The entity that sets interest rates, the Federal Reserve, meets on a quarterly basis. In 2016, they increased interest rates in two of their four meetings, including the one in December.

There are so many options out there in the lending world. You have online banks, brick-and-mortar banks, and non-depository institutions like us. How do you know which one is right for you?

A lot of people are downsizing and moving into tiny homes. Chris Gonzalez from Tabor Mortgage is here to answer the question, “Can you finance a tiny home?”

I wanted to stop by quickly today and just say merry Christmas. I want to thank everyone for your support this year and in years past.

Many times we see buyers who are ready to own a home but just don’t have the money for a down payment. Did you know you can buy a home with very little or even zero money down? Today I wanted to share the top four ways you can do this in the Charleston market.

The first reason is that you build equity with each mortgage payment. Say you take out a mortgage for $200,000. Every time you make a payment, that $200,000 balance continues to drop and your equity increases. The second reason is that you enjoy many tax benefits by being a homeowner. At the end of the year when it’s time to file your taxes, the interest and other things you’ve paid can be deducted to release your tax burden.

With all of the holiday noise and Black Friday messages flooding your inbox, I just wanted to take this opportunity to say Happy Thanksgiving from the Jeff Cook Real Estate Team.

We’ve got the latest numbers for the Charleston real estate market and we wanted to share them with you today. So far in 2016, 19,000 homes have been listed on the market and 14,000 of those have sold. A large percentage have sold, but there will always be homes that don’t sell for a variety of reasons. Whether it’s because they are priced too high, they’re unable to accommodate showings, or they simply go too long without an offer, not every home will sell.

I just wanted to thank our Realtor community for everything that they’ve done this year to help us achieve our goals. With the help of the community, we were able to make all of our transactions a win-win for all parties involved.

Today we’re in the city of North Charleston in a neighborhood called Park Hill. Hurricane Matthew just rolled through here a couple of days ago, and the majority of the houses along the street I’m currently standing at have flooded. We decided to come down here and lend a hand to the people in this community because that’s what we do in Charleston.