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The Simple Dollar Morning Roundup: Exiting Relatives Edition 2comments
The large horde of relatives that have invaded my home for most of the last week are gone and now things are quiet again. We’ve just got the mess left to clean up – vacuuming and so on.
Common First Time Home Buying Mistakes We avoided all of these traps and our home-buying experience was extremely smooth. (@ finance is personal)
Can You Apply For Too Many Bank Accounts? This article argues that yes, you can, but I think it’s mostly paranoia. (@ my money blog)
Lots of Cancelled Loans on Prosper.com This is a great example of why microlending online doesn’t really work. To lend to people with good credit, you have to give low interest rates; if they have bad credit, they’re likely to walk away. So what’s the benefit over using a savings account or getting into the stock market (if you’re thinking of lending through Prosper)? (@ mighty bargain hunter)
The Simple Dollar Retro: What You Need To Know About Farmers Markets – And Ten Tips For Maximizing Your Money Around here, farmers markets are in full bloom with tons of fresh vegetables and fruits and other goods.
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the benefit of using prosper is a reasonable (not outrageous) return while diversifying your portfolio.
if you lend money to people with bad or no credit, expect to lose your money. however, you can find people with good credit and get 10+% return on your investment.
you can still lend to bad credit people, but its more of a gamble, requiring more of a mathematical analysis into the limits you need to set in order to maintain a certain return.
i also think you might misunderstand what canceling means. the only lost money on a canceled loan is the opportunity cost, the interest not earned on your money over the course of a week. and yes, this is part of the problem with the system, but over a longer period of time, this issue shrinks in magnitude. its just like the stock market. ups and downs.
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The list of home-buying mistakes is good, but my experience has been that most buyer’s agents aren’t really on your side either. If an agent switches between roles (that is, sometimes she is a seller’s agent and sometimes she is a buyer’s agent), I’ve found that the selling instinct tends to win out and clouds the buyer/buyer’s agent relationship. Someone who is strictly a buyer’s agent can do a good job, but those who try to be switch hitters forget who they are working for sometimes. I’ve had to remind more than one “buyer’s” agent that she was supposed to be on my side.
With that caveat on the first item, the list boils down to “The only person looking out for your interests in a real estate transaction is YOU”, and that is the truth.