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30-year mortgage at lowest rate since 1971

2010-08-16T10:20:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Mortgage rates continued to decline this week, plunging to the lowest level in decades, according to surveys from Freddie Mac and Bankrate.

Freddie Mac's weekly report said the 30-year fixed rate slipped to 4.44% for the week ended Thursday, the lowest since the government-backed lender began tracking the rate in 1971. Last week's rates stood at 4.49%, and a year ago it was at 5.29%.

The 15-year fixed rate fell to 3.92% this week, the lowest since Freddie Mac began tracking it 1991, down from 3.95% last week and from 4.68% a year ago.

Adjustable-rate mortgages also declined, with the 5-year rate falling to 3.56% this week, the lowest since 2005 when the lender began tracking it.

Mortgage tracker Bankrate.com, which surveys large lenders across the country, said the average 30-year fixed loan sank to a record low for the fourth consecutive week, falling to 4.57% from 4.66% the previous week.

The 15-year fixed rate, which is a popular option for refinancing, also fell to the lowest level in the history of Bankrate's 25-year old survey, dipping to 4.06%, from 4.11% the week before.

While the 1-year adjustable-rate mortgage held steady at 4.8% for a fourth week, the 5-year adjustable rate mortgage dropped to a record low of 3.92% from 3.95% the previous week.

"Low rates are helping to heal many battered local housing markets by increasing home-purchase activity, said Frank Nothaft, chief economist at Freddie Mac.

Mortgage rate applications inched up a modest 0.6% during the week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Applications for purchase rose 0.3% while refinance applications increased 0.6%

Foreclosures rise in July

2010-08-16T10:19:00.001-07:00

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The latest foreclosure numbers carried a mixed message: They're up 3.6% from the month before but down 9.7% from 12 months earlier.

In July there were more than 325,000 foreclosure filings -- including notices of default, auctions notices and bank repossessions. That is the 17th month in a row total filings exceeded 300,000, said RealtyTrac's CEO, James Saccacio.

Declines in new default notices, which were down on a year-over-year basis for the sixth straight month in July," he said, "have been offset by near-record levels of bank repossessions, which increased on a year-over-year basis for the eighth straight month."

A near record number of people lost their homes to mortgage payment problems in July. Lender repossessions amounted to 92,858 homes, the second highest monthly total ever behind the 93,777 recorded this May.

Repossession is the final stage in the foreclosure process. People can stay in thier homes until the point that the bank takes posession of the home or sells it at auction.

The Miss VESTUS Hydro at Seafair 2010!!!

2010-08-16T10:11:00.000-07:00

http://www.kirotv.com/video/24558490/index.html

More Washington state borrowers get trapped in foreclosure

2010-05-03T14:42:00.001-07:00

Three years after the housing crisis struck Washington state, the economy is showing signs of emerging from recession. But when it comes to foreclosures, things are only getting worse.

Today, more local homeowners face losing their houses. And now the process of getting out of foreclosure is getting harder, trapping borrowers and lenders alike.

To provide a snapshot of the problem, the Puget Sound Business Journal updated its tracking of a week’s worth of King County homeowners who received foreclosure notices in December 2008.

More than a year later, two-thirds of those 172 households remain in limbo. These 116 homes either have been taken back by the bank and not sold, had their sales canceled or have repeatedly been scheduled for auctions at which they failed to sell.

Too often loan modifications also fail, leaving banks and borrowers with few options for resolving these cases.

The rise in foreclosures and the blocked exit means a staggering number of properties are building up in the system. Currently, about 400 homes are scheduled for auction each week in King County, even though only a fraction of those actually sell. By June the number is expected to rise to 800, according to a forecast by Vestus LLC, a Kirkland firm that specializes in buying foreclosed homes at auction. That is many times more than before the crisis. During the first week of June 2007, for example, just 43 properties came to auction in the county.

As they hang in the system, these unresolved cases weigh on banks, homeowners and the economy. They push down home prices, slow the recovery in home sales and limit the availability of new loans for home buyers and local businesses. Trapped properties also undermine the stability of some banks by eroding their capital ratios. They also give rise to rescue scams and other frauds. Only three people staff the state-sanctioned hotline to counsel those in foreclosure.

The Puget Sound region is one of only three areas in the country where the number of foreclosure-related “distressed sales” is still rising, according to CoreLogic, a research firm. Even foreclosure hot spots such as California, Nevada and Arizona are seeing the rate of foreclosure sales decline, compared with a year ago, while in Seattle, Houston and Orlando, Fla., those rates are still inching higher.

“Over the course of the last year, Washington has moved from one of the states with the lowest rates of foreclosures and serious delinquency rates to very much in the middle of the pack,” said Glenn Crellin, director of the Washington Center for Real Estate Research at Washington State University in Pullman.

“We’re not among the worst, but we’ve deteriorated markedly over the course of a year.”

Distressed sales also have a powerful impact on prices. In the Seattle-Bellevue-Everett area, home prices fell nearly 8 percent in February, compared with a year ago, CoreLogic said.

That was a bigger price drop than in January. And more than 1.5 percentage points of the drop was due to the effect of distressed sales, according to CoreLogic. The trapped properties are concentrated in the cities of Maple Valley, Federal Way, Tukwila and Kirkland.

What’s more, Seattle is the only top-15 metropolitan market where price-cutting on homes — listing a home at one price, then reducing it when it fails to sell — is on the rise, according to Trulia, a research firm. Not only are there more price cuts happening (up 15 percent compared with last year) but the cuts are deeper, an average 10 percent cut so far in 2010, up from 8 percent last year.

Trulia warned that the end of the federal home buyer credit, coupled with the rise in interest rates and foreclosures, will stress the national housing market even more.

“The next few months will be very telling for whether the U.S. housing market can be self-sustaining over the longer-term,” Trulia CEO Peter Flint said in a statement.

And still the foreclosures keep coming. In some cases, the homeowners become squatters in their own houses.

Cheryl Harden hasn’t made a mortgage payment in two years. But she continues to live in her three-bedroom house on a cul-de-sac in the small city of Milton, which is east of Tacoma and partly in King County.
She bought the house in 2007 and moved in with her kids. She financed the $318,000 property with a subprime, adjustable-rate mortgage from an Idaho-based company called Subprime Lenders, property records show. The mortgage carried an interest rate of 10.5 percent, which adjusted to 12 percent in 2009.
By April 2008, Harden, 34, had fallen behind on her monthly mortgage payments of $2,800. Her roommate had moved out, leaving her without a second source of income. Then she lost her job.
By now, Harden has racked up more than $70,000 in back payments, interest and late charges, according to property records.
In the spring of 2009, after receiving a notice of trustee’s sale — the first step toward a foreclosure auction — Harden said she began to negotiate a loan modification with Chase Home Finance, a division of JPMorgan Chase.
She said she faxed the bank nearly 80 pages of documents explaining her situation.
Several months later, she said, the bank got back to her with an answer: No modification.
“I was basically told that it wasn’t a sound business decision,” Harden said.
A spokeswoman for Chase said Harden stopped paying in April 2008 and never filed paperwork for a loan modification.
Harden, like many homeowners nationwide, appears to have been caught in a behind-the-scenes struggle between the company that handled her mortgage and the group of investors who actually own it. Unbeknownst to Harden, her mortgage had been turned into a security administered by U.S. Bancorp of Minnesota.
She wasn’t alone. One in three homeowners tracked by the Business Journal, or a total of 55, have home loans that were packaged into mortgage-backed securities.
That makes receiving a loan modification all the more difficult, because many security contracts either prohibit loan modifications or require the servicer to contact the investor who purchased the security before they can make a loan modification, said Mike Gamsky, an attorney with Seattle-based law firm Foster Pepper PLLC.
“It’s a real mess,” Gamsky said. “The number of loans being successfully modified given the number of loans in foreclosure is just a fraction.”
Loans that have been bundled into securities can put the bank into a Catch-22 situation. On the one hand, it can’t legally break a contract with a mortgage-backed security investor. On the other hand, mounting federal pressure on banks to modify loans turns such decisions into a political question.
“The servicers don’t want the picket lines and the bad publicity and the reputation risk of being this evil foreclosing entity,” Gamsky said. “At the same time, they’re faced with all kinds of contractual restrictions.”

Harden was a subprime borrower, one of the millions who’ve captured headlines for the past two years.

But today, foreclosure is affecting even solid, creditworthy borrowers who made substantial down payments and hold prime loans. This new class of borrowers, who never thought they would have trouble making payments, has been hit by stubbornly high unemployment that has cost them their jobs and their ability to keep current on their mortgages.

“Most of the problems in the early days of the crisis were focused on the lower half of the market,” said Crellin, of the Washington Center for Real Estate Research.“Now we’re facing problems that are spreading up the price spectrum.”

This influx of prime borrowers to the foreclosure world has added to the backlog of houses waiting to be sold.

Even though the 172 homeowners tracked by the Business Journal received foreclosure notices more than a year ago, only about one-third have managed to sell their houses, either through an auction or a private “short sale,” where the property is sold for less than the amount owed.

Short sales are difficult in situations where buyers took out two loans — a so-called “80/20,” in which a main mortgage loan covered 80 percent of home cost and a second loan covered the remainder.

“These were fairly popular in Washington,” said Fred Corbit, senior attorney for the Northwest Justice Project, in Seattle, who represents financially distressed homeowners. “I think it will be a big deal — a substantial number of these loans were 80/20 loans.”

With the drop in housing prices, a distressed sale likely won’t pay back both loans. The second lender may agree to a sale only if the borrower is saddled with repaying the second loan after losing the home.

More than half of the 172 homes the Journal tracked — 52 percent — are caught in the foreclosure spin cycle.

The government has focused on loan modifications as a way to resolve these cases. The Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) is designed to help spur banks to modify loans. But the long-term track record for these modifications is poor. More than half of all modified loans redefault within six months, despite measures such as income verification and trial modifications. That puts them right back into foreclosure.

And few of those who apply get lasting help. Of the 20,000 Washington residents who have participated in the federal program, only one out of four have obtained permanent modifications. The rest are still in the initial trial phase to determine whether they can make their mortgage payments at the lower rate. The median savings for participants is $512 a month.

The best candidates for loan modification are homeowners with a history of making their payments who are struggling with temporary financial difficulties, said Ed Hedlund, executive vice president and group manager for consumer and mortgage lending at Washington Federal, the state’s largest bank.

“We will modify loans when it’s a short-term issue and we think people can recover and get back to affording their homes, such as medical issues or a job loss,” Hedlund said. “It’s the people who really want to stay in their home and will address their spending habits.”

The bank will agree to a short sale in certain circumstances where the house is worth substantially less than the mortgage debt, he said. The bank may also forgive a portion of the loan, depending on the circumstances.

“It definitely comes out of profits,” Hedlund said. And that means the bank has less money to lend to other borrowers, such as small businesses that may need money to begin expanding their operations again, he said.

In the summer of 2009, Harden filed suit against Chase and the other financial institutions involved with her mortgage, trying to block their efforts to sell the house. But the suit was dismissed, according to court records.
“I thought I had a house,” Harden said. “I was happy, my children were happy and then the bank tells me, ‘I’m sorry, we can’t work with you.’ It’s ludicrous.”
Chase said it has made 110,175 permanent loan modifications across the country since the beginning of 2009. Another 731,349 have been offered to homeowners, Chase said.
Without a loan modification, Harden’s house remains caught in the system.
Recently, she received a letter saying the house would be put up for auction at 10 a.m. on July 2.

Read more: More Washington state borrowers get trapped in foreclosure - Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle):

Hard times in Paradise

2010-04-15T14:53:00.000-07:00

The foreclosure crisis catches up with a wealthy, exclusive community in Arizona that once considered itself immune.
By Melinda Fulmer of MSN Real Estate

In 2008, it looked as if Paradise Valley, the wealthiest, most exclusive community in Arizona, had neatly side-stepped the foreclosure crisis.

Only 38 foreclosures were recorded in this 16-square-mile town that year. Indeed, the median home price for resale detached homes reached an all-time high of $2 million in mid-2008, according to MDA DataQuick, even as values plummeted elsewhere.

"People were buying up million-dollar homes, tearing them down and rebuilding them," says Jay Butler, director of the Arizona Real Estate Center at Arizona State University's W.P. Carey School of Business.

The fall
Last year, the bottom dropped out. Like many other luxury-home markets, Paradise Valley joined the foreclosure crisis late: As the economy worsened, companies lost clients and executives lost bonuses or jobs. Affluent residents ran through their savings and credit. And banks, once reluctant to foreclose on major depositors, started taking estates back.

By the end of 2009, the number of foreclosures had tripled to 114, with an additional 315 notices of trustee sale filed, according to the Information Market, a data provider. In most cities, this paltry number wouldn’t even cause a ripple in the real-estate market. But in this tiny town of about 7,700 homes — owned by celebrities, politicians and businessmen such as Muhammad Ali, Alice Cooper, Dan Quayle, Mike Tyson and Peter Sperling — these foreclosures landed with a thud.

Broker sale signs, once considered too gauche for this tony enclave, with its 12 high-end resorts, began sprouting like weeds, as overstretched borrowers began seeking short sales or letting their underwater custom homes go.

Video: Saving American homes key to economic recovery
The excess
Forget Beverly Hills. Some of the priciest foreclosures in RealtyTrac’s database were in tiny Paradise Valley, and all were recorded last year — such as this palatial property with private theater, walk-in wine cellar, indoor sport court and separate guest house with two-car garage, which was taken back by the bank when its owner defaulted on a $6.5 million note. It’s now listed at $3.5 million.

Spec homes, with up to 10,000 square feet of space and as many as eight bathrooms, continued to be built as late as last year.

MSN Money: Why short sales are the new foreclosure
The attitude of most people — even those in the real-estate business — was that economic hardship "doesn’t happen here," says Jon Wall of JM Wall Development, a Phoenix custom homebuilder that was also building in less expensive parts of town.

He says he knew the market was in serious trouble when the list of 12 build-to-suit projects he had been contracted for in Paradise Valley all went up in smoke, as buyers couldn’t find financing. Suddenly, nothing was moving.

He sold his last spec home there in late 2008, taking a major price reduction and barely squeaking out a profit. Others weren’t so lucky.

"We were crying the blues," he says. "But a lot of (spec home builders) shut their doors and went under."

What was left
The remnants of this go-go building activity still litter the landscape — and the multiple listing service.

