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Topouzis & Associates, P.C. Speaks
In this series, Topouzis & Associates, P.C. experts research and explore trends, sales strategies, demographics and dynamics poised to change the real estate industry.
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September 12, 2019Loan Application Defect Risk Rose in February
Following the 2008 housing crash, lenders and bankers began taking risk and defect management more seriously than they did previously. [...]
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September 11, 2019How Might Facebook Have Violated the Fair Housing Act?
Whatever one thinks about the social media landscape in America at the moment, there is a very real sense that [...]
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September 10, 2019Personal Loans Take a Bite Out of HELOCs
Two posts back, we discussed how the tappable equity that homeowners have available to them is increasingly being left on [...]
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September 09, 2019Fewer Regulations Means More Housing Starts
A report by Realtor.com in April conveyed a sense of dismay that, nationwide, the amount of housing construction being done [...]
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September 06, 2019Tappable Equity Fell in Q3
In a report by Black Knight looking back on the third quarter of 2018, the organization examined the tappable equity [...]
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September 05, 2019Cities With the Most Overleveraged Homeowners
Generally here at Topouzis & Associates, P.C., we consider right now to be a good time to buy a home. [...]
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September 04, 2019Mortgage Availability Higher than Buyers Seem to Realize
The first financial quarter of 2019 saw the real estate market slip into buyers’ market territory. The question has been: [...]
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September 03, 2019NMSA Recommends Foreclosure Cost Remedies
When a home goes into foreclosure and is subsequently left vacant for a duration, numerous costs are likely to accrue [...]
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September 02, 2019The New “Too Big to Fail” Rule Proposal
Ever since the collapse of the Lehman Brothers financial organization, the deepest and most severe event of the 2007-2009 financial [...]
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August 30, 2019Preventative Governmental Measures Recommended by Experts
If one thing has become clear over the past few years, it is that natural disasters are on an apparent [...]
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August 28, 2019What Puerto Rico’s Disaster Has Taught Us About Readiness for Disasters
When Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico on September 20, 2017, few could anticipate the extent and length of the fallout [...]
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August 27, 2019What the Presidential Call for Ending GSE Conservatorship May Mean for the Industry
Calls for housing finance reform are growing, and the first steps have been made to step into a new financing [...]
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August 26, 2019The Foreclosure Savings Clause
Nearly every sort of document that affects the viability or that validates a loan is likely to have what we [...]
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August 23, 2019Realtors Have Determined the Best Day to List a Property
When it comes down to it, the real estate market—like any market—is a sort of sociological entity: a combination of [...]
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August 22, 2019Cities Where Real Estate Taxes are Highest
One concern many potential homebuyers have when deciding to get into the home market is the costs above and beyond [...]
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August 21, 2019A Way Forward for High DTI Consumers
The GSE Patch, created by design to smooth access to mortgages for individuals with higher Debt-to-Income (DTI) ratios than average [...]
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August 20, 2019What’s Happening in Home Price Appreciation?
Home price appreciation is a fraught topic these days. The way home prices are going—the numbers hold some market watchers [...]
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August 19, 2019The Best Small Towns for Retirees
There is a rather unfortunate tendency among older Americans to seek out the cheapest locations for themselves to retire, given [...]
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August 16, 2019Generation Xers are Keeping Their Larger Houses
The sociological phenomenon of difference among generations continues to have a pronounced effect on the way these large groups of [...]
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August 15, 2019A Look at Buyer’s Market Mortgage Volume
There’s increasing accord among professionals in the residential real estate market that we have passed through the decidedly seller-beneficial portion [...]
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August 14, 2019The Strange Inverse Relationship Between Rising Rates and Refinance Numbers in January
Common sense would seem to dictate something simple: when rates fall, so the number of people looking to refinance their [...]
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August 13, 2019Modular Construction Gains Steam
As any reader of this blog will be aware, there has been a lot of attention paid latelyto how the [...]
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August 12, 2019What is the Ability to Repay and Qualified Mortgage Rule (QM) Patch?
When Congress modified the Truth in Lending Act (via section 1402 of Dodd-Frank) as a response to the 2008 housing [...]
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August 11, 2019Why Some Think Builders Aren’t Improving Single-Family Housing Availability
In our last post we made brief mention of an early 2019 rise in the confidence of builders, as reflected [...]
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August 10, 2019Increasing Builder Confidence
Last year many—including us—wrote about the strange trend in the construction industry that, despite rises in employment, wages, and overall [...]
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August 09, 2019The Lowdown on Tax Lien Investing
When a homeowner owes back taxes on a property, the governmental authority to which those taxes are owed can place [...]
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August 08, 2019The Latest on How the CFPB Plans to Regulate
In May 2018, the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act (EGRRCPA) was signed into law, in an effort [...]
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August 07, 2019How February’s Low Jobs Report Affected the Housing Market
February 2019 saw a somewhat alarming decrease in the number of new jobs added to the economy—a mere 20,000, which [...]
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August 06, 2019Freddie Mac Expects Mortgage Originations to Increase Through 2019
Late 2018 saw some careful watchers of the real estate market showing signs of mild skittishness, as mortgage prices began [...]
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August 02, 2019The State of Affordability for Home Buyers
A March report by Zillow indicates that housing became less affordable nationwide through 2018. At the same time, renting became [...]
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July 29, 2019Confidence in the Marketplace
Over the course of May, American consumers saw their confidence in the housing market rise again. (We knew it would.) [...]
