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FHA extends waiver of anti-flipping regulations

December 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The Acting FHA Commissioner has extended a temporary waiver of FHA’s anti-flipping regulation through 2012.

“This extension is intended to accelerate the resale of foreclosed properties in neighborhoods struggling to overcome the possible effects of abandonment and blight,” said Carol J. Galante. “FHA remains a critical source of mortgage financing and stability, and we must make every effort to promote recovery in every responsible way we can.”

With certain exceptions, FHA rules prohibit insuring a mortgage on a home owned by the seller for less than 90 days. In 2010, however, FHA temporarily waived this regulation through Jan. 31, 2011, and later extended that waiver through the remainder of 2011. The new extension will permit buyers to continue to use FHA-insured financing to purchase HUD-owned properties, bank-owned properties, or properties resold through private sales. It will allow homes to resell as quickly as possible, helping to stabilize real estate prices and to revitalize neighborhoods and communities.

The extension announced is effective through Dec. 31, 2012, unless otherwise extended or withdrawn by FHA. All other terms of the existing Waiver will remain the same. The Waiver contains strict conditions and guidelines to prevent the predatory practice of property flipping, in which properties are quickly resold at inflated prices to unsuspecting borrowers.
California Association Realtors.org

Filed Under: Foreclosures Tagged With: , , , ,

Short sales: Are they worth the trouble?

August 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Short sales – a real estate transaction in which the homeowner needs to sell the property, but owes more on the mortgage than the home currently is worth – continue to dominate the housing market, but these real estate transactions aren’t for everyone.

Making sense of the story

Typically with a short sale, the homeowner is underwater and has experienced a financial hardship such as a job loss. To limit the damage to his credit rating, a homeowner may attempt to work with his lender to negotiate a short sale. Not only must the bank approve of the short sale itself, it also must agree to the price, since the bank will accept the difference as a loss.

Unlike foreclosures, in which the owner has walked away and the bank is looking to unload a vacant – and sometimes vandalized – property, a short sale isn’t a distressed home that will sell at an extremely low price. According to data from RealtyTrac, short sales typically sold for nearly 10 percent less than the market price in the first quarter of 2011, whereas foreclosures sold at an average discount of 35 percent.

Home buyers wanting to purchase a short sale must have patience. In most cases, when a buyer makes an offer on a house, he receives a response from the seller within a few days, or even hours. With a short sale, the bank must approve of the sale and bank representatives are overloaded with cases. It may take 30 days or longer for a buyer to receive a response from the bank.

In a traditional real estate transaction, it is common for a home buyer who currently owns his home to make his offer contingent on selling his current home. In short sales, most banks will not approve an offer that is contingent on the buyer selling his current home, as too many things can go wrong.

Banks also typically won’t consider short-sale offers that have inspection contingencies in them, so buyers can either do an inspection prior to making an offer or forego an inspection altogether.
Even with the challenges associated with short sales, buyers should not avoid these transactions. Being prepared ahead of the time and working with an experienced REALTOR® can help buyers avoid frustration and surprises down the line.
Read the full story AOL Real Estate

Filed Under: Forgiven Debt Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Investors to the rescue of the housing market

July 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Real estate investors will outnumber traditional borrowers 3 to 1 during the next two years, a new survey says, helping clear millions of repossessed properties from banks’ books and pave the way for a recovery.

Read the full story Los Angeles Times

Filed Under: Foreclosures Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Foreclosure myths, debunked

June 23, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Although there are a number of programs available to help homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgages keep their home, the large amount of misinformation tends to result in troubled homeowners failing to contact their lender until it is too late.

Making sense of the story

Some homeowners believe, incorrectly, that contacting their lender early in the process will draw attention to their situation and result in a quicker foreclosure. In reality, contacting the lender or servicer is an important first step, and the sooner, the better. Contacting the lender provides the homeowner with an opportunity to explain their situation and the steps necessary to deal with it.

It is a common misconception that missing one mortgage payment will lead to foreclosure. However, the foreclosure process doesn’t begin until payments are 90 days delinquent. Lenders generally have a financial interest in keeping homeowners in their homes, so making contact as early as possible could help lenders modify terms of the mortgage or devise a repayment plan.

Once homeowners are behind on their mortgage payments, it becomes challenging to dig out of the hole. Some homeowners try to solve this by depleting their savings or dipping into their retirement accounts to become current on the loan. Most financial experts advise against this.

Delinquent homeowners may think they should stop making mortgage payments to get their lender’s attention, which often isn’t the case. When possible, homeowners should stay current on their mortgage payments and continue to contact their lender on a regular basis.

Homeowners who have applied for assistance or loan modification programs in the past and were turned down are advised to reapply. Program parameters are constantly changing, so the rules might have been liberalized since the last time the borrower sought help.

A number of free, government-sponsored housing services are available through the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). A list of HUD-approved agencies can be found at http://www.hud.gov.
Read the full story Los Angeles Times

Filed Under: Forgiven Debt Tagged With: , , , , ,

FHA, Fannie to allow qualified owners to refi into new mortgages for green upgrades

June 2, 2011 By Leave a Comment

FHA and Fannie Mae have partnered to offer Green Refinance Plus, a program that allows owners of existing affordable rental housing properties to refinance into new mortgages that include funding for energy- and water-saving upgrades, along with other needed property renovations.

Under the program, FHA and Fannie Mae will share the risk on loans to refinance existing rent-restricted projects while permitting owners to borrow additional funds to make energy-saving improvements to their properties.