Many of the projects were left unfinished, such as this 8,000-square-foot Tuscan estate, which boasts a "guest casita," a master bedroom with separate sitting room and a "full Irish pub-style bar," but no flooring, landscaping or kitchen countertops.

"We’ve seen examples of where something that was listed for $10 million sold for $2 million," says luxury real-estate agent Walt Danley, who has sold homes in the area for nearly three decades. "The run-up did get a little out of control. It needed a correction, but this is an overcorrection."

Indeed, with a median per-square-foot price of around $289, according to real-estate Web site Trulia, these homes with their deluxe finishes are a relative bargain for those who can scrape together the financing.

A new nouveau riche?
For those with a steady income, it has meant a chance to finally move into the area that says, "You’ve arrived," Butler says.

Dick and Laurie Wheelock, who own a sprinkler-systems company, traded up from their house in nearby Squaw Peak to a larger 8,500-square-foot spec home built in the Preserve at Lincoln, a new gated community in Paradise Valley near the Arizona Biltmore Resort.

The home, with its wine storage, theater room and three fireplaces, had been originally priced close to $8 million, he said. The Wheelocks picked it up in February for $2.2 million.

"The market just fell apart, and (the builder) was trying to get whatever he could out of it," Dick Wheelock said. "We are enjoying it very much."

On our blog, 'Listed': Families wading through tough times together
A continued correction
Bargains like these should be around for a while, agents and economists say.

Even as local economists are predicting that the Phoenix market will bottom out this spring and that prices will start ticking back up, no one knows exactly when the price reductions will stop in Paradise Valley.

Foreclosures Hit Rich and Famous

2010-04-09T07:24:00.000-07:00

The rich and famous now have something in common with hundreds of thousands of middle and lower-class Americans: The bank is about to take their homes.
Houses with loans of $5 million or more will likely see a sharp rise in foreclosures this year, according to a RealtyTrac study for The Wall Street Journal.
Banks had scheduled a foreclosure auction of Richard Fuscone's Westchester County, N.Y., mansion this week. But the former top Wall Street executive declared personal bankruptcy, delaying the auction.
Just this week, a Tudor mansion in Bel-Air belonging to film star Nicolas Cage was in foreclosure auction and reverted to the lender. On Wednesday, Richard Fuscone, a former top Wall Street executive, declared personal bankruptcy, forestalling a foreclosure auction that had been scheduled this week on his 14-acre Westchester mansion. Last month a Manhattan condominium owned by Italian film producer Vittorio Cecchi Gori was sold in a foreclosure auction for $33.2 million.
In February alone, 352 homes nationwide in this category were scheduled for foreclosure auction, the final step before a bank acquisition. That is the largest monthly number of these so-called notices of sale since the financial crisis began. By comparison, in all of 2009, there were 1,312 such notices.
Economists say the super-wealthy are among the last to lose their homes in a mortgage crisis because they usually have high savings, better access to credit and other means for staving off foreclosure. But many of them work in financial services and other industries hit especially hard by the crisis, and have seen their wealth shrink in the market crash.
Developments Blog
The Rich Are Different: They Default More Often
While the numbers are modest compared with foreclosures at other income levels, they suggest the possibility of a sudden spike in bank takeovers of the wealthiest Americans' property. Typically half the notices of sale result in homes being turned over to creditors, though the figure could be slightly lower for the richest Americans who have more financial options, according to Daren Blomquist at RealtyTrac.
Big borrowers are more likely to default than ordinary people, according to data from First American CoreLogic. Its loan database, reflecting more than 80% of the overall home-loan market, includes 1,700 loans with balances of $4 million or more. About 14.8% of those loans were 90 days or more overdue at the end of January, compared with 8.7% for all home loans tracked by First American. Sam Khater, a senior economist at First American, said the bigger borrowers may be more prone to stop making payments when they have lost all their home equity.
Mr. Fuscone, Merrill Lynch's one-time head of Latin America, put his mansion up for sale in November, asking $13.9 million. But he couldn't find a buyer.
The court had scheduled a foreclosure auction for Thursday for the 18,471-square-foot mansion—with two swimming pools, two elevators, six fireplaces, 11 bathrooms and a seven-car garage. The personal bankruptcy filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court Wednesday temporarily freezes the foreclosure process.
Reached by phone, Mr. Fuscone declined to comment. Brokers and real estate tracking companies say that his home is one of the most expensive properties to face foreclosure proceedings yet.
The phenomenon is not limited to the New York area. Banks have taken over homes with loans of $5 million or more in Georgia, North Carolina and Colorado, RealtyTrac says.
Mr. Cage had tried to sell his 11,817-square-foot Bel-Air property for $35 million but failed to get any offers, said James Chalke, a real-estate agent who had the listing. At a foreclosure sale Wednesday, the property attracted no bids from investors and so was acquired by the foreclosing lender. Annett Wolf, a spokeswoman for Mr. Cage, said he had no comment.
A representative of Mr. Cecchi Gori, producer of more than 200 films including "Il Postino" and "Life is Beautiful," said his financial situation is improving.
In Florida's Miami-Dade County, the three largest foreclosure filings initiated against homes in the past six months involved a 4,655-square-foot home in Sunset Islands; a 8,443-square-foot house in Coral Gables; and a condo in Miami Beach, according to Peter Zalewski, a principal of Condo Vultures. All three had mortgages of $3.5 million to $4 million.

Mortgage defaults began to surge in late 2006, mostly among borrowers with subprime mortgages, those for people with weak credit records or high ratios of debt to income.
Over the next few years defaults spread rapidly to better-heeled borrowers, especially those who got loans without documenting their income. At the end of 2009, nearly eight million households, or 15% of those with mortgages, were behind on mortgage payments or in the foreclosure process.
Wealthy people have the means to stretch out the distress process, sometimes for years.
"It's very, very difficult for these people to believe they've had such a severe reversal of fortune," says Maggie Navarro, a real-estate agent in Pasadena, Calif.
Marc Carpenter, a San Diego-based foreclosure specialist, adds that while it's much harder for potential buyers to get loans, there are also fewer buyers who can pay for top-dollar properties. "The upper end is definitely a lagging indicator," he says.
In his bankruptcy filing, Mr. Fuscone provided a list of his debts, including ones to the Greenwich Country Day School, American Express, Mercedes-Benz, a local hardware store, a pet store, and Richards of Greenwich, a fine-clothing store.
"My background is in the financial-services industry and I have been personally devastated by the financial crisis which came to a head in March 2008," Mr. Fuscone said in his bankruptcy declaration. "I have been sued by Patriot National Bank" as part of a foreclosure action. "I currently have no income for the 30-day period" following his bankruptcy petition.
C.W. Kelsey, owner of Greenwich Hardware, was among the local merchants owed money by Mr. Fuscone, though he wouldn't say how much.
"Traditionally, the majority of our credit problems were contractors," he said. "Now there are people you'd never expect two or three years ago to have problems, who live in multimillion dollar homes."—Nick Timiraos and Josh Barbanel contributed to this article.
Write to Craig Karmin at craig.karmin@wsj.com and James R. Hagerty at bob.hagerty@wsj.com

A great Video from channel 9 on Foreclosures

2010-03-29T11:57:00.000-07:00

http://video.kcts9.org/video/1452404281

Foreclosure starts up nearly 20 percent in California

2010-03-16T23:10:00.000-07:00

Despite foreclosure inventories, foreclosure sales drop
• ‘The disconnect between delinquencies and foreclosure sales continues to widen’ After reaching the lowest level in a year in January, Notice of Defaults, the start of the foreclosure process, increased by 19.7 percent in February, according to a report Monday from ForeclosureRadar Inc., a Discovery Bay-based foreclosure information company that says it tracks every California foreclosure.
The number of properties scheduled for foreclosure sale remained near record levels in February, yet foreclosure sales, either “Back to Bank” or “Sold to Third Parties,” dropped by 11.9 percent total.
“The disconnect between delinquencies and foreclosure sales continues to widen,” says Sean O’Toole, founder and CEO of ForeclosureRadar.
“While efforts to slow foreclosures are clearly working, it remains unclear that anything has yet addressed the core problem of excess household mortgage debt,” he says.
After four consecutive months of decline, Notice of Default filings bounced up by 19.7 percent to 31,004 statewide. Filings of Notices of Trustee Sale, which sets the date and time of the foreclosure auction, increased slightly as well, rising 3.6 percent to 28,195 filings, according to ForeclosureRadar.
Foreclosure sales are the last step in the foreclosure process and result in the property being transferred from the homeowner either back to the bank, or to a third party, typically an investor.
Foreclosure sales decreased 11.9 percent in February, with the portion going “Back to Bank” dropping by 14.3 percent and the portion to third parties dropping by 2.7 percent.
“Despite our prediction that we may see a wave of cancellations as the [Obama] Administration pushed to make trial loan modification permanent, cancellations remained flat, likely indicating that the Home Affordable Modification Program conversion drive is failing,” says Mr. O’Toole.
Despite the increase in Notice of Default filings in February, ForeclosureRadar’s estimated number of properties in Preforeclosure dropped 8.0 percent due to the relatively high number of Notice of Trustee Sale filings, it says.
Properties exiting the foreclosure process nearly matched the number of new Notice of Trustee Sale filings, leaving the number of properties scheduled for sale in February flat compared to January. Year-over-year, the increase in properties scheduled for sale “is a dramatic 126.3 percent, as more and more homeowners have found themselves on the brink of foreclosure,” the report says.
Banks continue to resell their bank owned (REO) property in “a timely manner,” with their inventories also flat from January to February, says ForeclosureRadar.
The courthouse steps remain highly competitive with discounts to market value dropping from 17.5 percent in January to 15.2 percent in February, the report says. “Despite fewer foreclosure sales overall in February, as well as smaller discounts due to competitive bidding, third party investors purchased more foreclosures, at 23.2 percent, than at any other time since we began tracking trustee sales in September 2006,” it says.

8,000 First-time Home Buyer Tax Credit Expansion Details

2010-03-10T19:11:00.000-08:00

8000 First-time Home Buyer Tax Credit Expansion Details
The $8,000 tax credit is for first-time home buyers only. For the tax credit program, the IRS defines a first-time home buyer as someone who has not owned a principal residence during the three-year period prior to the purchase.
The tax credit does not have to be repaid.
The tax credit is equal to 10 percent of the home’s purchase price up to a maximum of $8,000.
The tax credit applies only to homes priced at $800,000 or less.
The tax credit now applies to sales occurring on or after January 1, 2009 and on or before April 30, 2010. However, in cases where a binding sales contract is signed by April 30, 2010, a home purchase completed by June 30, 2010 will qualify.
For homes purchased on or after January 1, 2009 and on or before November 6, 2009, the income limits are $75,000 for single taxpayers and $150,000 for married couples filing jointly.
For homes purchased after November 6, 2009 and on or before April 30, 2010, single taxpayers with incomes up to $125,000 and married couples with incomes up to $225,000 qualify for the full tax credit.
The $6,500 Move-Up / Repeat Home Buyer Tax Credit Details
To be eligible to claim the tax credit, buyers must have owned and lived in their previous home for five consecutive years out of the last eight years.
The tax credit does not have to be repaid.
The tax credit is equal to 10 percent of the home’s purchase price up to a maximum of $6,500.
The tax credit applies only to homes priced at $800,000 or less.
The credit is available for homes purchased after November 6, 2009 and on or before April 30, 2010. However, in cases where a binding sales contract is signed by April 30, 2010, the home purchase qualifies provided it is completed by June 30, 2010.
Single taxpayers with incomes up to $125,000 and married couples with incomes up to $225,000 qualify for the full tax credit.

HUD TAKES ACTION TO SPEED RESALE OF FORECLOSED PROPERTIES TO NEW OWNERS

2010-03-10T19:09:00.001-08:00

HUD TAKES ACTION TO SPEED RESALE OF FORECLOSED PROPERTIES TO NEW OWNERSMeasure to help bring stability to home values and accelerate sale of vacant properties
WASHINGTON - In an effort to stabilize home values and improve conditions in communities where foreclosure activity is high, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan today announced a temporary policy that will expand access to FHA mortgage insurance and allow for the quick resale of foreclosed properties. The announcement is part of the Obama administration commitment to addressing foreclosure. Just yesterday, Secretary Donovan announced $2 billion in Neighborhood Stabilization Program grants to local communities and nonprofit housing developers to combat the effects of vacant and abandoned homes.
"As a result of the tightened credit market, FHA-insured mortgage financing is often the only means of financing available to potential homebuyers," said Donovan. "FHA has an unprecedented opportunity to fulfill its mission by helping many homebuyers find affordable housing while contributing to neighborhood stabilization."
With certain exceptions, FHA currently prohibits insuring a mortgage on a home owned by the seller for less than 90 days. This temporary waiver will give FHA borrowers access to a broader array of recently foreclosed properties.
"This change in policy is temporary and will have very strict conditions and guidelines to assure that predatory practices are not allowed," Donovan said.
In today's market, FHA research finds that acquiring, rehabilitating and the reselling these properties to prospective homeowners often takes less than 90 days. Prohibiting the use of FHA mortgage insurance for a subsequent resale within 90 days of acquisition adversely impacts the willingness of sellers to allow contracts from potential FHA buyers because they must consider holding costs and the risk of vandalism associated with allowing a property to sit vacant over a 90-day period of time.
The policy change will permit buyers to use FHA-insured financing to purchase HUD-owned properties, bank-owned properties, or properties resold through private sales. This will allow homes to resell as quickly as possible, helping to stabilize real estate prices and to revitalize neighborhoods and communities.
"FHA borrowers, because of the restrictions we are now lifting, have often been shut out from buying affordable properties," said FHA Commissioner David H. Stevens. "This action will enable our borrowers, especially first-time buyers, to take advantage of this opportunity."
The waiver will take effect on February 1, 2010 and is effective for one year, unless otherwise extended or withdrawn by the FHA Commissioner. To protect FHA borrowers against predatory practices of "flipping" where properties are quickly resold at inflated prices to unsuspecting borrowers, this waiver is limited to those sales meeting the following general conditions:
All transactions must be arms-length, with no identity of interest between the buyer and seller or other parties participating in the sales transaction.
In cases in which the sales price of the property is 20 percent or more above the seller's acquisition cost, the waiver will only apply if the lender meets specific conditions.
The waiver is limited to forward mortgages, and does not apply to the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) for purchase program.
Specific conditions and other details of this new temporary policy are in the text of the waiver, available on HUD's website.

