Financial, Mortgage, and Tax News & Updates

By Sonny Huntley • January 25th, 2010

One of the things not fair and possibly unconstitutional is the Point of Sale (new sales are taxed at the sale price) provision in the 2006 Tax Act 388 . Quite possibly the entire act itself may be deemed unconstitutional in upcoming legal challenges.
For the present, the South Carolina Realtors Association is trying to work with [...]

If you are considering buying property on Hilton Head this year, and with interest rates and prices low, you’d be nearly crazy not to, I’d like to offer some tips so you will be prepared. Consider talking to your lender before you find that property. You’ll feel comfortable with your price range and know for [...]

If you own a condominium or if you are a real estate broker or agent in residential sales here or anywhere, listen up! Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two largest purchasers of mortgages originated across the United States, have been requiring from originating banks more compliances and initiatives put in place that ostensibly strengthen the quality [...]

Despite what you might read, the banks are making loans. That is the good news.
The bad news is it is taking much longer for the loan approvals meaning your closing will not happen as soon as you might like or need. 30 day financed closing have become wishful thinking. You should push that out now [...]

On Sunday, November 15, 2009, while attending the National Association of REALTORS Conference, I attended a seminar conducted by Washington, DC Attorney, Phillip Schulman. His talk was entitled “New GFE/HUD-1 You Really Need to Know This Stuff.”
At first I thought I would just stop in and listen for a few minutes, pick up the handout [...]

We don’t have the only “box of candy” on the coast…or anywhere else for that matter ! Yet Beaufort County taxes our vacationers like this is the only state with a beach, golf, tennis, great restaurants or any of the myriad features and amenities that our visitors come here for. We scare the hair off of [...]

…and want to add value to our relationships
 Tax Bills: Many of us have received our property tax bill. If your property is a primary residence you should be at the 4% rate. If you are paying at the 6% rate, and it is a primary residence, you need to contact the Beaufort County Assessors office [...]

One would think something as important as the County Tax bill, which only comes out once a year, would be printed correctly. Well, that is not the case for some of the 2009 Beaufort County tax bills. Due to a printing error, the Homestead Exemption is not shown in the section of the notice “Homestead [...]

There is something wrong when property taxes of equally assessed properties require one owner to pay approximately 300% more than the other. I am referring to the taxes paid by a primary owner versus a second home owner. What seems even more unjust is the fact that the second home owner, as a rule, does [...]

Since the mailing of reassessment notices, we received many questions as to why we have market value when the limited (capped) value is used to calculate property taxes. Well for one, it’s a requirement of law and serves the following purposes:
1. Market value as established by periodic reassessment sets the threshold on political subdivisions and [...]