Things To Know About Working With A Seller's Agent

By Alexandria P. Anderson

It is essential to understand the steps in home buying especially if this is the first time that you will purchase a new house. Buying a home usually involves working with a subagent otherwise known as the seller's agent or seller broker. These agents are the ones who act as the seller's representatives whenever closing a deal. As such, they are entitled to a commission in addition to rights and responsibilities towards the buyer.

Each state may have distinctive regulations when it comes to home buying. Similarly, the national law has certain prohibitions relative to it. As suggested by the author of the book "100 Questions Every Home Buyer Should Ask", home buyers must make an effort to read thoroughly all the documents such as agent's forms and disclosures before signing to fully understand the services being offered. There are several things that a seller's agent may or may not be allowed to do in your favor:

The seller's agent can provide you with detailed pricing lists of comparable homes in the area. These are often called 'comps' and are a compilation of similar homes in the neighborhood, listing information and their list prices. This information ensures that you are not offering, or being offered, an unreasonable price when it's time to negotiate.

The seller's agent cannot tell you which home to choose when you are still deciding. Even though it's the seller's agent's job to sell you the home they are commissioned to sell, they do not have a right to 'push' their home over another in question. If you like two homes and the broker is working with both sellers, they cannot persuade you to purchase one over the other; the decision is ultimately yours to make.

The seller's agent cannot say anything about the home's deficiencies. Whatever your decision is, the seller broker cannot influence it. This is the main reason why any defects in the property cannot be discussed to you. Nevertheless, you can do your own research to see if you are buying the one that is in good condition.

The seller's agent cannot make suggestions on the best offer for the home. It may be tempting to ask the seller what price you should pay for the property, but they cannot legally offer this information at any time during your communications. The seller broker has certain obligations to the seller, so this information may impede on that relationship.

The seller's agent can ask you for referrals. Many seller's agents are independent business owners and always looking for new clients. They do have the right to ask you to refer them to friends or family members, and will do everything they can to make your home buying experience a good one.

In home buying, it is essential to remember a few important things. It is a fact that seller brokers facilitate the home buying process. However, this does not always translate to giving you all the benefits in the purchase of your new home. So it is necessary that you conduct your own research and find a real estate agent who can assist you or help you address your home buying concerns. - 23204

About the Author:

Author and Realtor Alexandria P. Anderson helps clients to find and purchase Homes in Minneapolis as well as Minneapolis homes for sale in Minnesota.

Debt Can Be Good With A 1031 Exchange

By Kevin Y. Delno

Although 1031 Exchanges are primarily used to shift our equity from one property to another, there are ways of recovering some of that equity for use as leisure or further investment purposes. There are two ways to recover money from your property - before or after the 1031 Exchange is completed.

To keep in line with the 1031 rationale, all of the proceeds from the sale are supposed to pass to the qualified intermediary - this prevents you from receiving any cash benefit from the sale. But, suppose you want that new car or want to take the family on a vacation and don't have the cash to do it. So, you decide to refinance your property shortly before the 1031 exchange and use that equity for your desired luxury item. A smart move? Probably not, according to IRS v. Garcia.

In IRS vs. Garcia, it was decided that Garcia when refinancing his property in anticipation of the 1031 exchange, should have paid taxes on the money not used on the new property. Garcia tried to avoid the tax and ran afoul of the 1031 rationale and the IRS.

Now, you want to avoid the Garcia issue so you decide to refinance the replacement property. This is where post-exchange financing comes into play. Not all taxpayers want to leave their equity in the replacement property - some want to take out that equity and buy more real estate. But, how long should you wait after completing the 1031 exchange before you take out the equity in the replacement property? Some say wait a nanosecond.

Some will tell you that the time required for the finance is but a nanosecond. The nanosecond refinance is waiting just long enough after the 1031 Exchange to show the IRS through the closing statement that you have reinvested all of your equity into the replacement property. In a separate transaction, a new statement is used to show that the replacement property is encumbered with new debt via a loan or mortgage. Then there is cash payment from the lender to you. What we have is essentially a pool of money that you can access after the exchange.

