Home » Columnists » Biographies »

HOA disclosures a case of bad timing

By Tara-Nicholle Nelson, Monday, December 28, 2009.

Q: I'm buying a condo in California, and have already removed all my contingencies. I have just realized that there were some documents that weren't provided to me before and they point to a possible litigation being pursued against the builder by the homeowners association (HOA). How is this even possible, and what is my position?

A: This situation has arisen due to at least two separate problems. First of all, some California HOAs take 15 or 20 days (or more) to produce their disclosure packages, after they are ordered by an agent or title/escrow officer.

These packages are extremely lengthy, by necessity, as they must include all newsletters, covenants, codes & restrictions (CC&Rs), board meeting minutes for the last 12 months, financials, insurance documentation, and other rules and regulations for living and owning a unit. It's not at all bizarre for these packets to run upwards of 250 pages!  more...

Don't put all eggs in loan mod basket

By Tara-Nicholle Nelson, Monday, December 28, 2009.

Q: I applied for a loan modification at the very beginning of the year. It's almost the end of the year, and I still don't have an answer from the bank. I haven't been making the mortgage payment this whole time, but I haven't received any sort of notice of default or foreclosure. The bank keeps telling me to wait, and saying that the "investor" who owns my loan is taking up to six months to make a final decision on loan modification applications. Could this possibly be true? I want to get back on good footing and I feel like I should be doing something. Any advice?

A: You're right to feel like you should be doing something -- you should be paying your mortgage! OK, so that's a seriously oversimplified view; let's get down to brass tacks.  more...

Builder accused of unfair sales tactics

By Tara-Nicholle Nelson, Wednesday, December 23, 2009.

In the class action Donia Townsend, et al. v. The Quadrant Corp., et al., four married couples who bought homes from builder The Quadrant Corp. charged that after moving in to their respective homes, various construction defects had caused them to incur damages from mold, pests and toxic gases, and had violated Washington's Consumer Protection Act.

Each purchase contract included a clause mandating that any disputes with the builder would be arbitrated, not litigated.  more...

Take a bite out of debt

By Tara-Nicholle Nelson, Tuesday, December 22, 2009.
Image courtesy of <a href="http://us.penguingroup.com/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9781592578474,00.htm" target=blank>Penguin.com</a>.

If years were keywords, perhaps 2009 was "frightened frugality." This year was all about belt-tightening in the face of a very uncertain financial future, for our nation and ourselves, as individual families and people. Now that we're on what most agree is the other side of the financial apocalypse, albeit just barely, my guess is that 2010 will be the first of perhaps several years of recovery for most Americans.

This year, everyone I knew hoarded their cash because they weren't sure what would happen next. Next year, most of us who haven't already done so will be putting an action plan in place to rebuild our finances, from the foundation up.

So what is the foundation of these new and improved personal finances so many of us will be building in 2010?  more...

This is your brain on real estate

By Tara-Nicholle Nelson, Monday, December 21, 2009.
Flickr photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/blmurch/999408276/" target=blank>blmurch</a>.

When I was growing up, you could hardly watch TV without seeing that drug prevention commercial with the intact-then-fried egg, and that voiceover intoning ominously, "This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs."

Some of the self-defeating (at best) and bizarre (at worst) real estate decision-making that ultimately created the recent foreclosure crisis was sufficiently illogical to make one equate us square-footage-obsessed, "Cribs"-gazing, McMansion-gobbling Americans with substance abusers. And that poses the question: What does your brain look like on real estate?  more...

'Strategic' home default disaster

By Tara-Nicholle Nelson, Friday, December 18, 2009.

Q: I went late on my mortgage payments in order to get a loan modification. My lender did reduce my payments, but not my principal balance, so I'm still way upside down. I decided to walk away, but I wanted to buy another place first with my Veterans Affairs (VA) loan certificate. The mortgage broker told me I can't qualify, because of the late mortgage payments.

I thought I was being strategic with my actions, and asked around and got advice from all sorts of friends and accountants, but it seems like I've ruined my chances of getting out from under this place, anyway. What did I do wrong?

A: Well, friend, you appear to have fallen victim to several of your own incorrect assumptions and fallacious lines of reasoning along the course of your decision-making process recently.  more...

Buy now or save for big downpayment?

By Tara-Nicholle Nelson, Thursday, December 17, 2009.

Q: I would like to buy a home right now. This seems like a really basic question, but I'm not sure whether it's better to wait and save the 20 percent down or to just buy with the minimum 3.5 percent downpayment? I feel like if I save the 20 percent downpayment, it won't be a buyer's market by the time I have the money.

A: The decision as to when to buy (or sell, for that matter) to best take advantage of market dynamics faces every real estate consumer.

I generally advise buyers and sellers to make their real estate moves at the time that makes the most sense for their lives, rather than trying to time the market at all.  more...

Distressed sales include rescission rights

By Tara-Nicholle Nelson, Wednesday, December 16, 2009.

