persons………$82,110
Lyon and Nye
2 or fewer persons…… $78,120
3 or more persons………$91,140
Storey & Washoe
2 or fewer persons…..$84,600
3 or more persons…….$98,700
All other areas
2 or fewer persons…….$67,078
3 or more persons………$77,140

Click here for a list of approved lenders.

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Reno Saturday’s Weird World Record: Largest Piggy Back Race

Chance Gates — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 17:48:18 +0000

http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/Search/Details/Largest-piggy-back-race/72575.htm

Who

Diesel (UK)

United Kingdom (England only)

When

November 06, 2010

Details

The largest piggy back race involved 296 participants and was achieved by Diesel (UK), as part of their ‘Be Stupid’ campaign, in Allen Gardens, London, UK, on 6 November 2010.

7 Home Owners Insurance

Chance Gates — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 11:02:19 +0000

http://members.houselogic.com/articles/7-home-owners-insurance-tips/preview/

By: Richard Koreto

Published: December 10, 2010

The new year is a good time to take stock of your home owners insurance coverage.

1. Make sure you can rebuild all, not just part of, your house

Don’t make the mistake of assuming that just because your home’s value has gone down that the cost of materials and labor have gone down, too. For example, home construction costs rose 1.3% from January 2009 to January 2010, according to construction cost consultants Marshall and Swift/Boeckh, even while many homes were falling in value. Make sure your home owners insurance pays you for full rebuilding costs in the event of a disaster.

2. Check your flood insurance

The National Flood Insurance Program can help by making affordable flood insurance available, but there are limits to how much coverage you can get, and it isn’t available everywhere. In addition, the NFIP has only been approved for a series of short-term renewals. (That is, Congress has been extending its provisions for only short periods and has not committed to making it permanent.) Keep an eye on the NFIP to make sure the program remains in force.

If you can’t participate in NFIP or need more extensive coverage, see if you can buy flood insurance from your existing carrier. Flood insurance rarely comes with a standard home owners policy.

3. What’s new in your life?

If you’re recently divorced, and you got the house, make sure your ex-spouse’s name is off the policy. Did you build a playground for your children? Install a swimming pool? These may change your liability needs. Talk to your agent and compare your life status this year with last year’s to update your home owners insurance.

4. Maybe your valuables are worth more

Your art, jewelry, antiques, and other collectibles may have appreciated in value over the years. If your home owners insurance policy doesn’t have accurate values on these items, your company may not reimburse you for the full value in the event of fire or other home disaster.

5. Tally up any home improvements

Have you made any renovations or additions to the home, such as an expanded garage, new bathroom, or home theater in the basement? Your house may now be worth more and your home owners insurance needs to reflect that. Create a home inventory video and keep it in a safe place outside the home.

6. Give your trees the once-over

Hire an arborist to look at the trees on your property, and check with your home owners insurance agent to see if your policy covers you if one of your trees falls on the neighbor’s car. An arborist can tell you if your trees are healthy and advise whether they should be removed or trimmed.

7. Watch the nickels and dimes

Hunt for any special discounts that can reduce your home owners insurance premiums. For example, you may be eligible for a discount if you have an automobile or valuable articles policy with the same company has your home owners insurance policy.

These home features can also give you discounts on your home owners insurance–but only if your insurer knows you have them:

Burglar or fire alarms

Gated community patrol service

Storm shutters

Temperature monitoring system to protect against freezing, connected to a central station alarm

Permanently installed, electrical back-up generator

Richard J. Koreto, a freelance writer, is the former editor of several professional financial magazines and the author of Run It Like a Business, a practice management book for financial planners. He and his wife own a pre-Civil War house in Rockland County, N.Y., and a country house in Martha’s Vineyard.

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The Value of Home Maintenance

Chance Gates — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 20:58:57 +0000

http://members.houselogic.com/articles/value-home-maintenance/preview/

By: John Riha

Published: March 9, 2010

Regular home maintenance is key to preserving the value of your house and property.

“It’s the little things that tend to trip up people,” says Frank Lesh, former president of the American Society of Home Inspectors and owner of Home Sweet Home Inspection Co. in Chicago. “Some cracked caulk around the windows, or maybe a furnace filter that hasn’t been changed in awhile. It may not seem like much, but behind that caulk, water could get into your sheathing, causing mold and rot. Before you know it, you’re looking at a $5,000 repair that could have been prevented by a $4 tube of caulk and a half hour of your time.”

