It sure feels nice to sit down.  You see, over the past few weeks, I have been packing for my big move to my new home.  No, I wasn’t able to afford a house, but instead I purchased one of those mobile homes.

You might wonder why anyone would want to live in a mobile home park, but the one I am now in is really nice.  Also, the price was well within what I could afford, and so I was able to put down a larger down payment, so they were able to remove PMI from my mortgage requirements.

Speaking of mortgages, my mortgage broker was exceptional.  She was able to get me a manufactured home loan at a rate better than what was posted in the paper.  My good credit history, large down payment, and the fact that I have worked at the same place for five years all contributed to my successful mortgage.

Well, now all I have to do is unpack my stuff.  Looks like I will be doing this for a few more weeks…. but it is sure good to have a place to call home.

I have had a few of my friends over the past few years move away to other towns.  Of course that is expected as you grow up, but the funny thing is most people have moved to one place: Greenville, SC.

So, I thought I should go online and see what all the fuss was about.  I know that they all bragged about their homes when I talked to them, so I thought that I would check out the homes in Greenville, SC and see what made them so special.

After checking out a few sites and the MLS listings, I could see why they moved.  You could get a large home for less money than you could in our hometown, and they were nice.  Much nicer than any homes that we have here (from what I could see in the pictures).

It also helped that you could go skiing in the winter, and boating in the summer.  In fact, the area was a veritable playground, where you could do anything that you liked to do outdoors - you just had to hop in your car and drive a few minutes.

After my research, I cannot blame them for moving - I think I have an excuse to move now too.  I don’t think it will be too hard to convince the wife, I think she’ll like it there too.

As Christmas approaches, I am making my final purchases for gifts for the holidays.  I have had to double check my purchases to make sure I haven’t missed anyone, and it looks like there is only one gift left: the gift for my inlaws.

Now, I call my wife’s parents mom and dad, and I have for many years.  They have never been very well off, and I thought years ago that we would buy them a home when we had the money.  Thankfully, our business has been going very well, and this is the year that it will happen.

We have been looking at Asheville real estate for the past few months, trying to find them a place.  Even though there were many Asheville condos we looked at, it wasn’t until last week when we checked out an ad in the paper (it was poor English and read "real estate for sale Asheville") that we found what we had been looking for.

We just finished getting the property transferred to their names yesterday, and the locks changed as well.  So, we are going to wrap up a picture of their place, and their keys, and give it to them Christmas day.  I think they will be happy and surprised at the same time - I cannot wait to see their reaction.

I was talking to my cousin today on the phone.  She has been a successful executive at a local insurance company for the last few years and just recently married (in the last two years).  Right after their marriage, they purchased a large house for themselves and their new puppy.  Last time we talked, her husband had been laid off from work and they were struggling to keep up with all their payments.  I called to see how they were doing.

According to her, things were okay now, but they were pretty gloomy just a couple of months ago.  They were unable to keep up on their bills and even missed some mortgage payments.  It was to the point where if they missed one more mortgage payment, the bank would add their home to the repossessed properties they owned.  It ended up that these financial problems had put a huge strain on their marriage - they were at the point of considering divorce.

But a solution came from the least likely source - a coffee shop paper.  Erin had gone out for coffee one day and was reading a coffee shop paper, and saw an ad from a company that helped people avoid foreclosure.  She called and learned that they offered a sell and rent back program - they would solve her money problem by buying the house from them, and they would not have to move out of their home.

She shared this information with her husband and they quickly applied for their program.  Thankfully they were able to avoid having their home repossessed, they fixed their mortgage, and her husband has a new job.

I was so happy to hear that they made it through their financial crisis okay - it is hard to see others struggle.  For those of you in their situation, don’t worry, there are solutions - they just might turn up in the most unlikely of places.

I have been looking at moving for a long time.  I am tired of the town I live in, and would like a life where it is a little warmer.  There are quite a few places I have considered moving to, but my favorite would be California.

First off, warm is good.  Where I am now, there is a really cold winter and lots of snow.  In fact, not having to shovel snow would be great.  Any excuse to get rid of my winter jacket would be welcome.

Secondly, from what I read, California is a little more strict compared to other states.  They have more rules and enforce more order.  Tired of people skateboarding?  Move to California.  Don’t like to see dogs walking on the street - move to California.  It would be really nice to not step in dog doo doo when you go out for a walk.

