Make sure that your ownership interest is insured and that there are no liens, no bankruptcies, no violations, anything that would affect the integrity of the property that you're buying.

Welcome to the Money Tree Investing Podcast. Stock market, wealth, personal finance, value stocks, invest in your life.

Welcome to the Money Tree Investing Podcast. I'm Linda P. Jones from Be Wealthy and Smart.

And I'll be running the show today, driving the car, so to speak. We have a great guest for you.

New York attorney Jules Haas, who has been in real estate more than 30 years.

He is an expert on probate, estate planning, and real estate.

And today we're talking about the basics of a real estate transaction.

So you can learn about buying your first home, what to look at, and the things to avoid so you have a smooth transaction. We're going to join

Jules in the conversation where he's talking about having a plan and how important that is.

I hope you enjoy the show. Here we go.

Past years, you had mortgage companies that would give people loans that ordinarily they couldn't qualify for.

So they would, for instance, give out loans at 95% of value, 100% of value.

But the carrying costs on those loans far exceeded what, in reality, a person could afford.

And then when they got into a situation that they couldn't

either upkeep the house and pay the mortgage going forward, they couldn't refinance it in any way

to get any different rates. And they couldn't sell it because the values of the house were usually

inflated, at least within that market. And so you had more money

that you were paying out than you could sell the house for. And so people said, well, what's the

point? I'm just not going to pay my mortgage because I can't sell the house. And why should I just

spend money for something that's just going down the drain?

And so people, and they still are doing this, living in houses that they're just not paying on,

and ultimately, you know, someday the bank may come by and take it over.

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