This article discusses the complicated process of taking title to a home with a mortgage, and suggests homeowners create a revocable living trust to ensure the beneficiary of their estate is not subject to a mortgage’s due-on clause.

A digest of recent court cases affecting real estate.

The federal government extended the homebuyer tax credit, again providing first time homebuyers with up to $8,000 in subsidy on the purchase of a principal residence. New to the tax credit: a provision for repeat homebuyers, who are eligible for up to $6,500. This sequel to the homebuyer tax credit will expire on April 30, [...]

This article describes the “sticky price” phenomenon afflicting sellers of real estate, and how it will affect the housing market during the recovery period following this Great Recession.

Changes to the Truth in Lending Act (TILA) now require a seven-day waiting period (incorrectly reported by the New York Times as a three-day waiting period) in which a lender making a loan secured by a principal residence, both purchase and refinance, must make early disclosures to a borrower before loan documents can be processed. [...]

Stay on top of current pending California legislation affecting real estate!

This article analyzes the existing and new rules for excluding profits from taxation on the sale of a residential property presently or previously used as the owner’s principal residence.

A 90-day moratorium on foreclosures in California was put into effect on June 15, 2009. It covers loans on owner-occupied principal residences made between January 1, 2003 through January 1, 2008. However, a lender is exempt from the moratorium if they have some sort of loan modification program which, at the very least, includes an [...]

This chapter analyzes redundant charges imposed on buyers and sellers for the basic services necessarily rendered by lenders, escrow companies and title insurance companies to earn the primary fee they charge. The hidden costs surrounding a loan A homebuyer’s obligation to close escrow on a purchase agreement is typically conditioned by a contract provision requiring [...]

With the growing popularity of Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-insured financing, this article timely presents the requirements of the single-family mortgage insurance program administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the FHA.