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Latest head-line
news on mortgage, housing market, remodeling, investment in residential
& commercial real estate, and more …
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Sales
of existing homes plunge to 15-year-low – Washington Post
08/24/2010 Sales of previously built single-family homes plunged in July to
their lowest level since May 1995 as job fears trumped today's low mortgage
interest rates and relatively affordable home prices. The sales of existing
single-family homes, condominiums and townhouses fell to a seasonally
adjusted annual rate of 3.83 million, a 27.2 percent drop from June.
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Stocks
slip as economy worries outweigh deal news – Denver Post
08/23/2010 Stocks slumped to a weak finish Monday as lingering worries
about the economy overcame optimism from a fresh round of corporate
dealmaking.
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Ban
on transfer fee may cause problem – Columbus Dispatch
08/22/2010 A federal agency is moving to prohibit private transfer fees on
all mortgages funded by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But its proposed ban
may extend to transfer fees routinely collected by community associations
throughout the country — potentially leading some of them to raise
assessments on thousands of homeowners.
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Housing
Fades as a Means to Build Wealth, Analysts Say – New York Times
08/22/2010 Housing will eventually recover from its great swoon. But many
real estate experts now believe that home ownership will never again yield
rewards like those enjoyed in the second half of the 20th century, when
houses not only provided shelter but also a plump nest egg. The wealth
generated by housing in those decades, particularly on the coasts, did more
than assure the owners a comfortable retirement.
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Nearly
50 percent leave Obama mortgage-aid program – Washington Post
08/21/2010 Nearly half of the 1.3 million homeowners who enrolled in the
Obama administration's flagship mortgage-relief program have fallen out.
The program is intended to help those at risk of foreclosure by lowering
their monthly mortgage payments. Friday's report from the Treasury
Department suggests the $75 billion government effort is failing to slow
the tide of foreclosures in the United States, economists say.
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1
in 5 homeowners ‘underwater’ on mortgages – Dayton Daily News
08/20/2010 More than one-fifth of mortgaged single-family homes in the
Dayton area are valued below what still is owed on them. According to the
Zillow Home Value Index, the owners of 22.6 percent of the homes in Greene,
Miami, Montgomery and Preble counties owe more on the home loan than the
current value of their home, a position referred to as negative equity or
“underwater.”
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Regulators
shut 4 California banks, 4 others – San Diego Union-Tribune
08/20/2010 Regulators on Friday shut down four California banks, a big
community bank based in Chicago, and banks in Florida and Virginia. The
closures boosted to 118 the number of U.S. bank failures this year. The
Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on Friday took over the California banks:
Butte Community Bank, based in Chico; Pacific State Bank, based in
Stockton; Los Padres Bank, in Solvang; and Sonoma Valley Bank, in Sonoma.
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Average
mortgage rates hit low of 4.42 percent – San Francisco Chronicle
08/19/2010 The average rate for 30-year fixed loans this week was 4.42
percent, down from 4.44 percent last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said
Thursday. That's the lowest since Freddie Mac began tracking rates in 1971.
The average rate on 15-year fixed loans dropped to 3.9 percent, down from
3.92 percent last week and the lowest on records dating back to 1991.
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Banks
want feds to keep role in mortgages – Columbus Dispatch
08/18/2010 The call from business for less government has a notable
exception: the mortgage market. The Obama administration invited banking
executives to offer advice yesterday on changing the government's role in
backing the mortgage market. Although they disagreed on the exact level of
support needed, the group overwhelmingly advocated for the government to
maintain a large role in the $11trillion market.
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Summit
aims to fix mortgage-finance system – San Francisco Chronicle
08/17/2010 The U.S. Treasury Department, hosting a summit today on how to
repair the mortgage-finance system, may get a blunt message from
stakeholders in an industry tied to 15 percent of the country's economy:
Don't screw it up.
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Fewer
homeowners are now under water – San Jose Mercury News
08/16/2010 A real estate website reports the number of single-family
homeowners in the country with underwater mortgages--where the amount owed
on the mortgage exceeds the home's value--fell in the second quarter of
this year, even as home values declined. California was among the few states
that experienced increases in home values in more than a quarter of its
markets.
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Real
estate contingencies make comeback – realestate.yahoo.com
08/16/2010 Contingent-sale offers are increasing in the current housing
recession. Most buyers who want or need to make a move to a home that
better suits their current lifestyle can't qualify to buy before selling
their existing home due to stringent mortgage qualifying criteria.
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Buying
foreclosed home can leave you liable for taxes – Columbus Dispatch
08/15/2010 Frequently, people buy foreclosed homes without purchasing an
owner’s title-insurance policy. A foreclosure generally wipes the slate
clean of most liens, mortgages and other matters that affect the title,
including money owed to homeowners associations. But a foreclosure
generally won’t get rid of easements and other agreements, sometimes
including real-estate taxes.
