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Archive for 'Loans / Financing'
Is The Party Over For Local FHA Borrowers?
February 13th, 2010 categories: Buying, Loans / Financing
Big Change For Benicia-Vallejo FHA Buyers Starting Monday
The party may not necessarily be over FHA borrowers just yet, but starting Monday, one of the big advantages that FHA borrowers have enjoyed for the past 9 months goes away.
I’m talking about the ability for a lender to send out their favorite appraiser in hopes of making sure nothing goes awry in the buyer’s attempt to buy the home of their dreams.
Come Monday, all FHA appraisers will have to follow many of the same rules that appraisers on conventional (Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac) loans have been following since last May.
New Appraisal Policy Starts Feb. 15
The new FHA policy is supposed to help ensure that lenders provide financing based on the true market value of the home rather than on a potentially trumped-up/inflated appraisal. Read the rest of this entry »
| Discussion: 2 Comments »
Suisun Helping First-Time Home Buyers With Zero Interest Loans
February 5th, 2010 categories: Buying, Loans / Financing, Suisun City
Up To 25% When You Buy A Suisun Foreclosure
If you’re a first-time buyer looking to buy a foreclosed property, Suisun City has a program that might increase
your buying power by opening the door to homes you might otherwise never have been able to afford.
I’m talking about their First Time Home Buyer program, which not only helps those looking to get into their first home, but also helps prevent neighborhood blight at the same time.
The basic details:
- It’s a “silent second” mortgage, with deferred payments and no interest.
- You can borrow up to 25% of the value of the home.
- You must purchase a foreclosure (or a short sale that’s already in foreclosure).
- When you sell, you repay the loan PLUS the equivalent percentage of the home’s accrued appreciation.
- To qualify, your household earnings must not exceed 120% of the area’s median income.
- Homes must be located within Suisun’s Redevelopment District.
Here are the current income limits, which are based on the number of people in your household. Read the rest of this entry »
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New 3.5% Seller Credit For Some Solano Buyers…But You Have To Close By April 30
January 29th, 2010 categories: Benicia, Buying, Fairfield-Gr Valley, Foreclosures / Short Sales, Loans / Financing, Solano, Suisun City, Vacaville, Vallejo
If you’re planning to buy a home in Benicia, Vallejo or any other Solano or Contra Costa County city we serve, you might want to focus
your eyes on Fannie Mae-owned homes for the next month or two.
For yesterday, Fannie announced a new incentive program which will provide up to a 3.5% credit to cover closing costs or a combination of credits & new appliances for qualified buyers who purchase a Fannie Mae-owned home between now and the end of April.
The details:
- The offer must be accepted on or after Jan. 28, 2010
- Escrow must close by April 30, 2010.
- Buyers must be owner-occupants (no investors)
- Qualified buyers get an incentive worth up to 3.5% of the cost of the home
- The incentive can be used to cover closings costs, new Whirlpool appliances or a combination of the two
So, on a $250,000 home, for example, if you qualify for the full 3.5% credit, you could Read the rest of this entry »
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Fraud & Deceit — It’s Just Business As Normal For Some Short Sale Lenders
January 26th, 2010 categories: Foreclosures / Short Sales, Loans / Financing, Viewpoint
Thankfully, Someone’s Finally Blowing The Whistle
We’ve all heard the banks moan and complain about how they were duped into making bad loans to unscrupulous borrowers in the subprime era.
Or how homes were appraised at values clearly tens of thousands more than the property was really worth.
Well, these banks certainly had a right to be angry.
But now, it seems, the shoe’s on the other foot.
For, these same banks who have positioned themselves as the innocent victims in the mortgage meltdown are now aggressively and openly trying to defraud each other with short sale side-deals in a manner that essentially holds the down-and-out homeowner — who’s trying to make the best of a bad situation — hostage.
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Big Changes On The Horizon For FHA Borrowers In Benicia & Vallejo
January 21st, 2010 categories: Loans / Financing
If you’re planning to buy a home soon and will be using an FHA loan to finance that purchase, you may want to pay very close attention to this post.
Either that or make sure you get into contract in the next few months.
That’s because the Dept. of Housing & Urban Development (HUD), announced a series of proposed policy changes yesterday (one of which was made official today) that are all designed to help strengthen FHA’s reserves and limit its future losses.
As a result, there will be higher up-front mortgage insurance premiums, lower allowable seller concessions, and even 10% minimum down payments for some borrowers. Plus, HUD is expected to petition Congress to allow it to also increase the monthly mortgage premium.
