Welcome to Friday Figures! All information from the GLVAR MLS system. Touring, listing, or making a purchase offer in the Las Vegas Valley this weekend? Read this first! Summary: At 14937 available units, we’re at crunch time: does that number continue to go up by 200-300 every week, or does it level off and stay [...]
Unfortunately, some observers suspected that the conference — currently underway — might be biased against homeowners and advocates for affordable housing. As a bit of background, remember that in addition to the ongoing foreclosure and real estate valuation crisis, homebuilder confidence is sinking and mortgage backed bonds are slumping. The latter means that there are [...]
The headline over at the New York Times is “Seeking a Mortgage? Don’t Get Pregnant“. Over at CNBC, the same article is called “Need a Mortgage? Don’t Get Pregnant.” The gist is that if you are expecting or on maternity leave, you aren’t getting a mortgage because their “income has temporarily fallen while they are [...]
FHA financing has become very popular over the last few years, as it allows buyers to put as little as 3.5% of the purchase price as a downpayment. But many people don’t consider FHA financing because they think there are income limitations, or that they are only for first time buyers. That’s why I would [...]
According to Freddie Mac, mortgage interest rates are flirting with all time lows. For people with decent credit, a decent job, and some cash in the bank, that makes it a great time to consider your options. Your cost to borrow money is low, and that is certainly a factor to consider in the “rent [...]
Lately there has been a lot of press about the number of people whose HAMP permanent modifications have been turned down for a variety of reasons. Some of those reasons have been good and some have been downright silly. But far more important are some of the other problems HAMP might get a homeowner into. [...]
Yesterday, Bank of America finally took a painful step regarding their mortgage portfolio. They realized that they are going to have to write down principal balances on some of them. B of A is the first “too big to fail” bank to take this step although some smaller institutions have already started doing this. Now, [...]
If you are excited to read that headline, you aren’t going to like what follows. For the rest of you, let me back up and briefly explain what “hard money” is all about. In short, hard money is a loan it would be “hard” to get anyplace else. According to eHow, “A hard money lender [...]
Maybe you didn’t know that you can’t use an FHA loan to purchase a property that has been owned by the seller for less than 90 days. Or at least, that’s the rule until February 1. The purpose of this rule is to prevent “flipping,” buying a property and then immediately turning around and selling [...]
Here’s a round-up of some interesting mortgage and financing stories that have crossed my desk: This one by a local loan officer gives you a rather technical view of the impact on Las Vegas real estate from a particular kind of mortgage, the Option ARM. He’s an expert in this, so even if you find [...]
