Personal Finance Archives - Las Vegas Real Estate

Should I Wait For ‘The Crash’ To Buy A Home In Las Vegas?

buying a home, Personal Finance, , , ,

Many buyers got priced out, or emotionally exhausted trying to purchase a home this year & will continue renting instead. This specifically impacted 1st time buyers, who hadn’t realized appreciation in a home they’d previously purchased. It can be exhausting, writing offers & not getting one accepted. My clients who don’t have a large ‘over appraisal’ budget, or 20% down have been able to purchase beautiful homes. (You only need a minimum of 3% down by the way.) Right now in Fall of 2021, it’s even easier as much of your competition just signed a 1+ year lease, rates are still low, & you have a game plan that’s been proven in the most demanding market below.

…

Read More

The Little-Known Secret of a Mortgage Recast, And How to Use it To Time The Real Estate Market

buying a home, Personal Finance, Real Estate, Selling a Home, , ,

While over the long haul, home values will always go up due to inflationary pressure on the value of a dollar, we understand that there are times each year when homes are at a premium due to demand.  Yes, there are cycles (usually around 16 years for a complete cycle) of up-swing and down-swing on home values, but most of us can’t plan our major life events (births, deaths, job-changes, relocation, marriage, divorce, or inheritance, etc.)  around these larger market conditions.  What we can do is capitalize on the seasonal trends throughout the year we find our life demanding a change.

…

Read More

Two Books For Understanding Financial Calculations – Without an MBA

Investment, Personal Finance, Real Estate

Without a doubt, investing in real estate is best done with a firm grasp of the financials involved. Financial calculations can appear daunting to say the least. With a quick look at the HP-12C financial calculator shown above you’ll quickly begin to wonder what the heck all those buttons do. While I don’t use all of them, using a similar calculator to quickly and accurately assess your costs and returns involved in real estate can help you immensely when evaluating investment opportunities. Is it better to invest in a vehicle that returns 16% annually but compounds only every three years, or an investment that returns 12% but can be compounded every two?

I recently did calculations for this example above & found, though compounding interest periods are a vital component of assessing how your money will grow or shrink overtime, the 16% return that compounds every three years is indeed a better investment for my 18 year horizon. In order to do this I had to use both my HP-12C and an excel spread sheet. Excel has many of the calculations the 12C does built right into it, but I’ve been really enjoying using the HP after reading a book that is basically half education on how money works, and half instruction manual to the HP-12c. This book relies heavily on the use of this exact calculator to illustrate it’s figures & if you’re looking for a solution you can carry around in your pocket without needing to lug your laptop around, I’d highly recommend reading it. The title is “Taking The Mystery Out Of Money” by Lonnie Scruggs, a now deceased investor who focused on flipping mobile homes. You don’t need to be interested in mobile home investment to benefit from his knowledge about how money works, and the material is so beneficial I’m left wondering why this book isn’t required reading somewhere along the education cycle of a high school senior.

The second book is definitely more real estate focused in-depth, but uses Microsoft Excel …

Read More

The Four Pillars of Real Estate Investment

Investment, Personal Finance, Real Estate, Rental, , ,

Hopefully, you’re someone who owns not only their own home, but also another asset that generates cash flow.  If you are a real estate investor, you’ll realize many benefits when done correctly.  The four pillars of real estate as an investment vehicle are: Cash flow:  Simply put, if you can rent the home or apartment…

Read More

Buying a Home – The Financially Responsible Way.

Personal Finance, Real Estate, , ,

If you’re like many people who just moved to a new area, or decided you’d like to stop making your landlord rich & start building some real wealth for your family, you may be getting excited about buying a home.  You’ve got a lot of things to consider before you jump into a car & start looking at something you saw online.

Firstly, are you qualified to complete a purchase?  If you haven’t spoken with a mortgage lender yet, you may be getting excited for nothing.  Do you know what your credit score is, do you know what credit score you’ll need to secure a decent loan?   How about a good loan?  There are many ways to get an idea of your credit score & credit history if you’re just getting started.  The easiest is by using a site such as CreditKarma.com.  Keep in mind, nothing is truly free, your credit information is provided to you here in exchange for the ads offering you credit cards & other loans.  Provided you can avoid any temptation to to get a card you don’t need (which may actually temporarily hurt your score, depending on your situation) you may be well served to keep an eye on your score & find ways to improve it before making a large purchase such as a home.

Once you know where your creditworthiness lies, it’s time to think about down payments & closing costs.  Yes, you may be able to get an FHA loan with very little money down.  Again, nothing is free, since March of 2013 this now comes with a PMI (private mortgage insurance) monthly fee that will now stay on your loan until it is paid off or refinanced.  That being said, if you can get into a property in an area where appreciation will result in your equity growing substantially over the next few years, your ability to refinance out of the FHA into a conventional loan may happen more quickly than if you were just paying down 20% of what you bought it for.

For example, I buy a $100,000.00 house with 3.5% down My loan would be for $96,500.00 . In the first few years, most of your monthly payments are going to interest, not paying down the principle much.   However if in a few years, appreciation has been good in the area, maybe my home is now worth …

Read More