So if you’re planning to buy a home in Benicia, Vallejo or Read the rest of this entry »
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Benicia-Vallejo First-Time Buyers Just Might ‘Flip’ Over New FHA Rules
January 19th, 2010 categories: Buying, Loans / Financing, Selling
In a remarkable turnabout that could open new doors for first-time home buyers using an FHA loan in Benicia, Vallejo and other parts of Solano County, the Dept. of Housing & Urban Development just announced that beginning Feb. 1, it will allow FHA buyers to purchase “Flip” properties.
Up until now, FHA has frowned on investors who have tried to profit on this down market by buying homes at a discount and then putting them back on the market right away at a far higher price.
So in order to discourage this practice, HUD banned FHA buyers from entering into a contract 
on any home that had previously sold within the past 90 days.
To their dismay, many FHA buyers would come upon what they thought was the ideal home — which in many cases had new cabinets, counters, flooring, fresh paint and new landscaping — only to find that it was owned by an investor who purchased the home 30-40 days earlier and had spent the better part of the past month doing all these improvements. Read the rest of this entry »
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Benicia-Vallejo FHA Buyers Get A 6-Week Reprieve On New Appraisal Rules
December 28th, 2009 categories: Buying, Loans / Financing
If you’ve read this blog, you know all about the mess that the Home Valuation Code of Conduct (HVCC) has created with conventional loans since it was adopted in May.
Well, if you’re planning to buy a home in Benicia, Vallejo or anywhere else in the Solano-Contra Costa market area in the next six weeks and are financing it with an FHA loan, you’ll be glad to know that FHA last week announced it’s going to delay its own version of the HVCC until mid-February.
There have been all sorts of horror stories on Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac loans since the HVCC went into effect seven months ago.
Stories of inexperienced and out-of-area appraisers getting assignments instead of competent local appraisers who know the area and subtleties of the local market. Read the rest of this entry »
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Are Mortgage Rates Going Up, Up, Up?
December 27th, 2009 categories: Loans / Financing, The Economy
UPDATE (12-28-09): Just came across this Washington Post article, which says that Freddie Mac is predicting interest rates of 6% at some point in 2010.
When you watch the real estate market on a daily basis, as I do, it’s easy to read too much into a few solitary changes over a relatively short period of time.
But every new or emerging trend has to start somewhere, doesn’t it?
And that’s what’s caused me to wonder if the recent uptick in interest rates is just a random blip on the radar screen or instead the beginning of a climb towards higher and higher mortgage rates.
If you haven’t been watching the Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey (on the left sidebar of our web site), you may not have noticed, but over the past three weeks, interest rates have turned north.
As of Christmas Eve, interest rates nationally had risen to their highest level (5.05%) since Labor Day. And that was just three weeks after hitting an all-time low of 4.71%.
On a historical or even year-to-date scale, a rate of just over 5% shouldn’t sound like bad news at all. Read the rest of this entry »
| Discussion: 1 Comment »
Higher FHA Down Payments On The Way?
December 18th, 2009 categories: Buying, Loans / Financing
If you’re one of those hopeful home buyers in Benicia, Vallejo or the rest of Solano County who’s scraped together just enough cash to come up with the minimum FHA down payment and are 
relying on a seller’s closing cost credit to cover most everything else, you might want to reach for the Tums before reading the rest of this post.
That’s because HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan recently told Congress that FHA is considering increasing the minimum down payment and reducing how much a seller can credit to the buyer.
Up until this year, FHA loans had been the ugly stepchild of the mortgage industry for most of this decade — at least here in Solano County and most of the rest of the high-priced Bay Area.
In the interest of jump-starting the economy, the loan limits for FHA loans were raised substantially for 2008 and 2009.
And almost overnight, that turned this almost-forgotten loan into one that 80-90% of all first-time home buyers suddenly turned to.
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Mortgage Rates Hit All-Time Low (Well, At Least The Lowest Since 1971)
December 4th, 2009 categories: Loans / Financing
On the left side-bar of HomeSection.com, you’ve probably seen the little “Mortgage Market Survey” graphic. It automatically updates every Thursday, when Freddie Mac updates its mortgage rate survey.
Well, this week’s report, released late yesterday, shows that interest rates over the past week dropped to 4.71% (with 0.7 points). That represents the lowest it’s ever been, since Freddie started compiling its list all the way back in 1971.
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