Green Refinance Plus is intended to refinance the expiring mortgages of Low Income Housing Tax Credit and other affordable projects and to lower annual operating costs by reducing energy consumption. Fannie Mae and HUD anticipate approximately $100 million in initial refinance volume with an average loan amount of $3.5 to $5 million. FHA will insure up to an additional four-to-five percent of the loan amount, or an average of approximately $150,000 to $250,000 per loan, to provide additional loan funds to pay for property improvements that save energy and water costs for owners and tenants, such as energy efficient windows and ENERGY STAR appliances, as well as other needed property renovations.

Property owners will be able to select the energy-efficiency upgrades that make the most economic sense for their properties. Borrowers will obtain a “Green Physical Needs Assessment” completed by a qualified provider. This assessment identifies property improvements that both reduce energy and operating costs and will help borrowers make rehabilitation choices that will give them the greatest energy savings for their investment.

More info HUD.gov

Filed Under: Home Improvement Tagged With: , , , ,

Curbing closing costs

February 9, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Borrowers have some weapons for keeping closing costs down, the result of recent guidelines requiring lenders to disclose certain fees, but perhaps the most underutilized consumer tool simply involves old-fashioned haggling.       The New York Times

 

Filed Under: Real Estate Tagged With: , , , ,

Real Estate: Finally a good investment?

February 7, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The housing market still looks pretty bleak: There were a record 1 million foreclosures last year, home prices are still falling in many regions, and the number of “underwater” properties is at a record high.

And things don’t look much better in other areas of real estate. The number of construction jobs continues to decline, even as other parts of the economy have added jobs. And mortgage rates have moved higher as long-term Treasury yields have backed up during the past few months.

Basically, the real estate market remains a mess.

Real estate encompasses a wide range of markets – homes, apartments, hospitals, office buildings, strip malls, dormitories and other properties. But for our purposes, let’s focus on residential real estate, or homes. Here are four reasons to think residential real estate might represent a bargain – with one big caveat.

MAKING SENSE OF THE STORY FOR CONSUMERS

• Everyone hates homes – When the housing market is in the doldrums, people tend to avoid thinking about the value of their home. Sellers complain they’re not getting offers and buyers bemoan the strict lending requirements. However, prospective buyers should be contrarian and take advantage of a down housing market.

• Smart people are buying real estate – A prominent hedge-fund manager said in a speech last fall: “If you don’t own a home, buy one. If you own a home, buy another one, and if you own two homes, buy a third and lend your relatives the money to buy a home.” He believes that interest rates and home prices will rise this year, so real estate bargains won’t last much longer.

• Real estate performs well during inflation – Convention says Treasury Inflation Protected Securities, commodities, and real estate do well in an inflationary environment. Real estate performed well during the period in the 1970s, when persistent inflation and high unemployment occurred.

• Demand may be coming back – Job creation and getting people employed are the two major factors in the housing rebound. There’s much debate about when the job market will recovery. Optimists say the recovery will happen this year, while pessimists say it won’t happen for several years.

Read the full story    Smart Money

Filed Under: Real Estate Tagged With: , , ,

Foreclosure activity rises 65 Percent in Q3

November 17, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Foreclosure activity increased 65 percent nationwide year-over-year, according to RealtyTrac’s Q3 2010 Metropolitan Foreclosure Market Report. The report showed that cities in California, Florida, Nevada, and Arizona once again accounted for all top 10 foreclosure rates in the third quarter among metropolitan areas with a population of 200,000 or more, while cities outside those four states accounted for many of the biggest increases in metro foreclosure activity. California, Florida, Nevada, and Arizona cities also accounted for 19 of the top 20 metro foreclosure rates.

With one in every 36 housing units receiving a foreclosure filing during the third quarter, Modesto, Calif., posted the nation’s third highest metro foreclosure rate, despite a nearly 18 percent decrease in foreclosure activity from the third quarter of 2009. Other California metro areas in the top 10 were Stockton at No. 4; Merced at No. 5; Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario at No. 6; Bakersfield at No. 9; and Vallejo-Fairfield at No. 10, according to the report.

A total of 48,849 properties in Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana area received a foreclosure filing in the third quarter, the second highest metro total, despite a nearly 3 percent decrease from the previous quarter and a nearly 30 percent decrease from the third quarter of 2009.

More info.

C.A.R. Newsline                           November 17, 2010

Filed Under: Foreclosures Tagged With: , ,

The price of a “no-cost” loan

October 28, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Some home buyers who may be concerned about paying high closing costs might be tempted by a “zero-cost” or “no-cost” loan option, which requires no cash outlay, but typically adds a half percentage point to the rate. However, some financial consultants say these loans tend to be most beneficial to buyers planning to have the loan for less than five years. Read more
The New York Times

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Weekly Fraud Alert: Foreclosure rescue scams are going strong

October 27, 2010 By Leave a Comment

According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), the two most common foreclosure scams are advance-fee loan modification schemes and sales-leaseback schemes, with advance-fee schemes.

In an advance-fee scheme, someone charges the homeowner a fee in advance to negotiate a deal with the mortgage lender. They may even offer a money-back guarantee, but the usual outcome is that they take the money (the average is about $3,000), provide little or no service, and then refuse to refund the fee.

In a sales-leaseback scheme, the scammer persuades the homeowner to transfer the deed to them by offering to assume payments and let the homeowner pay rent while the “rescuer” gets the house’s affairs in order. The scammer generally promises to sell back the property to the homeowner once the homeowner’s financial situation improves, but they don’t. Often they take out another loan on the home or even sell it out from under the homeowner. BetterBusinessBureau Read more

Filed Under: Foreclosures Tagged With: , ,
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