In How Buildings Learn , Stewart Brand points out the “double reality” of the word building itself: “It means both ‘the action of the verb build’ and ‘that which is built’–both verb and noun, both the action and the result.” This wordplay captures a special reality of buildings: that they […]

Mortgage distress seriously affects people who feel shame, suffer in silence and have a lack of legal representation in court, a new study revealed today. And our banks and society have ‘completely lost sight of the humanity of the situation’, the House Hold report by the Community Action Network (CAN) […]

The Camp Fire, which has Northern California up in flames, is putting an estimated 31,394 homes, with a total reconstruction cost value of about $7.3 billion, at high or extreme risk as of Nov. 11. Southern California’s Woolsey Fire, affecting areas from Thousand Oaks to Malibu, is putting 16,996 homes […]

Questions about Refinancing This question was posed to me recently through Quora, the question and answer web site. I did not answer it there because an adequate answer in the short space that Quora likes was impossible. But it made me think about why that was the case, and the […]

Whoa, that’s way more expensive than renting. Let’s see what we can do to get that monthly payment down. Maybe a 20-per-cent down payment, enough to save on the cost of mortgage default insurance for your lender? Now we have monthly payments of $3,057. Let’s sharpen our pencils and see […]

A federal judge on Nov. 9 sentenced three men to prison for participating in a real estate scheme where they lied on loan and credit applications in order to buy 14 properties across Northern California. One defendant reportedly bought five houses, including one in Elk Grove. “All of these homes […]

Almost a quarter of mortgages went to buyers with smaller deposits, continuing a trend away from large deposit buyers. The market share of first-time buyers and small deposit borrowers increased in October as young buyers take advantage of low rates and slowing house price growth. A total of 67,011 mortgages […]

Family feeling: Sue Alcock is glad to have got her daughter Emma and son-in-law Jason on the housing ladder Credit: Alessandra Spairani University lecturer Sue Alcock, 50, released equity in a property to help her daughter purchase a house Getting on to the housing ladder can be tricky – particularly […]

The prospect of a mortgage and owing a huge sum over decades — whether you’re arranging or renewing financing on a home — can be daunting. And when you look at how much of your payments go toward the interest in the early years of your mortgage, that’s even more […]

We have been involved in the mortgage industry for almost 40 years. We have been through the easy times and the hard times. And we know that financing a house, getting a mortgage, refinancing an old mortgage or any other relevant procedure has been an evolving ongoing story… Needs knowledge, […]