投资房的Q and A

网友的post -

当看到一个提精神的“好房子”，我忍不住就拎起电话问经纪了：bla bla .... 但对方总先会告诉我: “啊，我看看，啊，你这个房子的down payment 是多少多少啊，” 然后才说其他东西。我总纳闷难道人们买房都是首先考虑是借多少 loan 吗？是对于投资划算而言？还是经纪估计我肯定要借 Loan 先吓我一下？
1. 我不借Loan不行吗？
2. 或者借一部分是划算的？借多少比例呢？
3. 全现金买房有什么不好？当然不好之一我也知道，出去的很难收得回来。
4. 光借 Loan 有什么好？有什么不好？
借此请教各位买房大拿下，另外，因为也有其他地方的朋友问我并帮着看看在圣地亚哥
的房子。我自己得好好上上这方面的课，很多问题真是好out。

我的回答 -

不是你out了，而是人各有所长。比如我看到房贴，眼睛也亮了，声音也响了，因为那
是我的爱好嘛，所以自然用心了解，而一看到大家讨论做精致的菜肴和甜点，我就自愧
无言了，象我这样偶尔请朋友到家吃饭，做菜还要看着菜谱做的人，还有啥好说的妮？
言归正传，以下是我个人的看法和经验。

我估计你买的是投资房，我估计你的经纪是和你初次合作。通常如果你是new client,
agent会问你downpayment付多少，不是他八卦，而是一个qualify客户的必要性，她对
你的资金状况需要有底，接下来make offer的时候她再确认下就可以了。另外， 看上
了合适的房子后，她跟对方agent communicate时候可以把这个重点提出来你是个
strong buyer with this this much of downpayment. 所以你有米，不用担心，要让
经纪知道 ：-）

不借loan当然行，只是资金全进去了，如果你有其它更好的投资渠道，你就暂时没有分
流了。当然你以后也可以refinance把钱拿出来， 但那总是一道程序。用现金购房，好
处是抢到房子的机率提高，如果大家出价一样，那基本非你莫属，甚至也有sellers在另外的offer比你高出$5000之内的情况下，也是有可能考虑接受你的。当然总有exception, 这里恕不展开了。如果你考虑买的是二十五万以下的房子，可以考虑现金。

之所以说这个价位用现金，还有一个因素是，这个价位的房子所在的complex很多unit
是出租房，我在Mira Mesa和Carmel Vally都碰到过。如果你贷款买投资房，lender有
二个要求， 一, owner occupancy不能少于51%，二，home owner delinquency rate不
能超过15%， 这两个很好记，一个15，一个51。所以我的客户如果是买四十万以下价位
的投资房，为小心起见我第一件事就是打电话给它的HOA了解这个情况，这个你问对方
经纪，他们大部分时间没有on hand info. 弄清楚了就避免下了offer等到贷款有困难
时才退出，伤财劳命。也不是绝对没有lender对此提供贷款， 但有的话，term和rate
就不同了。

如果买的是价位高一点的房子，可以考虑贷款。 投资房的贷款利率比自助房大约高一
个quarter. 年终报税的时候interest是可以write off的。如果你全现金，出租收入又
不错，那你的passive income税也是要交掉一部分的。特别是你的家庭收入已经在较高
bracket的话。用贷款，就当是tenant帮你付贷款。 对于投资房，lender一般要求downpayment最少25%.

Hope it helps.

Who does it belong to?

Some buyers closed escrow and as they entered their new home, to their surprise all of the mirrors in the bathrooms had been removed.  Only bare paint remained in their place.  The buyers were frustrated and felt cheated.
Did they have reason to feel this way?  And how can we avoid situations like these from occurring in the future?
Let’s take a brief look fixtures and their definitions.  A fixture begins as personal property but becomes a fixture once it is fixed (or annexed) to the home.  This is usually done by the application of plaster, cement, screws, nuts, bolts, or nails.
There are a few tests the courts use to determine whether something is personal property or a fixture.
1.) Annexation-this is the most basic test used, how securely was the item fixed to the property?
2.) Adaptation-this refers to whether the item is vital and adapted to the use of the property.  Is the item a custom piece made for the home or is it a standardized piece that can be easily moved and put into another property?
3.) Intention-did the owner install the piece to increase the value of the home?  Usually the rules of annexation and adaptation, show the intention of the owner.
Your best bet is to ask lots of questions when buying a home.  And when selling your home, be sure to disclose items you’d like to remove when you sell.  Your highest advantage is having an agent that can walk you through these challenges, and perhaps avoid this difficult situation all together!


转自my broker's blog at http://www.abacus888.com/
在交易当中经常碰到这个问题，make sure it's yours!

About Preliminary Title

Coming soon ...

So now we know where all that "Shadow Inventory" went!