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July 26, 2019Mortgage Rates: Dropping or Holding Steady?
The real estate market over the past year has been on quite a ride. First there were the heavy bidding [...]
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July 25, 2019Keeping Independent Mortgage Banks in the Game
The status of independent mortgage banks in the residential real estate sector is long-standing and revered. Since the 1870s—says The [...]
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July 24, 2019Delinquencies in Long-Term Decline
According to a February report by CoreLogic, the rate of long-term delinquencies in home loans has been on a downward [...]
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July 23, 2019One Florida City Where Senior Rental Numbers Grew Most Over the Past Decade
The demographic landscape in the United States is such that at present more than 22 percent of the total population [...]
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July 22, 2019What Are the Chief Sources of Homebuyer’s Remorse?
As much as we would like to believe that everyone who gets into a home will enjoy their purchase wholeheartedly, [...]
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July 19, 2019The Most Valuable Renovations in a House Flip
When an investor chooses to flip a home to make a profit, a great deal of thought must go into [...]
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July 18, 2019The Stress and Expense of Flipping
In our previous blog, we discussed who people choose to partner with in order to make a house flip a [...]
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July 17, 2019Who Do People Partner With to Flip Houses?
If you’re interesting in flipping homes—and what potential real estate investor hasn’t at least entertained the thought?—one of the initial [...]
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July 16, 2019Still More Staging Advice: Living Rooms and Closets
A home seller doesn’t need anything working against the desirability of the property they have on offer. That’s why we [...]
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July 15, 2019
Buyer and Seller Optimism Falls Year-Over-Year
In its February National Housing Survey Monthly Indicators report, Fannie Mae revealed that its Home Purchase Sentiment Index had dropped [...]
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July 12, 2019Low-Income Housing “Opportunity Zones” For Investors
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 contained a considerable number of changes to monetary effects of real estate [...]
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July 11, 2019Refinances Rose to 35 Percent of All Loans in January
When loan rates fall, as they did in January and as they have done in minor measure since, it is [...]
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July 10, 2019Affordability of Homebuying This Spring
Recently The National Association of Realtors’ Chief Economist Lawrence Yun presented his outlook for the real estate economy going into [...]
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July 09, 2019How A.I. May Play into Default Servicing in the Near Future
We live in an era at the dawn of an Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) evolution. While A.I. can actually refer to [...]
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July 08, 2019Freddie Mac’s New Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Fund
In early March, Freddie Mac announced that it had begun a new Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) Fund, its fifth, [...]
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July 05, 2019How Today’s Housing Stock Stacks-up Against Demographics
In an exhibition from late 2018-January 2019 titled “Making Room: Housing for a Changing America,” the National Building Museum in [...]
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July 04, 2019How Freddie Mac Manages Today’s Loan Risks
In a March Q&A with DSNews, Freddie Mac’s Chief Risk Officer Donna Corley described how technology is changing the way [...]
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July 03, 2019Where Renting is Cheaper Than Owning
The question of whether to buy or to rent is a perennial one among certain age-groups: particularly among younger people [...]
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July 02, 2019One of Our Service Areas Among the Top 3 States For Retiring Seniors
In 2017, the Baby Boomer generation passed a median age of 53. This means that a great number of that [...]
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July 01, 2019How One Report Suggests Lenders Might Remain Profitable
Stratmore, a data-driven advisory group designed to improve the real estate market for lenders and borrowers alike, released a report [...]
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June 28, 2019Conventional Loans Fall in Veteran Estimation Over a Decade
According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s quarterly consumer credit trends report released in early March, the loans that servicemembers [...]
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June 27, 2019Puerto Rico’s HUD Hurricane Relief Comes With Extra Oversight
In late February, the Department of Housing and Urban Development released its Puerto Rico Disaster Recovery Action Plan, declaring its [...]
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June 26, 2019Where are Homeownership Rates the Highest?
In its April assessment of residential vacancies and homeownership through the first quarter of 2019, the US Census Bureau considered [...]
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June 25, 2019The Main Source of Millennial Homebuyer’s Remorse
Buyer’s remorse is real. In a recent post we discussed ways to decrease the likelihood of subjecting oneself to this [...]
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June 24, 2019Funding a Home Flip
One of the common sources of residential real estate investment—on the rise once again—is the home flip. Flipping is a [...]
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June 21, 2019What You Can Do to Diminish the Likelihood of Buyers’ Remorse
While the market has cooled a bit since the hot scene we saw in 2017—when high demand and low availability [...]
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June 20, 2019What the Baby Boomer Generation Looks for in a Housing Market
On the national stage, the Baby Boomer generation—those Americans born between 1946 and 1964—was long ago eclipsed in the housing [...]
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June 19, 2019What Generation X Looks for in a Housing Market
On the national stage, Generation X was surpassed in number of mortgages by the Millennial generation back in January of [...]
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June 18, 2019More Staging Advice for Sellers
We’ve presented some home staging tips in the past—particularly regarding those most-important rooms in a home for sale, the kitchen [...]
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June 17, 2019Orlando Among the Cities with Highest Year-Over-Year Raise in Home Prices
The First American Real House Price Index is a report designed to measure price changes among single-family properties nationwide, taking [...]
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June 14, 2019Where Has Real Estate Struggled Since the Bubble Burst in 2008?
While we are all wary of a new recession—with memories of the so-called “Great Recession” that began in 2008 with [...]
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June 13, 2019Higher and Lower Ends of the Housing Market See Different Paces of Price Appreciation
The American Enterprise Institute released its report on the AEI Housing Market Indicators on January 28th, which is a briefing [...]
