John 's Blog

The Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007 may allow up to $2,000,000 debt forgiveness on a principal residencefor married couples (it is $ 1,000,000 for a married person filing seperate) for a limited time period. If your mortgage debt is partly or entirely forgiven for the years ending 20...

Trying to view the future is at best an art and attempting to project what real estate will be doing requires an eye for trends and keeping your fingers crossed that it will hold together. Economic variables such as what the farm belt harvest will be, interest rates and controlling inflation has ...

More than a simple land trust, this is a whole trust transfer system.   But why should you use it?      What are the advantages? Prevent the lender from exercising its "due on sale" clause Be able to evict a defaulting buyer instead of having to foreclose on them Get privacy, safety and legal pro...

What a great week.  The Olympics, Little League World Series and very limited negative real estate news.  The Ventura County weather has been outstanding, the ocean water has been great.  One wishes this could continue for the rest of the year but that cannot happen. The most negative real estate...

Be your own banker. Look into some of the benefits sellers can realize by carrying paper.  This is an option that should be considered when thinking of selling your property in good or bad times. To see complete article go to:  www.venturacountyretalk.com.

ZipRealty and Realtors.com have reported drops in home inventories throughout the United States.  Major metropolitan areas such as Baltimore, Phoenix, Sacramento and a number of other areas have shown significant decreases. Is this fall of home inventories good or bad? It depends on why inventori...

The above chart shows the completion of the last real estate cycle with the bottom occurring around June, 2008.  There can be some residual downside but for the most part the bottom has been set for Ventura County. The next cycle has already started and based on data from Ed's Forecast for the ne...

Ho...Hummmmm.  It is summer and things are lazy and slow.  Lots of time is being spent with the family and friends.   Most news this week continues to be on financial institutions but this will shortly abate and attention will be transferred to something else. Prices for oil has been downward; fo...

The Department of Energy suggest three things that one can do to save $ on summer cooling and winter heating. The first of the three is to install a programmable thermostat and use it to automatically keep your home temperature while at work.  Allow 10-15 degrees adjustment for day time applicati...

Hmmm......things are starting to get a little dicey. Warning signs are fluttering all over the place.  Is inflation just around the corner?  And what is happening in the world of mortgages? For complete article visit www.venturacountyretalk.com