Whether you’re a cat person, a dog person or something in between you may be impacted by the “pet restrictions” that are part of your next home purchase.  When pet policies are part of a home’s or condo’s rules they can affect both your personal uses and investment potential.

For instance, in the Seattle market, I heard an interesting statistic that more home owners have pets than children (more…)

Seattle City Council has just adopted an updated plan for row-homes, townhomes, and cottages.  The first decade of the millennium was full of new construction and a majority of designs in Seattle were the townhomes.   

I don’t want to give you the wrong idea; I do not have anything against (more…)

It’s official: FHA was just given authority to change the amount charged to borrowers for both the Up Front and the Annual Mortgage Insurance premiums…and change them they did.

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When you get approved for a home mortgage you should ask, “What are my closing costs?”  You should see them in writing.  Interest rates are important, but your ‘closing costs’ are equally important.  If you have a rate of 5% on a $300,000 loan with closing costs of $9000 quoted from one bank and you have a rate of 5.5% with 0 closing costs from another bank which is better? (more…)

FHA has been sustaining first time homebuyer market and lower price point homes through the collapse of the real estate market.  Now that the market is slowly on its way to recovery, FHA is not so subtly backing away from their low down payment options, making it harder for a lot of homebuyers to buy their first home.  (more…)