Obama Short Sale Plan Avoids Foreclosure with Less Debt

2010-03-10T19:08:00.001-08:00

A new initiative by the Obama Administration in its slow-moving and often-criticized foreclosure rescue effort will now offer a short-sale alternative that includes some principal forgiveness and $1,500 in “relocation” assistance to borrowers.
The plan kicking off April 5 — Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives, or HAFA – is for homeowners who have already qualified for the government’s primary foreclosure-prevention campaign, the $75 billion Home Affordable Modification Program, HAMP, and have failed to complete its reduced-mortgage payments trial.
The new program takes borrowers off the hook for owing the difference between the balance of mortgages and the short sale price. Under HAFA, up to $3,000 would go to holders of second mortgages and borrowers get the $1,500 to help them move.
HAFA guidelines allow borrowers to receive pre-approved short sales terms before listing the property, and requires borrowers to be fully released from future liability for first mortgage debt.
Before a borrower is approved for a HAFA short sale, the mortgage servicer “must determine the minimum acceptable net proceeds (minimum net) that the investor will accept from the transaction,” HAFA guidelines state. “Each servicer must develop a written policy, consistent with investor guidelines, that describes the basis on which the minimum net will be determined.”
Short sales can be cheaper than the prolonged foreclosure process for banks and they prevent foreclosed and abandoned properties from adding to neighborhood blight and under-valuing. But short sales are also hampered by second-liens and reluctance from banks to take significant losses.
U.S. officials are trying to restrain the foreclosure crisis as ominous signs emerge, including the unabated foreclosure filings still hitting some states. And a potential of higher rates of filings in months to come as more homeowners find themselves “underwater,” or owing more on their homes than the value of the properties.
Moreover, HAMP has fallen short after a year of targeting more than 3.4 million eligible borrowers, those 60 days late on their mortgages. Only 116,000 borrowers have been given permanent mortgage reductions through January – a 3 percent rescue rate.
HAFA has already come under fire from appraisal groups for allowing “broker price opinions,” or BPOs, to become part of the process. BPOs are estimated values of a property as determined by a real estate broker.
Four organizations representing more than 35,000 real estate appraisers sent a letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner saying that BPOs will encourage loan modification fraud – including fraud involving short sales as a new form of mortgage fraud.
“We urge the Department to reestablish independence in the valuation process to protect the safety and soundness of financial institutions, improve transparency, and safeguard the public trust,” the appraiser organizations’ letter said.

Recently on KOMO News

2009-10-18T22:04:00.000-07:00

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/64645512.html?video=YHI&t=a

SEATTLE -- If there is a canary in the coal mine for real estate, it may be found at the weekly foreclosure auction in each county.

Just six months ago, the auctions were dead.

"The banks were not discounting anywhere near where they are, which didn't entice investors to come down here," said professional investor Will Heaton.

"And also the retail market was horrible. Nobody could qualify for a loan. There really was no incentive. Everyone was afraid to buy."

But the number of homes going into foreclosure increased dramatically in the past weeks, and banks who want them off their books are willing to deal.

Heaton managed to get a steal at an auction on Friday.

He won a house that sold two years ago for $650,000. Its current market value is roughly $500,000. The owners owe the bank $479,000.

At the auction, the bank got $150,000 from Heaton.

The bank lost out on big money in the deal, but they're still willing to deal. As for the reason why, here's where the taxpayers come into the equation.

Remember those billions of dollars congress gave the banks - the TARP bailout program? It has filtered down and we, the taxpayers, are covering the bank losses.

"The government money has run its course," said Jim Milgard. "And so they have their TARP funds; they've actually got this properties paid for by the government. So its given them the ability to sell the property at a discount."

So the taxpayers have a hand in generating some great deals at the weekly foreclosure auction, and you can find some great deals if you can pay cash on the spot.

And as the unemployment rate continues to climb, the number of homes going to auction is expected to go up as well.

Next week, more than 800 homes are on the slate to be auctioned off in King County alone.

June home sales are highest in King County since Oct. 2007

2009-07-07T12:09:00.000-07:00

People who have sold their homes to first-time buyers move up to more expensive homes, Northwest MLS statistics for June show. Low interest rates help spur sales.

A new report provides the strongest evidence yet that buyers are starting to return to the local real-estate market.

The number of closed sales of single-family homes in King County in June was up 4 percent over June 2008 — the first year-over-year increase since the market peaked nearly two years ago, the Northwest Multiple Listing Service said Monday.

The county hasn't recorded that many sales in a month since October 2007.

The statistics also suggest — and agents in the field confirm — that the new buyers aren't just first-timers searching for homes at the lowest end of the price spectrum.

Total sales in Southwest and Southeast King County — the most affordable areas — were actually down from a year ago. Sales in Seattle, in contrast, rose nearly 11 percent, with neighborhoods north of the Ship Canal leading the way.

On the Eastside, sales were up almost 4 percent overall. In the Juanita-Woodinville-Duvall area, they surged nearly 31 percent.

Will Bruce, owner/broker in Windermere Real Estate's Woodinville office, said first-time buyers dominated the market earlier this year. And now?

"Those people that sold to the first-time buyers have to move somewhere," he said. He calls the new clientele "trickle-up" buyers.

June's increase in closed sales came after two months in which pending sales — offers accepted by owners but not yet closed — were up compared with the same months a year earlier.

Real-estate professionals said closed sales eventually would follow suit, and that they were lagging because the large number of "short sales" — sales for less than what owners owe on their homes — were taking longer to process.

Pending house sales were up again in June, nearly 25 percent ahead of June 2008.

Last month's median single-family-home sale price in King County, $395,000, was down more than 12 percent year-over-year.

In prepared statements, industry leaders noted that prices have increased slightly since January, but that may be a seasonal phenomenon — median prices also rose between January and June of last year.

June condo sales in King County were less robust, with closed sales down 23 percent year-over-year. The median sale price slid to $249,000, down more than 15 percent from a year ago.

Snohomish County recorded two fewer closed single-family home sales in June than in June 2008. But sales in the Edmonds area rose 38 percent. Sales also were up in the Marysville-Arlington-Stanwood area.

Tim Ellis, who edits the bearish Seattle Bubble real-estate blog, said he's been waiting for months for the number of closed house sales in King County to increase as mortgage interest rates dropped and first-time buyers took advantage of the new $8,000 federal tax credit.

"But sales in June were actually better in higher-priced areas," he added, noting that closings increased year-over-year in eight of the 12 areas whose median sales price was higher than the countywide median.

In two of those areas, Northeast Seattle and Northwest Seattle, the number of sales jumped 26 and 16 percent, respectively, compared with June 2008. Alida Fretz, office manager of the John L. Scott office in Green Lake, said people with relatively secure jobs are starting to take advantage of lower prices.

"As the first-time buyers come back into the market, people are selling to them and looking to move on to something else," she said. But most houses in the city's North End that are selling still go for between $300,000 and $450,000, she added.

In Woodinville, Bruce said he's starting to get more clients relocating to the Seattle area for new jobs, a healthy sign.

He said the number of sales his office negotiated doubled between last spring and this spring — but still doesn't come close to the boom years.

"It tells you how bad things were a year ago," Bruce said. "That was survival of the fittest."

Despite June's surge, real-estate observers aren't ready to proclaim the market has turned. Many of the sales that closed probably were negotiated in April and May, when interest rates were at record 40-year lows, Ellis said.

Rising rates, while still relatively low, could discourage some buyers, he added.

But Bruce said rising rates actually tend to spur sales: Buyers want to act before rates climb even higher.

It's also unclear how many of the large number of pending sales eventually will close. Historically, the number of closed sales in a month has been about 90 percent of the preceding month's pending sales.

June's closings in King County were about 74 percent of April's pendings.

If short sales are responsible for the gap, as most real-estate professionals say, many may not close at all. Even if lenders approve them, buyers may get tired of the long waits or not qualify for financing.

Regional statistics on short sales are not readily available; the listing service just began tracking them in April.

But nationally, just 20 percent close, said Alex Charfen, CEO of the Distressed Property Institute, a Texas-based organization that trains and certifies real-estate agents to handle short sales.

Lenders 'doing everything possible to delay foreclosure'

2009-06-16T22:46:00.001-07:00

ForeclosureRadar, the online seller of mortgage default data, has more evidence of a foreclosure backlog in its monthly data, released today:

In May, a record 111,824 California homes were scheduled for foreclosure sales, but just 16% were auctioned. By comparison, last May, sales were held for 49% of homes slated for foreclosure.

Of last month's postponed foreclosures, 40% were delayed at the request of the lender; an additional 33% were postponed by agreement between the lender and borrower.

ForeclosureRadar CEO Sean O'Toole's take on this: “The data actually shows that lenders are doing everything possible to delay foreclosure. The reality is that we have very few homeowners being foreclosed on when viewed as a percentage of those scheduled to be foreclosed on, in default, delinquent, or upside down in their mortgage."

Notices of default -- the first stage in foreclosure, which occurs when a borrower has missed several payments -- were down 4% in May from April and down 3% from the same month a year ago, to 40,870 filings statewide.

Foreclosures taken to auction were down 30% in May from a year ago, to 17,871. Of those homes, 84% had opening bids set below the outstanding loan amount. The average opening bid for these properties was 59% of the loan amount. For instance, if a house with a $100,000 mortgage went to auction, the average opening bid would have been $59,000.

Of homes going to auction in May, 88% were taken back by the lender. When a home is not sold to a third-party bidder at auction, the lender takes it back, typically to sell on the open market or through private auctions.

The top 10 counties in foreclosures, per capita: Merced, Stanislaus, Yuba, Riverside, San Joaquin, Solano, Kern, Madera, San Bernardino, Sacramento. San Diego ranked 27th, Ventura 38th, Los Angeles 44th and Orange 46th.

San Francisco had the fewest foreclosures, per capita.

Mortgage industry changes throw new hurdles in borrowers' way

2009-06-16T13:59:00.000-07:00

Reporting from Washington -- Mortgage rates and house prices are down -- which sounds great for buyers and refinancers. But mortgage industry underwriting and appraisal changes taking effect this month are putting new hurdles in the way of borrowers and loan officers.

Take Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's add-on fees for loans purchased after April 1. In some cases, applicants are being hit with extra fees of 3% to 5% because of the type of property they want to buy or refinance, their credit scores or the size of their down payment.
Some major lenders who sell loans to Fannie and Freddie are going further -- tightening underwriting rules beyond what either corporation requires. For example, as of April 6, Wells Fargo, one of the country's largest mortgage originators, imposed a new minimum FICO credit score of 720 -- up from the previous 620 -- on all conventional loans purchased through its wholesale system that have less than a 20% down payment. It also began requiring a total debt-to-income ratio maximum of 41% -- down from the previous 45%.

Fannie Mae now has a mandatory fee of three-quarters of a percentage point on all condominium loans, no matter how high the applicant's credit score. For a once-popular interest-only condo loan with a 20% down payment and a borrower credit score of 690, Fannie imposes the following ratcheted sequence of add-ons: one-quarter of a percentage point as an "adverse market" fee; 1.5% for the below-optimal credit score; three-quarters of a percentage point for the interest-only payment feature; and the same because the property is a condo. The total comes to 3.25% extra, which can be paid upfront or rolled into the loan.

On top of these extra fees, borrowers are now starting to get hit with two sets of cost-raising appraisal rule changes. Fannie and Freddie have begun requiring all appraisers to complete an extra "market condition" report that includes detailed statistical analyses of local sales and pricing trends -- above and beyond the regular appraisal data. Many appraisers are charging an extra $45 to $50 for the time required to complete the form. Home buyers and refinancers can expect to pay the higher fees.
On top of that, beginning May 1, Fannie and Freddie are refusing to fund loans with appraisals that do not follow a set of new rules known as the Home Valuation Code of Conduct. Among the procedural changes: Mortgage brokers no longer can order appraisals directly, but instead must allow lenders or investors to use third-party "appraisal management companies" to assign the job to appraisers in their networks.

How does that affect the consumer? Consider the notification one Connecticut brokerage firm recently received from a major lending partner: Starting April 15, all good faith estimates provided to applicants must indicate a flat $455 charge for appraisals arranged through the appraisal management company. The broker previously charged $325. Consumers will now have to pay the appraisal fee upfront -- before any inspection or valuation is completed -- using a credit card, debit card or electronic fund transfer.

What happens if the appraisal comes in low and the applicants can't qualify for the refi or purchase program they sought? Tough luck: They'll have just two choices: Pay another $455 for a second appraisal -- with no assurance that it will solve the problem -- or cancel the application.

Jeff Lipes, president of Family Choice Mortgage Corp., which serves the Hartford, Conn., area, said the net effect of the underwriting, credit score and pricing changes was to "squeeze some people who are creditworthy by any reasonable standard out of the market."

For instance, as a result of the restrictions on condos, Lipes says "whenever we hear the word 'condo' [from an applicant], we shiver" because the deck is stacked against them. Even for prime borrowers with 800 FICO scores and 50% down payments, Lipes said, "I can't tell them that we're certain we can get you a mortgage."

A welter of recent rule changes from Fannie Mae has made some condo units in projects with commercial tenants or high percentages of investor units almost impossible to refinance.

In Naples, Fla., John Calabria, president of Bancmortgage Corp., said, "It has become such a nightmare to lend money" because of the layers of add-on fees, higher mandatory down payments and FICO scores. One high-income client sought to put down 25% ($200,000) to buy an $800,000 condo as a second home but couldn't because the minimum down payment on such a unit is now 30%.

"That's ridiculous," Calabria said. "Some of this just doesn't make sense."

Is Obama's foreclosure rescue plan working?

2009-06-16T13:57:00.001-07:00

Richmond could afford his $1,600 monthly mortgage payment when he was making $63,000 as an accountant for Bank of America. But after his position was outsourced to India in 2006, the only work he could find was as a customer service representative at Wachovia for less than $12 an hour.
Desperate, he called SunTrust Bank in January to see if he could get a loan modification. He was turned down because he hadn't yet missed a payment. So the father of five didn't make his January payment and called back in February to start the modification process. A month later, an agent told him that all modifications were being scrapped in favor of the new Obama foreclosure prevention plan.

In April, he sent in his tax and income documents, as well as a hardship letter. Richmond calls every two weeks, only to be told that the application is still being processed. In early June, an agent said a supervisor would call him back within 48 hours. He's still waiting.

Richmond thinks the Obama plan would be a blessing for him and his family.

