Everyone’s heard the adage that if you want to be successful, surround yourself with successful people. Well, I don’t know about you, but there aren’t that many people out there who are as successful as I want to be. There just aren’t that many Bill Gates’ or Donald Trumps’ out there. Luckily, reading books about success is the next best thing to being surrounding by billionaires. So, here’s a list of books that I’ve used to feed my mind.

This is the third installment of the Mortgage Shopping series. In the first installment, I went over how Rate Shopping can Hurt Your FICO Score. In installment two I reminded you of a forgotten concept in mortgages: You Get What You Pay For. I left a major question unanswered, “If I shouldn’t be shopping, then [...]

So in the last installment, Rate Shopping – The Story of the Too Low FICO, we went over how rate shopping can hurt your FICO score. We went over the one way to shop for a mortgage and still save that FICO score of yours from dropping like a rock. Now we’re going to talk about a simple concept that my grandma taught me, and I’m sure she’d like me to pass it on. What is it?

You get what you pay for.

It’s true, rate shopping can hurt your credit score. “But why should I be penalized for being a sophisticated investor trying to find the best deal?” Well, the short answer is you won’t be; the long answer is you will. Ok, that wasn’t so long, but keep reading.

A basic tennet of capitalism is that competition is good for the economy. It helps prevent price gouging and ultimately leads to a better product for the consumer. Well, that sounds great and all, but that doesn’t always hold true; especially with mortgages. Don’t get me wrong, I’m in favor of competition. What ends up [...]