HUD offers:

• Completed home appraisals
• Completed home inspection
• Completed termite inspection
• Less competition as there are time periods holding back investors from competing against the non investor, which can save you $1000s of dollars.

HUD offers:

• Completed home appraisals
• Completed home inspection
• Completed termite inspection
• Less competition as there are time periods holding back investors from competing against the non investor, which can save you $1000s of dollars.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Senate legislators unanimously approved a proposal Wednesday that would allow a tax credit for home buyers 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 but only for first-time homebuyers.

“It is time to fix housing first,” said Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-G.

Isakson’s office said the proposal would cost the government an estimated $19 billion. In all, the stimulus is now topping an estimated $920 billion.

In an op-ed that appears in Thursday’s Washington Post, President Barack Obama painted a dire picture if Congress fails to move quickly to pass the stimulus bill.

“This recession might linger for years. Our economy will lose 5 million more jobs. Unemployment will approach double digits. Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse,” Obama wrote in the op-ed titled, “The Action Americans Need.”

Source: The Associated Press, David Espo (02/05/09)

When are we going stop being fed these lies? If we the people feel it is wise to give $15,000 for buying a home then great, but do not tell us if we do not do x then their might not be a recovery. To use such abussive and force to get us to sale off our country is wrong.

One outspoken critic of most loan modification plans is Norm Miller, a professor at the University of San Diego’s Burnham-Moores Center for Real Estate. He says he has looked at all the plans and remains unsure that mortgage modifications can really resolve the housing crisis.

Miller thinks that home owners who have lost jobs, died or divorced account for 50 percent of the defaults. Another 25 percent, he says, are a result of resets of adjustable-rate mortgages that borrowers can no longer afford on loans that are underwater.

“There are probably a few million people out there thinking this TARP money is going to help me stay in my house,” he says. “We don’t want to artificially prop up the process beyond what the fundamentals will support because all that does is delay the problem.”

Source: BusinessWeek.com, David Bogoslaw (01/23/09)

Please what I have been saying on this topic for a long time. A. the adjustable rates have hurt nobody. Look at where the IR is today, so let’s remove that. Then let’s focus on what the banks needs to do. They need to be agressive on keeping all owners in ownership of the homes. Next, they need to do an OPEC system to hold the foreclosures- rent them for a years and slowly drip them back into the system.

Yes, the system requires a multiply system approach.

The largest of the organizations is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which spent $59.9 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Bankruptcy proposal supporter U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters of California said the banking industry “has owned this Congress far too long.”

Source: The Associated Press, Larry Margasak (01/25/09)

I hope the Obama area says no to these groups. We need people doing what is right for the country and not what is right for certain pockets.

Under the program, which only affects mortgages owned by the Fed, the central bank will be able to reduce what a home owner owes on a mortgage, lower the interest rate, lengthen the term on the loan, or take other steps that might persuade home owners to keep paying. Borrowers will deal directly with their mortgage servicer.

The Fed says that the mortgages most likely to be affected are those with loan balances that are more than 125 percent of estimated value of the property.

“It’s a step beyond what FDIC is doing with its own portfolio,” said mortgage expert Alan White, an assistant professor at Valparaiso University School of Law. “Principal write-downs are still the critical issue” in keeping borrowers in their homes.

Source: Washington Post, Neil Irwin and Renae Merle (01/28/2009)

Thank you for contacting Governor Sanford regarding the various bailouts.  We appreciate hearing from you.

As you may know, Washington has been debating a bailout for the states for some time now.  At the time that the Governor testified before the Ways and Means Committee in the House of Representatives, the size of the proposal was $150 billion.  Recently, it was announced that the stimulus package would be more than $800 billion but could grow as large as $1 trillion before all is said and done. 

Where we think this proposal fails is that the deficit in the current fiscal year already stands at close to $1 trillion, by far the highest in our nation’s history.  This proposal would ensure deficits of that proportion for years to come.  Also, before this year, the outstanding liability of the federal government was $52 trillion between the national debt, Social Security, and Medicare.  This represents an invisible mortgage of $455,000 for every household in America and, sadly, a further strain on future generations. 

We will continue to advocate that we cannot spend ourselves out of a recession.  At the same time, what we have learned in politics is that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, so we would strongly encourage you to contact your federal representatives and senators.

Thanks again for taking the time to write.

Sincerely,

Scott English

Chief of Staff

Las Vegas real estate properties are down 28 percent in price, but sales of homes are up 15 percent.

Motivated buyers accounted for 64 percent of Las Vegas sales in October, says Radar Logic, a derivatives firm. That’s the highest rate in the country.

“There’s a pretty active housing market, it’s simply at a lower-priced inventory,” says Michael Feder, chief executive of Radar Logic. “And there are now bidding wars taking place over homes in foreclosure.”

Phoenix and San Diego are reporting similar experiences.

“We’re clearing out the bad news,” says Kiva Patten, a director at Merrill Lynch specializing in housing derivatives.

“By the end of 2010 – that’s where we’re calling the bottom in the forward market. You’re going to get a small price appreciation in 2011,” says Patten. “It’s not like the turn is 10 percent per year, it’ll be something like 3 percent or 4 percent.”

Here are the cities where experts say it makes the most sense to buy now.

1. Las Vegas
2. Sacramento, Calif.
3. San Diego, Calif.
4. Los Angeles
5. Detroit
6. Phoenix
7. San Francisco
8. Washington, D.C.
9. San Jose
10. Atlanta

Source: Forbes, Matt Woolsey (01/12/09)

I sadly hear so many people having counter boom thoughts. It in the boom they said it would never stop increasing, and now there is a new group saying it will never stop going down. Sadly, this group will be six months off, because they will be oops, I missed the bottom.

I can tell you if you chart the values prior to the boom and prior to deregulation of the lending industry to create a 10 year average per market, and then take these numbers forward. Hence, you will catch up to where we are at right now with a value. You will then see that we are far below where we should be right now. Hence, this is not just a buyers’ market, but a buyers’ market on sale.

In a paper released this week, economist Jan Hatzius said total credit losses could exceed $2 trillion, up $1.2 trillion from his March 2008 prediction.

“The good news is that housing valuations at the national level have largely normalized following the price declines of the past 2-1/2 years,” Hatzius said.

—-

UGH,,, How long ago did I say this??? I am always about six months a head of the trends. Please read below in my other posts. Why am I not running this Country. Yes, I said it. I want to know where all of these smart Harvard and Standford Grads are at. Or is that all just fancy talk?

“The bad news, unfortunately, is that our formal house price model suggests that it may not matter all that much how close house prices are to fundamental value.”

Hatzius recommended that the government adopt a program to prevent foreclosures that doesn’t require detailed knowledge or analysis of each individual borrower. He acknowledged that such a program might reward people who made bad bets and those who don’t really need help, but he believes this kind of action is required to stabilize the market.

Source: Reuters News, Emily Kaiser (01/14/2009)