Real Estate

So my son and I are moving to Morocco Africa this March. I am looking for a decent place to live but I only have about 7,000 US and can not seem to find anything close to reasonable. I want to either find something to rent or to put a down payment on in the areas of Mohammedia, Bouznika or Casablanca. It seems like all the houses are too big with a huge price tag or the flats are really small and still expensive! PLEASE HELP!

Housing is expensive in Morocco, especially in the areas you have chosen.
It is possible to buy a 2 bedroomed flat in Tangier for $30,000 US approximately. It will be a little out of the city but there are good bus services and petit taxis are cheap.
As a foreigner, you must put down half the money as a deposit and you can apply for a mortgage from a bank.
To operate successfully in Morocco, especially the north, you need to be able to speak Spanish and/or French. Arabic is a wonderful help, too. English is not widely spoken in banks and bureaucracies.
Do you have to go to the Casablanca region?
Are you married to a Moroccan?
Do you have work here?
Are you able to apply for une carte nationale?
One word of warning, new flats at the cheaper end of the market are sold without anything..no stove to cook on, no dishwasher, no frig, sometimes even no light fittings or globes.All these costs have to be factored in as well as the purchaser’s tax that must be paid within a month of purchasing the property.
I would rent first and see how you like it. Buying and selling property in Morocco is not easyI live here and have done for 12 years I bought my own house 9 years ago. It was not easy although I speak some Arabic and fluent French.
Bonne Chance

A number of things happened this weekend that just annoyed me about my friend and I can’t hardly begin to explain it all, one thing in particular sounds petty but it all adds up! I kept trying to have an open mind and except how she is but when it’s costing me money to hang out with her plus it annoys me I can’t ignore that. She blows thru her money then expects other people to just help her out! I think it’s rude. She said she’s going to tell her family for the 2nd year in a row that her and her husband don’t have the money to "do Christmas!) how rude! Mean while she’s driving a luxury car, buying unnecessary items for the baby she is expecting (because she wants it), and have drinks at starbucks like it’s cheap! I mean if your on a budget this is not how you act and then to cut your families Christmas gifts before buying yourself frivolous things that’s awful! She expects her family to still buy her stuff for her baby, and for all three of them for Christmas even though she apparently can’t afford it! This weekend she borrowed $1.25 from me while at a yard sale because she didn’t have change then later I mentioned something about it and she was like oh I owe you that…I was like yes then she said oh i’ll have to pay you that then didn’t and we hung out today and she didn’t…i mean i know it seems petty of me but I didn’t loan her money I needed cash for yardsaleing too and she just kept it! She tries this every weekend too! It’s like any little bit of something she can get from me she does! It’s annoying! I have to watch her because it’s so bad! How unkind of her to be that way to a "friend" or anyone for that matter. When she’s at my house she eats everything in site even if it’s the last home baked brownie I made for my husband! She takes granola bars out of my pantry and puts them in her purse for later! & she eats my candy in my candy jar like it’s going out of style. We go to yard sales every weekend together and she never brings change just a $20 bill and expects me to give her my change I went and got to be prepared for yard saleing! It’s so annoying then I go to the next yard sale and she breaks her $20 and doesn’t pay me back! She also does art’s and crafts with me and any bit of supplies she can use of mine she does then doesn’t give me anything in return, we’ll go shopping together for the supplies and she’ll act like she doesn’t need something we are going to use then I pay for it and she uses it! She know’s I have two of something she needs and she’ll hint around that she "needs" it when I’ve told her where she can buy it but she will not buy it because she’s holding out for me to give it to her or something! I try my best to put away things when she comes over so I don’t get put in that situation but that seems like to much work and to much worry for me. I’m expecting my first child as she is and I don’t have the patience to be paying for her things when I need to be doing stuff for my family. Her and her husband are always going broke because they don’t know how to manage money and it’s not effecting my family and we save money and are thrifty so I feel like because I do manage my money why should I help her out when they make double the money we do and blow it. I tried to help her by giving her coupons for grocery’s that I didn’t need and she is using them but I feel like that is just another thing I do for her and I get nothing in return, she has invited me for dinner at her house once and she does drive her car when we go shopping far away because I don’t like highway driving (20 minute trips) but that’s all she has done for me. We’ve been friends for a few months. What do you think? Is she taking advantage of me? Should I keep her around? The thing is I just moved here, and so did she…so neither of us have any other friends here which makes this a hard decision plus we both will have our babies in a couple months.
So today she suggest that she needs to go by the ATM like 4-5 times and says I do owe that $1.25 to you too. Then she was needing cash and she was like I really need to go to the ATM, I sat there quietly not offering any money to her, knowing she has cash because she hasn’t been anywhere to spend it since this weekend, she leaves to pretend to go to the ATM I know this because she wasn’t gone long enough to get to her ATM…and without getting change she hands me back the $1.25 then uses her money to buy something she wanted which you couldn’t buy with a charge card. I know the whole thing was to attempt to get out of paying me and get more money from me but I didn’t let her.
I am actually worried about her taking or making use of my babies items when she needs them or even when she doesn’t to save herself the money…this is a BIG reason I’m wondering what to do now while I still have time before the babies get here! I need advice!