早在2011第三第四个季度和2012年年初，一些看跌的人认为有那么多的银行关闭屋 (so called "shadow inventory")， 上市对房市将会是一个巨大的冲击。Guess what? They were not even put onto the market for individual buyers. They were all bought (bundled) by private equity companies finished around July 2012. They are now for rent!

I found this article in July's  Wall Street Journal。Enjoy reading!

Two major Wall Street firms are in detailed discussions to create and sell the world's first bond backed by home-rental payments, people familiar with the matter say.

Blackstone Group LP BX -0.60%is in negotiations to bundle monthly rental payments on about 1,500 to 1,700 of its homes. The private-equity giant is among the firms that have spent billions buying homes out of foreclosure, an investment strategy that has helped to bolster demand and strengthen the U.S. housing market.

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Blackstone and other firms have spent billions buying homes and renting them. Above, a Blackstone-purchased home in Roseville, Calif.

The bond comprised of the Blackstone homes would be structured and marketed to investors by Deutsche Bank AG, DBK.XE -0.76%the people say.

The creation of a new type of security shows that Wall Street's financial engineering, blamed for deepening the financial crisis, is revving back up.

Some investors and analysts have said they are wary of a bond backed by rental payments, citing the dearth of long-term data on how often tenants living in previously foreclosed homes pay their rent on time.

Also, some investors and analysts have raised concerns about how quickly firms have purchased thousands of homes, and whether they have the management track record and expertise to oversee the maintenance of properties scattered across the country.

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• Single-Family Rental Firm's IPO to Test Market

But investors still are hungry for the high returns that are likely to accompany a first-of-its-kind deal, which would be viewed as more risky than well-known securities.

The size of the Blackstone-Deutsche Bank deal is expected to be around $240 million to $275 million, the people familiar with the bond say.

The top-rated slice could receive a rating as high as single-A or triple-B from some of the credit-rating firms, some of the people familiar with the deal add.

The deal is expected to be backed by equity and properties that are worth between $300 million to $350 million, the people familiar with the matter said.

The deal could be available to investors as soon as August or September. But the metrics could change as the details aren't completed, cautioned some of those people.

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And Blackstone could still walk away from a securitization or chose to sell a deal without letter-grade ratings from the credit-rating firms, say people familiar with the deal.

Spokeswomen for Deutsche Bank and Blackstone declined to comment.

Blackstone has emerged as the biggest investor in single-family rental homes, spending more than $5.5 billion since the beginning of last year to acquire about 32,000 homes in around a dozen major U.S. markets.

Other companies, such as American Homes 4 Rent, Colony Capital LLC and Waypoint Real Estate Group LLC also have been snapping up thousands of foreclosed homes, revamping them and renting them out. American Homes 4 Rent is expected to price shares of its stock Wednesday in an initial public offering.

The companies have transformed what has traditionally been a space for "mom and pop" investors to earn cash into an institutional investment strategy that has helped to boost home prices in cities across the U.S. The investment strategy often is known as buy-to-rent.

The structure of the deal would be similar to better-known securities, such as those backed by home or commercial mortgages.

Securitization is the process of pooling together assets—whether that is rental or mortgage payments—to back a deal. That deal is then "sliced" into different layers, or bonds, according to the risk of the underlying assets and the order in which bondholders will be paid as the payments from the underlying assets roll in.

Each layer is sold as a "class" of bonds to investors. The top layer is paid first, then the second and so on. The riskiest slices offer the highest potential returns.

While securitization got a bad rap because of the losses investors suffered after purchasing such deals before the financial crisis, proponents say it can be an effective process to tap the capital markets for financing by turning thousands of separate cash-generating assets into bonds.

Analysts have said in recent months that Blackstone and Deutsche Bank were a likely pairing on an initial rental securitization.

Blackstone's real-estate prowess could quell some investors' fears about management of the properties, while Deutsche Bank has led the charge among Wall Street banks offering loans to real-estate firms buying foreclosed homes.

Deutsche Bank has led the issuance of around $3.6 billion of loans to Blackstone in recent months, coordinating with other major Wall Street banks. Debt financing allows borrowers such as Blackstone to buy more properties at lower costs. The sale of a Blackstone-backed securitization would bring still more money to the company.

An investment-grade rating from credit-rating firms would allow more investors to purchase slices of the Blackstone-Deutsche Bank deal than if it were rated lower.

Many investors have internal guidelines that only allow them to purchase securities rated above a certain level.

Moody's Investors Service, Standard & Poor's Ratings Services, Fitch Ratings, Kroll Bond Rating Agency Inc. and Morningstar Credit Ratings LLC are among the firms that have been approached to rate a potential deal, the people said, but it isn't clear which firms would issue final letter-grade ratings if the deal closes.

It also isn't clear what returns the deal would offer investors or which investors would consider buying slices of this new type of security. Other deals also are in the pipeline, some of the people said, but it is unclear at what stage.