"I can get back on my feet again and make my payments and afford my house," said Richmond, 43. "But the banks are not making it easy to get the process done. I've been waiting all these months."

A SunTrust spokesman said bank representatives "work diligently" to discuss modifications with clients in a timely manner.

Man facing foreclosure campaigns for patience

2009-05-09T10:37:00.000-07:00

Link

www.komonews.com/news/local/44627492.html?video=YHI&t=a

TACOMA, Wash. -- Banks have lifted their temporary moratorium on foreclosures, which means more properties are being auctioned off every Friday on the courthouse steps of every county in the state.

Amid the busy transactions is a man who's leading a protest for patience.

Craig Wuest is trying to find out if his home will indeed be auctioned off the courthouse steps. It's on the list.

"Don't have any information yet, none yet. What's that telling me?" he said.

Wuest, who was injured 18 months ago, can no longer work. His wife works, but her monthly income doesn't cover the mortgage.

"If they lower it, I can afford it. But at this point in time, I can't afford it," he said.

Wuest is four months behind, owes more than his house is worth and has an interest only loan at 10.5 percent.

With mortgage rates at 5 percent, Wuest wants a new deal with his lender but says the lender won't deal.

"I even sent them new financials, so they can see what the financials looked like. It doesn't seem to work with them. I don't know what does, because they don't want to talk to you," he said.

Right now, banks want cash and want borrowers like Wuest off their books. So Wuest got ACORN, a national housing group, to hold a protest for patience.

"This foreclosure rate is just horrendous. I've got five houses in my neighborhood today that are in foreclosure," said Wuest.

The latest monthly figures show the highest rate of foreclosures tends to be in counties with lower household incomes. The worst figures are in Cowlitz County where one out of every 300 homes was in foreclosure during the month of March. Cowlitz County is followed by Pierce, Thurston, Snohomish and Clallam counties.

But someone's pain is someone else's gain.

"The banks are giving more discounts down here so we are purchasing several more properties every week," said Cindy Hornbuckle of Vestus Foreclosure Group.

Auction regulars say the banks are in the mood to sell quick on the courthouse steps. Wuest wishes they'd just make a long-term deal with him.

Important changes to foreclosure law headed to governor’s desk

2009-04-28T18:51:00.000-07:00

Important changes to foreclosure law headed to governor’s desk
April 9, 2009

OLYMPIA – A bill that aims to increase consumer protection in the area of housing, as well as protection of tenants and homeowners, has passed the Legislature and is now on its way to Gov. Gregoire for her signature.

The legislation (ESB 5810) would give owners and tenants more notice with foreclosures on deeds of trust; it would require lenders to contact homeowners prior to issuing a notice of default; and it would also give tenants more time to move after a foreclosure sale.

“One component critical to helping the economy is to stabilize the housing market. Washington state is still struggling as housing prices and home sales have declined along with an 83 percent rise in foreclosures,” said Rep. Tina Orwall (D-Normandy Park) who sponsored the companion bill in the House. “But we can help the housing market by addressing the issue of foreclosure and making sure that families with the ability to receive assistance to keep their homes do, in fact, get the help they need.”

Deeds of trust are security interests in real property. The Deeds of Trust Act establishes procedures for non-judicial foreclosure in which the homeowner grants a deed creating a lien on the real property for an obligation due to the lender.

Most foreclosures in Washington state are known as non-judicial foreclosures because they don't involve the courts. When homeowners fall behind in their mortgage payments, they receive a notice of default informing them that the foreclosure process has begun.

The bill puts in place a meet and confer requirement, which essentially involves the mortgagee contacting the borrower, assessing his or her financial situation and exploring alternatives to foreclosure, all before issuing a notice of default. This requirement does not apply when the beneficiary is a homeowners or condominium association.

Renters benefit as well under this bill. Additional sections of the bill provide them with notice regarding the foreclosure process, which is not currently required because they do not own the property where they live. Not only do they now get notice, but they also get a 60-day notice of eviction, instead of the 20 days required by current law. This allows them to have greater success in finding a new place to live, and also prevents an eviction notice on their record, which could hinder their finding future rental housing.

“A lot of work was put into this legislation to include important consumer protections so that families actually have the time and resources they need to remain in their homes when possible, and renters –who are often victims in these situations-- have more time to find housing if their homes are foreclosed,” added Orwall.

ESB 5810 also provides that a homeowner can bring an action after the foreclosure sale if there were irregularities in the process, such as fraud or misrepresentation. That section of the bill also:

adds to the list of nonwaived claims a violation of Title 19 RCW (regulations of businesses, including the Consumer Protection Act);
clarifies that the relief is for money damages; and
clarifies that the nonwaived claims must be brought within two years of the foreclosure sale or within the applicable statute of limitation for the claim, whichever is earlier.

Obama expands foreclosure fix

2009-04-28T17:15:00.000-07:00

Obama expands foreclosure fix
Two steps: Second liens now covered by modification program; servicers must offer eligible borrowers principal reduction under Hope for Homeowners.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The Obama administration said Tuesday it is expanding its foreclosure prevention program to cover second mortgages and to direct more troubled borrowers to the Hope for Homeowners program.

Announced with great fanfare in mid-February, the president's $75 billion program has gotten off to a slow start. Loan servicers only recently started taking applications and many delinquent borrowers have complained about being left in the cold because their home values have dropped or they've lost their jobs.

The administration is seeking to address some of the concerns by tweaking the original modification plan, which calls for adjusting eligible borrowers' loans so monthly payments are no more than 31% of pre-tax income.

Servicers covering 75% of the nation's mortgages are now participating in the program, which also allows some homeowners with little or no equity to refinance their mortgages, a senior administration official said Tuesday. Together, the plans are expected to help up to 9 million avoid foreclosure.

Second mortgage roadblock
During the housing frenzy, many borrowers obtained second mortgages to allow them to put little or nothing down when buying a home. Up to half of at-risk borrowers have second liens, according to the administration.

These loans have complicated the modification process. For one thing, they add to troubled homeowners' debt levels. Also, mortgage investors have balked at reducing payments on first mortgages when the second loan was left intact.

Under the administration's new program, the interest rate on second mortgages will be reduced to 1% on loans where payments cover interest and principal and to 2% for interest-only loans. The government will subsidize the rate reduction, with the money going to the mortgage investor.

Servicers will be paid $500 for each modification and an additional $250 annually for three years if the borrower stays current. Borrowers can receive up to $250 per year for five years to pay down their first mortgage.

Investors can also receive a payment in exchange for extinguishing the second lien. They would receive 3 cents on the dollar for loans more than 180 days delinquent and between 4 cents and 12 cents for less delinquent loans, depending on the borrowers' debt levels.

Servicers who join the new program must modify second loans when a borrower's first mortgage is adjusted. It will likely take a month to implement, but it should not slow down the modifications of primary mortgages, the administration said.

"By bringing both the first lien and second lien program together, we can reduce monthly payments for borrowers and make it much more likely that they can stay in their homes," a senior administration official said.

Hope for Homeowners option
Also Tuesday, the administration said it is now requiring servicers to offer troubled borrowers access to Hope for Homeowners as a modification option if they qualify.

Expanding Hope for Homeowners would address one of the major holes in the original Obama foreclosure prevention plan. It helps homeowners whose homes are now worth far less than their mortgages.

Servicers had balked at participating in the Hope program because it required they reduce the mortgage principal balance to 90% of a home's current value.

Hope for Homeowners, which began in October, is being revamped in Congress. Servicers would have to reduce the principal to 93% of the home's value. The change would also reduce the program's high fees, which turned off many troubled borrowers.

As an incentive to participate, servicers will be paid $2,500 for each refinancing, while lenders who originate the new loans will receive up to $1,000 a year for three years, as long as the loan remains current.

Separately, however, another pillar of the president's plan appears to be headed for defeat this week. The Senate is not expected to pass legislation allowing bankruptcy judges to modify mortgages. The administration had sought this change to pressure servicers to modify loans before borrowers declare bankruptcy.

Six reasons to tap retirement funds now to buy rental property

2009-04-02T10:45:00.000-07:00

Using IRAs to buy real estate
Six reasons to tap retirement funds now to buy rental property
By Chris Pummer
Last update: 9:02 p.m. EDT April 1, 2009Comments: 115SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- One of today's soundest investments is never touted in financial-services ads. The reason: Wall Street wouldn't make any money off it.
Since 1974, Americans have had the ability to use IRA assets to buy investment property. Yet the means to do that -- called a self-directed IRA -- remains one of the least known and unheralded investment vehicles in the vast financial marketplace.
Video: Finding a bottom for home prices
David Berson, chief economist of PMI Group, talks to MarketWatch's Stacey Delo about how the housing market will rebound before jobs do, and why he expects home prices to bottom for most of the U.S. in early 2010. (April 1)With foreclosed homes selling at dimes on the dollar, residential real estate is a bargain for investors holding cash. And if they can put 30% down, IRA investors will find specialty lenders eager to help them leverage their retirement savings with mortgages on rental properties.
The U.S. housing market may not yet have hit bottom, but the winds appear to be shifting. Existing-home sales are on the mend in hardest-hit markets and foreclosure-avoidance programs are expected to stem the rising inventory of bank repossessions, meaning the window to buy at rock-bottom prices could close before the year is out.
Bear in mind homes purchased with IRA funds can't be used for personal purposes. Doing so risks the IRS declaring the assets withdrawn and demanding immediate payment of income taxes and penalties on the entire account value.
Still, as an investment readily understood by anyone who's been through the home buying and selling process, purchasing a steeply discounted property that can produce annual income of 10% and more is a low-risk strategy for uncertain times -- especially for retirees whose fixed-income investments are paying paltry yields right now. Read more on setting up a managing a self-directed IRA.
Here are six reasons why buying real estate with an IRA is a potentially lucrative and wise move today:
1. A solid alternative to stocks
When economies teeter, investors often run to hard assets such as gold -- humankind's historic "store of value." Yet gold's value is measured not only in ounces but also in the intangible fear that surrounds its price spikes.
When it comes to hard assets, there's perhaps no greater shared sense of value from Mongolia to Montana than for land and a dwelling. And in U.S. history, there's never been such a fire sale on our housing stock.
The Great Depression exacted a heavy toll on home values, but there was nowhere near the inventory flooding the housing market as in the past year. The reason: A collapse in home prices, not stocks, triggered this meltdown.
Of course, some would say foreclosed-home buyers capitalize on others' misfortune. But the sooner we clear the massive, nationwide inventory of unsold homes -- which many economists argue is a key to recovery -- the better off we'll all be.
2. An investment well-suited for long-term investors
Even in the best of times, the stock market looks out six months to a year. Right now, even seasoned pros can't feel the bottom of the muck we're in.
Many retirement savers are uncomfortable with their nest egg tied up largely in stocks. That's just the direction where the system of IRAs and 401(k)s -- which also advances Wall Street's interests -- shepherds them.
Real-estate cycles generally run in decade-or-so swings and this one may not yet have neared its bottom. Housing values could drop another 10% to 20%, but the stock market also could drop further and take a decade to well surpass its previous highs.
Especially for those in or near retirement, buying a property that produces rental income that's likely to increase with inflation is as sound a long-term investment as any TV commentator or investing guru might offer.
3. Purchasing a significantly undervalued asset
For investors willing to hang on to a property for five years or more, residential real estate today presents a tremendous opportunity to do just what investors ideally do -- buy low and sell high.
In some of the hardest-hit regional markets nationwide, homes are selling for as little as 20% of their value in 2006. In the San Francisco Bay Area, for instance, a 3,400-square-foot, five-bedroom, three-bath house built in 2000 recently listed for $257,000 -- after last selling for $795,000 just three years ago.
More importantly, at a cost of just $75 per-square-foot, that's about a third of the new construction cost for a well-outfitted, single-family home in that region. An IRA buyer in that case would get a relatively new house that would require little maintenance -- and a 7,000-square-foot lot essentially thrown in for free
While that may be an extreme example, countless thousands of existing homes nationwide are selling for 50% of today's construction and land costs. Putting aside previous overinflated values, that statistic illustrates how inexpensive home prices have become -- and how much upside they offer in terms of appreciation when the real-estate market finally recovers.
4. A steady income generator
At a time when companies are slashing stock dividends at record rates, retirees can't be assured of that income source. And with government bonds paying a pittance in terms of yield, that fixed-income stream is running mighty shallow.
Income from a rental property bought with a self-directed IRA flows back into the retirement account. The IRA holds title to the property and the income it produces can be directed into all manner of investments typically held within an IRA, be it stocks, bonds, mutual funds or money market accounts.
On a percentage basis, that income can be two to three times higher than today's fixed-income offerings even after paying expenses such as property taxes and insurance. Meanwhile, the accountholder can eventually reap the potential appreciation of the underlying asset -- the property -- that the IRA owns.
For retirement savers needing to fund a child's college costs, a rental property held in an IRA also can be a valuable source of funds. While money taken out of a traditional IRA is subject to income taxes, it doesn't face early-withdrawal penalties if used for higher-education costs. And while financial advisers caution against using retirement funds to pay for college costs, the IRA owner still has upside potential on the property to count on and the income in years ahead.
5. A safer means to play the stock market
For those who don't want to abandon potential stock-market returns, a rental home owned in an IRA still affords them the ability to invest in stocks.
Rental income funneled into stocks or stock mutual funds today will be buying shares at sharply reduced prices. Directing the proceeds of each monthly rent check into stocks or mutual-fund shares accomplishes the same "dollar-cost averaging" strategy that occurs when employees steer a fixed amount of every paycheck into their 401(k).
Over a 10- to 20-year period, the return that the rental income produces if plowed into stocks is rich icing on the cake, coming on top of the return provided by the rental income itself.
6. The ability to flip real estate with no tax bite
Proceeds from selling an IRA-owned home roll back into the IRA without facing capital-gains taxes. To the contrary, an investor who buys and resells a property within a year with nonretirement funds faces a capital-gains levy.
Many foreclosed homes today are "distressed," vandalized by angry departing owners who may have deferred maintenance due to tough times. They often ransack anything and everything not nailed down and many things that are, from lighting fixtures and kitchen appliances to furnaces and central-air conditioners, toilets and bathroom vanities.
Such properties -- which can be found at most all price points -- are among the cheapest on the market on a per-square-foot basis because the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and most private mortgage lenders won't loan on homes deemed "uninhabitable." That drastically reduces the potential buyer pool to just cash purchasers -- and reduces the property values as a result.
Even homes needing only cosmetic fixes sell at a discount today because there are countless others available in move-in condition. If an IRA home buyer has enough in the account post-purchase to refit a home's interior -- whether it's laying carpet and laminate flooring or upgrading a kitchen or bathroom -- going the minor-rehab route can be a rewarding approach.
Buyers might choose to fix up the cheapest, distressed property in a solid neighborhood so it qualifies for a mortgage and then resell it. They also could improve upon it over several years with the rental income. Either way, it's a potentially enriching value-add strategy.
The ultimate choice
The bottom line with buying rental properties with an IRA is that the investor retains a level of control over a tangible asset that he or she could never remotely attain in owning shares of a company or a mutual fund.
The question that bears asking: What will yield a better return in the next five to 10 years -- shares of Microsoft, General Electric or Citigroup, or a modest rental home in a decent school district -- selling for 30 cents on the dollar -- whose value may soon be juiced by record-low mortgage rates and unprecedented tax breaks?

