Ran across this amazing site -- check it out. It's going to be a Home Page for the World. The global launch is scheduled for 10 p.m. PT Oct. 11. Preview here:

www.HaveABlastoff.net

Why just log on when you can Blastoff? Blastoff Network is your launch pad to the internet which can be customized with your favorite news, music, videos, blogs, social networks and shopping, all in one place! Blastoff Network also pays you when you shop online! Shop from over 300 retailers like Target, Macy’s, Best Buy or Starbucks.com like you normally do, and get paid cash back just for being a Blastoff Network Member. And when you launch your Network by inviting your friends, you’ll really get paid! So sign up, save money, have fun and make money!
Scott Chappell and Brian Bean
Real Estate Brokers
http://www.scott-brian.com/
http://www.orangecrestriversidehomes.com/

Daily Real Estate News

Bank attitudes toward risky lending are making it very difficult for the self-employed, even those with high incomes, to secure mortgages.

No-doc loans are particularly hard to get, locking out people whose incomes are derived from investments or who are able to tax-shelter significant dollars.

California Mortgage Bankers Association spokesman Dustin Hobbs says the industry understands that banning most alternative financing isn’t the long-term answer.

"It's a reaction to the current environment," he said. "There's such a lack of appetite for risk right now in general that any product viewed as having any sort of risk at all has a tough hill to climb."

Chris George, president of CMG Mortgage, predicted no-docs and other nontraditional loans will be back within the next six months as lenders gain confidence. "As with injuries, as with your credit, as with the economy, time heals all wounds," he said.

Source: The San Francisco Chronicle, James Temple (07/09/2009)

Scott Chappell and Brian Bean
Real Estate Brokers
http://www.scott-brian.com/
http://www.orangecrestriversidehomes.com/

Labels: Corona, Foreclosure, Home Prices, Inland Empire, Loan Modification, Moreno Valley, Murrieta, Real Estate, Riverside, Short Sales, Statistics, Temecula

National Association of Realtors

Help is on the way for many homeowners who are facing foreclosure, thanks to new details under the Making Home Affordable Program announced today by the U.S. Treasury and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The Making Home Affordable Program is designed to help homeowners obtain modifications to their loan so they can afford to stay in their home. Where a modification is not possible, new incentives encourage the “quick private sale or voluntary transfer of property, which will save homeowners money and protect their financial future,” according to U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. The National Association of Realtors® expects that a uniform process for handling short sales and financial incentives will facilitate this process. View a summary of the incentives and process (PDF: 322 KB)

“NAR is pleased that the government is stepping in to help prevent foreclosures by streamlining the short-sale and deeds-in-lieu process,” said NAR President Charles McMillan, a broker with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Dallas-Fort Worth. “NAR has been calling for uniform short sales procedures and other initiatives that will help today’s homeowners in challenging economy.”

Short sales occur when a bank agrees to let homeowners who have fallen behind on their mortgage to sell their home for less than they owe on their mortgage. Visit www.treasury.gov for detailed information on the program changes.

“Many families are finding themselves with a mortgage that is higher than their current home value, and they are struggling,” said McMillan. “As Secretary Geithner noted, and as NAR has been advocating for many months, stemming the foreclosure crisis and stabilizing the housing market are critical to our economic recovery.”

“We have heard from Realtors® that the extensive delay in the short sale process had caused many buyers to go elsewhere and have left many would-be sellers with no option but foreclosure. We are all pleased that the government has stepped in to help homeowners and those wishing to buy a home,” McMillan said.

The National Association of Realtors®, “The Voice for Real Estate,” is America’s largest trade association, representing 1.2 million members involved in all aspects of the residential and commercial real estate industries.

Scott Chappell and Brian Bean
Real Estate Brokers
http://www.scott-brian.com/
http://www.orangecrestriversidehomes.com/

Daily Real Estate News

FHA-approved lenders received the go-ahead to develop bridge-loan products that enable first-time buyers to use the benefits of the federal tax credit upfront, according to eagerly awaited guidance from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development on so-called home buyer tax credit loans that was released today.

Under the guidance, FHA-approved lenders can develop bridge loans that home buyers can use to help cover their closing costs, buy down their interest rate, or put down more than the minimum 3.5 percent.

The loans can't be used to cover the minimum 3.5 percent, senior HUD officials told reporters on a conference call.

Thus, buyers applying for FHA-backed financing with an FHA-approved lender that offers a bridge-loan program can get a bridge loan to bring down the upfront costs of buying a home significantly but would still have to come up with the minimum 3.5 percent downpayment.

