I sat in a signing with a client this week and was reminded that VA loans are assumable by the next person buying the property, if they have VA eligibility.  That means they can apply for and take over the loan that the owner has been paying on, at the …

I just typed out a very long answer to someone who emailed me this useful question, so I thought I would blog it. 

Assume you have $150,000 down for your investment property. (That's about the minimum you should have for a rental purchase)

Your $150k is 30% of a $500,000 …

I made this in about 20 minutes on my PC, video shot with my Android phone.

The President announced this week that 10,000 troops will return home from Afghanistan by the end of this year,
and another 23,000 by the end of next summer, a drawdown of the
30,000-troop surge he ordered to fight there in 2009.  

So 30,000 troops will return home from Afghanistan by …

This very large, beautiful house was just listed today. With 8 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, and nearly 4000 sqft under roof, it would be best used as a multigenerational home. There is a new full kitchen along with 2 wetbars, all with very nice counters and cabinets. 

The owner just put …

After nearly 5 months on the market, we have lowered the price of this beautiful little Hawaii Kai home to $750,000. At just over 1400sqft, it's not large, but it sits on half an acre of land, and has been beautifully remodeled with travertine tile, silestone counters, and this brand …

How did your money do over the last 5 and 10 years?  Was housing a terrible investment?  Which did better, stocks or real estate? 

Well look back to 5 years go and say you had chosen to invest in stocks.  If you had $50,000 in (June 2006,) and you had …

It's not an all time low, but it's close to a 5 year low.  Right now there are 83 homes for sale in all of Hawaii Kai at any price, most of them well over $1 million. 

In Ewa Beach and Kapolei combined, there are only 137 homes for sale.  …

For the past 2 years, Freddie Mac's Super Conforming Mortgages and Fannie Mae's Temporary High-Balance Conforming loans provided higher maximum loan limits for high cost areas of the country ($793,750 in Honolulu County, versus the conforming maximum loan amount of $625,500). This was a temporary higher loan limit that is …