Good Lord woman!

So my son and I are moving to Morocco Africa this March. I am looking for a decent place to live but I only have about 7,000 US and can not seem to find anything close to reasonable. I want to either find something to rent or to put a down payment on in the areas of Mohammedia, Bouznika or Casablanca. It seems like all the houses are too big with a huge price tag or the flats are really small and still expensive! PLEASE HELP!

Housing is expensive in Morocco, especially in the areas you have chosen.
It is possible to buy a 2 bedroomed flat in Tangier for $30,000 US approximately. It will be a little out of the city but there are good bus services and petit taxis are cheap.
As a foreigner, you must put down half the money as a deposit and you can apply for a mortgage from a bank.
To operate successfully in Morocco, especially the north, you need to be able to speak Spanish and/or French. Arabic is a wonderful help, too. English is not widely spoken in banks and bureaucracies.
Do you have to go to the Casablanca region?
Are you married to a Moroccan?
Do you have work here?
Are you able to apply for une carte nationale?
One word of warning, new flats at the cheaper end of the market are sold without anything..no stove to cook on, no dishwasher, no frig, sometimes even no light fittings or globes.All these costs have to be factored in as well as the purchaser’s tax that must be paid within a month of purchasing the property.
I would rent first and see how you like it. Buying and selling property in Morocco is not easyI live here and have done for 12 years I bought my own house 9 years ago. It was not easy although I speak some Arabic and fluent French.
Bonne Chance

I have a property. I am a real estate investor. I also am a house flipper. I got in over my head this last year. Properties that had $100k equity now properties are worth $100k less. One property is inelastically demanded and is worth twice what I owe. My credit was close to spotless until the market turned. Now credit is terrible, only over last 6 months. The one property that I have left I am completing the remodel on it and will be done shortly. Presently am cash poor, but have alot of equity and this one property everyone wants. Will move very fast if I put it up for sale. Prefer to keep it, but credit is messed up. Do not want to get a loan that is not favorable. Would prefer to do a complete remodel on interior of property. Summertime, being property is waterfront and beach… will be improved would be a better time to move it. However due to properties uniqueness, would enjoy keeping and making it into dream home. How do I get financed at a good rate and get money out to remodel

With a 500 FICO score you’ll only get a decent loan under a home equity loan/2nd mortgage. Otherwise, an unsecured loan based on a 500 score isn’t going to happen….or if it does it will involve horrible terms and interest rates.

I’m househunting and am finding quite a few homes for sale on line have already been sold. Is there a Web site I can plug the mls number of the house into to see if it’s been sold already?

try www.realtor.com, they have the most up to date listings – updated as frequently as every 15 minutes.
From there, you can see is something’s still available or not.

We’re in the process of selling our home (a sweet little antique cape in coastal Maine), Our agreement with our realtor is about to expire and we’re going to try selling the home on our own for a bit since that would allow us to lower the price.

We’d like to keep it on the MLS though as so many people surf the MLS from their computer to find homes they’d like to see.

I’ve seen online that there are sites that will allow you to list your house on the MLS service for a flat fee so you don’t have to use a realtor to get it in the listing service which will save you at least 3% commission.

Anyone have any experience with these services???

