Clay Sparkman I first wrote and published this piece in its original form in September of 2009. I am of the firm belief that the key to success (defined as: having fun and maximizing your return, two closely correlated phenomena), is rigorous and comprehensive vetting of the loan proposal. If you do this right, the […]
Posts Tagged ‘real estate’
Don’t put all your egg baskets in one egg truck
Thursday, August 1st, 2019Clay Sparkman Colloquialisms are funny things. We use them pretty much every day in our speech and in our writing and yet most of us, I suspect, though we know the meanings of the expressions, frequently don’t know why the individual words have come to mean what they mean. Take for example: “Don’t look a […]
Real estate values – what’s next?
Monday, February 4th, 2019S. Clay Sparkman It has been quite a challenge this past dozen years predicting the movement of real estate market values. Values spike. values crash, values spike again, and then … maybe get a little squishy. Also, note the strange happenings in the national political machinery. It might be perilous to ignore this entirely. For […]
Will Amazon’s HQ2 sink Seattle’s housing market?
Tuesday, November 13th, 2018S. Clay Sparkman Will Amazon’s HQ2 sink Seattle’s housing market? https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/will-amazons-hq2-sink-seattles-housing-market/ Probably not much, but it should pump up the markets in NYC and DC even furthur. Best, Clay – Clay (clay@privatemoneysource.com, 503-476-2909) Clay is Vice President of Fairfield Financial, a primary source for private money loans since 1964. Fairfield works with a broad range […]
The west coast is on fire
Tuesday, March 6th, 2018Clay Sparkman Between Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, LA, and San Diego, home prices are off the charts. We broker short-term loans to real estate investors, so if you wish to invest in trust deeds in these markets, consider contacting us. And check out these two recent articles: A Third of U.S. Homebuyers Are Bidding Sight […]
Five potentially useful indicators of the likely movement of value
Friday, August 11th, 2017Clay Sparkman Any good real estate investor should be attempting to assess whether property values are rising, falling, or holding in the area of his/her latest potential investment. After all, the core question when buying investment property (particularly short-term) is, “what is value likely to do in the next year or so?” If you sense […]
Resources for private money profesionals
Friday, January 6th, 2017Clay Sparkman I posted this article in 2011, and am sad to say that I haven’t come across much in the way of new resources since. I’m going to re-post, with a few small changes, and please let me know if you know of any useful resources available to private money professionals. These days–with uncertain […]
Twenty-eight questions you must ask
Friday, October 7th, 2016Clay Sparkman I first wrote and published this piece in its original form in September of 2009. I am of the firm belief that the key to success (defined as: having fun and maximizing your return, two closely correlated phenomena), is rigorous and comprehensive vetting of the loan proposal. If you do this right, the […]
Several perspectives on private money and changes happening in the industry
Tuesday, May 24th, 2016Clay Sparkman With regard to forward thinking (that is, how is the industry changing?): I thought you might appreciate this article, Private Lending Sector Making Big Noise for Real Estate Investors, by Ben Stoodley: Here Certainly he is correct with regard to his interpretation of current trends, and one must wonder how far this might […]
How to read an appraisal
Tuesday, November 17th, 2015Clay Sparkman This article was originally published, on The Private Money Broker Blog. on 8/9/10. Some 5+ years later, I feel it is worthy to be modified slightly and published again. Whatever you do in the real estate business, I highly recommend that you give this post a good read. The most important thing that […]
