Real estate investing has stood the test of time as a way to create financial independence. But life has no guarantees but death and taxes, and real estate investing is no different. Lasting wealth does not happen, even for real estate investors, without proper preparation and care. The first decision to be made is to clarify your objectives. Read full article »
Archives for March, 2009
Obama Pays You To Buy A Home?
This past weekend, I was driving home from church when I saw this sign: I immediately had to wonder whether the person doing this marketing has the colossal ignorance necessary to think that Obama is paying anyone to buy a home, or whether he/she's simply trying to take advantage of the people who do have the requisite colossal ignorance. Or maybe it's Read full article »
category: Uncategorized
Real Estate Investing in 2009
This post isn't going to be published widely to the public. Have you noticed that the real estate investing market seems to be shrinking? All of the people who became "overnight successes" in this business during the early 2000's are out of the picture without much intention of returning. It looks like the ranks are thinning to what levels more similar to Read full article »
category: Main Content
Why The AIG Bonus Debacle Is Critically Important To Real Estate Investors
This issue is of profound importance to real estate investors. Please read every word of this article right now. The current front page news is the bonuses totaling around $165 Million received by executives at the huge financial services company AIG. The reason there's such an uproar is because AIG has received approximately $170 Billion in bailout funds from the federal Read full article »
category: Real Estate News
tags: Aig, Anger, Bailout, Bonus, Congress, Contracts, Debacle, Democrat, Direct Investing, Execs, Federal Government, Financial Services Company, Front Page News, Investing Business, John Dingell, Money, Nature, Profound Importance, Real Estate Investors, Reason, Representative John Dingell, Uproar
Housing Starts, The Economy and Real Estate Investing
This morning, the U.S. Commerce Department announced that housing starts jumped by a whopping 22% in February. That was far more than expected, and the largest percentage gain in 19 years. Some economists are writing this off as a weather-related fluke which should be dismissed. But I don't really care what they think about it. In my experience, economists are no more Read full article »
category: Real Estate News
The Politics of Real Estate
Few industries are as profoundly impacted by the political machinations in Washington as the real estate industry. Whether it's old legislation like Jimmy Carter's Community Reinvestment Act or Barack Obama's massive mortgage bailouts, the U.S. political machine has a huge impact (usually bad) on the business of real estate.
Ideally, we could ignore politics. But here at the Bryan Ellis Real Estate Letter, we insist on seeing the world with clarity - including the reality of Washington's aggressive involvement in every facet of our business, from mortgage lending to real estate sales license; from loan modification regulations to appraisal requirements... every piece of our business is profoundly impacted by politics. So rather than stick our heads in the sand and ignore reality, readers of the Bryan Ellis Real Estate Letter choose to be informed and prepared.
Mortgage Industry News
Few things change more rapidly than the mortgage market, and with the increasing dominance of GSE's Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over the mortgage business, it's more important than ever to keep up. Here are a few recent mortgage news updates:
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Mortgage News
- HAMP Success Tally Slowly Growing
- Western States Working Through Foreclosure Backlog Quicker than Eastern
- Biggest Down Payments in the Country Found in New Jersey
- President Bypasses Congress, Appoints Director of the Consumer Protection Bureau
- Federal Reserve Recommends Expanding GSEs to Turn Housing Market Around
- Mortgage Rates Likely to Remain Low for a While Longer
- Top Former FDIC, Wells Fargo Execs Say Fannie and Freddie Must Go
- FHA Continues to Extend Anti-Flipping Waiver
- More Homeowners Using Delaying Tactics to Slow Down Foreclosures
- Now that It’s Passed: The True Cost of the Payroll Tax Cut
About Bryan Ellis
Bryan Ellis is an Atlanta-based real estate analyst and publisher of the widely read newsletter "The Bryan Ellis Real Estate Letter". With over 200,000 subscribers - including real estate investors, agents, brokers, appraisers and other real estate professionals - the Bryan Ellis Real Estate Letter is among America's largest sources of unbiased coverage of politics and public policy for the real estate industry.
Bryan Ellis serves as editor in chief for the Bryan Ellis Real Estate Letter and is assisted by an extraordinary staff of writers, researchers and editors who are each real estate experts in their own right and who assure that the news we report is well researched, factual, and highly relevant to today's real estate industry.
Bryan is very happily married and has two wonderful daughters. He makes his home in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia. You can contact the team at the Bryan Ellis Real Estate Letter here.