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June 12, 2019What to Make of The Fed’s Statements that Growth May Slow?
In a statement he made to the Senate Banking Committee on the 22nd of February, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome [...]
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June 11, 2019What Makes For the Most Costly Neighborhoods?
In a recent report, Realtor.com examined the median prices of homes in every state in the nation to determine which [...]
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June 10, 2019How are Education and Jobs Related to Area Home Prices?
To what extent is reality dependent upon perception? It’s a timeless question, and clearly context-dependent. No matter how much a [...]
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June 07, 2019Mortgage Prepayments Fall to Lowest Rate in 18 Years
While we have seen some decline in mortgage rates of late from what at one point appeared to be an [...]
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June 06, 2019Two Cities in our Service Area Continue to See Highest-in-Nation Price Acceleration
Changes in the prices of homes have been the subject of much speculation of late, as we have seen the [...]
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June 05, 2019Cities in our Service Area are Two of Three in the Nation with Rising Mortgage Delinquency Rates
Nationwide, the real estate situation—particularly where housing is concerned—has been on a positive course overall for the past few years. [...]
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June 04, 2019Examining the Tea Leaves: Is Another Recession on the Way?
According to a recent report by Realtor.com, we may see a downturn in the economy in the near future—but don’t [...]
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June 03, 2019A Recent Supreme Court Decision on What Counts as a “Debt Collector”
In a unanimous decision on the case Obduskey v. McCarthy & Holthus LLP, the United States Supreme Court confirmed in [...]
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June 02, 2019Blockchain’s Potential Effects on the Title Industry
A recent white paper by Premium Title discusses potential benefits to the prospect of utilizing blockchain in the real estate [...]
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June 01, 2019How Is the Fed’s Pause on Rate Hikes Affecting the Housing Market?
The Fed has paused its schedule of rate hikes, and this appears to be having beneficial effect on the housing [...]
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May 31, 2019Existing Home Sales Hit Cyclical Low
There’s a good chance that we saw a cyclical low in existing home sales in January. The data in from [...]
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May 30, 2019Mortgage Market Softens Even as Delinquencies Decline
While there has been a rise in the amount of consumer borrowing overall (rising to record-breaking levels), and while use [...]
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May 29, 2019What Do Most Buyers Want in a Home?
There are numerous ways to consider what people want in a home—and where they want to live. One of these [...]
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May 28, 2019Affordable Housing Programs Place Longtime Costs at Feet of Lenders
As more affordable housing is built in any given area, there will naturally be more mortgages to originate and service [...]
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May 27, 2019What is Driving Growth in Rental Prices of Single-Family Homes?
The CoreLogic Single-Family Rent Index released in February assessed the trends in single-family rental pricing over the course of 2018 [...]
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May 24, 2019What Millennials Look for in a Housing Market
Perhaps you’ve noticed that the Millennial generation is a hot topic in the market-oriented press. Many articles have declared that [...]
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May 23, 2019Foreclosure Crisis Preparedness: Learning from 2008
In response to the beginning of the housing crisis in 2007—when it was recognized that the number of homeowners in [...]
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May 22, 2019What Buyers are Looking for in Homes in Today’s Market
What purchasers desire in homes, on a societal scale, is remarkably subject to trend. While there are certain evergreen necessities—kitchen, [...]
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May 21, 2019First Months of the Year Saw a Rise in Home Builder Confidence
On this blog and elsewhere you may have read about the decrease in home construction during the latter portion of [...]
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May 20, 2019Do Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Drive Up Multifamily Rent Prices?
When looking at the relative valuations of housing for purchase and for rent, there is a lot to take into [...]
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May 17, 2019The Arbitration Clause in Real Estate Agreements
In the course of closing on a home or commercial real estate, a lot can come at you all at [...]
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May 16, 2019Staging Tips to Reduce the Likelihood of Turning Off Potential Purchasers
As competition for housing continues to drop (even if not exactly precipitously), home sellers will be well-served to do everything [...]
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May 15, 2019Millennials Increasing Homeownership Share
While it’s unclear whether we are truly on our way to a buyer’s market or merely encountering something more like [...]
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May 14, 2019Mortgage Credit Shows Signs of Loosening
In early April, the Mortgage Bankers Association released their Mortgage Credit Availability Index (MCAI) showing that credit availability increased in [...]
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May 13, 2019Some Loan Metrics Returning to Pre-Recession Averages
The so-called Great Recession that began in 2008 has had a lasting effect on the real estate market. Now, just [...]
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May 10, 2019Are Mortgage Risks on the Up-Swing?
According to the recent American Enterprises Institute Housing Market Indicators Report, released on the first of April (not as a [...]
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May 09, 2019Fewer New Homes Selling
A major ongoing news item in the real estate world is the drop in house sales during the latter portion [...]
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May 08, 2019Early 2019 Showed Signs of Mortgage Rate Stability—But Only Briefly
The mortgage rates offered by lenders displayed a relatively steady range at the start of 2019, with some ups and [...]
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May 07, 2019National Rental Home Shortage Leads to Increase in Homelessness
According to The 2018 Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) to Congress, Part 1: Point-in-Time Estimates of Homelessness, released by the Department [...]
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May 06, 2019The Bidding Wars Cool Down
The top of 2019 has seen a continuation of the cooling-down of the housing market that began putting pressure on [...]