Existing home sales spike 5%

2009-03-25T17:55:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Sales of existing homes unexpectedly rose in February, recovering from a sharp drop in the previous month, according to an industry report released Monday.

The National Association of Realtors said that existing home sales rose last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.72 million million units, up 5.1% from a rate of 4.49 million in January. February sales were down nearly 5% from year ago levels.

Economists surveyed by Briefing.com were expecting existing home sales to decline to 4.45 million.

The report said first-time buyers made up half of all purchases in February, and that sales of distressed properties accounted for about 45% of all transactions.

Sales were unexpectedly strong in the West, with activity increasing more than 30% over last year.

"February wasn't too shabby for the existing-home market," said Mike Larson, real estate analyst at Weiss Research. "The catch? The increase in sales activity is coming at the expense of pricing."

The national median existing-home price was $165,400 in February, down 15.5% from last year, when the median price was $195,800.

Prices were depressed by the large number of foreclosed properties on the market, said NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun in a statement.

"Our analysis shows that distressed homes typically are selling for 20% less than the normal market price, and this naturally is drawing down the overall median price."
Meanwhile, the total number of existing homes on the market at the end of February rose 5.2% to 3.80 million units. At the current sales pace, it would take an estimated 9.7 months to sell down that inventory of properties.

The report also said the total number of homes for sale has steadily declined over the past six months from a record level last July.

Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, said there's a "good chance" the collapse in home sales that has been going on since September is "now over." "Though a sustained recovery is still a long way off," he added.

Home prices rise 1.7% in January, federal regulator says

2009-03-24T13:13:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- U.S. home prices rose 1.7% in January compared with December, the Federal Housing Finance Agency reported Tuesday. It was the first monthly increase in a year. Home prices are down 6.3% in the past year and are down 9.6% from the peak in April 2006, the agency said. The "unexpected rise" was partially due to stronger sales in some markets, FHFA said. Prices rose or were flat in eight of nine regions in January; only the Pacific states registered a decline, down 0.9%. Prices rose 3.9% in the East North Central region, which includes most of the Great Lakes states.

Banks burdened as Washington foreclosure auctions slow

2009-03-23T22:54:00.001-07:00

Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle) - by Jeanne Lang Jones & Kirsten Grind Staff Writers
Media

On the cold, bright morning of Friday, March 13, Glen Hayton stepped outside the King County Administration building in Seattle. Normally, he might auction dozens of houses seized in foreclosure.

But instead the auctioneer spent the first half hour announcing scores of sales that had been canceled or postponed.

Welcome to the new foreclosure market.

Out of 172 homes tracked by the Puget Sound Business Journal since December, only five sold at auction on the appointed day. The homes, a week’s worth of foreclosures in King County, show how drastically the housing market has changed.

Repossessed homes used to be easy to unload. During the housing boom, banks could take homes back and sell them at auction at a reasonable discount. Seasoned buyers with pockets full of six-figure cashiers’ checks bumped elbows with young couples and newbies looking to get a deal on a starter home.

Now, with prices falling, buyers are wary and few homes are selling at auction. Instead, they’re piling up on lenders’ books, costing hundreds of dollars a month in carrying costs and exposing lenders to the risk of further price declines.

Sales also are stalling as the troubled owners try to work out deals with their lenders. They’re finding lenders are much more willing to negotiate.

The growing number of foreclosed homes in limbo shows a new dimension of the historic foreclosure crisis. It is slowing the housing market’s recovery and undermining house values. The median price of a single-family home in King County has fallen about 13 percent in the past year.

The situation could get worse. More mortgages are due to reset in the next two years, potentially at higher rates. Unemployment, now 8.4 percent in Washington, is expected to continue rising, threatening the ability of more homeowners to keep up with their mortgage payments.

Some lenders fear homeowners who are underwater on their mortgages will just walk away from homes that now are worth less than what’s owed on them.

“We have cases where people are tapped out,” said Ron McKenzie, a vice president at Seattle-based Washington Federal Savings. “They’ll call us one day and say, ‘I can’t make any more payments. Where do I leave my keys?’”

The property is perfect: a five-bedroom house on nearly two acres of land, tucked away in the country surrounding Covington.
Charlene Binfet is ecstatic.
It’s a sunny Saturday at the end of February, only three weeks before the family’s five-bedroom house in Auburn is due to be sold at King County’s foreclosure auction.
Like thousands of others around the country, Charlene and Joseph Binfet can no longer make payments on their $303,000 mortgage. They’ve considered their options: a short sale, potential government rescue or working out new loan terms. They’re not sure how it’s going to work out.
Charlene and one of her three teenage sons have driven out on a whim to see a rental property, listed for only $1,500 a month on a real estate website.
At first, Charlene thinks it’s too good to be true.
How can such a spacious property — with a house that’s 900 square feet larger than their current home — cost less than half their monthly mortgage payment?
She and her son get a tour from the caretaker of the land. It includes a 60-year-old farm house, and it needs some work.
But the Binfets are willing to put in the sweat equity, if it means establishing another home. They are trying to separate themselves from their five-bedroom Auburn home, in foreclosure after Joe Binfet’s salary as a lumber salesman took a hit following the housing market downturn.
They’ve lived there for six years and owned it for four. It was their first foray into homeownership.
Charlene and her son are falling in love with the new house already when they spy the real prize: a 1,500-sqaure-foot tool shop, complete with a hydraulic lift.
Perfect for Joe Binfet, who has had a harder time letting go of the family’s Auburn house.
Charlene’s son keeps nudging her. “You have to call Dad, you have to call Dad,” he says.
She catches Joe at work on a house remodel. “I have a bomb to drop on you,” Charlene says. “I just happened to come across this property and you have to come look at it today.”
Days later, the family has put the first month’s rent down.
They start collecting moving boxes. For the first time since December, when they received notice that their house would be sold in foreclosure auction, they have a plan.
Charlene is relieved. The struggle is nearly over.

Foreclosures are on the rise, but most homes aren’t reaching the auction block any more. The number of properties that were scheduled to go to King County’s foreclosure auctions nearly doubled last year from 2007, climbing to 4,492.

But at the same time, the number that actually got to auction and sold fell by 40 percent. Now, just under one in 10 properties actually changes hands at an auction, according to a tally by ForeclosurePoint, a national property tracking service.

About half of the sales are called off or postponed. The remaining third go back to the bank — more than twice as many as the year before.

The trend is accelerating. In the foreclosures the Business Journal tracked from the week of Dec. 8, sales of 66 percent of the homes were postponed, either because the delinquent homeowners were working out new payment plans with their lenders or had filed for bankruptcy.

Sales were canceled for another 21 percent of the houses, likely because the owners had negotiated a loan modification or managed to sell their houses ahead of the auction.

Ten percent went back to the bank.

Just five houses, less than 3 percent of the total, actually sold.

Of those, only two attracted much bidding.

“There are more foreclosures, but there are less people at auction because nobody’s really secure about the market,” said Dean Street, a longtime local foreclosure broker representing real estate investors.

The voice of auction crier Hayton announcing property sales on the steps of the King County Administration Building is barely audible over the wailing of ambulances and roar of buses.
About 20 investors, real estate agents and foreclosure specialists are huddling around, thumbing through thick packets of property listings.
It’s a week after a moratorium on foreclosures under federal lending programs has ended. They are expecting a big day of sales. But as they strain to hear about the properties they’re interested in, auction after auction is called off. The crier rattles off names and addresses in a clipped monotone.
“Binfet,” he calls as he reaches the family’s five-bedroom home in Auburn. The family isn’t there.
“This sale is canceled.”
A few minutes later, he starts to auction the first home. He asks for bidders. No one in the crowd responds. The same thing happens for the first half-dozen properties that Hayton tries to sell. No bidders, no sale. Finally, he comes to one where the starting price is low enough that buyers step up.

Four years ago, lenders would see multiple bidders on a foreclosed property and investors would typically pay 82 cents on the dollar for homes being auctioned, said Christopher Hall of Vestus Foreclosure Group in Kirkland. With home prices climbing each year, they could expect to unload the home later at a profit.

Now there may be only one or two bidders on a property — and they typically pay only 65 cents to 75 cents on the dollar, Hall said. Paying more is just too risky.

Partly it’s because housing prices are sliding. Partly, it’s because it’s harder to get financing. In the past, speculators at an auction would tap their line of credit or turn to hard-money lenders for a bridge loan. At worst, the hard-money loan would cover the purchase price of the house for up to six months with an interest rate of up to 12 percent and a cash down payment of up to 20 percent. Fees range from 3 to 5 percent of the value of the house.

Investors could always refinance into a traditional mortgage later on.

“You could go down there with a little bit of money, flip it and make 30 grand in sixty days,” said Chris Matty, chief marketing officer at Bellevue-based DepotPoint, the owner of the ForeclosurePoint service.

With fewer investors now to snap up the properties, banks are forced to take them back.

That puts them in the position of playing property manager and real estate agent, and often selling the home at a discount anyway. It also stresses banks at a time when most also are struggling with steep losses on commercial real estate loans.

When a bank takes back a house and can’t sell it, the carrying costs can run to about 10 percent of the value of the home, or between $40,000 to $50,000 for a typical Puget Sound area property, according to several foreclosure experts. Those costs include taxes, insurance and fixing up and maintaining the property.

Washington Federal Savings, one of the few local banks with mortgage loans on its books, has found that the cost of carrying a house also depends on the condition of the property and the neighborhood. Some homeowners clean up before they leave, others aren’t so gracious.

“We had a property in Seattle where we had to go do an eviction with the sheriff recently and it probably cost us between $2,000 and $4,000 to haul all the garbage away,” said McKenzie of Washington Federal.

Those costs mount over time, particularly in more distressed areas of the country. “We may be holding that property for six to nine months before we make a sale,” said McKenzie, who manages the bank’s special credit group. The bank’s goal is to offload all Real Estate Owned, or REO, properties within a year.

Washington Federal has seen a sharp pickup in REOs. At the end of 2008, it had $61.9 million in inventory, up from $37 million on Sept. 30, as foreclosures rose among developers and homeowners in the eight states it serves. Home mortgage foreclosures represent less than half the total.

“We’re losing money the minute we stop getting payments from people,” said a Washington Federal spokeswoman.

Mounting losses are making banks more willing to deal.

“Foreclosures really are our last choice,” said Susan Greenwald, a senior vice president and director of family lending operations at HomeStreet Bank. The Seattle-based bank services 42,000 mortgage loans backed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Federal Housing Administration and Veterans Administration lending programs, along with a small portfolio of its own home loans.

Greenwald estimates the bank is able to work out new payment programs about 90 percent of the time. As a result, the bank only has one foreclosure in Seattle, Greenwald said.

It helps that the housing market here isn’t as bad as other parts of the country. She points out that just over two dozen Fannie Mae loans are in foreclosure in Seattle, compared with more than 900 in Phoenix.

But there are limits to what banks are putting on the table. Even the Obama administration’s new homeowner affordability plan requires loan modifications to cost less than foreclosure, she said.

“At the end of the day, it is still a business,” Greenwald said. “We still have to look out for the financial interests of the lenders in servicing the loans.”

For consumers, this means there’s wiggle room with banks that wasn’t available even six months ago.

“They absolutely will reduce the principal owed,” said Hall of Vestus Foreclosure Group. “They would much rather take the discount now than take it later. In a normal market a bank may not care if it gets the house back — it can sell it for close to the debt owed. Now that is not the case.”

Who eats the loss when a house sells for less than the loan?

In Washington and other Western states, lenders traditionally have chosen to settle foreclosures out of court, rather than have terms dictated by a judge. That means lenders have to absorb the loss. But they save the time and cost of going to court. They can still go after the debtors with a lawsuit, but few bother.

“People who lose their homes do not have much anyway — why waste your time,” said attorney Danial Pharris, a principal at the Seattle law firm of Lasher Holzapfel Sperry & Ebberson PLLC.

In the middle of February 2009, Charlene and Joe file for Chapter 13 bankruptcy.
The filing effectively postpones their foreclosure sale for several months, a tactic used by some families to delay losing their homes. That’s why their March 13 sale was canceled. They are now part of the backlog of unsold homes.
It is the family’s third bankruptcy since 1993. They bought their Auburn house in late 2004, after only recently emerging from their second Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing.
The Binfets see this most recent bankruptcy as the only logical way out of their growing pile of debt.
In their filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Washington, the couple lists assets of $329,397 and liabilities of $468,349.
Their assets range from their Chrysler van worth $15,150 and their 401(k) worth $6,797. Their biggest asset is their house, worth $301,000.
Because the Binfets file a Chapter 13 bankruptcy — “the good kind,” says Charlene — they are required to pay off their debts through a payment plan. Previously, when they filed Chapter 7s, their debt was wiped out.
Now the court has ordered them to make monthly payments of $600 for five years to clear their debt. Coupled with their new rent of $1,500, they’ll pay $2,100 a month, or about $1,000 less than their old mortgage payment.
They will not keep their home. They are working with Litton Loan of Texas and HomeEq of California, the servicers of their first and second mortgages, Charlene says, to sell the Auburn house in a short sale. They are done trying to save it.
But they are not done with homeownership. They plan to spend the next several years renting until their youngest child — now a freshman in high school — has graduated.
Then they will buy again, likely the house that Charlene says they’ll retire in eventually. By the time they enter the housing market once more, the family expects their credit will be repaired. And so, hopefully, will be the wreckage of the recession and the housing market’s downturn.
“We have enjoyed owning our own home,” Charlene says recently. “This is just Plan B

Mortgage meltdown sends newcomers and old hands in search of bargains

2009-03-19T21:36:00.000-07:00

. PT, Thurs., March. 19, 2009

BELLEVUE, Wash. - Opportunity is knocking in the chilly winter air of this Seattle suburb, and Rock Harrison intends to answer it.

