News About Properties

Homeowners should be careful about how they hold title to properties

The manner in which homeowners hold title to their properties has significant legal ramifications. Consequently, it’s not wise to leave this important decision to chance.

Escrow agents will ask how you would prefer the title to read. But often the question isn’t posed until you near the close of the sale, and by then it may be too late to give any real thought to your options.

With that in mind, here’s an overview of some of the more common forms of ownership:

* Tenancy by the entirety. In most cases, this is the correct way for married couples to hold title. In fact, it is available only to married couples.

FHA brings relief for some condos [Central Florida]

The resort-style pool, spa and health club along with luxurious 10-foot floor-to-ceiling windows are no longer the key selling points for 101 Eola in Thornton Park.

Today the best thing going for the 146-unit condominium tower is that it’s the only newly constructed building in downtown Orlando that is FHA approved, a special government sanction that allows buyers to put as little as 3.5 percent down.

Such a low down payment is virtually unheard of in today’s condo market, where obtaining a loan can be nearly impossible, even when a buyer with good credit is able to put down 20 percent.

It’s evidence of just how far the condo market has fallen since the boom days earlier this decade when towers began growing like kudzu on the city’s skyline.

The benefits of a mortgage-free retirement

Retirement is often likened to “financial independence.” However, as pointed out in a USA Today story last week, many retirees are finding themselves very dependent, very despondent, and, well, screwed. These are retirees with mortgages they can no longer afford. Pretty sad stuff.

Of course, this wouldn’t be a problem if these folks owned their homes outright before they retired, but that’s not the case for many (if not most) retirees. For years, the standard advice has been to keep a mortgage so you could have more money to invest. After all, if you’re paying 6% on your tax-advantaged mortgage and earning 10% in your tax-advantaged 401(k), why pay off the debt?

Well, now that we no longer take that 10% average annual return in stocks as a G-given right (insert the “G” of your choice — God, Greenspan, Geithner, GM, GE, Gumby) it’s time to question the wisdom of maintaining a mortgage and investing the extra cash.

For someone like me — who is almost 40, won’t retire until age 70 if ever, and can personally stand a lot of volatility and market uncertainty — I think it still makes sense to invest rather than make extra mortgage payments. But for more conservative investors or those closer to retirement, paying off the mortgage might be the better bet. This is especially true if their surplus funds are going into “safe” investments, such as CDs or Treasuries, which are just paying 1% to 4% these days.