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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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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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