Built like a linebacker and sporting a mustache-goatee combo, Harrison, 37, is one of three dozen people who have gathered around an aluminum picnic table outside an office building in a strip mall for one of two weekly public foreclosure auctions in Washington’s King County.

Harrison and four competitors have qualified to bid on a 3,300-square-foot McMansion on an acre lot in the south county town of Auburn. The house last sold for $470,450 more than four years ago, the county assesses it at $577,000, and well over $600,000 is owed against it on a pair of loans.
But the foreclosing lender, trying to recoup what it can in an area of plummeting real estate prices, has set the opening bid at just $267,000. Interest is high because most would-be buyers figure the house, currently vacant and in decent shape, can be quickly resold for about $500,000.

A short, bespectacled crier presides over the auction from one end of the picnic table.

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The bidding quickly leaps over $300,000, going up $3,000 and $4,000 at a pop, with offers from all participants. Above $320,000, where Harrison drops out, it becomes a two-man contest, each new bid often just $100 or $200 above the last. After more than 10 minutes and 75 bids, the property finally sells for just under $371,000.

Harrison tosses his bidding card on the table, tugs on his baseball cap with its Skidoo logo and awaits his next prospect.

The Bellevue bidders are participating in what is one of the few growth areas in the battered U.S. real estate industry. While savvy investors have long profited from dealing in distressed properties, the soaring rate of U.S. home foreclosures over the past few years has attracted mainstream interest and crowds of new bidders.

“We’ve seen a sea change over the last three years,” said Rick Sharga, senior vice president of marketing for California-based RealtyTrac, an Internet service aimed at participants in the real estate foreclosure market.

On track for 3 million?
Sharga’s company, one of the most oft-quoted sources of nationwide foreclosure data, predicts that up to 3 million U.S. homes will face foreclosure proceedings this year — three to four times the normal number. Properties in foreclosure, “a niche market for so long,” have become so numerous that “now, conservatively, at least 50 to 60 percent of people who are in the market to buy a house are at least considering a foreclosure purchase,” Sharga said. “Historically, that simply hasn’t been the case.”

Foreclosure, or the threat of it, can lead to the disposal of real estate in three basic ways: a pre-foreclosure sale, often done as a “short sale,” in which the lender is willing to accept less than what is owed on the note; a trustee’s sale at public auction on the proverbial “courthouse steps,” with the property going to the highest bidder, often the lender itself; or post-foreclosure sales of properties that have reverted to the lenders, sometimes called REOs for “real estate owned.” And trustee sales should not be confused with giant auditorium “foreclosure auctions,” in which banks and other property owners dispose of portfolios of land and homes that they have taken back in earlier foreclosure procedures.

There’s no way to know how many foreclosed homes nationwide are actually sold to third parties at trustee sale auctions, said Sharga, who is probably in a better position than anyone else to know. Conventional wisdom puts the figure at about 20 percent, but “everyone’s estimate right now is that there are a much smaller percentage of properties being bought that way and a huge number are being taken back by banks,” which are entitled to set a minimum bid of what they are owed on a foreclosed note.

Spot figures confirm the lower rate. In California last year, just 3.6 percent of 249,940 properties sold at trustee auctions went to third-party buyers, according to the Web site ForeclosureRadar.com. In King County, Wash., where Harrison was bidding last week, just seven of 125 properties scheduled for auction were bought by third parties.
While short sales and REO homes are often listed and advertised for sale in ways identical to non-distressed property, generating commissions for agents who list and sell them, such is not the case with property destined for a trustee-sale auction.

“Realtors have absolutely zero interest in a trustee sale,” Sharga said. And investors who have been attending auctions for years have little interest in new competition. As a result, the process often remains shrouded in mystery. “It’s sort of a secret society without formal membership dues,” Sharga said.

For most first-timers, uneducated in advance, the action at a typical public auction would be impossible to follow. At most, there are no signs, no official programs, no helpful public employees. The auction criers are nothing like the mile-a-minute-talking, spittle-spewing, gavel-banging auctioneers who preside over livestock sales. They generally speak calmly and softly, heard only by the crowd in their immediate vicinity. It can be hard to tell from just a few feet away when an auction has started or finished. The only clear signal is when money changes hands.
But the regulars — who often appear to be dressed more for a ballgame than a high-stakes financial transaction as they shuffle papers and communicate furtively with partners and investors via ubiquitous Bluetooth earpieces — know exactly what’s going on. They are bidding on houses to hold as rental properties, to renovate and resell, or, less often, to move into themselves. Some are bidding for clients who don’t want to attend the auctions in person.

The most important thing to understand is the terms of payment, said Duane Harden, a Manhattan-based investor who has bought a couple of dozen foreclosed properties at auctions in several states since 2001. In New York, winning bidders must immediately fork over 10 percent of the purchase price and pay the balance within 30 to 45 days, he said.

“Do your homework,” he stressed in an interview with msnbc.com. “Know if they are going to deliver a clear title, know your redemption rules” which protect the foreclosed homeowner’s right, if any, to buy the auctioned property back. In Washington state, bidders must pay the full purchase price on the spot with cash or a cashier’s check. In fact, they must “qualify” for a maximum amount for each property they want to bid for by showing the auctioneer their money.

There are plenty of other potential pitfalls when it comes to buying real estate at auction, which Sharga of RealtyTrac called “the highest-risk way” of obtaining distressed property. Bidders must be sure of what they’re getting, or they’ll “wind up buying a lemon,” he said. “There’s no recourse once you buy a property at an auction. If you didn’t realize all the wiring had been ripped out, if you didn’t find out there were two tax liens and three mechanics’ liens, that’s your problem, too.”

Hundreds of specialized firms
To help investors avoid those problems and deal with many other challenges of buying distressed property, both at auction and not, hundreds of specialized companies have sprung up, from local real estate offices to RealtyTrac and its 1.9 million foreclosure listings at the national level.

“There’s traditional real estate, which is 99.9 percent of what’s out there, and then there’s us,” said Harley Dufek, 34, a partner in Real Estate Investment Firm of Redmond, Wash. A key part of the small company’s business is advising clients on buying at auction. These days, the company is using the public auctions as a marketing opportunity, handing out free packets of information on the properties that will be offered as a means of enticing auction newcomers to a weekly seminar where they can sign up as clients.

At the seminar, company founder Matthew Steel explains how his partners and employees pore over lists of homes scheduled for auction, drive through neighborhoods, peer into back yards, try to legally see inside houses wherever they can, and research mortgages, title status, tax liens, building permits and zoning.

He shows off the Web site where the firm’s registered clients can access all the data if they are willing to agree to pay a 3 percent commission on any properties they buy at foreclosure auctions. Becoming a client also gives an investor access to short-term financing and the luxury of having someone with Steel’s firm handle the actual bidding. Since investors often must bid on many properties to actually buy just one, such services can eliminate the need to shuffle funds from one cashier’s check to another and take time away from other tasks to attend the auctions.

Big risks, big rewards
Steel, 32, who has operated his own businesses since he was a high school senior, exudes enthusiasm about foreclosure auctions but cautions that “it takes work.

“There are extra liabilities. That’s why at a foreclosure auction you can get such good deals,” he said.

To Steele, a good deal at a foreclosure auction means buying a property for about 70 percent to 80 percent of its current value.

Christopher Hall, founder of Vestus, which he says buys 40 percent of all properties that sell to third parties at Washington state foreclosure auctions, said the prices paid by his firm at recent auctions range from 67 percent to 71 percent, down from 78 percent to 82 percent a year ago.

RealtyTrac advises its members that “a reasonable purchase amount at auction is at least 20 percent below full market value, and much better deals are often possible,” but Sharga notes that some buyers have unreasonable expectations. A recent survey by his firm found that 30 percent of consumers think they ought to get a 50 percent discount on a home bought at auctionPeople pay too much attention to infomercials,” Sharga said. “There is a myth and a misperception that you’re going to go to these auctions and buy properties for nothing. There are those properties. Go to Cleveland, you can buy a property for a few hundred dollars, but it’s in Cleveland, probably a part of Cleveland you don’t want to live in, and you’re not going to move your family there.”

Still, every serious player in the foreclosure auction game has stories about deals that seem almost too good to be true. For Harden, the Manhattan investor, it was a property mistakenly listed as a single unit. “It was two,” he said. “I got two for the price of one.” Likewise, Harrison, the Bellevue bidder, learned through extra homework that a house on an island in Puget Sound sat on two acres, not one, as listed in foreclosure documents. He was the only bidder who knew that.

And the insiders also have plenty of auction horror stories.

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Recently, Steel said, an auction newcomer bought a home in a neighboring Washington county for $200,000. By all appearances, the home was easily worth twice that amount on the open market. However, “he bought a second-mortgage position,” said Steel, which meant that there was a first mortgage, likely for more than $200,000, still owing on the home. To make matters worse, the buyer was probably the only person at the auction who didn’t realize what he was doing. Some of the regular auction-goers were happy to see new competition so quickly derailed.

“If we see that kind of thing, we point it out,” Steel said, but “if you’re at an auction and think you’re getting something for 50 cents on the dollar and everybody else is standing around watching, something is wrong.”

That’s why Steel and everyone else on the bidding side who spoke with msnbc.com stressed education, information and patience when asked how they would advise newcomers to prepare for auctions.

A ringside seat
When Manhattan investor Duane Harden’s mother, Rose, wanted to try her hand at foreclosure auctions, her son “told me, ‘Mom, just go to the courthouse and learn how to do it.’” So Rose Harden, a resident of Georgia at the time, did just that: “I took me a folding chair, and I learned the rhythm and the recipe of it.” A short time later, she and her son bought three homes at an auction in Savannah, Ga.

Some auction participants said newcomers should be aware of the stigma associated with being a party to proceedings that can ultimately force families from their homes, whether they were owners or renters. In some cases, the new owner must actually evict them. But Dufek points out that his firm works with troubled sellers just as earnestly as with opportunistic buyers, and he said win-win situations can sometimes be created through short sales or leasebacks.

Dufek said it is important for bidders to know their “exit strategies” when buying foreclosed homes. While more and more auction buyers are seeking a one-time good deal on a primary residence for themselves, many regulars are still looking for rental properties or “flips,” homes they can quickly resell.

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Steel finds current conditions unattractive for flipping, although his firm still works with clients who want to speculate that way. “I’m absolutely against it,” he said. “This is a great time to buy and hold.”

The Hardens strictly seek rentals, meaning any properties they buy have to “cash flow” immediately. “Equity investing” in real estate these days, or counting on appreciation, “is gambling,” Duane Harden said. “You might as well go to Atlantic City.”

But Harrison, who bowed out of the bidding on the big vacant house in Auburn, Wash., still sees lots of room for cautious speculation, especially for a contractor like himself who can accurately size up what a house needs to make it market-ready and then get the work done quickly.

The value of uncertainty
“I personally like massively trashed places,” he said. “They really scare people. The look horrible, but I’m going to strip all that out anyway. A vacant house that has little fix-up goes for a premium. The houses that are occupied, trashed or with question marks or permits or zoning, those are very intimidating to people.”

After losing the first house, Harrison bid on and picked up another on a good street in the popular Greenlake neighborhood of Seattle. He paid $330,000 for a 1,740-square-foot, three-bedroom home that was built in 2000 and is valued by the county at $509,000.

Far from “massively trashed,” the biggest problem with the house is that “it’s really plain.” He’ll fix that with some stone work outside and paint and carpet on the inside and quickly have it on the market.

Asking price? “Around $425,000,” Harrison said with a smile

Fixed-rate mortgages near record low!!

2009-03-19T10:07:00.001-07:00

Fixed-rate mortgages near record low
Average 30-year loan below 5% for first time in two months
By Amy Hoak, MarketWatch
Last update: 10:42 a.m. EDT March 19, 2009Comments: 13CHICAGO (MarketWatch) -- Rates on fixed-rate mortgages dropped to near record lows this week, with the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage making an encore appearance below 5%, according to Freddie Mac's weekly survey of conforming mortgage rates, released on Thursday.
The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 4.98% for the week ending March 19, down from 5.03% last week. The mortgage averaged 5.87% a year ago. It hasn't been lower since the week ending Jan. 15, when it hit record low of 4.96%. Read why 5% may be the bottom for mortgage rates.
Fifteen-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 4.61% this week, down from 4.64% last week and 5.27% a year ago. The 15-year mortgage hasn't been lower since the week ending June 13, 2003, when it averaged 4.60%.

"Following the March 18 Federal Reserve monetary policy statement, which announced further spending initiatives on financial assets, long-term bond yields plummeted. Yields on 10-year Treasury bonds fell by about a half percentage point after the announcement, marking the largest one-day decline since Oct. 20, 1987

Five-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages averaged 4.98%, down slightly from last week's 4.99%. The ARM averaged 5.56% a year ago.
But 1-year Treasury-indexed ARMs averaged 4.91%, up from 4.80% last week, yet still lower than its 5.15% average a year ago.
To obtain the rates, all mortgages in the survey required payment of an average 0.7 point. A point is 1% of the mortgage amount, charged as prepaid interest.
The Mortgage Bankers Association on Wednesday said that the volume of mortgage applications filed was up a seasonally adjusted 21.2% last week, compared with the week before.