Thomas R. Lloyd owned and occupied his home in San Francisco, and fell behind on his mortgage payments. In an effort to avoid foreclosure, Lloyd sold his home to equity buyer Jeffrey E. Hoffman and simultaneously signed a leaseback/lease-option agreement under which Lloyd would continue to live in and make lease payments on his home, and for two years would have the right to purchase the home back.

The sales contract did not notify Lloyd of his rights under California's Home Equity Sales Contract Act ("HESCA"), California Civil Code Section 1695, et seq., which was applicable because his home was in foreclosure at the time of the sale.

HESCA is a statute that protects owners of homes in foreclosure, in part by requiring that equity purchasers inform distressed homeowners of their right to rescind the sale.  more...

'Chicken Soup' for the pocketbook

By Tara-Nicholle Nelson, Tuesday, December 15, 2009.

If you haven't heard of Mark Victor Hansen of "Chicken Soup for the Soul" series mega-fame, you probably haven't heard of Christmas, either. But if there's a tween, teen or young adult on your holiday shopping list, it's time you heard of him now.

His latest book, "The Richest Kids in America: How They Earn It, How They Spend It, How You Can Too" (Hansen House, 2009), provides a fresh, kid-centered slant on the basics of entrepreneurship, innovation and philanthropy -- necessities for kids who want to get a head start on starting or just understanding today's complex financial and business environment.

Don't be put off by the materialistic-sounding title -- this book is actually a primer for and about kids that emphasizes dollars and cents much less than it does passion, vision, creativity and giving.  more...

Prioritize your house hunt

By Tara-Nicholle Nelson, Monday, December 14, 2009.

My buyer clients know that they count on me to remind them that, while fair market value, the comparables and the likely appraised value are all important inputs to their decision on how much to offer for any given property, the price they offer must also pass the final gut-check question: "What's it worth to you?"

I've been finding myself asking that same question of homebuyers in a different context lately, though -- the context of what they're willing to do, to what lengths of personal inconvenience are they willing to go -- to do the work of house-hunting, and successfully buy a home on today's market.  more...

The not-so-great drywall of China

By Tara-Nicholle Nelson, Friday, December 11, 2009.
Flickr image by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/plasticmind/393981364/" target=blank>Jesse Gardner</a>.

Q: I bought a home and am concerned that it has a lot of the symptoms of Chinese drywall. Did the real estate companies that were listing these homes have any responsibility to determine if the house they are selling has this product, either due to a remodel or in the original building of the home?

A: From 2005 to 2007, two severe hurricanes and the housing craze incited a major wave of home construction, leading to shortages of some building supplies that particularly affected the southern United States. Some homebuilders -- especially in Florida, Virginia and Louisiana -- began using drywall imported from China. Since that time, homes containing Chinese drywall have been reported as having all sorts of problems, including corrosion of copper plumbing and electrical wiring, appliance failures, a strongly sulfurous (i.e., rotten egg) odor, and even health problems.  more...

Road rights take wrong turn

By Tara-Nicholle Nelson, Wednesday, December 9, 2009.

In the case of Jones, et al. v. Sparks, et al., property belonging to Harry and Anita Jones shared a common boundary with property owned by their neighbor, Algin Stamper, that fronted a highway.

Given that access to the property via the original entrance was difficult, especially in bad weather, the Joneses paid the neighbor $500 for permission to clear and use a rough access road from the highway to their property across the neighbor’s land.

The Joneses used the road across the neighbor’s property for 13 years, until the neighbor passed away and his heirs instructed them to discontinue using the road.  more...

Pick a path to wealth

By Tara-Nicholle Nelson, Tuesday, December 8, 2009.
Image courtesy of <a href="http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470481552.html" target=blank>Wiley</a>.

Ask a stockbroker how to get rich, and they'll usually give you stock picks. Ask a real estate broker, and they'll dig out a statistic proving that real estate is the only way to riches. Entrepreneurs "know" they'll never get rich working for someone else.

In "The Ten Roads to Riches: The Ways the Wealthy Got There (And How You Can Too!)," Forbes columnist and money manager Ken Fisher makes a strong case that each of these paths can lead to riches, but none of them owns the exclusive. In the book's 10 modular (read: standalone) chapters, Fisher backs up his arguments that each of these roads leads to wealth:  more...

Real estate consumerism, at any cost

By Tara-Nicholle Nelson, Monday, December 7, 2009.

I went home for Thanksgiving this year. My hometown is a mid-sized burb smack-dab in the middle of California, a little spot of bright red politics, traditional family values and industrialized farming bookended by the uber-liberal intellichic of the San Francisco Bay Area a few hours north, and the sleek, anything-goes polish of Hollywood a couple hours south.

What's cool in my hometown is Friday-night high school football, Sunday morning church services, and big box store shopping galore. I once heard that the city has the largest number of grocery stores per capita of any city in the country, and I believe it. They've got more Wal-Marts and Targets in town than any five Bay Area towns combined, and they've got grocery stores inside the Wal-Marts and Targets, too! You cannot drive past a corner or bat an eye without a Super-something staring you down.  more...

« first‹ previous123456789…next ›last »