There have been only a few options for individual needing to access the equity in their home.  If one needs investment capital for a “can’t pass up” deal, but don’t want to borrow more money.  According to Dean Foust of Business Week, there’s A New Way to Extract Equity from Your Home.  If one has a mortgage for less than 67% of the value of the house, one may qualify for a REX™ Agreement. This new service called Real Estate Exchange (“REX”) that will typically provide cash up to 15% of the equity in the home.  Instead of charging you interest and principle payments, an equity position (up to 52%) in the equity of your home it taken with the Agreement.

This program will “partner up” with individuals on a new house or a residence already owned and shares in the appreciation or depreciation of the house. REX™ Agreements are only for primary, owner-occupied residences.  It is not for rental or investment properties.

The contract can be written in REX™ Agreement for up to 50 years, and it ends at the earlier of the expiration date or when the house is sold. When buying a house, the funds can be used towards the down payment, and if the house is already owned, the money can be used for whatever purpose the homeowner chooses.

There’s no minimum income or assets requirement, but the credit requirement is a credit score of at least 680.  If you want to terminate the agreement, you can “buy out” the REX™ Agreement for the appreciation or depreciation difference at the time of the buyout.

According to Brooke Southall, in InvestmentNews, consumers don’t pay taxes on the money that they receive from a REX™ Agreement, and many use the funds to hedge their investments from just real estate. As the article says “In 90% of the cases, customers used fund received to reinvest in securities or additional real estate.

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With recent reports of even higher mortgage defaults, there is an interesting opportunity for real estate investors. The writing in on the walls so to speak but will we listen. There was a very timely article written about How Toxic is Your Mortgage? Some people have refinance to get from under the adjustable mortgage rate loans they took while being attracted to low teaser adjustable rates.

Now, the default rate is high. On Tuesday, March 13, 2007. The anxiety over mortgage lenders, particularly the sub prime lenders that make loans to people with poor credit, pushed The Dow Jones down by more than 240 points according to stock market experts. This is the second-biggest drop in nearly four years.

As an investor, should you buy, sell, refinance or build? Let us know your thoughts.

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There is a company selling Virtual Real Estate.  When I think of Virtual Real Estate I think of a domain name that one buys to develop a website or hold to appreciate in value.  A domain name was my concept of Virtual Real Estate until I viewed this video.  Appearently, this company is making a lot of money.  Does this concept have a place along side the real estate market?  There are already Virtual Real Estate Agents…Amazing.

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As a Real Estate Investor, one must explore every avenue to stay ahead of the market.  Have you incorporated Youtube into your Real Estate Investment Stategy?  I like using Youtube on this Real Estate Blog to provide video of concern, and plan to start posting videos to drive interest when selling properties in the future.  The popular current application is virtual tours, yet there are several others.  Can you think of some?  Here an interesting report:

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