Archive for the ‘Making Homes Affordable’ Category

One of the most watched reports in the housing industry came out today, the Standard and Poor’s Case Shiller Home Price Indices which measures the value of home prices in 20 metropolitan markets across the United States. These indices come out monthly but have a two month time lag. That means the information that came out today was for April. Of the 20 national markets followed, a couple actually showed a positive improvement over March and many showed less of a slide than the previous months. Read More

What is a “cash-out” refinance? Does it mean that the person refinancing a mortgage is walking away with a pocketful of cash? To answer that question, after the interesting post from Danny Thornton about “no-cash-out” or rate and term refinances is my latest quest. First, cash out refinance does not necessarily mean cash in hand. A new loan can be cash out refinance if the loan is used to pay off an existing second mortgage that was not used to purchase the property. In a case like this, there might be no cash left over or even require cash to be brought in to close and it would still be considered a “cash out” refinance. Read More

This video about home buying and waiting has always spoken to me saying that no matter what is happening on Main Street or Wall Street, as a qualified borrower, you are in a position of strength. This is true regardless of the market, real estate, auto, boat or furniture. Determining your buyer strength is the question and I want to explore that. Read More

If you look at my previous posts, you will see that I have been saying that now is the time to buy while rates are down and values have fallen. My post about the 10 reasons for a First Time Home Buyer to get into this market explained the reasons that I though (and still think) that now is the perfect time to be buying your first home. Now, it appears that interest rates have started climbing, maybe the imperative to get into the market has become more pressing than it was in the past. The real estate market in the Eugene/Springfield area still appears to be depressed from the high point, but I am seeing more and more purchases come through which means the values are not going to stay low forever. Read More

Foreclosures and bank owned properties are getting a lot of play in the media right now and many buyers are focusing on these properties, along with short sales while trying to find a great deal on a house. For a change, I want to switch my focus from the buyer (the one I deal with) to the seller because I think there is some erroneous information out there about the difference between a foreclosure and a short sale as it concerns the owner of the property. Read More

So, what do we do when attempting to refinance a property and all of a sudden the value of the property comes in significantly lower than we expected???? Case in point, I am doing a rate and term refinance for a previous customer that purchased their home two years ago (during the height of real estate values for about $400,000. To accomplish an 80% refinance, I only need it to come in at $325,000 but the actual value comes in at $315,000, a huge drop in value and a loan to value of over 82%. So, what do I do? I go to a Fannie Mae DU Plus. This is all part of the Making Homes Affordable Program through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Read More