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If you aren’t investing in real estate right now, why not? If you don’t have a job or if you have bad credit, okay. That’s understandable. But if your plan was to wait to buy until homes are affordable and loan rates are low, then now is the time.
From a local lender, here are the rates today:
30 Year Fixed Rate
Conforming Loan - 4.25
FHA Loan - 4.25
15 Year Fixed Rate
Conforming Loan - 3.875
FHA Loan - 4.0
These rates are amazing! Consider now as a time to buy…
ne of my first-time homebuyers will not get the $8000 tax credit this week. They were under contract to buy an amazing HUD house, but when the loan went to closing - lo and behold - HUD hadn’t filed the warranty title deed correctly, so now we have to wait about two weeks for it to be cleaned up.
Which means closing won’t happen until mid July. Which means the deadline of June 30th to close to get the tax credit will have expired. Which means my buyers lose out on the $8000.
The feds mess up a federal program.
I do not bang the anti-government drum by any means - in fact I think most government programs that help boost the economy and help people are good. However in this case I find it ironic that it’s a federal agency that is costing my buyers from benefiting from another federal program.
There have been efforts to extend the closing date for the nearly 200,000 buyers who will otherwise miss the deadline, but the Senate killed the measure last week. While the Wall Street Journal reports there may still be a chance of the closing deadline being extended, there is no guarantee that the House and Senate, Republicans and Democrats, can get along long enough to make it happen.
But I’m keeping my fingers crossed on behalf of my first-time homebuyers.
While it might be in good jest for certain red haired comediennes to be on the D-list, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s impending delisting on the New York Stock Exchange caused shares to plunge yesterday. According to CNN Money.com,
FHFA said in a statement that the planned delisting is due to the weak stock price for both firms, and not due to any determination about a change in condition at the firms or decisions about their futures.
“A voluntary delisting at this time simply makes sense and fits with the goal of a conservatorship to preserve and conserve assets,” said FHFA’s acting director Edward DeMarco in the statement announcing the move.
The main worry is investor confidence. Investors are willing to risk more on government backed securities than on privately owned, so we could see an investor meltdown.
June 28, 2010 is the D-Day for D-Listing.
I read a really good article online today about paying off debt. Logic states that you should pay off your higher interest rate debts first because in the long run, they’ll cost more.
Let’s say you have $400 to pay toward two credit cards. One charges a 10 percent interest rate and the other charges 22 percent. Naturally you would want to pay $200 each, but in the long run it would be smarter to pay off the higher interest rate card first. Instead, I’d make the minimum payment to the 10 percent card and use the rest to pay down the principal of the other card.
However according to the article, sometimes the emotional satisfaction of paying off something that reminds you of a terrible time in your life is a better option. For example, say someone was planning to get married and bought a $20,000 wedding gown, $5,000 for flowers (paid in advance), a deposit of $2000 for a church and reception area, etc. Then the groom breaks up with the would-be bride - he left her for her best friend. Yet the bride has accrued $27,000 on a new credit card just for the wedding. Every single month as she makes her payment, she’s reminded of the two horrible people who very nearly ruined her entire life. To get rid of that credit card (at a low interest rate of 8 percent) may be better for her psychologically than paying off another higher rate card.
… if the hatred you feel for a debt is keeping you up at night, feel free to attack it with abandon. It may not be costing you more than others financially, but sleep and peace are precious commodities too. In the end, says Crawford, any repayment approach can be effective, but “what really matters is staying motivated and seeing progress. Just find and plan and stick with it.”
Here, here.
I wrote over at Shak & Jill that tomorrow is a HUGE closing day across the country because home buyers taking advantage of the federal tax credit for first-time home-buyers don’t want to delay closing until the last minute so it’s this week and next week that title companies are extremely busy.
To qualify for the tax credit, purchase and sales contracts needed to be binding by April 30th and the mortgage loan must close no later than June 30th. However according to MSNBC, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is proposing an extension,
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Thursday he wants to give buyers until Sept. 30 to complete their purchases and qualify for tax credits of up to $8,000. Under the current terms, buyers had until April 30 to get a signed sales contract and until June 30 to complete the sale.
From the real estate perspective, the National Association of Realtors is pushing for agents to contact members of Congress to grant the extension. The extension would be partnered with extending jobless benefits until the end of November.
What do you think? It’s not a new tax credit, just an extension of the one whose deadline is looming. 20 days and counting.
Through the last two years, market leaders have said “This is it! We’ve reached bottom!” but they always leave the caveat on the table that “we just don’t know how long the bottom will last - is it V shaped or more like a U?”
But nationwide April foreclosure filings — notice of default, scheduled auction and bank repossession — fell 9 percent from March and 2 percent from a year ago.
This was the first year-over-year drop since RealtyTrac started tracking annual foreclosure rates in January 2006.
I’ve also heard that a new round of foreclosures are coming, but the newest round is not because of predatory loans, but because of the economy. Where people lost jobs and consumer confidence dropped, people got in trouble. In the longer view, with economic indications showing some strengthening (the unemployment rate dropped) so the housing recovery should follow.
What doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger!
I am not an App hoarder. Only about three months in of owning an iPhone, I have only gathered free applications and have but 46. My favorites as a Realtor include: realtor.com, weather, linked in, google earth, facebook (yes I’ve looked up phone numbers of my “friends” from here), yellow book, and dictionary. I haven’t tried many of the business and time management applications since 1) they cost, and 2) I’m cheap.
Out of curiosity, however, I wondered if there are applications available for home loans. With a quick Google search (I didn’t use the iPhone to do it!), there was one loan app that popped up immediately but it was for small amounts.
Instead, here’s a link to the best 15 Financial Phone Apps according to Money Under 30. My favorite (except it costs $1.99) is BillMinder:
If you prefer to keep your finances off your iPhone but still need help remembering to pay your bills on time, BillMinder is the app for you. Track recurring bills, mark bills paid or unpaid, and manage payment information about your billers so you can easy send payments or contact them with questions.
My “real” favorite app not related to money has to be Scramble, though.
Have a great weekend!
Photo is one I took on my iPhone from work two evenings ago.
I am really concerned about my friend who lost her house to foreclosure about three months ago. The relief she feels about the drama finally being over has evidenced itself physically (she’s lost weight and looks fantastic) and even her children are smiling again. The whole family is flourishing - “When Momma’s happy, everyone’s happy!”
But I’m worried for her. I recently wrote about lenders coming back to haunt former clients after years have passed. They’ve come back for the money that was unpaid - sometimes on foreclosures, but mostly on short-sales.
If you live in one of the states named above and unless you have a letter from the lender specifically stating that you are fully released from any deficiency from the short-sale, you may be in for an ugly surprise sometime in your future. Lenders typically have up to six years to come back after the seller and collect the deficiency – the amount that was forgiven or lost in the sale of the home.
Some states are non-recourse states meaning that when the short sale is over, it’s all over. But if you live in one of 38 states (or DC or Puerto Rico), you’re out of luck. Where are you safe? According to HELOC Basic, here’s the list:
Good luck!