There remain many sources of assistance for buyers needing help with the 3.5 percent downpayment, including many state and local government instrumentalities and nonprofit lenders.

In addition, some state housing finance agencies have developed their own tax-credit bridge-loan programs, so buyers in states whose HFAs offer such programs can monetize the tax credit upfront to cover all or part of their downpayment. These programs are separate from what HUD announced today.

The first-time homebuyer tax credit was enacted last year -- and improved upon earlier this year -- to help encourage households to enter the housing market while interest rates are low and affordability is high. The credit is worth up to $8,000 and is available to households that haven't owned a home in at least three years. The credit does not have to be repaid, and is fully reimbursable, so households can get their credit returned to them in the form of a payment.

Learn more about the credit, including how to apply for it this year even if you've already filed your taxes, at REALTOR.org.

Source: Robert Freedman, REALTOR® Magazine Online

Scott Chappell and Brian Bean
Real Estate Brokers
http://www.scott-brian.com/
http://www.orangecrestriversidehomes.com/

Daily Real Estate News

Here’s more evidence that the housing market is recovering.

Two major home builders, Toll Brothers Inc. and Hovnanian Enterprises Inc., say their losses were shrinking compared to last year because buyers are coming back to the market.

Other encouraging news came from HIS Global Insight, a research firm, which said home prices fell on average at an annual rate of 2.2 percent in the first quarter in 199 of 330 metropolitan areas. That compares with a 12.5 percent decline in the fourth quarter of 2008 in 312 metropolitan areas.

"While it's too early to see a bottom of this housing downturn," the report said, the latest data "may signal that the market is beginning to stabilize."

Source: The Wall Street Journal, James R. Hagerty and John Spence (06/04/2009)

Scott Chappell and Brian Bean
Real Estate Brokers
http://www.scott-brian.com/
http://www.orangecrestriversidehomes.com/

Daily Real Estate News

The Obama administration’s foreclosure prevention plan is struggling even with $75 billion to spend.

The program has been mired in legal and administrative glitches:

• The biggest problem so far is the confusing paperwork that has flummoxed and overwhelmed loan servicers. Many servicers are only now able to roll out their version of the program. That has limited the number of distressed homeowners enrolled in the program to about 55,000 instead of millions.
• The second issue is angry investors who are lobbying hard and in some cases are suing to prevent changes to agreements that will cost them significant amounts of money.
• The third problem is rising unemployment. No loan modification can help when a borrower doesn’t have a job.

Source: CNNMoney.com, Tami Lubby (05/18/2009)

Scott Chappell and Brian Bean
Real Estate Brokers
http://www.scott-brian.com/
http://www.orangecrestriversidehomes.com/

Labels: Corona, Foreclosure, Home Prices, Inland Empire, Loan Modification, Moreno Valley, Murrieta, Real Estate, Riverside, Short Sales, Statistics, Temecula

Daily Real Estate News

Real estate professionals are optimistic that home prices will hit bottom in the next six months, according to a survey from listing and home-pricing site HomeGain.com.

About half of practitioners surveyed expect home prices to stay the same in the next six months, 29 percent expect them to drop, and 22 percent believe they will increase.

More than 84 percent of practitioners believe their clients’ homes lost value in the last year, while 12 percent say values had stayed the same. Only 3 percent believe homes had gained value.

Meanwhile, sellers were skeptical of their real estate professional’s analysis, with 69 percent believing their homes were worth more than the practitioner recommended. About 35 percent of home sellers thought their home was worth 10 percent to 20 percent more, and 10 percent thought their home was worth at least 21 percent more than their real estate professional suggested.

Source: Inman News (05/18/2009)

Scott Chappell and Brian Bean
Real Estate Brokers
http://www.scott-brian.com/
http://www.orangecrestriversidehomes.com/

Labels: Corona, Foreclosure, Home Prices, Inland Empire, Loan Modification, Moreno Valley, Murrieta, Real Estate, Riverside, Short Sales, Statistics, Temecula

Daily Real Estate News

Freddie Mac reports a slight rise this week in the 30-year fixed mortgage rate to 4.86 percent from 4.84 percent in the previous week.

Rates have been below 5 percent for nine weeks in a row. Last year at this time, the average 30-year rate was 6.01 percent.

The 15-year fixed mortgage rate climbed to 4.52 percent from 4.51 percent. Meanwhile, the five-year adjustable mortgage rate slipped to 4.82 percent from 4.9 percent; and the one-year ARM fell to 4.71 percent from 4.78 percent.

Freddie Mac collects mortgage rates on Monday through Wednesday of each week from lenders around the country.