Lastly, the house prices fit in my budget.  In fact, I have been looking at the California mortgage rates and I could actually save a little bit each month by moving there.

I think I am going to check and see how much I can sell my place for, and definitely consider moving to California.

Well, I just got home from the bank.  You see, I went there to talk to a banker about my mortgage. 

It has been nearly four years now since I bought my house and there are some things I want to do to it.  The bathroom needs some improvement as well as we were thinking of adding a garage to our home.  The housing market here has been increasing as well, so we wanted to take out some of the money out of our home.

We sat down and discussed my options.  In my case, to get the money out of my home for improvements as well as the increased value, we applied for a home equity loan.  It took a little while to fill out the papers but we got it done.

He also let me know that I had to come in next year to renew my mortgage - and I should consider doing a home refinance as the interest rates are lower now.

I thanked him for his time and he let me know he would call me when he found out about the loan.  My wife and I will be going out tonight to go look at bathroom stuff.  I can’t wait!

There are quite a few successful real estate firms in our city.  They are all the traditional franchise names that we have come to know.  Today though, I wanted to think outside of the box and find some successful property firms that we don’t have here in North America - this would be my little experiment for today.

I decided the easiest way to do my quest would be to use a computer.  The advantage going this route would be I would get results quickly - no reading through books required.

After performing a few searches I ran into a roadblock: quite a few of the sites I came across were not in English.  I changed my criteria to be sites that are only in English and tried my search again.  After trying a couple more searches I came up with a country: South Africa.

I chose them partly because they are so far away from us and because their sites were in English.  Searching again, I found two major successful real estate firms in South Africa: Pam Golding International and Seeff Properties.

Both of them started out as small businesses and grew to what they are today.  Both employ hundreds of staff and have over a hundred branches in the country.

Alright, I am going to go read about them.  If you have been intrigued here, don’t feel free to make a search and check them out for yourself.

When most of us put our homes on the market for sale, we want to sell our house as fast as we can.  In a hot real estate market, selling your house quickly is easy, but in a slow market it may be a little harder to sell your home. 

For those of you looking for a quick sale, I suggest that you look for “I buy houses” ads in your local paper or online.  Typically, the individual or company that is offering this type of deal has the funds available to purchase properties quickly, without having to secure financing.  Typically, they want a break on the price but when you can’t sell your home, sometimes it is just a relief to get rid of it. 

You can also look for real estate investing websites for investors eager to purchase homes.  A quick search on Google for “fast cash for houses” yields more than two million results.  Chances are that you can find a buyer for your home on one of these sites.  Just like the ads in the paper, you may not get the price you are asking for, but most of these investors are very reasonable. 

Just remember that real estate is a finite resource - if you have some for sale, chances are there is someone out there willing to buy it.

If you live in Chicago or you are thinking about moving to Illinois and you need to secure a great deal on a mortgage loan, then your best opportunity to get a low rate is to compare 3 or 4 lenders quotes. Shopping for a mortgage loan can be very complex.  We found that there are a number of sites that offer comparison shopping and used a service offered by LoanNetwork.com where they actually had lenders contact us with there mortgage quotes. It was super easy to shop for a mortgage and helped us save a ton of time in trying to compare offers. Comparing refinance and purchase home loans for closing costs, interest rates and programs has never been easier. The site offers free mortgage calculators, a forum to ask their expert response team and offers mortgage loan quotes for all 50 states including: Illinois Mortgage loans, second mortgages, equity loans, interest only and deferred interest mortgage programs.

Being an avid real estate investor, I am constantly looking for new markets to invest in real estate.  I was talking to a colleague of mine one day at lunch and he suggested that I take a look at the Cayman Islands.

Looking into Cayman Island Real Estate I was excited about some of the unique advantages of investing in the Caymans.  Some of the more notable ones are:

• Favorable tax laws such as no income tax, capital gains tax and no property tax.
• There are no restrictions on foreign ownership.
• Good return on investment of properties.
• Great range of properties available from inland house lots to million dollar beach front properties.
• High rental rates for income properties.  An example is you can expect between $1000 to $2500 per month for a two bedroom apartment.

After seeing all the benefits, I decided to get in touch with a realtor.  Consulting the Cayman Island Business Directory, I found many realtors who I spoke to and were interested in helping me find exceptional rental properties.  I know that it worked out well for me and I would suggest you all consider the Grand Caymans for your next real estate investing venture.