Remember when real estate investing was the "in" thing?  

Back then, there were two kinds of people: those who invested in real estate and those who wish they were investing in real estate.  Back in the day, there were as many articles about real estate investing as there were about Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, and Lindsey Lohan combined.  Real estate was the water cooler conversation, especially since Seinfeld has been long off the air.

If you could not buy real estate, you could still dream, and make no mistake about it, it was the American dream.  Many people still think it is.  And mortgages?  If you could fog up a mirror while breathing, you qualified.

Yes, not too long ago, real estate was the hot topic, the in thing, an ideal retirement…

Every house for sale in today’s real estate market must be sold twice. First, you must find a buyer ready, willing and able to purchase the home. Second, you must sell the value of that house to a bank so they will agree to lend money based on the negotiated price. The second sale may be more difficult than the first in the current lending environment.

A mortgage is necessary in the vast majority of real estate transactions in this country.  The buyer puts a certain amount of money ‘down’ and then borrows the remaining balance from a lending institution. The lending institution then issues a mortgage to the buyer using the house as collateral. In order to establish the value of the house (collateral), the bank will send out an appraiser.…

Currently, the Tommy Pennington Realty Group has 37 ACTIVE listings, 2 ACTIVE OPTION, 2 PENDING, 14 CLOSED and 3 offers on the table working on negotiations!  In a time when the media has all but given up on the housing market and called it "belly-up", we are thriving.  Demographically speaking, in the last 8-10 years alone, Southlake has seen at least a 23% increase in population and it's steadily on the rise.  States such as Florida, California, Illinois, Oklahoma and Louisiana are migrating to Texas and mainly the DFW area.  What does this mean to you?  Well, for starters, you can take it as a sign that the housing market, though having gone through a lull, is not dead.  We are actually on the rise from where we were this time last…