Source: Freddie Mac

Scott Chappell and Brian Bean
Real Estate Brokers
http://www.scott-brian.com/
http://www.orangecrestriversidehomes.com/

Daily Real Estate News

After dropping for two years, home prices appear to be bottoming out, and any further declines would be an overcorrection, NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun told thousands of practitioners at the REALTORS® Midyear Legislative Meetings in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.

The median national home price today is about $169,000, down almost 14 percent from a year ago and an estimated 30 percent from its peak. Today’s prices are justified by the fundamentals of the economy and may even represent an undervaluation, Yun said.

Lender Policies Hinder Recovery

Distressed sales, which today comprise about 50 percent of transactions nationwide, are creating market distortions in otherwise stable neighborhoods. “We’re only capturing transaction prices,” he said, and those prices might be 20 percent to 25 percent below actual values. For that reason, it’s possible that widely cited projections that a third or more of homeowners are underwater might be off the mark, he said.

The consequences of these missed projections could be huge. Lenders, shying away from refinancing mortgages of troubled owners, exacerbate the downward spiral of homeowners’ financial position and that, by extension, hurts the broader economy.

Contributing to the problem is the lack of reasonably priced financing for higher-cost homes at a time when declining prices, low rates, and the home buyer tax credit are helping the entry-level market.

Indeed, while housing overall is at a 9.5 month supply, down from double digits not that long ago, homes above $729,750—the threshold for jumbo loans—face a 40-month supply.

Key Test

By summer, all of the incentives that have been put into place by the government will have had several months to work, Yun said. If sales start picking up significantly, then prices should stabilize and trigger a broader economic recovery.

If sales don’t show a significant response, then the federal government might have to look at another big injection of funds into the economy, something no one has an appetite for.

Yun’s forecast reflects the brighter scenario: “My projection is home sales will be 10 to 20 percent higher the second half of this year than last year and we will come out of this recession in 2010,” he said.

—Robert Freedman, REALTOR® Magazine

Scott Chappell and Brian Bean
Real Estate Brokers
http://www.scott-brian.com/
http://www.orangecrestriversidehomes.com/

Labels: Corona, Foreclosure, Home Prices, Inland Empire, Loan Modification, Moreno Valley, Murrieta, Real Estate, Riverside, Short Sales, Statistics, Temecula

Bringing the Dream of Homeownership Within Reach

National Association of Realtors

As part of its plan to stimulate the U.S. housing market and address the economic challenges facing our nation, Congress has passed legislation that grants a tax credit of up to $8,000 to first-time home buyers.

Here is more information about how the 2009 First-Time Home Buyer Tax Credit can help prospective home buyers become part of the American dream.

Who Qualifies?

First-time home buyers who purchase homes between January 1, 2009 and December 1, 2009.

To qualify as a “first-time home buyer” the purchaser or his/her spouse may not have owned a residence during the three years prior to the purchase.

Which Properties Are Eligible?

The 2009 First-Time Home Buyer Tax Credit may be applied to primary residences, including: single-family homes, condos, townhomes, and co-ops.

How Much Will the Credit Be?

The maximum allowable credit for home buyers is $8,000. Each home buyer’s tax credit is determined by two factors:

The price of the home — the credit is equal to 10% of the purchase price of the home, up to $8,000.

The buyer's income — single buyers with incomes up to $75,000 and married couples with incomes up to $150,000 — may receive the maximum tax credit.

If the Buyer(s)’ Income Exceeds These Limits, Can He/She Still Get a Credit?

Yes, some buyers may still be eligible for the credit.

The credit decreases for buyers who earn between $75,000 and $95,000 for single buyers and between $150,000 and $170,000 for home buyers filing jointly. The amount of the tax credit decreases as his/her income approaches the maximum limit. Home buyers earning more than the maximum qualifying income — over $95,000 for singles and over $170,000 for couples are not eligible for the credit.

Will the Tax Credit Need to Be Repaid?

No. The buyer does not need to repay the tax credit, if he/she occupies the home for three years or more. However, if the property is sold during the three-year period, the credit will be recouped on the sale.

Scott Chappell and Brian Bean
Real Estate Brokers
http://www.scott-brian.com/
http://www.orangecrestriversidehomes.com/

Labels: Corona, Foreclosure, Home Prices, Inland Empire, Loan Modification, Moreno Valley, Murrieta, Real Estate, Riverside, Short Sales, Statistics, Temecula

Daily Real Estate News

Bank stress tests, which assess how banks would handle it if the economy were to sour further, may make some banks more prone to lend if the results were good, analysts say.

But don’t expect a miracle turnaround.

