Scott Your Broker

Your Credit Is Bad But You Can Fix It So, you want to buy a house but your credit stinks? This is not the time to beat yourself up for screwing up your credit but it is the time to start fixing it. Most lenders will tell you that anything less than a “good” credit score will cause headaches in either qualifying for a loan or for securing a competitive interest rate. Follow these six easy do-it-yourself steps and your credit will improve. Let’s get started. 1.  Where The Heck Do You Stand? Before you begin do-it-yourself credit repair, you’ll want to get copies of your full credit reports from all three bureaus (Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax). You can get your reports truly free, once a year, at www.annualcreditreport.com or by calling 1-877-322-8228. You can also try free credit score tracking apps Credit Karma or Credit Sesame to help you. Credit scores range from 300 to 850. A score of between 700 and 740, depending on the sco...

Adding Accent To Your Home Recently, my wife and I purchased our first home together since we married this last year. It’s a modest ranch-style home built in 1975 but in a neighborhood we love. We wanted to add some touches to it that truly made it ours and would give it some flair. Before we moved in we raised the sunken living room floor, vaulted the ceiling in the main living areas and added a large exposed wood beam, we tore out a couple of walls to for a more modern, open feeling and we are adding an entertaining island off the kitchen to create a gathering place for us and guests. Along with this, we are adding accent walls to two of the main rooms to bring forth a more dramatic and eye-appealing look. An accent wall can totally transform a room, taking it from boring and drab to bold and exciting. Accent walls create a new focal point for your space, add liveliness and contrast, and are typically a very inexpensive DIY project. The Starter Accent Wall You can easil...

Higher Mortgage Rates Are Just One Side Effect It's not hard to realize how increasing inflation creates hurdles for many groups in our economy but there is no segment that it creates more havoc for than home buyers and sellers.  As measures appear in the economy to coerce the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates, this blueprints a path of struggle for anyone trying to sell a home. While at first glance one might think rising home prices would give sellers a happy dance. But even though home prices rise so do mortgage rates. And with rising mortgage rates comes a reduced buying power of the home seeker. With less affordability comes less competition of qualified buyers. And the cost of your replacement home just got more expensive. Inflation rose the price of your home but also of the one you will seek after this sale. Even if you planned to downsize, that smaller replacement will be costlier in an inflationary time.  The inflation effect for the buyer group is a...

Don't go in like an attack Dog or you might kill the deal! Negotiation is a subtle art in real estate, but skilled negotiators can usually find some common ground that satisfies all parties. On the other hand, using the wrong negotiation tactics can sink a deal pretty quickly. Here are some negotiation tactics buyers (and real estate professionals) should avoid: Lowball offers: Going far below market value when you make an offer damages your credibility as a buyer and can be insulting to the seller. The seller has a range in mind that they’ll accept, and if you’re not even approaching the low end of that range, they won’t even consider the offer. Incremental negotiations: Don’t continue to go back to the seller with small increases in your offer ($1,000 or less). The constant back-and-forth can grow tiresome and lead the seller to consider other opportunities. “Take it or leave it”: Try not to draw a line in the sand with your initial offer. The seller can get d...