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May 03, 2019The Potential Effect of New Flood Insurance Regulations on Lenders
In a recently released statement, a number of regulatory organizations—the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Reserve, the Farm Credit Administration, the [...]
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May 02, 2019One of Our Service-Areas Offers Top-Ten Lowest Mortgage Rates
Our clients are sometimes startled to discover how different housing markets can be from state to state and from zip [...]
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May 01, 2019Here’s How the Housing Market Could Continue to Grow Sustainably
In a report by the National Association of Realtors, it was revealed that the prices of metropolitan houses for sale [...]
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April 30, 2019Could Climate Change Drive a Foreclosure Crisis?
When it comes to foreclosure numbers, there’s little question that in an ordinary market the greatest risk arises in the [...]
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April 29, 2019Late 2018 Mortgage Originations Lowest in Four Years
In Q4 of 2018, the number of mortgage originations fell from the previous quarter, according to the most recent quarterly [...]
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April 26, 2019Ellie Mae Changes Ownership
Ellie Mae—which despite having a name remarkably similar to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is not a government-sponsored entity, but [...]
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April 25, 2019Does Airbnb Have an Effect on the Real Estate Market?
When the peer-to-peer living-space rental service Airbnb came on the scene, some were prescient enough to recognize what a potentially [...]
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April 24, 2019How Technology is Aiming to Bridge the Homeownership Divide
Among workers in the mortgage industry, there is a generally acknowledged divide in homeownership, in which certain sectors of the [...]
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April 23, 2019The Readiness of the Mortgage Industry in Case of Crisis
We are a mere decade out from the housing crisis of 2008. Everything about the housing market is, at this [...]
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April 22, 2019Will 2019 Be a Buyers’ Market?
It’s nearly always difficult to perfectly imagine the direction in which a market might be headed. We have benchmarks, trends, [...]
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April 19, 2019The Change in Housing Affordability Year-Over-Year as of January
Heading into the latter portion of 2018 we saw housing inventory tick upward, which resulted in fewer offers per home [...]
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April 17, 2019Why Gen-X is Reluctant to Invest in Real Estate
With all of the media attention paid to the Millennial and Boomer generations these days, one could be forgiven for [...]
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April 16, 2019How Does Last Year’s Housing Peak Compare to the Peak Pre-2008 Crisis?
It’s a truism of the housing market—as with any market—that we will see cycles come and go. Occasionally those cycles [...]
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April 15, 2019What Do Millennials Look for in a Home Loan?
Though they have recently become the generational group buying the highest number of homes, Millennials have faced a number of [...]
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April 12, 2019Two Views of the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief and Consumer Protection Act of 2018
In May of 2018, Congress passed the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief and Consumer Protection Act, a piece of legislation aimed [...]
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April 11, 2019The Impact on the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection on Mortgage Lending
The Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (BCFP) (also known as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)) initiated operations in the [...]
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April 10, 2019How Did a 1992 Law Contribute to the Financial Crisis?
When the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act was passed in 1992, it was with the most optimistic [...]
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April 09, 2019On the Rise of Senior Homeowner Wealth
During the course of 2018, homeowners who qualify as seniors—for our purposes, those who fall in the age range of [...]
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April 08, 2019Orlando Receives the Third Highest Rate of Rent Increase in 2018
As one might expect from a housing market where prices have continued to rise for the purchase of homes, rental [...]
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April 05, 2019Miami Ranks Among the Most Profitable Markets for Foreclosure Investors
It should perhaps go without saying that where foreclosure purchases are concerned, the wise investor walks a conceptual tightrope. For [...]
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April 04, 2019The Homeownership Aspirations of Millennials: Renovation
In many of our earlier posts we have discussed the phenomenon of Millennials buying homes: how, yes, they are in [...]
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April 03, 2019HUD’s Recommendations During the Government Shutdown
During the recent partial Federal government shutdown, a large swath of the American population found itself affected by the closure [...]
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April 02, 2019How Lenders Helped Homeowners Weather the Government Shutdown
During the recent 2018-2019 partial shutdown of the Federal government, a good number of homeowners and potential homeowners were faced [...]
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April 01, 2019Impact of the 2018-2019 Government Shutdown on Mortgage Lending
The government shutdown that spanned from late December 2018 into late January 2019 had many widespread effects, which are still [...]
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March 29, 2019What Did High Education Costs Have to do With the Foreclosure Crisis?
When it comes to the financial and housing crisis of 2008 that led to what is commonly referred to as [...]
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March 28, 2019What is LIBOR, and Where is it Going?
LIBOR—the London Interbank Offered Rate—is a benchmark interest rate set by some of the largest financial institutions on a daily [...]
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March 27, 2019Zoning Issues for Tiny Homes
The uptick in interest over tiny homes over the past decade has confounded and astounded some, but for some people—in [...]
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March 26, 2019
What is an FHA Loan?
Conventional home loans aren’t for everyone. While generally it behooves a borrower to seek out the customary route to homeownership—which [...]
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March 25, 2019Why 2018 Saw a Housing Slump
One of the surprises 2018 brought to the US economy was the relative softness of the housing market, given the [...]
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March 22, 2019How Homeownership Benefits Younger and First-Time Buyers
Considering how much has been made of the differences in how Millennials have approached their financial standing in the world [...]
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March 21, 2019A City in Our Service Area is One of the Country’s Most Competitive Housing Markets
While the housing market is going through a definite cooling period overall, there remain a number of hotbed markets where [...]