"In reality, it is still a weak economy out there," said analyst Joe Morford of RBC Capital Markets. "Whether they have the capital or not, banks are going to be cautious making loans — commercial real estate, commercial business or even residential mortgages."

Some banks have been frozen by their fear of falling capital levels, holding onto bad loans and reluctant to sell foreclosed homes at a loss.

"Now they're not as concerned," said Stuart Plesser, bank analyst with Standard & Poor's. "If they are able to raise capital, I would assume they would get more aggressive.”

Source: Investor’s Business Daily, Marilyn Alva (05/07/2010)

Scott Chappell and Brian Bean
Real Estate Brokers
http://www.scott-brian.com/
http://www.orangecrestriversidehomes.com/

Labels: Corona, Foreclosure, Home Prices, Inland Empire, Loan Modification, Moreno Valley, Murrieta, Real Estate, Riverside, Short Sales, Statistics, Temecula

Daily Real Estate News

Bank of America has debuted www.BankOfAmerica.com/HomeLoans, a new Website for borrowers that includes a calculator that determines not just what size loan people can qualify for, but how much they can spend without being stretched too thin.

“We wanted to change the conversation to ‘How much house can I comfortably afford?’ rather than ‘What’s the maximum I can buy?’ ” said Aditya Bhasin, the product, pricing and strategy executive for Bank of America Home Loans.

The site was designed to be easy to read, spelling out a variety of contingencies, including the maximum payment that an adjustable rate mortgage could potentially cost.

The new site also offers what BofA calls Flat Fee Mortgage Plus, which has no application fee and a single closing fee that includes processing costs and fees for third-party services like appraisals.

It doesn’t include other standard costs like property taxes, homeowners’ insurance and prepaid interest.

Craig Focardi, a senior research director at the Tower Group, a financial consulting firm, said the idea for the plan is nothing new – it’s been tried by others. But the prominence of the programs could persuade competitors to adopt the features.

Source: The New York Times, Bob Tedeschi (05/08/2009)

Scott Chappell and Brian Bean
Real Estate Brokers
http://www.scott-brian.com/
http://www.orangecrestriversidehomes.com/

Labels: Corona, Foreclosure, Home Prices, Inland Empire, Loan Modification, Moreno Valley, Murrieta, Real Estate, Riverside, Short Sales, Statistics, Temecula

Daily Real Estate News

Potential home buyers in search of a mortgage are wary of all kinds of adjustable rate loans these days, but hybrid ARMs can be really good deals even in these times of historically low interest rates, some lending experts insist.

Hybrids are "a great product at a great rate," says Christopher Cruise, a mortgage broker in Silver Spring, Md.

Currently, starting rates are under 4 percent, generally a full percentage point lower than traditional, 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages. Hybrids are locked in at that starting rate for five, seven, or sometimes even 10 years, then they adjust—usually a maximum of 2 points a year with an overall cap of 6 or 8 points.

In the meantime, the savings on a hybrid ARM can be thousands of dollars and make sense for a buyer who doesn’t expect to be in a home for more than five or six years.

Even if they stay in the same house, it’s likely they’ll have an opportunity to refinance. "Seven years for a mortgage is an eternity these days," Cruise says.

He recommends that buyers do the math, considering the worst-case scenario. In many cases, particularly with jumbo loans, the savings will still be substantial even if the loan adjusts to the maximum for a couple of years.

Source: United Features Syndicate, Lew Sichelman (05/03/09)

Scott Chappell and Brian Bean
Real Estate Brokers
http://www.scott-brian.com/
http://www.orangecrestriversidehomes.com/

Labels: Corona, Foreclosure, Home Prices, Inland Empire, Loan Modification, Moreno Valley, Murrieta, Real Estate, Riverside, Short Sales, Statistics, Temecula

Daily Real Estate News

A bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday requires mortgage lenders to take borrowers' repayment ability into account. It also makes it possible for borrowers to take legal action against entities that pool mortgages and sell them as securities on the secondary market.

The bill also will force lenders to retain a 5 percent interest in mortgages other than standard 30-year fixed and adjustable-rate loans. However, adjustable-rate mortgages that carry prepayment penalties or fees greater than 2 percent do not qualify for the exemption.

Source: Washington Post, Dina ElBoghdady (05/08/09)

Scott Chappell and Brian Bean
Real Estate Brokers
http://www.scott-brian.com/
http://www.orangecrestriversidehomes.com/

Labels: Corona, Foreclosure, Home Prices, Inland Empire, Loan Modification, Moreno Valley, Murrieta, Real Estate, Riverside, Short Sales, Statistics, Temecula