Bank of America Outreach Event for Home Loan Assistance August 18-20, 2011

This outreach event is for Bank of America mortgage customers facing financial difficulty.  See link to flyer for info on how to sign up.
Bank of America Outreach Program

EVENT INFORMATION:

DATE:

Thursday, August 18 through Saturday, August 20

TIME:

8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.

LOCATION:

South San Francisco Conference Center
255 South Airport Blvd
South San francisco, Ca 94080

Complimentary parking will be available at the
Holiday Inn, CitiGarden, and Best Western Plus
Grosvenor hotels all located on South airport road
across from the Convention Center.

REGISTER:

Visit www.bankofamerica.com/outreachevent
or call 1.855.201.7426 (this is a toll-free number).

On Housing, Don’t Believe the Doom

Good morning!

Some interesting news from today’s REALTOR magazine:

On Housing, Don’t Believe the Doom

Excerpt: “In sum, there are many reasons to worry about the U.S. macroeconomic picture (the recent softening in the labor market, the U.S. fiscal picture, etc.) but the recent drop in U.S. home prices should not be one of them,” according to Rajadhyaksha.”
If you found these interesting, email me and I would be happy to forward you the rest of the articles.

TGIF!

~Norm

Fannie Mae Incentive, Closing-Cost Assistance on REOs

Fannie Mae is a government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) which home mortgages.  As a result of the ongoing foreclosure crisis, Fannie Mae owns many of these properties, called REOs (Real Estate Owned)-which has nothing to do with the band from the 80’s.

In 2009, Fannie Mae launched Homepath.com to address everything related to their REO properties.  Similar to other real estate websites, you can search their nationwide inventory of properties.

To help clear this inventory and to get owner-occupants into homes, Fannie Mae, through the HomePath® Buyer Incentive program, is offering buyers up to 3.5% in closing cost assistance through June 30, 2011.  Second homes and investment properties are excluded from the incentive.   For more details click here.

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Special thanks to my friend, Heather Lin, for advising on this post.  Heather is a REALTOR and Certified Distressed Property Expert (CDPE) with Dot Real Estate based in the San Francisco Bay Area Peninsula.

Real Estate News 4/28/2011

Some interesting news from today’s REALTOR magazine:

Pending Home Sales Rise Again in March

Discounted Prices Chip Away High Inventories

Home Vacancies, Mortgage Delinquencies Drop

If you found these interesting, email meand I would be happy to forward you the rest of the articles.

~Norm

Lease Option Agreements (Rent to Own)

The Big Tease…

Historically low interest rates mean absolutely nothing if lending standards are tight, even for those with good credit.  Here’s an article from MSNBC.com that I read recently.  Frustrating…

The Big Squeeze…

Homeowners who are underwater with their mortgages or who just simply haven’t had any appreciation since purchasing their homes can’t even afford to pay the sales commissions (typically 6% of the sale price) to sell their property without taking a loss.  Those who have lost their jobs and cannot pay their mortgages face foreclosure or must short sale their property…both of which are damaging to their credit.  Frustrating…

The Big Relief…

In tight credit situations like this, creative financing methods become more attractive.  One method of interest may be the Rent-to-Own or Lease Option agreements.  The essence of this strategy is that the seller rents/leases the property to potential buyer for a mutually agreeable amount of time.  The seller grants the option to the buyer to buy the property at a set price within that time.  The buyer has the “option” to buy or decline, resulting in the loss of rent paid.   This could be a win-win situation for both the buyers and sellers.  SFgate.com did a nice article on this recently.  I’ve highlighted the pros and cons below:

Sellers:

• Receive rental income to help stave off foreclosure
• Prevent damaging credit

Buyers:

• For buyers with bruised credit, this gives them time to build equity and improve their credit to possibly qualify for a traditional mortgage
• Can buy with no downpayment or bad credit.
• Part of the rent goes towards the purchase of the property.
• Can elect to not exercise the option if the property value goes down with the only risk being the rent paid. Renegotiation of the purchase price is possible in this case.

Real Estate News 4/15/2011

Good morning, everybody!

I just wanted to quickly share a few interesting articles from today’s REALTOR magazine.

House Flippers Return, Still Finding Profit

Mortgage Rates on the Rise Again This Week

Banks Get Failing Grade in Foreclosure Handling

If you found these interesting, drop me an email and I would be happy to forward you the rest of the articles.

~Norm