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March 20, 2019Why an Increase in Higher-Risk Loans May Mean Growth for the Housing Economy
When interest rates rise, people involved in real estate begin to buzz about how this will likely to reduce the [...]
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March 19, 2019The Gender Gap in Homeownership Might Not be What You Expect
When one hears the phrase “gender gap,” it’s not uncommon for a scenario to practically spring to mind: a generalized [...]
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March 18, 2019November 2018’s Rise in Housing Inventory
Every market has its two sides. Depending on which side you’re on, a market may be either great for you [...]
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March 15, 2019Fannie Mae’s Predictions on the Housing Market Through 2019-2020
In the January 2019 Economic Outlook released by Fannie Mae’s Economic and Strategic Research Group (which includes its Economic Developments [...]
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March 14, 2019Refinance Rates on the Rise
The latest Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Refinance Report reveals that, in concordance with the rise of interest rates in [...]
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March 13, 2019How the Housing Slowdown May Help First-Time Homebuyers
While for investors and the upper echelon of the housing market a cool-down in the rise of housing prices may [...]
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March 12, 2019What Sorts of Homeownership Options are Available for the Self-Employed?
In a recent report detailing the ongoing impact of the 2008 financial crisis on self-employed households, the Urban Institute uses [...]
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March 11, 2019Ways to Take Title
Title in a parcel of real property is what we convey in order to pass ownership between one person (or [...]
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March 08, 2019Ellie Mae’s September Millennial Tracker Shows They Still Want to Buy Homes
Every Millennial Tracker report released by Ellie Mae in the past few months point to what appears to be a [...]
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March 07, 2019What the FHFA Has in Store for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2019
On December 20, 2018, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) produced its “2019 Scorecard for Fannie Mae, Freddy Mac, and [...]
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March 06, 2019More Common Issues We Find in Curing Title
In an earlier post, we detailed four of the most common issues we find when we are practicing our title [...]
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March 05, 2019How to Buy a House if You Can’t Afford a Down Payment
If there’s one unfortunate truism about the financial health of American families, it’s that, these days, a startling number of [...]
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March 04, 2019The Status of American Home Equity
A solid benchmark for how the American housing market is performing is the wealth that the average American is able [...]
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March 01, 2019What’s the Deal with “Tiny Houses?”
The craze has swept the nation over the past few years. Driven by images of Pinterest-perfection, their perceived “cuteness,” the [...]
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February 28, 2019What is Negative Amortization?
From time to time a client will enter into a loan that is characterized by negative amortization. This is a [...]
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February 27, 2019What is a “Balloon Payment” and When Does it Apply?
Occasionally in residential transactions that we deal with—and more commonly in commercial property transactions—our clients encounter and/or secure balloon loans. [...]
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February 26, 2019What Happens if You Buy Your First Home Before Middle Age?
The benefits of homeownership are legion—and its greatest payoffs accrue to those who act soonest in life to become a [...]
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February 25, 2019How Does Your Credit Score Affect Your Mortgage Rate?
Much of a lender’s business is based on assessments and assumptions of risk. In order for a lender to be [...]
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February 24, 2019What is a Reverse Mortgage?
We find there is a great deal of curiosity about the concept of reverse mortgages. As a homeowner ages, and [...]
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February 23, 2019Why the Current Market Situation Might Make This the Right Time to Tap into Your Home’s Equity
The prices homes will fetch at market may be falling on average—which is increasingly being viewed as a likely positive [...]
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February 22, 2019Ways to Buffer Yourself From the Potential of Mortgage Default
A report based on research by the JPMorgan Chase Institute, “Falling Behind: Bank Data on the Role of Income and [...]
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February 21, 2019Delinquencies (For Most Markets) Recently Hit Lowest Rate in a Decade
According to a recent CoreLogic Loan Performance Insights Report, serious mortgage loan delinquencies—that is, repeated failures to make payment on [...]
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February 20, 2019How Ohio is Making Home Ownership Possible for People with Student Loans
College graduates with outstanding student loans tend to face a number of barriers to becoming homeowners—especially in today’s debt landscape, [...]
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February 19, 2019What is Likely to Drive a Positive Correction in the Market in 2019
A certain softness appeared in the housing market during the latter portion of 2018, and chances are that it will [...]
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February 18, 2019The Rise of Digital Closings
One of our service areas—Massachusetts—has joined fourteen other states in permitting its counties to utilize a new sort of notary [...]
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February 15, 2019How Are Judicial Foreclosures Beneficial to Borrowers?
Foreclosure is not a word one regularly considers when pondering positives for borrowers in real estate. Yet there are a [...]
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February 14, 2019How Dodd-Frank Provisions Affect Appraisal Management Companies (AMCs)
When the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (known colloquially as Dodd-Frank) was passed in the wake of [...]
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February 13, 2019Some of the Most Common Issues We Find in Curing Title
In our business, there may arise any number of issues with the title to a parcel of real estate. The [...]
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February 12, 2019Real Estate Investment: Flipping Houses
The concept of flipping houses—purchasing a home at a relative discount, performing a number of material enhancements or repairs, and [...]
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February 11, 2019What the Fed Has to Say About Home Ownership
In a May report entitled “Report of the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2017,” the Federal Reserve Board (also [...]
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February 08, 2019The State of Florida’s Housing Market
Florida tends to be a slight contradiction where real estate considerations are concerned. As mentioned in a prior post, a [...]
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February 07, 2019Some Ways to Save Up for a New Home
Anyone looking to buy a new home should know that they will need to put some money down in order [...]