There are risks in the nanosecond interpretation since there is no definitive IRS rule regarding how long you have to keep the equity in the replacement property. In order to avoid the Garcia trap, or a negative ruling from the IRS, it is deemed prudent to keep the equity in the replacement property until the following tax year, or until two years have passed from the 1031 exchange to the ultimate refinance. - 23204

About the Author:

United States investors can save a lot of money by using 1031 exchange to defer all of their capital gains tax on the sale of investment property. A 1031 tax exchange is similar to an interest free loan from Uncle Sam.

3 Easy ways to a better credit score.

By Doc Schmyz

In the old days the "man behind the desk" decided to give you a loan or not. Your handshake was the contract and your honor was the collateral. Now however the "man" has a name...the name is FICO SCORE.

Although there are several credit models, the most commonly used is FICO, based on a model created by Fair, Isaac Company. Their consumer website is myfico.com, and you can find information about the FICO credit scores there.

Your FICO credit score can be used to determine your interest rate and how much credit a lender will give you. So taking care of your score, and keeping your credit clean will save you money.

Getting and improving your credit score is not hard at all, just takes time. Here is a tip or two that will help you improve and increase your score.

FIRST: You need to get a copy of your credit history

You may not have a history for several reasons. Maybe you pay all your bills with cash, maybe you?re a student, maybe you have never needed a loan for anything. All this will have an effect on your history. Don?t be upset...if you?re like most people you will get a credit history far sooner than later.

A fast and easy way to improve or start a credit history is to get a loan and pay it off on time. "Installment loans" are looked at as more important than credit cards. You will show a stronger score if your installment loans are paid up to date and on time then say a consumer credit card.

Another option is to take a $1000 and open a 6 month CD at a bank. Now turn around and get an installment loan using the CD as the collateral. You then take that $1000 loan and do it again at another bank. Do this for a total of 3 times.

Now what you have is 3 loans. Pay the minimum payment for 6 months. In the last month, cash out your CDs and pay the loans off. You now have a credit history, and did not go into long term debt to get it.

SECOND: Keeping your history in good standing.

So we now have a good history. How do we get the score higher?

You don?t need to close old accounts. (Unless you?re being charged a fee to keep the account open.) Part of the FICO formula is based on the amount of credit available vs. how much you have used.

Something to think about. The day of the month you pay off your credit card may have a lot to do with your FICO score. Let?s say you have a $2000 credit card. Every month, you charge about $1800 to that card. And, every month you pay it off. But here's what happens - your credit card company reports your credit information monthly to FICO, but they report it on the 10th of the month...and you pay on the 15th. This would cause the credit agency to see you carry forward a balance every month. Try changing the payment times...just is sure NEVER to pay late.

THIRD: Fix your bad credit

For whatever reason, if you have a poor credit history, there are things you can do to improve your score. Some of them take time, and you will probably be best served by talking to a credit counselor to be sure that you not only repair your credit history, but also eliminate what caused that poor credit history in the first place.

Your credit history is the most important part of your FICO score. You need to start paying your bills on time. The value of your bills is as follows. Mortgage first, followed by installment loans, then credit cards.

The next factor in your FICO score is how you have used your credit. So pay off those credit cards

When you?re all done with the rest of things...review your credit report. Get one from all the credit agencies. Look for errors and mistakes. Contact them to see if they can remove them or correct the errors.

A strong, healthy, and clean credit score is a major part of your financial world. Keep it clean and don?t risk it. A good score can factor into things you can't imagine. Don?t damage your score if you can help it. - 23204

About the Author:

Doc Schmyz has invested all over the US and Canada. His free website shares Real estate investing information for all over the US. Find Real estate investing information by state

Forex Options Strategy

By Hass67

You must have heard about George Soros; the man who made a cool $1 Billion profit in just a few days with a single currency bet. In the early 1990s, he speculated on the price of British pound being too overvalued.

