Portland Real Estate Blog

This is a top 100 real estate blog in the world according to Feedspot.com. In particular, this is a local real estate blog written by a top 1% real estate agent in the U.S., Stephen FitzMaurice, Realtor. Stephen regularly reports on the greater Portland metro area’s real estate market including annual housing forecasts and best time to sell or buy a home reports. He gives home selling and home buying professional advice. He also writes informative articles on Portland neighborhoods and suburbs as they relate to the real estate market. Finally, he writes to inform the general public about real estate agents, such as annual average real estate agent commission reports and more.

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credit score mistakes

Top 10 Credit Score Mistakes

December 21, 2010

1. DON’T APPLY FOR NEW CREDIT OF ANY KIND. Including those “You have been pre-approved” credit card invitations that you receive in the mail. Every time that you have your credit pulled by a potential creditor or lender, you lose points from your credit score immediately. Depending on the elements in your current credit report, you could lose anywhere from 2-50 points for one hard inquiry. 2. DON’T PAY OFF COLLECTIONS OR CHARGE OFFS during the loan process. Paying collections will decrease the credit score immediately due to the date of last activity becoming recent. If you want to pay off old accounts, do it through escrow, and make sure that 1) you validate that the debt is yours, and...


short sale prices

Short Sale Prices – What will the bank take?

December 21, 2010

Today, it is all in the offer. A Portland short sale price means almost nothing.  The bank will take what it takes and no one knows for sure what that will be, unless the price is pre-approved.   On the selling side agents set ridiculously low short sale prices to bring in an offer.  Once the first offer is in the bank starts acting, usually by ording a BPO, or broker’s price opinion. Then the bank will negotiate with the first offer at (usually) a much higher price.  Finally, most banks present the selling agent with a pre-approved price (after they do the BPO) and then the home might actually sell. Buying a short sale home can be a long process, but it helps...