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February 06, 2019On Tapping Home Equity
A home’s equity—the difference between what its owner owes and what the home is worth on the market—is often considered [...]
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February 05, 2019The “Bilbao Effect’s” Influence on Home Ownership
When now-famous architect Frank Gehry designed the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain—which opened in 1997—he generated more than just a [...]
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February 04, 2019Land Surveys—the What, Where, When, and Sometimes Why
The What: Land surveys are representations that define the legal boundaries and features of a property in graphic fashion, similar [...]
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February 01, 2019Several of Our Client Markets Make a List of Cities in Which Millennials Can Afford to Buy a Home
One of the more spurious stereotypes about Millennials would have us believe that this large and mighty group of economic [...]
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January 31, 2019REI: What is a “Bridge Loan?”
It is uncommon for bridge loans to be used in the residential real estate industry, especially in the years since [...]
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January 30, 2019A Trend on the Rise: “Granny Pads”
While Baby Boomers are not on average looking to downsize their living arrangements, one must take into account that the [...]
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January 29, 2019What is a Reverse Mortgage?
As homeowners age, they find they have paid down a great deal of the principal on their home, and eventually [...]
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January 28, 2019How Retiring Baby Boomers are Approaching Homeownership
There’s a perception among the younger set that, as Baby Boomers age, they will naturally want to downsize from the [...]
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January 25, 2019How Higher Mortgage Rates are Likely to Affect the Market—In the Short and Long Terms
An abundance of flawed assumptions seem to beset those who are unfamiliar with the real estate market. One of the [...]
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January 24, 2019How Area Noise Has Been Shown to Affect Home Valuations
From time to time we encounter a client who has bought, or is considering buying, a home in an otherwise [...]
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January 23, 2019Debt-to-Income (DTI) Ratio: What it is and How it May Affect You
When it comes to obtaining a loan for the purpose of purchasing a property, a lender naturally needs ways by [...]
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January 22, 2019Hurricanes Cause an Increased Rate of Home Repair and Maintenance
When our communities are forced into a stare-down with the eye of a hurricane—such as 2018’s hurricanes Florence and Michael, [...]
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January 21, 2019Which Zone of Housing is Most Costly For Homeowners?
Zoning ordinances are a standard feature of American real estate markets. These are sets of laws that set aside for [...]
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January 18, 2019Home Appraisals—How They Affect, and Reflect, the Market
The home appraisal is a valuable tool used by lenders to determine the amount of money they are willing to [...]
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January 17, 2019Where Property Values are Expected to Rise
Even despite the perception of a slowdown in the rise of prices of homes across the nation, there are always [...]
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January 16, 2019How Do the Hearty Economy and the Labor Shortage Affect Home-Ownership?
We at Topouzis & Associates, P.C., keep a keen eye on the vicissitudes of the economy and the housing market. [...]
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January 15, 2019What Is Today’s Middle-Class—and Where Do They Find Housing?
An early-October report by the Brookings Institute examined 382 metropolitan areas in order to take stock of the size of [...]
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January 14, 2019How a Housing Foreclosure Crisis Can Re-arrange the Housing Landscape
A housing foreclosure crisis is a seismic economic event. When many people are losing their homes to foreclosure, it means [...]
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January 11, 2019What Does The Increasingly Limited House Inventory Mean for First-Time Homebuyers?
The news media has been flush of late with concern about the housing market. The concern, stemming from the natural [...]
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January 10, 2019Fannie Mae, Freddy Mac … What do These Names Refer To?
If someone pays even a cursory level of attention to news about real estate, they hear the names Fannie Mae [...]
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January 09, 2019Standing Solutions for Victims of Hurricane Michael from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
When Hurricane Michael slammed into our Florida service area, the good people of this great state were subjected to the [...]
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January 08, 2019Should Americans be Worried About the Recent Slowdown in House Sales?
Things were hot for a minute there. Home sales were rising over the past couple years, as people looked to [...]
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January 07, 2019What Sort of Attitude Benefits a Prospective Home-Buyer in the Process?
When someone is considering getting into the market to purchase a home, we believe it is worth taking stock of [...]
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January 04, 2019What Does “Subprime” Mean?
If there is one negative phrase most closely associated with the so-called “Great Recession,” it must certainly be “subprime mortgages.” [...]
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January 03, 2019The Dismay of Delay—Reasons A Closing Might Get Postponed
If there’s one consistency through every type of real estate transaction, it’s that everybody on either side of the transaction [...]
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January 02, 2019Issues That We Sometimes Encounter in Curing Title
Those who are unfamiliar with the real estate business can be blissfully unaware of the complications that tend to arise [...]
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January 01, 2019Buying at Arm’s Length
When it comes to real estate transactions, it is essential—and only lawful—to buy and sell at arm’s length. This is a [...]
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December 31, 2018Does it Ever Make Sense to Buy Condemned Property?
The prospect of purchasing a condemned property comes up from time to time in our discussions with clients. We tell [...]
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December 28, 2018Contingency in the Real Estate Buying Process
Every real estate purchase is made with the involvement of a real estate contract, also known in residential real estate [...]
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December 27, 2018When a Real Estate Contract Becomes Binding
At Topouzis & Associates, P.C., we understand that, for many potential parties to a real estate transaction, the nature of [...]
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December 26, 2018The Mortgage Commitment Letter—and its Expiration Date
There are a number of steps to the real estate transaction process, which end with closing, which is where we [...]