Maintenance affects property value

Outright damage to your house is just one of the consequences of neglected maintenance. Without regular upkeep, overall property values are affected.

“If a house is in worn condition and shows a lack of preventative maintenance, the property could easily lose 10% of its appraised value,” says Mack Strickland, a professional appraiser and real estate agent in Chester, Va. “That could translate into a $15,000 or $20,000 adjustment.”

In addition, a house with chipped, fading paint, sagging gutters, and worn carpeting faces an uphill battle when it comes time to sell. Not only is it at a disadvantage in comparison with other similar homes that might be for sale in the neighborhood, but a shaggy appearance is bound to turn off prospective buyers and depress the selling price.

“It’s simple marketing principles,” says Strickland. “First impressions mean a lot to price support.”

Prolonging economic age

To a professional appraiser, diligent maintenance doesn’t translate into higher property valuations the way that improvements, upgrades, and appreciation all increase a home’s worth. But good maintenance does affect an appraiser’s estimate of a property’s economic age—the number of years that a house is expected to survive.

Economic age is a key factor in helping appraisers determine depreciation—the rate at which a house is losing value. A well-maintained house with a long, healthy economic age depreciates at a much slower rate than a poorly maintained house, helping to preserve value.

Estimating the value of maintenance

Although professional appraisers don’t assign a positive value to home maintenance, there are indications that maintenance is not just about preventing little problems from becoming larger. A study by researchers at the University of Connecticut and Syracuse University suggests that maintenance actually increases the value of a house by about 1% each year, meaning that getting off the couch and heading outside with a caulking gun is more than simply a chore—it actually makes money.

“It’s like going to the gym,” says Dr. John P. Harding, Professor of Finance & Real Estate at UConn’s School of Business and an author of the study. “You have to put in the effort to see the results. In that respect, people and houses are somewhat similar—the older (they are), the more work is needed.”

Harding notes that the 1% gain in valuation usually is offset by the ongoing cost of maintenance. “Simply put,” he says, “maintenance costs money, so it’s probably best to say that the net effect of regular maintenance is to slow the rate of depreciation.”

How much does maintenance cost?

How much money is required for annual maintenance varies. Some years, routine tasks, such as cleaning gutters and changing furnace filters, are all that’s needed, and your total expenditures may be a few hundred dollars. Other years may include major replacements, such as a new roof, at a cost of $10,000 or more.

Over time, annual maintenance costs average more than $3,300, according to data from the U.S. Census. Various lending institutions, such as Directors Credit Union and LendingTree.com, agree, placing maintenance costs at 1% to 3% of initial house price. That means owners of a $200,000 house should plan to budget $2,000 to $6,000 per year for ongoing upkeep and replacements.

Proactive maintenance strategies

Knowing these average costs can help homeowners be prepared, says Melanie McLane, a professional appraiser and real estate agent in Williamsport, Pa. “It’s called reserve for replacements,” says McLane. “Commercial real estate investors use it to make sure they have enough cash on hand for replacing systems and materials.”

McLane suggests a similar strategy for homeowners, setting aside a cash reserve that’s used strictly for home repair and maintenance. That way, routine upkeep is a snap and any significant replacements won’t blindside the family budget. McLane’s other strategies include:

Play offense, not defense. Proactive maintenance is key to preventing small problems from becoming big issues. Take the initiative with regular inspections. Create and faithfully follow a maintenance schedule. If you’re unsure of what needs to be done, a $200 to $300 visit from a professional inspector can be invaluable in pointing out quick fixes and potential problems.

Plan a room-per-year redo. “Pick a different room every year and go through it, fixing and improving as you go,” says McLane. “That helps keep maintenance fun and interesting.”

Keep track. “Having a notebook of all your maintenance and upgrades, along with receipts, is a powerful tool when it comes to sell your home,” advises McLane. “It gets rid of any doubts for the buyer, and it says you are a meticulous, caring homeowner.” A maintenance record also proves repairs and replacements for systems, such as wiring and plumbing, which might not be readily apparent.

John Riha has written six books on home improvement and hundreds of articles on home-related topics. He’s been a residential builder, the editorial director of the Black & Decker Home Improvement Library, and the executive editor of Better Homes and Gardens magazine. His standard 1968 suburban house has been an ongoing source of maintenance experience.

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