Top 10 U.S. areas with rising real estate prices

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Property Taxes in Colorado How are they determined and what can I do about it?

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Colorado’s system of real property taxation can leave homeowners confused and frustrated. This may be especially true if a homeowner receives a Notice of Valuation reflecting an unexpected increase in the value of his or her home which results in an increase in taxes owed. This article will provide an overview of the process by which property values are determined for the purposes of taxation and the options for homeowners who believe their properties have been incorrectly valued. Colorado has a two year cycle for valuing real property for the purposes of assessing property taxes. In odd years, properties are revalued; even years are considered “intervening years” and properties are generally considered to have the same value as in the prior year. In intervening years, notice of the value of property is often contained in a short form along with the property tax statement issued in January. However, in odd years assessors are required to mail a Notice of Valuation, or NOV, to taxp...
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Read if you think you are the next Donald Trump

We've all heard the nightmare stories about so-called "fixer-upper" homes. Sometimes things go smoothly, sometimes there are "surprises" you couldn't possibly imagine. For those of you that have seen "The Money Pit" with Tom Hanks and Shelley Long, everything went wrong for the aspiring homeowners, but how would you like to be the poor folks featured in this story ? Sometimes reality is scarier than fiction.
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Can Your Home Survive a Wildfire?

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Whether a home survives a wildfire is not random, nor is it a function of luck, most homes that exhibited attributes promoted by the FireSmart program -- including keeping combustible vegetation away from the house, uncluttered yards and low-flammability roofs and surfaces -- survive fires. It seems clear that the survival of homes was a function of resistance to ignition and not a random event or a matter of luck, Beyond doubt, risk mitigation (FireSmart) guidelines demonstrated their effectiveness in mitigating risk under the harshest of wildfire conditions. Most homes caught on fire as the result of embers from the forest fire landing on their property. "Based on site visits, no instances were observed where home ignition could confidently be attributed to direct contact by flames of the burning forest, and there were very few observations where home ignition was likely due only to radiant heat from the forest. Other studies have shown that embers generated by burning vege...
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4 Things You Should Never Do After You Get Pre-approved For A Mortgage

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You've done the work to clean up your credit score, scrape together a down payment and pry a preapproval letter from your mortgage lender. Cheers! Getting preapproved is a smart move, especially in a seller's market characterized by tight inventories and, in some regions, bidding wars. Having a lender's letter in hand signals to sellers that you're a legit buyer whose offer merits serious consideration. Even so, a preapproval letter is just a conditional commitment. It can be withdrawn if your financial situation changes in a way that makes your lender nervous. The best advice? "Maintain the status quo," says Scott Schang, branch manager at BuyWise Mortgage in Anaheim, California. There are a few surefire ways to get rejected after you've been preapproved. Among them: Quitting your job There's nothing wrong with leaving a job to take a similar or better-paying position at another company, so long as you remain a full-time employee who get...
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Fed Votes to Raise Key Interest Rate Again

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On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve took a largely expected move to raise its key interest rate one-quarter percentage point. This marks the second of three hikes that is expected to occur this year. While mortgage rates aren’t directly tied to the Fed’s key interest rate, rates are still influenced by the movement. Mortgage rates are predicted to start rising, and many homeowners and prospective homeowners are already bracing for an uptick. In a recent survey of home buyers and owners by Berkshire Hathaway, 55 percent of millennials reported discouragement about buying a home due to rising rates. Some 68 percent feel pressured to buy a home before rates increase further. The latest rate hike is partly justified from ongoing economic expansion and also a steadily falling unemployment rate, however, the Federal Reserve should be mindful of the lower than expected rate of inflation and the consequent low interest rates on long-dated bonds, like 10-year Treasury and 30-year mortgage ...
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