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December 25, 2018To Buy or Not to Buy: For Sale By Owner?
In the hunt for a home it is not uncommon for potential buyers to encounter a home that is for [...]
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December 24, 2018Paying the Real Estate Agent—Whose Responsibility is It?
Real estate agents in all three of the markets we serve—Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Florida—mention from time to time how [...]
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December 21, 2018Whether or Not to Buy a Fixer-Upper Property
There are among the prospective buying set a certain subset of individuals who consider themselves handyman deal-hunters—those who will make [...]
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December 20, 2018Where Prospective Buyers Sometimes Get it Wrong
Every real estate transaction is in some ways unique—as unique as the personalities of the buyers and sellers—but there are [...]
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December 19, 2018Getting Familiar with the Real Estate Purchase Agreement
In every residential real estate transaction, before the parties can close they must enter into a real estate purchase agreement [...]
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December 18, 2018Costs to Buy a Home Beyond the Down Payment—and Why They Are Necessary
Prospective homebuyers are sometimes surprised by the costs and fees that must be paid in addition to the down payment [...]
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December 17, 2018Considering the Investors-Only Short Sale
Occasionally one will encounter a listing labeled an “investors-only” short sale. This can at times turn prospective home-buyers away, believing [...]
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December 14, 2018What are Short Sales and How do They Affect Title?
When a home goes through a short sale, it generally indicates hardship for those on the selling end of the [...]
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December 13, 2018What Are Some Potential Delays to the Mortgage Closing Process?
While it does take some time to close on a home under even standard circumstance.s—a scenario that we described in [...]
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December 12, 2018How Long Does it Take to Close on a Home?
We professionals and others experienced in the real estate industry know what those new to the experience sometimes find surprising: [...]
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December 11, 2018Considerations When Looking to Buy in Suburbs vs. Exurbs
Every level of proximity to a major urban area has its share of benefits and drawbacks. The urban milieu offers [...]
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December 10, 2018The Documents You Should Hold On to After Closing
Even though the law requires closing companies to retain a copy of all the documents produced for closing, it’s a [...]
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December 07, 2018How Sellers Make Sense of Home Profitability
Where making a profit from the sale of a home is concerned, much relies on the housing market—both on the [...]
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December 06, 2018How to Make the Most of Your Prospective Home Inspection
The home inspection is a vital stage in the process on the way to closing a home. Prospective buyers will [...]
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December 05, 2018Active vs. Passive: Modes of Real Estate Investment
Real estate investors come in two types: those who like to be intricately involved in the minutiae of their investments, [...]
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December 04, 2018The Three Ways to Make Money by Investing in Real Estate
Real estate is a valuable and fairly reliable means by which to increase one’s wealth through investment—the occasional market hiccup [...]
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December 03, 2018The Three Types of Property in Real Estate Investment
A number of questions come up when someone is becoming interested in investing in real estate—whether they’re looking to buy [...]
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November 30, 2018When a Property Disclosure Statement Reveals Negative Information
From time to time we close a sale in which the Property Disclosure Statement—on which sellers are required to reveal [...]
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November 29, 2018What the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) Means for the Home-Buyer
We in the real estate business know that there was a time when the real estate market was not entirely [...]
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November 27, 2018Just a Stack of Paper?—What is an Abstract of Title?
One of the many services we offer is the production of an Abstract of Title. Many clients find themselves curious [...]
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November 26, 2018The Property Disclosure Statement: What to Look Out For
Whether in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, or Florida, when someone is looking to buy a home they go through a number [...]
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November 23, 2018Millennials Are Buying Homes—But Why Are Their Numbers Relatively Low for Their Ages?
We’ve mentioned it before, and it’s worth mentioning again: contrary to the odd stereotypes attached to them, Americans of the [...]
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November 22, 2018Raising Your Credit Score to Lock In a Good Interest Rate for Your First Mortgage
It may be the most well-known fact of property lending that the rates at which lenders are willing to lock [...]
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November 21, 2018The Confusion Over “Deed” and “Title”
We have found, through the years, that there is considerable confusion on the part of both buyers and sellers of [...]
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November 20, 2018Common Contingencies on the Way to Closing on a Home
A purchase agreement on a home may at times require certain contingencies be made. Contingencies in this context are certain [...]
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November 19, 2018Some Considerations Before Deciding to Buy a First Home
The prospect of home ownership can be exciting. As compared to renting, purchasing a home means a person is going [...]
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November 16, 2018How the Industry Decreases Defect Risk Using Technology
The title search, title insurance, and mortgage manufacturing and underwriting industries are, like every other aspect of American life, in [...]
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November 15, 2018The Recent Rise in New Home Sales
While we’ve seen a recent relative drop in prices and demand for homes, the fact remains that the demand for [...]
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November 14, 2018Rhode Island’s Decision to Extend Homeowner Foreclosure Protections
In the wake of 2010’s mortgage foreclosure crisis, Rhode Island—whose previous regulations had been fairly lenient toward lenders with regard [...]
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November 13, 2018What the HUD Florida Disaster Plan for Victims of Irma May Mean for You
At Topouzis & Associates, P.C., we proudly serve customers in the Florida market who are seeking title search services for [...]
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November 12, 2018The Link Between Student Loan Debt Payoff and Home Purchasing
We imagine that to our readers it will come as little surprise to learn—given the ever-increasing cost of higher education [...]
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November 09, 2018Trends in Home-buying: Are Millennials Getting in the Market?
