There is a huge risk to your business and your personal finances. Are you prepared? Think of how many electronic transactions you partake in for your business and personally. From online payments to vendors, to remote deposits, to ACH, to wires, and the list...
What is your property worth? Chances are someone in India is answering that question for your lender without ever stepping foot in the country, let alone in the property. The process of using a Broker Price Opinion for valuation was outlawed in the last crisis, but...
Although this ski season just wrapped up. Some ski real estate is hitting the breaks with seasons end while others continue with the foot on the gas. Why are certain ski real estate markets throughout the country behaving differently than others? What do you...
Last summer Zillow announced that it would start a pilot program that allows instant offers on properties effectively eliminating real estate agents in the transaction. At that time 87% of agents thought Zillow would become a brokerage to eliminate agents....
Did the tooth fairy predict the recent market turmoil? The tooth fairy was a bit frugal in 2017, the average payout dropped 11%. Why such a large drop when the economy is supposedly the healthiest it has been in 10 years and wages are rising? Can the tooth fairy be...
It is ironic that all the focus on the possible trade war with China and others is focusing primarily on the impact to certain industries whether it is steel, pork, high tech, services, etc… Little focus has been given to an industry that impacts more of general...
Last week an Uber driverless/ autonomous car struck and killed a pedestrian. This is the first fatality from a fully autonomous vehicle that was using sensors and artificial intelligence to drive itself. Why is this incident so important? How does this...
Like many of you I had a “rocky” ride in the last real estate recession and successfully learned many “million-dollar” lessons that were very painful. One of the key takeaways from the last recession is that risks lurk in plain sight. Hindsight 20-20 it was easy to...
Investors flipped more than 207,000 single-family houses and condos in the U.S. last year. More than 138,000 investors flipped a home last year, the most since 2007. This represents 5.9% of all single family and condo sales in 2017. Why is this metric important? How...
Pretty crazy to think of a small task like using an iPhone or a Windows computer is increasing your mortgage rates. How can a computer or phone have any impact on rates? Apple, Microsoft, and Google are the largest holders of offshore cash piles. Under the new law...
The sharing economy has taken over. From Uber to Airbnb and now your mortgage. Are you ready to be part of the new “shared” economy? There is a new product that is backed by many Silicon Valley venture funds that allows people to partner with a fund to purchase a...
Reagonomics, Clintonomics, Obamanomics, Bushonomics (1 and 2), Trumponomics, and the new Moronomics which has been embraced by both political parties. It seems like every party has their own economics plan whether is it trickle down or trickle up; economists...
Although we are a hard money lender and do not rely exclusively on credit for our loan decisions (we are an asset lender focusing on the property), we do pull credit on every borrower to verify identity, etc… There are three important recent changes...
Dow plunged 666 points on Friday, yet the jobs report was strong. Why the selloff? Why are treasury rates on a tear? Why did mortgage rates also jump? What does this mean for real estate? Are certain real estate sectors more impacted than others? What happened?...
We’ve recently watched the federal reserve raising short term interest rates while the 10-year treasury barely moved. Inflation expectations are low, but suddenly 10-year treasuries began moving drastically higher climbing to a 10-month high and mortgage rates...
Yesterday I received an extortion letter at home (here is a copy) threatening to release information to my wife if I didn’t send immediately 3650 in bitcoin. This is the first time I've ever seen anything like this. It was startling the information they...
Really? According to a recent research paper by two University of Mississippi professors, they found legalization of marijuana leads to a 6% increase in values in cities in Colorado compared to municipalities that did not legalize marijuana. They conclude being close...
A year ago, most of the world had never heard of bitcoin or cryptocurrency. All of the sudden bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are the new rage stealing the headlines. What does this mean for real estate? Should buyer/sellers/lenders/loan servicers utilize this...
Is Georgia a good indicator of the overall national real estate economy? From the graph above Georgia is trending in lockstep with the national average of delinquencies. What can this tell us? The graph comes from new federal database by the CFPB that tracks...
What does the tax bill mean for your real estate? The National Association of Realtors, typically an optimistic group of folks 😊 , says: “The direct result of these changes would be a plunge in home values across America in excess of 10 percent, and...
No fake news here! If you asked 10 economists what the impact of the tax plan is to the general economy, you would get 11 answers! In a nutshell the tax plan is meant to “juice” the economy by freeing up working capital from businesses. What does this mean for real...
I was recently looking at a property to lend on just west of Denver. The borrower paid 3m cash for the property a few months ago. He requested a loan of 750k. Sounds like a no brainer loan as the property was in a great location. There was one problem that the...
The tax bill is rolling through the senate at record pace. It is a huge bill with tons of moving parts so there is bound to be unintended consequences. The recent iteration contains a provision that would nail banks. Although it appears accidental, it will have a...
The map above is the most important picture for Real Estate Profitability. What does it signify? What do the dark green areas mean? A recent article in the Wall Street Journal stated 19 million jobs will be eliminated in the next 15 years, but 21 million new jobs...
