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Displaying blog entries 291-300 of 388

Time to Buy On Mt. Hood-Great Interest Rates

Thursday, November 4, 2010
by Liz Warren

Is this the perfect buying opportunitiy? Motivated sellers left and right and some of the best interest rates in 50 years? Sellers with their properties on the market right now going into winter are the most serious sellers of all!

Rates can't be beat! Here are the predictions from the National Association of Realtors and the Mortgage Broker's Assocation for the next year plus:

Interest Rates

So, to keep your monthly payment low and manageable, now is the time to make that purchase because even if prices go down, your monthly payment will be fixed at a lower unbelievable rate.

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The Cost of Foreclosures

Wednesday, October 27, 2010
by Liz Warren

What is the real cost of foreclosures in a neighborhood? There are a few of them in the Mt. Hood area. Most are in Brightwood and Rhododendron but more are heading our way. This chart is taken from the web site Center for Responsible Lending and shows how much each Oregonian has lost due to foreclosures impacting the value of their homes. The average loss of value from homes that are near foreclosures is $8,442!

Mt. Hood Foreclosures Loss in Value

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Largest Bank Servicers Q2 2010

Thursday, October 7, 2010
by Liz Warren

Here are the largest bank servicers for Q2 2010 according to National Mortgages News. B of A of course absorbed Countrywide when they imploded. This also lists the number of delinquencies on their loans. These numbers include first and second mortgages.

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Foreclosures and Short Sales on Mt. Hood

Thursday, October 7, 2010
by Liz Warren

Here's a video that is produced by two mortgage guys who explain why IndyMac wants to do shortsales and foreclosures and how our tax dollars are paying the bank for the difference. This is in layman's terms.

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Foreclosures and Fraud Issues

Tuesday, October 5, 2010
by Liz Warren

There's lots of interesting info coming out about lenders with foreclosures in the headlines. Twenty three states have halted foreclosures with GMAC and B of A. Unfortunately, Oregon is a non-judicial state so it does not fall into lucky 23 state catagory. A major title company has stopped issuing title insurance on foreclosures properties with Chase. Details can be found here.

 

 

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Mt. Hood Area Foreclosures

Sunday, October 3, 2010
by Liz Warren

Nationally, foreclosure buyers received a 26% discount when purchasing foreclosed properties if they purchased in the second quarter this year. Pre Foreclosure buyers received a 12.97% discount. REO or bank owned foreclosure buyers were able to receive a 34.54% discount for their purchase in the second quarter.

According to RealtyTrac, about 24% of sales in the U.S. were foreclosures! The hardest hit states were California, Nevada and Arizona averaging nearly 50% for all of them combined.

Oregon, in the second quarter had around 25% of sales as foreclosures. Of course these foreclosures impact pricing and are creeping into appraisal comparables if they are near a home that is selling. Bad news for sellers due to the impact they have on their values.

The good news is for buyers, there are many properties to choose from. Here is a list of the foreclosures currently for sale in the Mt. Hood area from Government Camp, Rhododendron, Welches, and Brightwood:

Mt. Hood foreclosures

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Oregon Foreclosures July 2010

Sunday, August 22, 2010
by Liz Warren

Great news! According to RealtyTrac Inc. Oregon has slipped out of third place in foreclosure activity in July. Here are the top ten numbers for the month of July.Oregon Foreclosures

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HAMP numbers

Saturday, August 21, 2010
by Liz Warren

What is HAMP? Home Affordable Modificaiton Program This government program helps homeowners get their payments modified so they can stay in their homes.

This chart shows the numbers of modifications currently in process.

HAMP

Some of the dept to income ratios are shocking for modifications. The modification program does not work for many and after you see the numbers you'll know why. The median front end, or housing dept to income ratio was 44.8% of the income but combined with total debt, the median dept to income ratio was 79.7%. Yes, nearly 80% of the income of the borrower went to servicing debt.

After the HAMP modification, that total debt to income for all debts went to 63.5%. That is a huge amount of debt even after modification. This explains why there are still failures and drop outs after the modifications take place and why it has not been the big success the government had hoped for. It also shows why banks have not been quick to act in completing this program since they often end up foreclosing on the property any way.

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New Mt. Hood USDA loans

Wednesday, August 18, 2010
by Liz Warren

The recently funded USDA loan program has just been refunded for our area. This includes Welches, Rhododendron, Brightwood and Government Camp. This program is for low income earners and is in very high demand. The loan is 100% financing!

Details may be found here.

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Purchase Before September 7th!

Tuesday, August 10, 2010
by Liz Warren

If your purchasing in the Mt. Hood area it's a good idea to buy before September 7th, if you are using an FHA loan. New rules are coming down the road which will actually increase your monthly payment potentially making it harder to qualify. The "idea" is that FHA is trying to reduce the upfront costs of getting buyers into loans by reducing the Up Front Mortgage Insurance Premium (UFMIP) from 2.25% to 1%. This can be financed into the loan at the back end so there is really no "upfront cost". Technically this reduces your monthly payment slightly.

Meanwhile back at the ranch the MMI- the Monthly Mortgage Insurance Premium is getting raised from .55% to .85%-.90% depending upon the loan to value of the loan. This means your monthly payment will go up and you will be paying more for the same loan thereby potentially not qualifying for as much loan as you did prior to September 7th. With this rise in payment it essentially means a decrease in the loan amount by 4-5% to get the same monthly payment (a lower purchase price so the loan amount is lower).

Why is HUD doing this? To cover their operating costs and to cover anticipated losses. As a buyer, there are pluses to having an FHA loan. The main benefit is when you decide to sell your home these loans are assumable if the new buyer qualifies. This is an attractive prospect if they, HUD, doesn't increase the interest rate for the assumption. They seem to change the rules as administrations come and go. I'm not sure if this is a locked in guarantee or not!

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Displaying blog entries 291-300 of 388

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