You can now borrow up to $625,500 with a federally insured reverse mortgage – up from $417,000 – as a result of a change made by Congress that will help some seniors. In a traditional mortgage, you borrow money against your house and pay it back in monthly installments over time. With a reverse mortgage, you borrow money against your house, but you don’t have to pay it back until you die, sell the house, or

Many people who are having trouble making their mortgage payments are turning to consultants who promise to help them modify their loans. The problem: Often, these “loan modification” businesses are actually scams. In a typical scam, a consultant demands a large upfront fee – sometimes as much as $3,000 – and then disappears without doing any work. Prosecutors in 19 states have taken legal action against various “foreclosure rescue” businesses, as has the Federal Trade Commission,

A landlord could evict a tenant who sued the landlord for a personal injury, according to the Alaska Supreme Court. The tenant was a handyman at a motel who rented a motel room at a reduced rate. He sued the motel after he slipped and broke his leg. The motel owners responded by throwing him out. According to the handyman, this was illegal retaliation against him that violated the state’s landlord-tenant law. But the Supreme Court

Over the past year, there have been a number of instances where a bank has agreed to provide a mortgage, then has changed its mind and reneged on its agreement at the last minute. In the past, such conduct was unheard of. It’s still rare – but the credit crisis has changed a lot about the way banks operate, and this is one result. As a buyer, you might want to protect yourself by spelling out

Here’s a common scenario: Both parties to a real estate deal are ready to close, but for some reason the seller can’t move out by the closing date. Maybe the seller is moving to a new home or place of business, and the new place isn’t quite ready yet. Maybe the closing date is the last day of the month, a notoriously difficult day on which to hire a moving company. One solution is to go

More and more commercial buildings are being designed to meet environmentally friendly, or “green,” standards. In addition, a growing number of communities around the country are adopting “green ordinances” that mandate certain environmental standards for large commercial buildings or developments. As a result, commercial leases in these buildings need to take green issues into account. And since this is a new area, how these issues should be handled isn’t always clear, and can lead to considerable

New rules from Fannie Mae are making it harder to get a mortgage for a condominium unit. Effective this past March 1, the mortgage giant will no longer purchase mortgages for condo units in new buildings unless at least 70% of the units are sold or under contract. Previously, Fannie would purchase mortgages as long as at least 51% of the units had been sold. As a result of the change, a number of people who

While the average price of a primary residence declined last year, the average price of vacation homes and investment properties declined even further, suggesting that many of these properties might now be available at an attractive cost. The median sales price of a vacation home was $150,000 last year, down from $195,000 in 2007, according to the National Association of Realtors. That’s a 23% drop in one year.  A typical investment property cost $108,000 last year,

Can a city block property owners from making improvements to a building or a neighborhood on the grounds that doing so would destroy its value as a historic landmark? A closely watched case in Chicago could answer that question. Although the case is specific to Chicago, cities and property owners across the country are paying attention to it because the same issues could be brought up in many other places.

A majority – some 53% – of individual landlords in the U.S. make mistakes on their income tax when it comes to reporting rental income and expenses, according to a study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. That means that out of about 8.9 million individual landlords in the country, nearly 5 million aren’t paying the correct tax. And of those 5 million, fully a quarter paid too much tax and should have had a lower