FHA Loans for Distressed Properties?
I’m sure you’ve heard by now that FHA loans are making a huge comeback in the mortage arena. After all, it’s one of the only ways to obtain a loan with a low down payment (only 3.5% which can even be a gift) as well as a less-than-perfect FICO score (currently around 620). One of the main drawbacks, however, has been that the requirements for FHA loans have been a little more stringent regarding the condition of the property. This becomes an even bigger problem when you take into account that many of the more affordable homes now are REOs (bank-owned) or short sales, where the property has not been maintained very well. Well, I just wanted to share with you that THERE’S HOPE! It is possible to get an FHA loan for properties that are in need of some maintenance. How? Read more
Are Things Looking Up?
“Jean, a conference room is available for you upstairs…Jean, a conference room is available.” Such went a page by my trusty colleague Shokoofeh about a week ago. I was meeting a client in order to submit an offer on a condo, but to my dismay (and some delight too) ALL of our conference rooms were full. Shokoofeh had just finished meeting with her clients, so she was able to vacate one conference room just in time for me and my client. At our company meeting last Friday, one of the brokers mentioned how pleased he was to hear this page and that he was hoping it was a sign that things were going in a positive direction. I couldn’t help but agree. Read more
SSF Real Estate becoming a competitive sport…
Get on your boxing gloves and jump in the ring, but don’t wait for the bell to ring or you’ll be knocked out of the competition. In the past few weeks homes in SSF have been flying off the market. I have been working with first time home buyers for about a month now that desperately want to purchase a home in SSF. They are solid buyers that have excellent credit and a good down payment, however they keep getting beat out on properties by all cash offers. The two most recent homes they bid on had a tremendous amount of activity. One had 18 offers and the other had multiple offers within a few Read more
Are you even trying to close this deal??
I recently entered escrow on an REO property (Foreclosure) representing the buyers. With any escrow you enter you want to make sure you have your ducks in a row, but when it comes to REO transactions make sure you read the fine print. Some include passive contingencies which mean that if you don’t pull contingencies in writing on the said date written in the contract, they will pull them for you. This runs the risk of potentially forfeiting your client’s good faith deposit, if for some reason you have to end up canceling the transaction. Read more
The Real Estate Therapist is “IN”!
Real estate therapy for the home buyer, home seller and home owner is a pretty common request these days. Some of the most frequently asked questions start from what the current value of a home is in order to make a decent offer or sale to how one could lower their property taxes. It’s a different market out there in real estate but there are some interesting things going on! Read more
More Housing Help from the Government
In previous posts, fellow bloggers, Annie Chang and Michael Monozon, have talked about the many benefits of the new federal government stimulus package. Over the weekend, I learned about yet another program that will greatly help potential home buyers and will also help the many home builders who are sinking under the weight of their new homes not selling .
At our office meeting this morning, our in house lender, Guarantee Mortgage, filled us in on the details, as follows. It seems that the State of California has now instituted yet another tax credit. This one will apply only to people who purchase a brand new home, condo or townhome. Read more
January home sales in the west are WAY up!
I just caught this article off of Google AP. I’m passing it along because it gives more detailed picture of the January sales report. NAR reports existing home sales where down to their lowest levels in six years. However, if you look at the western region, they are up 32.1 percent from a year ago. Although prices are down, sales jumped 57% in the bay area!! Buyers are clearly taking advantage of the high inventory. What a great time for young families to get into that first home!
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h78GtI74ZouhZ1bCfF7cOWPQWKzwD96IS94O1
How to Apply “Free Money” Wisely Toward a Home Purchase?
In my previous blog, “Stimulus Package – What It Means to Bay Area Homebuyers”, some prospective homebuyers and comments have expressed that the $8,000 tax credit in the Stimulus Package is “just not enough” to stimulate them to get off the fence. Understandably, the incentive seems too insignificant when we are talking about an average housing price of $500,000 in the Bay Area.
On the flip side of the coin, $8,000 is unarguably a substantial amount of money – don’t we all wish to have an extra $8,000 in our bank account? Since a tax credit is a dollar for dollar reduction in income taxes (e.g. if you have $8,000 tax credit, you will pay $8,000 less tax that year regardless of your tax bracket), it is essentially like “free money”. Therefore, for someone who intends to purchase a home this year, there could be a number of ways in which this money can be wisely applied toward the purchase. Here are some examples: Read more
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