Asifa Zia -The Realtor YOU want

You understand the benefit of car insurance and homeowners insurance, but chances are you’ve never thought about  title insurance  until you started the process of buying a house. What is title insurance? It’s a policy that insures that you won’t have any unknown claims made to the ownership of your home. What could go wrong? A clean or clear title is important because the title is what gives you ownership of a property. Imagine buying your dream home, closing the deal and then realizing the previous owner hadn’t paid property taxes for several years. Those taxes remain charged against the property and as the new owner, you are responsible. The taxing entity could even take your home. Or perhaps two sales ago someone sold the home without getting the signature of an estranged husband who now wants to stake his claim. Perhaps the previous owner didn’t pay a contractor for some work on the home and the company put a lien against the house. Or the power company shows u...

                              Americans expect home prices to rise, according to Fannie Mae's recently released Home Purchase Sentiment Index® (HPSI) - but that expectation is likely muddled by the charged election atmosphere, which has resulted in opposing attitudes toward housing. The amount of Americans who said home prices will rise increased four points to 35 percent in November - a reversal of trend. The HPSI overall decreased 0.5 points to 81.2 percent last month, a half-point higher than its reading the same time last year. "The November Home Purchase Sentiment Index outcome is difficult to interpret, as the data collection period occurred across the Presidential election timeline," says Doug Duncan, senior vice president and chief economist at Fannie Mae. "The results are fairly evenly split between responses collected before and after the election, and there is evidence of an increase in consumer...