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Buying a home can be a daunting process, but many people, especially first-time homebuyers, enter the market with fresh, hopeful eyes ready to purchase their dream home. Reality sets in hard for homebuyers as they soon learn that buying a home is more challenging than simply choosing a house they like.

Homeownership is one of the most exciting things in life. Unfortunately, it is also one that is financially challenging. The cost of buying a home can be high, and if you do not acquire title insurance to protect your investment, you could lose it all. Purchasing title insurance before closing on your house is the best way to protect yourself from financial loss.

Is home flipping still viable in 2021-22? In a word: yes. While flipping houses is definitely not easy street, if you have patience and an iron constitution, then now is one of the BEST times to play the real estate house flip game. According to ATTOM Data Solutions “The gross profit on the average flip was $73,766 during last year’s third quarter.” That’s nearly 5k more than it was in the second quarter, and almost 10K what it was in 2019. If you’ve been thinking about getting into the real estate investment biz…now may be one of the best times, EVER.

There are many buyers in the current housing market; however, the inventory is low. Not as many people are selling their homes as there are people looking to buy a home. This could mean top dollar and a quick sale for a potential seller – if you can get them to sell. So, as a Realtor, how do you get a potential seller to actually put their house on the market, and better yet, choose you as their real estate agent? It comes down to understanding the current market and the fears behind why homeowners are not selling.

Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing is a program — provided by private companies and authorized in only a few states around the country — that allows homeowners to finance certain energy-efficient upgrades to their home or business.

With an increasing number of identity theft cases and a growing concern over protecting sensitive data, title fraud takes on new problems and the need for more solutions. While a title company, like US Patriot Title in Florida, conducts a title search during the closing process to look into any current or past documented rights or liens against the property, there is a concern over future title issues.

Over the last year, many things have changed, largely — how we live our day to day life. The COVID-19 pandemic has played a large role in the changes seen through the last year in the housing market. Many of these changes are expected to continue and even increase through 2021. These changes include where, why, what and how people are now buying homes.

Jacksonville title companies and title companies around Florida and the U.S. are constantly evolving to help their clients experience a safe and secure closing on their home. With changes to the closing process initiated to cope with COVID-19 social distancing, there’s more opportunity than ever for online, email and money wiring scams. US Patriot Title, a title company in Florida, is committed to providing a safe environment for both in-office and eClosing processes.

Many real estate professionals expect an uptick in short sales this coming year following the struggles seen in 2020. US Patriot Title, a title company in Jacksonville, is committed to helping real estate professionals around Florida understand how short sales work so they can better serve their customers. Realtors representing a seller will need to walk their client through how the process works, explain their eligibility for a short sale, list the property correctly and negotiate buying options with the lender.

One of the many benefits of having your primary residence in sunny Florida is our homestead exemption benefits. Homestead portability or a homestead assessment difference transfer is a property owner’s ability to transfer some or all of their homestead property assessed value “CAP” when moving to another homestead property. What this means is when a homeowner first purchases property in the state of Florida and files for a homestead exemption, the “Save Our Homes” tax benefit protects their homestead property’s assessed value from increasing more than 3 percent per year.