Single-family building permits rise 11% in February

2009-03-17T12:18:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - Boosted by an 82% increase in construction of apartment buildings, U.S. housing starts surged 22% in February to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 583,000, the Commerce Department estimated Tuesday.
It was the largest percentage gain in 19 years and was the first increase in eight months in the sector that was at ground zero in the global economic recession. The housing data in winter months are especially volatile because of the weather.
Video: The latest batch of economic data
John Lonski, chief economist at Moody's Capital Markets, interprets the latest economic data on housing starts and the producer price index. MarketWatch's Kelsey Hubbard reports. (March 17)Building permits, which are less volatile than the starts data, rose 3% in February to a 547,000 annual rate. Permits for single-family units rose 11% to a 373,000 rate, the largest percentage gain in 18 years.
"We're inclined to write this off as a weather-related fluke for now," wrote economists for Wrightson ICAP. "If the permits series can hold onto its gains in next month's March report, though, we'll take it as a sign that new construction has finally found a floor (albeit a very low one)."
"We hold to the view that the level of housing construction is becoming so low in absolute terms that starts will bottom out in the months ahead," wrote John Ryding and Conrad DeQuadros of RDQ Economics.
Construction of new housing units had plunged 38% in the previous three months before February's unexpected jump. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had forecast a further drop to 456,000, despite an expected surge in multifamily construction.
But despite February's gain, housing starts are down 47% from a year ago, and are down 74% from the peak in early 2006. Permits are down 44% in the past year.
Builders are trying to reduce their inventories of unsold homes as they face relentless competition from older homes thrown on the market by foreclosures or short-sales.
"With new home sales still falling and the months' supply at a record there is no reason for homebuilding to rise," wrote Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist for High Frequency Economics.
The mood of home builders' has rarely been worse. The National Association of Home Builders reported Monday that its sentiment index was stuck at 9 on a scale of 1 to 100 in March. See full story.
The government cautions that its monthly housing data are volatile and subject to large sampling and other statistical errors. In most months, the government can't be sure whether starts increased or decreased. In February for instance, the standard error for starts was plus or minus 13.8%. Large revisions are common.
It can take four months for a new trend in housing starts to emerge from the data. In the past four months, housing starts have averaged 568,000 annualized, down from 614,000 in the four months ending in January.
Details
February's housing start rate of 583,000 was the highest since November. January's starts were revised higher to a 477,000 pace, a record low dating back to the 1940s.
Completions of housing units rose 2.3% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 785,000. Completions of single-family homes fell 8.2% to a record-low 505,000.
The number of units under construction fell 2.7% to a 762,000 annual rate. Single-family homes under construction dropped 3.4% to 370,000, the lowest in 38 years.
Starts rose 89% in the Northeast, rose 58% in the Midwest, rose 30% in the South and fell 25% in the

Thanks to banks, fewer homes up for auction

2009-03-10T17:52:00.000-07:00

SEATTLE - It's a seeming contradiction - the number of foreclosed homes up for auction at the King County Courthouse is going down while the number of home foreclosures last month was up.

http://www.komonews.com/news/40006647.html?video=YHI&t=a

But there's a logical explanation.

A week ago, four of the nation's largest banks agreed to put a temporary stop on foreclosures. And the result is a temporary moment of calm for people who fear they may be about to lose their homes.

Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase have all put temporary moratoriums on foreclosures until March 6.

The big banks' latest halt on foreclosures is actually the third temporary stop on foreclosures since November.

And as a result, brokers and investors who attend these auctions on a regular basis say they are seeing a slowdown.

This week's foreclosure list started with 322 homes on the block. But by Thursday, the list was already down to 122.

The auctions mostly amount to bidding wars for a select few investors who can pay cash on the spot, for a winning bid on a foreclosed home.

And then there are desperate people like Gwendolyn Chambliss, hanging on the outside, hoping for a miracle. Her foreclosed Central District home is on the block.

"I've never been here before, I don't know what the process is," she said Friday as she tried to find out whether her home had been sold.

With the help of a professional broker, she found out her lender pulled the house off the auction block because there were no qualified bidders - nobody interested.

The broker said the home would probably go back to the bank because it doesn't have a minimum bid - and that happens often.

And therein lies another reason for the slowdown in the number of foreclosed homes at auction.

Christopher Hall, owner of Vestus Foreclosure Group, says the big banks' moratorium is mostly responsible for the drop, specifically for adjustable rate mortgage properties that are owner-occupied.

"So it's a good thing, bad thing," he says.

It's bad for investors who are seeing few killer deals, and good for every homeowner - foreclosed or not, because it's going to protect home values.

But Gwedolyn Chambliss isn't that lucky. She filed bankruptcy and moved out before the hold on foreclosures was put in place.

"It was to the point where the mortgage lender didn't want to give us a chance," she says.

Washington state's foreclosure rate is still lower than the national average.

And now everyone is also waiting to see if President Obama's $75 billion housing plan will trickle down to those facing foreclosure the hold is lifted on March 6.

A Great video on Spokane Foreclosure rate.

2009-03-10T17:49:00.000-07:00

Spokane foreclosure rate jumps 50-percent

Paste the link below on your browser window

http://www.kxly.com/global/video/flash/popupplayer.asp?clipId1=3521135&at1=News&vt1=v&h1=Spokane+foreclosure+rate+jumps+50%2Dpercent&d1=173433&redirUrl=www.kxly.com&activePane=info&LaunchPageAdTag=homepage&clipFormat=flv&rnd=43642498

2009-03-06T22:40:00.000-08:00

WASHINGTON — More than half of the nation's foreclosures last year took place in 35 counties, a sign that the financial crisis devastating the national economy may have begun with collapsing home loans in only a few corners of the country.
Those counties, spread over a dozen states, accounted for more than 1.5 million foreclosure actions last year, a USA TODAY analysis of figures compiled by the real estate listing firm RealtyTrac shows — more than were recorded in the entire United States just two years earlier. They were the epicenter of a wave of foreclosures that have left leading banks teetering and magnified the nation's economic problems.

GOOD NEWS: Foreclosures down 10%
"This crisis was triggered by foreclosures, and a lot of those were in a very small number of areas," says William Lucy, a University of Virginia professor who has studied the link between lenders and faltering home loans. Banks spread the risk and "it became like a car with no reverse gear. Once it starts to go over the cliff, it's gone."

In other parts of the country, the foreclosure wave was barely a ripple — at least until it started swamping major banks that had invested heavily in mortgages. Banking giant Wachovia Corp., for example, was hammered after California and Florida customers of one mortgage firm it bought began defaulting at high rates. The risks of such lending were spread so broadly among financial institutions that, when the loans went bad, it drove the national credit crisis, says Christopher Mayer, who studies real estate at Columbia Business School.

A few of the 35 counties leading the foreclosure boom are in already-distressed areas around Detroit and Cleveland. But most are clustered in places such as Southern California, Las Vegas, Phoenix, South Florida and Washington, where home values shot up dramatically in the first half of the decade, then began to crumble.

RealtyTrac's counts of foreclosure actions include default notices, auctions and repossessions by lenders, and can sometimes count the same property twice. As a result, they tend to be higher than estimates from other tracking firms. But they remain one of the best geographic measures of the nation's housing collapse.

The Obama administration on Wednesday detailed a $75 billion plan to keep more homeowners from slipping into foreclosure by helping them refinance loans or reduce their monthly payments. But that effort could face political challenges because most of the foreclosure problem has been so concentrated in a few areas, says Brookings Institution researcher Alan Mallach.

The worst-hit counties are home to about 20% of U.S. households, but accounted for just over 50% of the nation's foreclosure actions last year, driving most of the national increase. And even among those places, a few stand out: Eight counties in Arizona, California, Florida and Nevada were the source of about a quarter of the nation's foreclosures last year.

In more than 650 other counties — about a fifth of the nation — the number of foreclosure actions actually dropped since 2006.

Fannie Mae Approves up to ten properties per investor.

2009-02-06T15:45:00.000-08:00

Multiple Mortgages to the Same Borrower and Reserve Requirements Changes

Fannie Mae has issued Announcement 09-02, Updates to Multiple Mortgages to the Same Borrower Policy, Reserve Requirements, Reserves Definition, and Form 3170.

Multiple Mortgages to the Same Borrower
To help support housing recovery, we are introducing an expanded policy regarding multiple mortgages to the same borrower. Fannie Mae is committed to providing financing opportunities for high-credit quality, bona fide investors. Experienced investors play a key role in the housing recovery and Fannie Mae’s continued support for investor borrowers is consistent with our mission to provide stability, liquidity, and affordability to the nation’s housing system.

To support prudent lending for housing investment, Fannie Mae is changing our current limit of four financed properties per borrower when the mortgage being delivered to Fannie Mae is secured by an investment property or second home. We will allow five to ten financed properties per borrower, with certain eligibility and underwriting requirements, including a 720 minimum credit score and 70–75% maximum LTV/CLTV/HCLTV (depending on the transaction and property type). The requirements apply to any investment property or second home loan being delivered to Fannie Mae, regardless of whether Fannie Mae is the investor on the borrower’s other mortgages.

Second home and investment property loans to borrowers with five to ten financed properties will be accepted for whole loan purchase or delivery into MBS with purchase dates on or after March 1, 2009, and new Special Feature Code 150 will be required at delivery.

Desktop Underwriter® (DU®) will be updated in the DU Version 7.1 April Update release to issue a message on all second home and investment property transactions reminding lenders of the requirements for borrowers with multiple financed properties. A Supplement to the Release Notes for the April update has been issued to provide details (link below).

Reserves Definition and Policy Requirements
We also are updating our definition of liquid financial reserves to include all components of the monthly housing expense – which will now be known as PITIA – including homeowners’ association dues, special assessments, ground rents, and subordinate financing payments.

For loans on second homes and borrowers with multiple financed properties, we are implementing new reserve requirements (refer to Announcement 09-02 for details).

Assignment of Rents
Investment property borrowers are required to execute a Multistate 1–4 Family Rider (Assignment of Rents) (Form 3170, or 3170.53 for Puerto Rico) to authorize transfer of rental revenues to the lender. We are reiterating this existing requirement, and have updated the Summary documents for the Riders to delete the requirement for rent loss insurance.

Senate OKs $15,000 tax break for homebuyers

2009-02-05T11:48:00.001-08:00

Senate OKs $15,000 tax break for homebuyers
By DAVID ESPO – 17 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate voted Wednesday night to give a tax break of up to $15,000 to homebuyers in hopes of revitalizing the housing industry, a victory for Republicans eager to leave their mark on a mammoth economic stimulus bill at the heart of President Barack Obama's recovery plan.

The tax break was adopted without dissent, and came on a day in which Obama pushed back pointedly against Republican critics of the legislation even as he reached across party lines to consider scaling back spending.

"Let's not make the perfect the enemy of the essential," Obama said as Senate Republicans stepped up their criticism of the bill's spending and pressed for additional tax cuts and relief for homeowners. He warned that failure to act quickly "will turn crisis into a catastrophe and guarantee a longer recession."

Democratic leaders have pledged to have legislation ready for Obama's signature by the end of next week, and they concede privately they will have to accept some spending reductions along the way.

Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., who advanced the homebuyers tax break, said it was intended to help revive the housing industry, which has virtually collapsed in the wake of a credit crisis that began last fall.

The proposal would allow a tax credit of 10 percent of the value of new or existing residences, up to a $15,000 limit. Current law provides for a $7,500 tax break for the purchase of new homes only.

Isakson's office said the proposal would cost the government an estimated $19 billion.

Democrats readily agreed to the proposal, although it may be changed or even deleted as the stimulus measure makes its way through Congress over the next 10 days or so.

"This bill needs to be cut down," Republican Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said on the Senate floor. He cited $524 million for a State Department program that he said envisions creating 388 jobs. "That comes to $1.35 million per job," he added.

Republicans readied numerous attempts to reduce the cost of the $900 billion measure, which includes tax cuts and new spending designed to ignite recovery from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

But after days of absorbing rhetorical attacks, Obama and Senate Democrats mounted a counteroffensive against Republicans who say tax cuts alone can cure the economy.

Obama said the criticisms he has heard "echo the very same failed economic theories that led us into this crisis in the first place, the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems."

"I reject those theories and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change," said the president, who was elected with an Electoral College landslide last fall and enjoys high public approval ratings at the outset of his term.

Obama did not mention any Republicans by name, and most have signaled their support for varying amounts of new spending.

Even so, the president repeated his retort word for word in late afternoon, yet softened the partisan impact of his comments by meeting at the White House with senators often willing to cross party lines.

His first visitor was Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, a moderate GOP lawmaker. Later he met with Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Ben Nelson, D-Neb.

"I gave him a list of provisions" for possible deletion from the bill, Collins told reporters outside the White House. Among them were $8 billion to upgrade facilities and information technology at the State Department and funds for combatting a possible outbreak of pandemic flu and promoting cyber-security. The latter two items, she said, are "near and dear to her," but belong in routine legislation and not an economic stimulus measure.

Collins and Nelson have been working on a list of possible spending cuts totaling roughly $50 billion, although they have yet to make details public.

The House approved its own version of the stimulus bill last week on a party line vote, but the political environment in the Senate is far different.

Democrats hold a comfortable 58-41 majority. But because the legislation would increase the federal deficit, any lawmaker can insist that 60 votes be required to add to its cost.

While the 60-vote threshold can impose a check on Democrats, it can also illuminate the cross-pressures at work on Republicans.

A Democratic attempt on Tuesday to add $25 billion for public works projects failed when it gained only 58 votes, two short of the total needed. But a few hours later, a proposed $11 billion tax break for new car buyers attracted 72 votes, including several from Republicans.__

Associated Press writers Jennifer Loven and Andrew Taylor contributed to this story.

(This version CORR ECTS the estimated cost of the homebuyer tax break to $19 billion, not $19 million

Auburn 8 plex Apartment building for 310k!!

2009-01-19T12:24:00.000-08:00

A VESTUS investor bought this 8 plex for 310,000 on Friday! We were able to get it for a dollar over the minimum bid.
With 8 units + a common area for laundry, they are set to have a positive cash flow.
These deals are out there, you just need to be prepared!

Yes you can buy positive cash flow rentals at auction.

2009-01-04T16:10:00.000-08:00

Here is great example of a positive cash flow rental purchased last friday at the King County auction.

Our investor bought a duplex for 173,000

Here is how the numbers break down:

30 year fixed mortgage 1078.00 per month (did you know you can get this loan with no money down- OAC)
Taxes 227.00
Insurance 45.00
Rents 850.00 and 800.00 (duplex)
Gross profit per month 300.00

This is just one example of the many fantastic deals we see every week!

Now is the time to buy when most people are not!

Not sure how to start? Come to one of our free workshops every Tuesday at 4:30.
or feel free to call us at 206.618.5319 for more information.

