Should you refinance now? Mortgages are often divided into two types, “conforming” and “jumbo.” For some time, a “conforming” mortgage has been any loan up to $417,000, and a “jumbo” mortgage has been any loan over that amount. The reason is that $417,000 was the largest loan that could be repurchased by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two quasi-governmental mortgage-buying agencies. Because lenders could not re-sell a loan over $417,000 to these agencies, they often

The typical homebuyer today is 39 years old, has a household income of $74,000, searches for eight weeks, sees 10 homes, and makes a down payment of 9%, according to research conducted by Bankrate.com. Married couples constitute 62% of homebuyers, with single women accounting for 20%, single men 9% and unmarried couples 7%. (The remaining 2% of buyers were classified as “other.”) Perhaps surprisingly, only 40% of homebuyers have children under 18 living at home. Some

Some people decide to do some “homemade” estate planning and put their house in a child’s name. They figure this will avoid probate and get the house out of their estate for tax purposes. This might be a good idea in some cases. But remember, if you give your house to your child now, any appreciation in the value of the house between now and the time it’s eventually sold will be a capital gain for

The down market in real estate has created a boomlet in two obscure types of property sales: the “short sale” and the “house swap.” A short sale is an alternative to foreclosure. If a property owner is unable to make mortgage payments, but the lender doesn’t want to go through the legal hassle of foreclosure, the owner and the lender may agree to a short sale. The property is sold, and if the sale price is

Congratulations – there’s oil, coal, gas, salt, gemstones, or some other valuable material under your property. But how exactly do you sell someone the right to develop it? Most sales of real estate are sales “in fee simple” – which means the buyer owns the surface of the land, the earth underneath it, and the air space above it. But it’s possible to split up these rights. In particular, it’s possible to sell the earth underneath

The second owner of a building could sue the builder for construction defects that led to the development of mold, the Iowa Supreme Court has ruled. The case involved a home that was built in 1995. In 2000, the original owners sold it to another family. The second family then discovered water damage and mold. They claimed the mold was the builder’s fault, but that the defects that caused the mold were hidden and couldn’t have

There’s a growing trend among condominium owners to ban smoking – not just in common areas, but inside individual units and in outdoor areas as well. Bans on smoking in common areas have been around for years. But a ban on smoking in individual units is a relatively new idea – and there are many questions about its legality. Recently, an upscale 118-unit condo in Minneapolis banned all smoking within the building as well as on