It’s easy to fall susceptible to some of the mis-information floating around about the “Millennial” generation. It’s remarkable just how [...]
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November 08, 2018“Who is This Guy?”: The Role of the Closing Attorney
While we would like to believe that the attorney’s role in the home-buying process is common knowledge, it’s clear that [...]
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November 07, 2018Ways Buyers Can Avoid Remorse in a Low Inventory Market
Any time we enter a seller’s market, the amount of buyer’s remorse goes on the rise—particularly with regards to the [...]
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November 06, 2018Why Summer is Primetime for REO Sales
Part of the REO game is making sales as quickly as possible, in order to reduce the amount of lost [...]
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November 05, 2018Fed Raising Interest Rates Means Higher Bar for Obtaining Mortgages
On the 26th of September, the Federal Reserve moved to raise the target range for the federal funds rate from [...]
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November 02, 2018What Prospective Parents May Not Know to Look for in a Home
We often find that among first-time home buyers—that grand cohort that accounted for 46% of mortgages in the first quarter [...]
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November 01, 2018Listing Prices Begin to Fall as Buyers’ Fatigue Sets In, But Single-Family Construction Permits are Down
It seems as though the market’s price-rise may be cooling off at last. In July and August, the prices at [...]
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October 31, 2018Here Today, Gone Tomorrow: Peabody, Massachusetts Makes Realtor.com’s Hottest Markets of 2018
Each year, Realtor.com’s team of economics analysts pores over the housing market data gathered from throughout the United States and, [...]
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October 29, 2018What a Recent Michigan Home Foreclosure Case May Mean for You
In July, a two-year-old case in Michigan, Morningside Community Organization, et al, v. Eric Sabree, et al, went into settlement, [...]
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October 26, 2018“Zombie” Homes: What They Are and Issues to Consider
Where the process of foreclosure on a home—and the prospective change in title ownership that goes with it—are concerned, there [...]
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October 24, 2018The Current Status of Homeowner Demand
It would seem that there are reasons for both hope and concern in the most recent data on the state [...]
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October 22, 2018Why Americans Prefer to Buy Suburban Homes (For Now)
The number of factors that go into the desirability of certain kinds of home-ownership are legion. Americans are a striving [...]
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October 17, 2018Land Recording or Land Registration—Which Applies to My Property?
There are two different types of “property title systems” that apply in the United States. I deal with both of [...]
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October 10, 2018A Brief History of Title Insurance in the United States
I’m the sort of guy who likes to know how and why things work the way they do. So I [...]
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October 03, 2018How Does a Title Search Ensure Clear Title?
I understand why clients ask me, “So what do you do, exactly?” I work in a very specific area of property, [...]
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September 27, 2018What’s the Worst that Could Happen?—Hazards of Not Getting Title Insurance
When a client considers going without an Owner’s Policy of title insurance, it almost makes my hair curl. Life is [...]
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September 19, 2018How To Get Title Insurance
In my years of dealing in real estate transactions, one thing has become clear: when you’re looking to buy a [...]
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September 12, 2018What Does an Owner’s Policy of Title Insurance Cover?
I always recommend to purchasers of a home or other property that they be sure to get themselves an Owner’s [...]
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September 05, 2018What is the Difference Between Lender’s Title Insurance and Owner’s Title Insurance Policies?
In the world of real estate closings, I regularly deal with two different types of title insurance: Lender’s Title Insurance [...]
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August 28, 2018Why Does a Home-Buyer Need Title Insurance?
In last week’s post I discussed how title insurance is designed to protect a home-buyer from events that transpired in [...]
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August 21, 2018How is Title Insurance Different from Other Forms of Insurance?
Sometimes when we’re discussing the necessity for title insurance, I’ll have a client question its utility. This question often comes [...]
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August 14, 2018What is Title Insurance?—The Basics
I often find that, especially among new home-buyers, there is some confusion about exactly what title insurance is. It’s a [...]
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November 14, 2017Price of Single-Family Homes in Rhode Island on Rise
The median sales price of single-family homes in Rhode Island for September rose by 13.1% over the same month last [...]
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October 25, 2017Tampa Ranks as 6th Top City for Home Flipping
A new report by WalletHub ranks the best and worst cities for flipping houses in the U.S., and Tampa made [...]
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September 27, 2017The Median Price of Single-Family Homes in MA Tops $400k
The median sales price of single-family homes in Massachusetts rose above $400k this summer for the first time, with some [...]
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September 18, 2017Does $2 Million+ Buy a Better Home in Florida or Rhode Island?
A recent article in the New York Times compared how much house you could get for around $2.4 million in [...]
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August 30, 2017Homebuyers Turning to Smaller Cities for Affordable Homes
More homebuyers are leaving the largest, most expensive cities to seek out affordable housing in mid-tier cities, according to a [...]
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August 07, 2017Welcome to the new Topouzis & Associates, P.C. Website!
Topouzis & Associates, P.C. is pleased to announce the launch of its new user-friendly website featuring a modern, responsive design [...]
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July 31, 2017Why work with a law firm instead of a title company?
In many, but not all, states, both attorneys and title companies may act as closing agents and issue title insurance. [...]
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July 17, 2017Why Tech is the Future of Real Estate
Nav Athwal reported in Forbes on #NewTech in real estate in his article, “Predicting the 2017 Winners in Real Estate [...]
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June 30, 201710 Biggest Real Estate Comeback Cities in the U.S.
If you’re a real estate investor, your job is all about knowing the state of this or that housing market. [...]
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