Real-estate markets most likely to rebound

2008-12-24T09:50:00.001-08:00

Real-estate markets most likely to rebound
Real-estate markets most likely to rebound From Forbes Magazine this week.If you're a homeowner seeing property values plummet, look to the commercial real-estate market for solace. It might tell you which areas will recover fastest — and which will likely remain weak.The Urban Land Institute recently asked 700 real-estate professionals to name the best (and worst) places to invest in commercial real estate in the coming year. Those surveyed included private developers, real-estate agents and real-estate investment trust executives. Their answers also apply to the residential market, since the single-family-home sector typically follows the economy. As wages go up and there are more jobs, more people can buy homes, pushing prices up.The best cities in which to invest are those that are considered gateways to international investment, have vital downtowns where people can forgo cars and don't have a glut of condos or office space.Top of FormBottom of FormThese traits landed Seattle the No. 1 spot on the list. No city scored above a 6.15 on a scale of one to nine (one being an abysmal place to invest and nine being excellent).Seattle is "a diversified market, has a good base of business and is becoming a 24-hour city," says Stephen Blank, senior resident fellow, finance, at the Urban Land Institute. "It's going to be in a good position to come back."The city is suffering from the loss of Washington Mutual and the downsizing of Starbucks, but Boeing and Microsoft are still strong. Apartment vacancies are low and there aren't too many new buildings going up, meaning the market won't be oversupplied. The same is true of retail space.San Francisco comes in second, with a 6.12. The “City by the Bay” learned from the 2001 tech crash not to overbuild. There is a reasonable supply of office and apartment space, which should limit vacancies. San Francisco's port is also expected to help the city during the downturn as Americans continue to rely on Asian imports.Washington, D.C., New York and Los Angeles round out the top five.Of course, there's no guarantee that an improved commercial market will lead to an improved home market. However, investors have a better chance of seeing home prices rise in fundamentally strong markets like Seattle than in struggling cities like Detroit.It landed at the bottom of the list, scoring a 2.24. Detroit has been reliant on the car industry, which is rapidly shrinking. Other businesses are unlikely to fill the void in the next few years, which means the city will be hit hard by further economic struggles.Top of FormBottom of FormNew Orleans also lands near the bottom with a score of 3.33. The city has been losing businesses to Houston, Dallas and Atlanta since Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005.The other cities at the bottom of the list — Columbus, Ohio; Milwaukee, Wis.; and Cleveland — suffer from dying industries and lack of tourist appeal.Recent attempts to turn downtown Milwaukee into a thriving 24-hour city haven't been enough to protect it from the coming downturn. Increasingly picky investors are expected to favor higher-quality port cities over Midwest towns.And while Columbus has the potential to become a major shipping hub for goods traveling cross-country, that revitalization may have to wait for a stronger economy and a government focused on improving the nation's roads. For now, prospects are dim.Top 5 cities most likely to rebound1. Seattle2. San Francisco3. Washington, D.C.4. New York5. Los Angeles

Home prices may rise on mortgage refinancing boom

2008-12-24T09:41:00.001-08:00

Home prices may rise on mortgage refinancing boom
Wednesday December 24, 2008, 11:05 am EST
Yahoo! Buzz
Print
(Reuters) - Veteran banking analyst Richard Bove said he expects housing prices in the United States to stabilize and/or rise after a likely boom in mortgage refinance, as mortgage rates fall and loan applications increase.
"It is quite likely that the country is about to enter a new mortgage refinance boom," the Ladenburg Thalmann analyst wrote in a note to clients.
"The Treasury and the Federal Reserve have created an environment which makes this development almost impossible to avoid," Bove said.
The take over of Fannie Mae (Pacific:FNM - News) and Freddie Mac (Pacific:FRE - News) in September, as well as Fed's plan last month to buy up to $600 billion in "agency" securities issued by Fannie, Freddie, Ginnie Mae and the Federal Home Loan Bank system have had "dramatic results," Bove said.
Mortgage rates have begun to tumble, while mortgage applications are picking up, he said. Banks are also rehiring the mortgage loan personnel they recently fired, Bove added.
On Wednesday, data from an industry group showed that U.S. mortgage applications had surged to the highest level in over five years in the latest week, as potential borrowers came out in droves to refinance after government interventions that helped push interest rates down to record lows.
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage applications, which includes both purchase and refinance loans, for the week ended December 19 soared 48.0 percent to 1,245.4, the highest reading since the week ended July 18, 2003, when it reached 1,284.3.
The MBA counts all applications in its survey, even those that are ultimately rejected, and it does not account for multiple applications, which has become increasingly common due to significantly tighter lending standards.
(Reporting by Tenzin

Existing-home sales expected to hold up again

2008-10-19T22:30:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Despite the ongoing turmoil in the credit and housing markets, sales of preowned homes have held up surprisingly well over the past year, especially compared with sales of new homes.
Since the beginning of the year, sales of existing homes essentially have been unchanged, while those for new ones are down about 25%.
Economists expect that decoupling to continue in the September data. They expect sales of existing homes to dip about 1% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.86 million from 4.91 million in August. See Economic Calendar.
The shift toward sales of older homes isn't a surprise. Builders have been cutting back the supply of new homes on the market, while the record level of foreclosures has boosted the supply of older properties on the market.
The pending home-sales index, also released by the National Association of Realtors, rose 7.4% in August. This index, smoothed over the past six months, is the best predictor of the existing-home sales report, according to economists for Barclays Capital, who are predicting a 4% bounce in sales to 5.10 million.
The impact of the late-September credit crunch should be minor, economists said, because the sales figures for September represent the closing of sales contracts signed in August or even July, when credit conditions were a bit more favorable.
However, the credit squeeze could show up in sharply lower sales in October.
The economic calendar is extremely light in the coming week. Aside from the housing sales numbers, the only other monthly number is the index of leading indicators, which is expected to fall 0.1% despite the massive increase in the money supply. But other factors -- stock prices, jobless claims and building permits -- point to another decline, according to economists.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will testify at the House Budget Committee on Monday.
Congress is looking at proposals for another fiscal-stimulus program that could be enacted just after the election in a lame-duck session, or more likely in early January. Democrats are talking about extending unemployment benefits, and funneling more money to state and local governments to balance their budgets, along with possibly boosting infrastructure investments. Temporary tax cuts or rebates could also be part of the mix.
Bernanke, who endorsed the first stimulus last spring, isn't likely to give the Democrats too much encouragement. This past week, he said fiscal stimulus was not a major factor in bringing the economy out of the Great Depression in the 1930s, despite Herculean attempts. That said, he did admit that "monetary policy ultimately cannot always solve the problems; sometimes you do need some fiscal and financial intervention and we are doing that currently

Cash out refinancing is still possible- Build a rental portfolio

2008-10-19T22:23:00.001-07:00

VETSUS has 3 lenders that can refinance properties up to 80% of the appraised value. What this means is you can purchase a property at auction with as little as 20% of the auction price with Eastside Funding's short term loan, then refinance the property in 30 days or less and get you 20% back in your pocket. Quite few investors are doing this to by rentals with essentially zero down and renting them for close to or more than the loan payments. It is a fantastic way to build a rental portfolio. Ask one the VESTUS preferred lenders for details.

Analysts predict housing bottom

2008-09-21T15:52:00.000-07:00

Analysts predict housing bottom
A handful of economists and analysts predict the slump will bottom out, and home prices will level off by next summer - advice worth listening to.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Alan Greenspan famously declared the worst was over back in November of 2006. And the National Association of Realtors' erstwhile chief economist David Lereah called the bottom a few times, starting in May 2006.
Plenty of other economists and real estate analysts have attempted to do the same - and of course they've all been wrong.
But a consensus seemed to emerge among experts at a housing forum held by Standard & Poor's and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange on Wednesday in New York. Readers will be forgiven for taking this pronouncement with a large grain of salt.
Several panelists, including Economy.com's chief economist Mark Zandi, Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500) economist Charlie Himmelberg, S&P managing director David Blitzer and S&P senior economist Beth Ann Bovino all agreed that home prices would stabilize sometime during the summer of 2009.
"The bottom of the housing market is coming into view," said Zandi, whose recent book "Financial Shock," examines how the subprime mortgage crisis occurred. "House prices, based on the S&P Case-Shiller index, are down 20% peak-to-trough and I expect them to fall another 5% to 10%."
"The key is housing affordability," Zandi said. "The [price] decline is beginning to restore affordability, which is now near its long-term average. In some places, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Orange County, affordability has been restored and those markets have stabilized."
More declines ahead
One piece of good news noted was home sales volume. The number of homes sold each month has already leveled off nationally, staying within a narrow range nearly every month this year at an annualized rate of about 5.5 million units a year.
Bovino said her forecast for home price decline is slightly more bearish than Zandi's, mostly based on S&P's belief that the country is now in a recession. With the economy struggling, job losses rising and a tough lending environment, she expects prices to fall another 10%.
"We think there will be an overshoot [with prices going beyond their logical bottom]," she said, in part because so many buyers are afraid to get into the market. "Nobody wants to catch a falling knife," she said.
And after prices do bottom out, Himmelberg expects them to remain fairly flat for a year or so.
Everyone on the panel agreed that the government takeover of Fannie Mae (FNM, Fortune 500) and Freddie Mac (FRE, Fortune 500) should help the housing market.
"We expect Fannie and Freddie to be more aggressive [in buying loans] over the next few months," said Zandi. "We are at a low point in credit availability right now."
The panelists were careful to couch their optimism with caveats. Zandi, for example, points out that there is a lot of uncertainty about the fate of Fannie and Freddie, in the wake of their government takeover.
There is some speculation that the companies will be downsized by a new administration after the presidential election in November.
"Neither candidate," said S&P managing director David Blitzer, "has decided what they want to say about that

Tax Deferred Exchanges.

2008-09-15T22:16:00.000-07:00

What is a tax-deferred exchange?

In a typical transaction, the property owner is taxed on any gain realized from the sale. However, through a Section 1031 Exchange, the tax on the gain is deferred until some future date.
Section 1031 of the Internal Revenue Code provides that no gain or loss shall be recognized on the exchange of property held for productive use in a trade or business, or for investment. A tax-deferred exchange is a method by which a property owner trades one or more relinquished properties for one or more replacement properties of "like-kind", while deferring the payment of federal income taxes and some state taxes on the transaction.
The theory behind Section 1031 is that when a property owner has reinvested the sale proceeds into another property, the economic gain has not been realized in a way that generates funds to pay any tax. In other words, the taxpayer's investment is still the same, only the form has changed (e.g. vacant land exchanged for apartment building). Therefore, it would be unfair to force the taxpayer to pay tax on a "paper" gain.
The like-kind exchange under Section 1031 is tax-deferred, not tax-free. When the replacement property is ultimately sold (not as part of another exchange), the original deferred gain, plus any additional gain realized since the purchase of the replacement property, is subject to tax.
Q - What are the benefits of exchanging v. selling?
A Section 1031 exchange is one of the few techniques available to postpone or potentially eliminate taxes due on the sale of qualifying properties.
By deferring the tax, you have more money available to invest in another property. In effect, you receive an interest free loan from the federal government, in the amount you would have paid in taxes.
Any gain from depreciation recapture is postponed.
You can acquire and dispose of properties to reallocate your investment portfolio without paying tax on any gain.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac rescue

2008-09-08T12:25:00.000-07:00

The U.S. government said Sunday it will take control of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and oust their chief executives.
Although immediate cash won't be provided, the Treasury will acquire $1 billion of preferred shares in each company and pledge up to $200 billion, according to a report Monday in the Wall Street Journal.
In return the companies -- which control more than half the nation's mortgages -- will be under a conservatorship and management control will be in the hands of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
The government said that the cost to taxpayers -- which could equate to billions in losses from home loans -- would be less than the price of doing nothing.
Combined, the companies have lost around $14 billion over the past year. Both Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) and Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) purchase home loans from banks and repackage them as mortgage-backed securities that they either hold or sell to investors.
Both will modestly increase their mortgage-backed securities portfolios through the end of 2009. In 2010, their portfolios will begin to be gradually reduced at the rate of 10 percent per year, largely though national run off, eventually stabilizing at a lower, less risky size.
Fannie Mae CEO Daniel Mudd and Freddie Mac CEO Richard Syron will be replaced, but will stay on through the transition. Herbert Allison, former CEO of TIAA-CREF, has been named new CEO of Fannie. David Moffett, former vice chairman and chief financial officer at U.S. Bancorp will take Freddie’s helm. Boards for both institutions are also being replaced.
Two temporary programs, expiring in December 2009, were also announced:
The Treasury has established a new secured lending credit facility available to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks, serving as an ultimate liquidity backstop.
To further support the availability of mortgage financing for millions of Americans, later this month, the Treasury will initiate a temporary program to purchase Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s mortgage-backed securities to aid mortgage affordability.

U.S. Government Near Deal on Fannie, Freddie

2008-09-06T22:15:00.000-07:00

The Bush administration is working weekend bailout of Fannie mae and Freddie mac, two of the biggest players int he mortgage Market.

The WSJ wrote:
WASHINGTON -- The Treasury Department is putting the finishing touches to a plan designed to shore up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, according to people familiar with the matter, a move that would essentially result in a government takeover of the mortgage giants.
The plan is expected to involve putting the two companies into the conservatorship of their regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, said several people familiar with the matter. That would mean the government would take the reins of the companies, at least temporarily.
It is also expected to involve the government injecting capital into Fannie and Freddie. That could happen gradually on a quarter-by-quarter basis, rather than in a single move, one person familiar with the matter said.
In addition, Treasury's plan includes a top-level management shakeup at both companies, according to people familiar with the plans. Daniel H. Mudd, chief executive of Fannie Mae, and Richard Syron, his counterpart at Freddie Mac, are expected to step down from their posts eventually.
Any move by Treasury would represent perhaps the most significant intervention by the government in the financial industry since the housing bust touched off turmoil in the credit markets a little more than a year ago. From the $168 billion economic-stimulus package in February through the bailout of investment bank Bear Stearns Cos., the Bush administration and the Federal Reserve have taken an increasingly aggressive stance in responding to what has become one of the worst financial crises in decades.
Fannie and Freddie are vital cogs in the U.S. housing market. Their troubles have threatened to worsen the bursting of the housing bubble, which has led to a surge in foreclosures. (See related article.) A Treasury intervention could help Main Street borrowers by keeping interest rates on mortgages lower than they would be in the event of continued instability.
The Treasury's emergency powers to backstop Fannie and Freddie, which it won as the result of legislation passed by Congress in July, last until the end of 2009. A decision about their future role could be handed off to the next administration and the next Congress.The woes of Fannie and Freddie mark a remarkable comedown for two of Washington's most powerful and feared institutions, known for their financial clout and no-holds-barred lobbying prowess. Fannie and Freddie shares, which were up during the regular session Friday, dropped 25% and nearly 20% respectively in the after-hours session.

VESTUS News

2008-08-27T22:53:00.000-07:00

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