There is a huge risk to your business and your personal finances. Are you prepared? Think of how many electronic transactions you partake in for your business and personally. From online payments to vendors, to remote deposits, to ACH, to wires, and the list...
What is your property worth? Chances are someone in India is answering that question for your lender without ever stepping foot in the country, let alone in the property. The process of using a Broker Price Opinion for valuation was outlawed in the last crisis, but...
Although this ski season just wrapped up. Some ski real estate is hitting the breaks with seasons end while others continue with the foot on the gas. Why are certain ski real estate markets throughout the country behaving differently than others? What do you...
Last summer Zillow announced that it would start a pilot program that allows instant offers on properties effectively eliminating real estate agents in the transaction. At that time 87% of agents thought Zillow would become a brokerage to eliminate agents....
Did the tooth fairy predict the recent market turmoil? The tooth fairy was a bit frugal in 2017, the average payout dropped 11%. Why such a large drop when the economy is supposedly the healthiest it has been in 10 years and wages are rising? Can the tooth fairy be...
It is ironic that all the focus on the possible trade war with China and others is focusing primarily on the impact to certain industries whether it is steel, pork, high tech, services, etc… Little focus has been given to an industry that impacts more of general...
Last week an Uber driverless/ autonomous car struck and killed a pedestrian. This is the first fatality from a fully autonomous vehicle that was using sensors and artificial intelligence to drive itself. Why is this incident so important? How does this...
Like many of you I had a “rocky” ride in the last real estate recession and successfully learned many “million-dollar” lessons that were very painful. One of the key takeaways from the last recession is that risks lurk in plain sight. Hindsight 20-20 it was easy to...
Investors flipped more than 207,000 single-family houses and condos in the U.S. last year. More than 138,000 investors flipped a home last year, the most since 2007. This represents 5.9% of all single family and condo sales in 2017. Why is this metric important? How...
Pretty crazy to think of a small task like using an iPhone or a Windows computer is increasing your mortgage rates. How can a computer or phone have any impact on rates? Apple, Microsoft, and Google are the largest holders of offshore cash piles. Under the new law...
The sharing economy has taken over. From Uber to Airbnb and now your mortgage. Are you ready to be part of the new “shared” economy? There is a new product that is backed by many Silicon Valley venture funds that allows people to partner with a fund to purchase a...
Reagonomics, Clintonomics, Obamanomics, Bushonomics (1 and 2), Trumponomics, and the new Moronomics which has been embraced by both political parties. It seems like every party has their own economics plan whether is it trickle down or trickle up; economists...
Although we are a hard money lender and do not rely exclusively on credit for our loan decisions (we are an asset lender focusing on the property), we do pull credit on every borrower to verify identity, etc… There are three important recent changes...
Dow plunged 666 points on Friday, yet the jobs report was strong. Why the selloff? Why are treasury rates on a tear? Why did mortgage rates also jump? What does this mean for real estate? Are certain real estate sectors more impacted than others? What happened?...
We’ve recently watched the federal reserve raising short term interest rates while the 10-year treasury barely moved. Inflation expectations are low, but suddenly 10-year treasuries began moving drastically higher climbing to a 10-month high and mortgage rates...
Yesterday I received an extortion letter at home (here is a copy) threatening to release information to my wife if I didn’t send immediately 3650 in bitcoin. This is the first time I've ever seen anything like this. It was startling the information they...
Really? According to a recent research paper by two University of Mississippi professors, they found legalization of marijuana leads to a 6% increase in values in cities in Colorado compared to municipalities that did not legalize marijuana. They conclude being close...
A year ago, most of the world had never heard of bitcoin or cryptocurrency. All of the sudden bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are the new rage stealing the headlines. What does this mean for real estate? Should buyer/sellers/lenders/loan servicers utilize this...
Is Georgia a good indicator of the overall national real estate economy? From the graph above Georgia is trending in lockstep with the national average of delinquencies. What can this tell us? The graph comes from new federal database by the CFPB that tracks...
What does the tax bill mean for your real estate? The National Association of Realtors, typically an optimistic group of folks 😊 , says: “The direct result of these changes would be a plunge in home values across America in excess of 10 percent, and...
No fake news here! If you asked 10 economists what the impact of the tax plan is to the general economy, you would get 11 answers! In a nutshell the tax plan is meant to “juice” the economy by freeing up working capital from businesses. What does this mean for real...
I was recently looking at a property to lend on just west of Denver. The borrower paid 3m cash for the property a few months ago. He requested a loan of 750k. Sounds like a no brainer loan as the property was in a great location. There was one problem that the...
The tax bill is rolling through the senate at record pace. It is a huge bill with tons of moving parts so there is bound to be unintended consequences. The recent iteration contains a provision that would nail banks. Although it appears accidental, it will have a...
The map above is the most important picture for Real Estate Profitability. What does it signify? What do the dark green areas mean? A recent article in the Wall Street Journal stated 19 million jobs will be eliminated in the next 15 years, but 21 million new jobs...
