The problem is that most sellers will try to hide their motivation and will not give you a good price when they first talk to you on the phone.

via biggerpockets.

Although lower prices encourage true bargain hunters to look for deals, they can also scare off homebuyers. And, between the two, anxiety is winning

via msnbc.com.

Hindsight being what it is, then, why should it have surprised anyone that the housing market — and its rapidly inflating bubble — ultimately faltered? Given that prices so rapidly outpaced income, shouldn’t it have been obvious the center wouldn’t hold?

Apparently not.

“Everybody got caught up in the excitement,” said Paul Semanek, president of the Greater Capital Association of Realtors, a trade group.

via Times Union.

Title insurance is more needed than ever due to todays housing marketi. With the amount of shady foreclosures, robo-signing and corner cutting in the banking industry, and flat out fraud by the people in charge of holding your mortgage note, its just smart to plan for the unexpected. There is only one thing that can protect your home purchase from all of these ridiculous outcomes, and thats a title insurance policy.

via Broker Agent Social Network

Mortgage rates are near record lows and will probably rise in coming years. Home prices may not be done falling, but they probably don’t have much further to go in most places either. Rents, on the other hand, seem set to increase, thanks to low vacancy rates.

“Renters beware,” warned a newsletter that I recently received from a real estate agents’ group.

via NYTimes.com.

With falling home prices and higher inventories, most of the public views real estate as a “buyer’s market,” in which buyers hold more of the control and sellers will more eagerly accept lower offers just to sell.

Not so fast, say buyers and sellers. More buyers are finding the sellers in the driver’s seat

LinkedIn.

A bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives would waive early distribution penalties on certain qualified retirement plans if the funds are used to buy a house that has been in foreclosure for a year or more.

via HousingWire.

The saying, cash is king is on my A-List of most used and abused phrases in real estate investing. Knowledge is king, and will trump the use of cash pretty much every time out, given time

via biggerpockets.

An increasing number of people are paying for real estate with case, making a surprising uptick in a market that was all but flattened two years ago.

via KFVS12 News

1. Then: Don’t buy now, home values have further to fall.

Now: It’s a fool’s errand trying to time the bottom. Economists don’t even agree on when the bottom will occur, so the average person probably won’t be able to time it perfectly.  While it’s true that home values have further to fall in many areas this year,  interest rates will likely rise, offsetting any savings that may come from lower home values.

via Zillow Blog