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G. Brian Davis is a real estate investor, personal finance writer, and travel addict mildly obsessed with FIRE. He spends nine months of the year in Abu Dhabi, and splits the rest of the year between his hometown of Baltimore and traveling the world.
Getting a mortgage is overwhelming. You have seemingly endless loan options, all of which read like a foreign language. And each type of mortgage comes with its own separate set of rules, which add even more confusion. If you’ve never…
Shopping for a mortgage feels like learning an entirely new language of terms and acronyms. From LTVs to DTIs (front end and back end), cash reserves to credit scoring models, it’s overwhelming. So when your loan officer asks if you’d…
Spoiler alert: Kids are expensive. The most recent estimate from the U.S. Department of Agriculture puts the average cost of raising a child to adulthood at $233,610, and $284,570 factoring in inflation. That doesn’t include college education, if you plan…
Buying your first home, and not sure what all the lender lingo means? Keep a glossary handy when you shop for a mortgage because the terminology gets confusing quickly. And that starts with a basic distinction: whether you want a…
Mortgage lenders earn thousands of dollars every time they close a loan. Although they earn that money in many different ways, one is by charging borrowers upfront fees called points. Don’t want to pay points among your closing costs? And…
Lenders operate on risk. The lower their risk, the less they charge in interest and fees. And one way they analyze risk is by looking at your financial stability. Enter: seasoning requirements. Lenders include these time requirements to make sure…
Like the idea of tax-advantaged investing, but already maxed out your retirement account contributions for the year? Or do you want to reduce risk in your retirement portfolio without completely stripping your returns? Consider municipal bonds. They come with unique…
No matter how much they dislike debt, most people achieve home ownership with the help of a mortgage. But while you might need a loan to get your foot in the home ownership door, that doesn’t mean you’re stuck with…
When you hold an asset like an investment property for longer than one year and sell it for a profit, you pay capital gains taxes on that profit. Maybe. Or maybe not if you use tax loopholes like a 1031…
Applying for a mortgage? Keep your stress ball handy. Aside from collecting your income and asset documentation and pulling your credit report — and a dozen other data points — lenders also require an appraisal of the property you want…
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