New York Times Article

Summer is almost here, and it’s time to get your house in order for the hotter months. Here are tips to put your furnace to bed, store your space heaters, prep your cooling system, repair window screens and more.

By Marilyn Lewis of MSN Real Estate

Baby your cooling system.  Change or clean your air conditioning filter. With the air conditioning turned off, check the evaporator unit for dirt, brushing and dusting it. Remove the pan from the bottom of the unit, clean and replace it.

Replace vacuum cleaner bags.

Vacuum refrigerator coils.  Remove the front cover from the refrigerator and use the wand attachment on the vacuum cleaner to carefully suck out the dust and dried bits of macaroni and dog food that have worked their way under the fridge.

Wash windows.  Remove curtains and blinds if you can. Clean windows and window trim, inside and out. Start by brushing (with a dry broom) or dusting the trim. If it's really dirty, wipe it down with a rag and soapy water. Outdoors, use a hose to rinse off the soap. To clean the glass, use a good-quality squeegee.

Clean and repair window screens.  On a sunny day, take window screens out of storage and lay them on the grass, sidewalk or deck. Dust with a soft cloth or brush off dust with a clean paint brush. Dip a big (roughly the size of your hand), soft-bristle brush in warm, soapy water and gently scrub each side of the screen. Hose off each screen and put them in the sun to dry. Avoid tearing or pulling screens from their frames. You can mend small tears with a needle and thread.

Check outdoor hoses and irrigation systems.  Look for leaks, breaks, pooling water or clogged sprinkler heads. Repair, replace or call in the pros to get your irrigation system ready to run.



You might think that Americans would have learned over the past few years that home mortgages can be dangerous products, to be approached warily, only after careful study and consideration. You would be wrong.

Americans spend twice as much time shopping for cars than they do for home loans, Zillow.com reported Thursday.  An online survey of 2,729 adults commissioned by Zillow found that on average they spent five hours choosing a mortgage, compared with 10 hours for a car and four hours for a computer. Nearly a third of the respondents devoted two hours or less to choosing a mortgage.

“Mortgages continue to be something that most people don’t want to spend time thinking about,” said Stan Humphries, chief economist for Zillow, a real estate information firm.

Of course, only an economist could find that even faintly surprising. Most people find it fun to look at shiny new cars and take them for test drives. Vroom, vroom! Reading through the fine print of loan contracts and trying to figure out what would be a fair price for title insurance and an appraisal–well, slightly less diverting.

Even if you do want to shop wisely for a mortgage, that isn’t easy to do. You can’t just pick the lowest rate because the lender offering the lowest rate might have the highest fees. And one lender’s loan doesn’t necessarily have the same terms as the similar-sounding loan from the bank or broker next door. You need to look at a bunch of factors, and at the end of it you won’t necessarily know which combination is best.

Moreover, you might be told on Monday morning that your rate will be 5%. When you come back to lock in the next morning, however, the lender may tell you that the market has moved (as it does constantly) and now your rate is 5.25%. Do you have time to go back to all the other lenders and check what they’re charging today? Or are you so eager to refinance or seal your home purchase that you’ll just sign on the dotted line?

In fact, many lazybones simply go to one lender–the one recommended by a friend, Realtor or home builder–rather than doing their own research.

At the beginning of this year, new federal rules mandated a standard three-page “good faith estimate” of mortgage fees and terms that is supposed to make it easier for consumers to compare offerings of different lenders. Opinions are mixed on whether this new form is helpful or confusing.

Lenders, for their part, always say they are eager to improve “financial literacy” so consumers can make better choices. But do they really want to make it easy for consumers to shop for mortgages? I’m skeptical. If consumers could easily compare one lender’s terms with another’s, profit margins on home mortgages would go down.

Wall Street Journal

1. Two Loans On the Property. If the holder of the first mortgage is going to have to take a loss, they usually are reluctant to give any type of payoff to another lender who is in second position. But the second lender must agree to the short sale and often wants a certain amount of the loan recovered (usually at least 10%). The first mortgage often has a cap on what they will allow to be paid to any secondary lien holders.

2. A Complicated Communication Process. The challenge for agents and consumers isn't only how to get through the complicated maze of paperwork, but actually getting to speak with the negotiator for the bank.

3. Credit Issues. Often if the homeowner is keeping up their other payments and is applying for a short sale, the lender(s) won’t agree to the short sale unless the homeowner is willing to sign a promissory note for the shortfall.

4. Private Mortgage Insurance Companies. If borrowers have put less than 20 percent down on their property there is a Private Mortgage Insurance policy on the money up to 20%. PMI companies have joined the lender in asking homeowners to sign a promissory note for the shortfall amount. Or, if the PMI company agrees to the short sale, they have to make an immediate payout on the lender’s claim. By refusing to approve the short sale, the PMI company forces the lender to foreclose on the property. The foreclosure process can take months to complete and then even more time before the property sells and closes as a REO. The net effect for the PMI company is that they put off paying their claim for 12 to 24 months.

5. Private Mortgage Insurance. If a property has declined in value by 20 percent, it completely wipes out the holder of a 10 percent second mortgage. The holder of the first mortgage offers the holder of the second a five percent payout to close the transaction. The second trust deed holder says “No,” because if they file a claim for mortgage insurance they get the full ten percent. Thus, a number of major lenders who have made equity loans may have an additional incentive not to agree to a short sale. This may explain why so many holders of secondary financing are unwilling to agree to a short sale and prefer a foreclosure instead.