He purchased $10 Billion of puts and calls forex options by gambling all the assets under his control as collateral on a single bet that in the end made history.

George Soros had perfect knowledge of the currency markets. He was sure of his bet and had the conviction that the Bank of England could not prop the overpriced British pound for long. His conviction was shared by other currency speculators. The only difference between him and them was the huge amount of the bet he placed. Bank of England was forced in just of 24 hours to take the British pound out of the European Monetary System and let it float freely. His gamble had paid off.

British pound plummeted in the currency markets. George Soros had won his bet. He became famous as the man who broke the British pound with his pictures in all the famous newspapers and magazines.

Daily more than $3 trillion are transacted in the currency markets. You as a forex trader can profit from the volatility in the currency markets using a number of methods. Forex options is one of the methods

Spot, futures and options are three contracts that are traded on centralized exchanges and available to you as a retail forex trader. Swaps and Forwards are two more contracts traded in forex markets for hedging by large institutions like big banks, multinational corporations and off course hedge funds.

Lets discuss trading forex options. Options are derivative products that give you the right to buy or cell or certain underlying asset at a predetermined price known as a strike price before or on a certain date known as the exercise date.

In case of a forex options the underlying asset is the currency. Now, forex options give you the right to purchase/sell a certain amount of a particular currency on payment of a premium.

You may or may not exercise your right to buy/sell the currency. If the market price of the currency is above/below your strike price, you can buy/sell that currency by exercising your option.

If the currency market price is below/above the strike price of the forex options contract that you had purchased by paying a small premium; you can simply let the options contract expire. You only lose the premium.

There is a very good forex options strategy that lets you profit from the currency markets in whatever direction it is moving. You can profit regardless of the direction of the market.

This is a risk free method but it only guarantees 30-50% ROI. If you are satisfied with this much sure shot return you can try this method. - 23204

About the Author:

Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. He is interested in investing, options and forex trading. Read more about Forex Options Non Direction Trading System. Discover a revolutionary new Forex Robot

What is Forex Megadroid?

By Lou Terino

Are you looking for a Forex predicting robot? One that is engineered to perform amazingly accurate? The solution may be in the Forex Megadroid. What it does is simply amazing. You can't predict the short-term future from 2-4 hours using only your human intellect. But with Forex Megadroid, you are like a Forex prophet who makes money by knowing the near future forex trends an uncanny 95.82% accuracy rate.

How can this help you? Think about it, there is huge cash to be made trading foriegn exchange rates. This takes the fear out of the equation. It is a fact that currencies are always fluctuating. As a Forex trader, knowing the immediate market trends can make you a lot of money. It is reported on average that this robot has turned every dollar invested in 2009 into three dollars. That is an amazing 200% profit!

Because the forex market is so volatile, you need a program that can reliably predict the profitable pip moves before they occur. What is so innovative about Forex Megadroid is that it can predict the Forex market in any kind of economic conditions using secret computer-based calulations called RCTPA or "Reverse Correlated Time and Price Analysis." Yes I know... that's a mouthful you been to say that acronym, but the mathematics are solid and produce income for those that use this groundbreaking Forex robot.

Another point, please keep in mind that the masterminds behind Forex Megadroid, John Grace and Albert Perry, are not just some nerdy mathmaticians who wear horned-rimmed glasses, out-of-style clothing, and pocket protectors. No, that is not the case here... These guys have 38 years of real world experience in foreign exchange trading. They know through through this experience what are the common indicators of up or down forex movements. It was based upon this experience that the inner workings of the forex prediction robot called Forex Megadroid was conceptualized.

Foex Trading on Auto-Pilot - Powerful Stuff!

Having a system that will help you trade forex effectively on auto-pilot is the perfect way to become financially independent. If you are looking for a system to base your investing future on, look no further than the Forex Megadroid robot at http://www.forexmegadroidreview.com/. - 23204

About the Author:

Forex Megadroid Review Get Updates on the Progress of Forex MegaDroid from someone you can trust!