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The
Nation's Housing: Pictures are worth a thousand headaches – Richmond Times-Dispatch
08/14/2010 Try to picture this real estate scenario -- virtually. Like most shoppers
searching for a home, you start on the Web, checking out listings and
locations. You find a house that appears to be what you're after, and you
tap into the photos section of the listing to see the interior shots. Wow!
The house is outstanding for the asking price.
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The
Way We Live Now: Buyer, Be Aware – New York Times
08/13/2010 During the great housing bubble and bust, journalists spent a
fair amount of time searching for the perfect mortgage victim. This victim
would be someone who played by the rules, took a conservative approach to
his finances and simply wanted a decent place to live.
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Bank
repossessions of properties in Richmond area rose in July – Richmond Times-Dispatch
08/12/2010 Bank repossessions of properties in the Richmond area are piling
up. Banks took over 363 properties here in July, up 95 percent from the
same month a year ago and a 27 percent increase from June 2010, according
to an online foreclosure research report released this morning.
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U.S.
Plans More Aid for Jobless Homeowners – New York Times
08/11/2010 In an acknowledgment that the foreclosure crisis is far from
over, the Obama administration on Wednesday pumped $3 billion into programs
intended to stop the unemployed from losing their homes. The housing
market, which usually helps lead the country out of a recession, is this
time helping hold the recovery back.
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Government
hit by Freddie and Fannie dilemma – Richmond Times-Dispatch
08/10/2010 Keeping Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in business will cost
taxpayers billions. But getting the federal government out of the mortgage
business would cost home buyers dearly, in the form of higher interest
rates. The Obama administration will begin tackling this dilemma next week
at a public conference on the future of the mortgage system.
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As
recovery loses speed, Fed considers ways to help – Austin Am-Statesman
08/09/2010 Federal Reserve policymakers are in a bind. They want to say and
do things that will energize the economy, but in doing so they risk making
things worse by sending signals that the recovery is in bad shape. Today,
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues on the Federal Open Market
Committee will discuss whether to take any new action aimed at stimulating
economic growth.
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Coalition
targets transfer fee – Columbus Dispatch
08/08/2010 A housing controversy has pulled together war veterans, consumer
advocates, labor unions and government employees, the title insurance
industry, the National Council of La Raza, libertarian and property rights
groups and the National Association of Realtors. At the end of July, 11
groups with divergent agendas and memberships formed the Coalition To Stop
Wall Street Home Resale Fees.
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Housing
Policy’s Third Rail – New York Times
08/07/2010 WHILE Congress toiled on the financial overhaul last spring,
precious little was said about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage finance
companies that collapsed spectacularly two years ago.
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Foreclosures
in rural Colorado rise as state toll falls – Denver Post
08/06/2010 Foreclosure filings in parts of rural Colorado rose in the
second quarter, even as the statewide number dropped to its lowest level in
five quarters. The state total of 10,233 foreclosure filings for the second
quarter of 2010 marked a 15.7 percent drop from the second quarter of 2009,
according to a report released Thursday by the Colorado Department of Local
Affairs' Division of Housing.
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Funding
will fight foreclosures – Columbus Dispatch
08/05/2010 Thousands of Ohioans could stave off foreclosure with the help
of $172 million in federal funds earmarked for the state yesterday. The
funds are meant to help troubled homeowners, including those who have lost
their jobs, pay mortgages while they try to get back on their feet, and to
get troubled homeowners out of homes they can't afford.
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Top
Ten Things to Know When Investing in Real Estate Notes in Your IRA – realestate.yahoo.com
08/04/2010 Many self-directed IRA clients, including me, invest in notes
within their IRAs, mostly secured by real estate. In my years of experience
as a hard money lender personally and as a third party administrator for
selfdirected IRAs, I have seen some common mistakes made.
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Did
Low Interest Rates Cause the Great Housing Convulsion? – New York Times
08/03/2010 Between April 2000 and April 2006, the Standard &
Poor’s/Case-Shiller Repeat Sales Index
for 20 metropolitan areas shows that real housing prices rose by 71 percent.
Between April 2006 and April 2009, that same index showed that real housing
prices dropped by 36 percent. It would be nice to understand what caused
this great housing convulsion, but we do not.
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Consumers
Saving More Than Thought – New York Times
08/03/2010 A new government report released on Tuesday showed that consumers saved 6.4 percent
of their after-tax income in June, and that this savings rate had shot up
as high as 8.2 percent in May 2009. Before the recession, the rate had
hovered at 1 to 2 percent for many years.
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Economic
reports give stocks big start for August – Denver Post
08/02/2010 The stock market began August with a huge rally after reports from
around the world revived investors' faith in the global recovery. The Dow
Jones industrial average rose 208 points Monday to its highest close in
three months. All the major stock indexes rose about 2 percent.
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Homeowners
frustrated by mortgage modification process – NJ Record & Herald
08/01/2010 After her husband lost his tech job in 2008, Lisa Eidner of
Mahwah asked the family's mortgage servicer to lower their monthly
payments. The company agreed to a temporary cut, but sent the family on a
frustrating, 15-month journey — and then turned them down for permanent
help.
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