Thanks
G.
The one service I found said they’d also list on Realtor.com

Our house is unique and while I understand what you’re saying about double the work for double the pay – I don’t understand why – we’d hire the title company/or attorney they’d take care of the details, we’d show the house – what the heck else does a realtor do? Mine never do all that much as far as I can see. This is the 4th house we’ve had on the market and maybe I get bad realtors, but they don’t seem to do all that much – I even end up showing the house half the time.
It just doesn’t seem doable to sell yourself without the exposure the MLS gets you.

What could be hidden with a flat rate service like that that says they don’t take a commission?
It would be helpful to have examples of tricks someone might play…cause I just don’t know enough about these services to trust them….anyone can have a website right!
Ed, would we have to sign on for an additional 2 months – or is that the tricky wording that can sometimes be used?

There was a lawsuit by property owners to be allowed to "list" their houses on MLS without an agent. They sued under the "anti-trust" laws. The realty agents had to make some concessions, but they mostly got to keep their hold on the MLS.

So you have to hire one of the flat-fee brokers to get on MLS. It can work but you have to ask your agent to send you copies of your listing every 30 days.So you can review the wording and compare it to the other houses for sale in realtor.com And have him send you an updated list of houses for sale nearby (even tho you can drive around yourself) so you stay informed. Then get ready for your house to get shown. Usually you have to negotiate the offers yourself.

The main flat-rate "trick" was to offer you their service for $500. After 2 months with no offers, they ask you to switch to a full-commission listing with them. The only reason you hired them was to get the low fee. You would have hired someone else if you were going to pay much more. So you feel tricked.

tax colectors office

I have a quiz I need to study for and I have no clue because I don’t have my book and materials for information. Can someone please help me with the following questions.

1. An example of fiscal policy is?
the Federal Reserve increasing the discount rate.
the Federal Reserve conducting open market operations.
Congress approving an increase in the income tax.
Congress approving an increase in the discount rate.
2. A goal of fiscal policy is
economic growth.
recession expansion.
increased money supply.
reserving currency.
3. Increasing government spending usually
increases the unemployment rate.
decreases the unemployment rate.
increases the stagflation rate.
decreases the stagflation rate.
4. You are a member of Congress and your aide reports that the inflation rate continues to drop and is below the rate associated with a growing economy. Some economists have begun talking about the possibility of deflation. To address their concerns, you should recommend to vote for the bill that aims to…
decrease spending on grants for small businesses.
increase taxes on sales of luxury goods.
increase taxes for large corporations.
reduce taxes for business owners.
5. Which of the following is not a tool of monetary policy?
tax law
discount rate
reserve requirement
open market operations
6. If unemployment is rising rapidly, the Federal Reserve would most likely
increase the discount rate.
increase the reserve requirement.
sell securities in open market operations.
buy securities in open market operations.
7. Lowering the discount rate can promote full employment because
employees are more likely to apply for multiple jobs.
employees are able to get better offers for hourly wages.
companies are more likely to expand and hire more workers.
companies are less likely to sign up employees for unemployment insurance.

8. Unemployment is on the rise though inflation is quite low. Gross Domestic Product is rising but more slowly than the goal rate. The Federal Reserve may buy government securities in open market operations in order to
increase the money supply and encourage economic growth.
decrease the money supply and encourage people to save in difficult times.
give consumers more money to open their own businesses.
force the banks to stop giving out loans in an uncertain economy.

9. Which stage of the business cycle has the highest inflation rate?
expansion
peak
contraction
trough

10. Sales of new homes increased each month of the last year. The economy is likely in
recession.
expansion.
a trough.
a plummet.

1. C
2.B
3.B
4.D
5.A
6.D
7.C
8.A
9.B
10B

Whats a good place to search bank owned homes for sale for free.

Bank Owned Homes can be found direct, I found a directory of direct lender, gov, and real estate auction sites. http://www.foreclosurenest.com/

I seen a HUD home for sale and really liked the property. I decided I wanted to put an offer in 2 days later and was told the listing expired. The house had no bids on it. Will it be relisted or is there another way I can buy it?

They will list it again, however, this time investors get to bid, so if it is a good deal you need to bid pretty high.